Sheryl wears great shoes

[MAC]

She also dresses like a woman which is the only reason I noticed her: her shoes and her wardrobe. That being said I should get to the point of my post.

*edit*
my ex wife's brother is my friend and he's having marriage problems
I'm the worst possible person to give him advice or sympathy.

I hope it works out for him

I should not have written that other crap and I knew it when I wrote it.

[Skeet]

1: I don't know who she left you for.

2: I don't care.

3: I also don't care that she reads this place, you should start posting again.

4: Why the fuck do YOU care? Start posting again.

5: I forgot about your kid. She was super cute.

[Koliedrus]

I read it before the edit.

I agree with Skeet on 4.1 and 5.1

[Skeet]

Editing is for girls.

[MAC]

update according to my bro-in-law:

apparently, whatever advice I gave him the other night was correct

his problems aren't quite what his wife said they were the other night when he pressed her for an answer and after they slept on it and settled down things are actually very good between them.

oh, they have things to deal with, she hates her job and he's not real happy with his, but hooray for true love!
I truely hope everything continues on this well for them.

see? a happy, sober ending.

I should type something else here but nothing fits because I've already made an ass of myself.

[SimpleSimon]

I missed the drama. Oh well.

[MAC]

*MAC eases back into his train wreck of a thread for an on-topic vent*

my brother-in-law is still have problems
it's like watching a TV show about your life, knowing what's going to happen in the next episode and, at the same time, realizing that it doesn't HAVE to be that way

but it will

and that's my problem and reason for creating this thread (which I initially sidetracked before making my point)

If you've ever been in a head-on car wreck of any type (like skidding off the road into a fence) you realize that there's this brief second where you see what is happening, you know what is about to happen, you think about what you can do to get out of it, and then, in a final, fleeting millisecond of time, you realize exactly what you did to get into this predicament. The human mind is amazing like that. Time doesn't matter to it.

When a relationship breaks up it's a very similar experience. You look up and realize that something is going very wrong. You are overcome with what appears to be the inevitable conclusion, you frantically scramble for any solution, and as the emotional airbags deploy you realize what happened to get you into this mess.

The underlying core of my philosophy tells me that the "inevitable conclusion" of a skidding relationship doesn't have to be a wreck. But…it fucking always is.
Every goddamn time.

While I recognize that fancy driving, luck, and the laws of physics can save you from a car wreck, it doesn't bother me to acknowledge that once you're sideways in the ditch you're probably going to smack something before you stop. But getting off road with your relationship doesn't have to mean flat tires, a new radiator and a tow-truck.

right?

That's truly what I believe and it's the only advice I have to give my friend.

Let me give you the run-down on his problem so I don't get too cryptic.

David was a pretty good guy when I met him, but he'd grown up with basically no one to respect. There was only one fellow who ever truly earned his respect and when that guy died, it really changed David’s attitude. One of the most radical changes was about the woman who loved him. he truly understood, after that point, what love was about and how valuable this woman was. It was a really great thing to see come out in someone.

His wife is an absolute doll. She has more good qualities than I have time to name right now but her one hubris is that she grew up out here in bum-fuck-east-Texas. She’d never been anywhere further than Houston. She does NOT know how people from other places and lifestyles behave and I don’t think, up until about a year ago, she cared. She refused to move away from her mother (gentlemen, this is one of the absolute worst fucking signs a woman can give you. if she can’t move somewhere for herself, her husband & her children’s benefit of better jobs, homes, schools and opportunities, dump her ass immediately and be glad you avoided the inevitable.). So basically she just wanted a nice quite simple life out here where she’d always been. She got a couple good jobs and finally got on as tech support for a pretty big firm and did so well that they promoted her up to an outside tech/sales position…where she is forced to travel all over the country all the time has loads of work to do and makes waaaaay more money than any woman her age in this area.
Now, I can attest from very close personal experience, that when you take a sheltered young woman who basically hides all day and has no friends outside her family and suddenly demand that she do some new important things on her own, the sudden surge of independence makes her question everything that she has. Everyone she sees talks about the things important to them and she looks at her life and wonder why she doesn’t have that, hasn’t done that and didn’t even know it existed before now.
She gets “unsatisfied”

Now it’s at this point that I become useless. I have NO IDEA what to do.
This is where it all suddenly looks terribly inevitable. But I can’t help but feel that it’s not.
Is it really as simple as: One person was driven to get the other one. Then they get bored and want to do it again with someone else? Because she pursued him for years. She made up her mind that HE was the one for HER and that they WOULD get married. I have reminded him of this when he gets frustrated about how she’s treating him. He drug her along for many a mile in some not-very-good conditions. And she just smiled and kept getting jobs to pay bills. All her focus was bent on him and now her focus is on other things. Maybe she doesn’t realize that’s ok.

So, I have no clue what to tell my brother-in-law beyond this point. I point out to him the mistakes I made. Like being overcome with the feeling that it's your fault and that you’ve done something wrong. Which is where he is now. He sees very clearly how her feelings apply to him and hurt his pride. As an outside party I can only assure him that her problem lies with her new view of her whole life and he recognizes that. But it doesn’t help to not wonder “how do I fix this”

All I can tell him is YOU can’t fix this. SHE has to fix this. SHE has decided how SHE feels. It must just be the simple man in me but I take things like that at face value. If she doesn’t mean it, she’d better figure it out and get honest about what she wants to do.

But, as I said initially, I’m probably wrong. I just see the similarities between this situation and my own. I see the parallels between her behavior and my ex’s. I see him reacting the exact same way I did. It’s so painful. So pointless. And so unnecessary to feel the way he feels right now. All he wants in this whole world is to have his beautiful, successful, loving wife back so he can finish building her a house.

So, is it inevitable or not? What can possibly be done?
Leave her be? Try to get close? Talk things out? Change the subject?
Did she just lose her damned mind? Or is there something he should have done before now?

I haven’t a clue. I always screw up at these types of things and I have no inclination right now to try to learn some relationship skills. I am, instead, becoming proficient with the compound bow and attempting to breed some snakes.

[Asmodeus]

Drink a beer, cook a steak, and watch the fireworks with the knowledge you did everything you could and the result is inevitable.

[Mudflap]

Only marry a woman that has previously been involved with jerky assholish men. Its easy to look good in comparison.

And never let her leave the kitchen.

I gots nothing. I feel for Little Dave. You're being a great friend to him now MAC.

[MAC]

A guy I truely respect gave me a piece of advice today "Tell her to pack her crap"

This is clearly, obviously, totally wrong.....

except that it's probably the very best advice I've ever heard.
It's the only true answer to a situation wherein you can do nothing.
Don't drag it out of her, don't try to make it better, don't try to figure out what you did wrong. Just go on with your daily life and tell her to get on with hers. Either she actually has other stuff to deal with (and she's either going to deal with it or ask for help) or she's actually sick of you and going to leave anyway.
Makes good sense.
I don't think I could ever do it, but it makes good sense.

suddenly finding myself on this end of the heartbreak I must pause to thank those ppl who listened to me go over & over the same fears and aggrivation and offered me advice. I can't say I took any of it and none of it fixed my problems. But it kept me going and in retrospect that's what ineeded.

So thanks to the folks who said good things about me when I couldn't see any use for good in me. I suppose that's all the real advice I can offer david, too.

I also told him to buy a motorcycle. What are friend for?

We're gonna go fishing tomorrow morning and we'll see what's biting.

God, I hated being too upset to drink.

[Pianomahnn]

What are friend for?

We're gonna go fishing tomorrow morning and we'll see what's biting.

That right there.

[ms. bing]

this is one of the most infuriating things i see in other women. they grow up in one place with one point of view, and then instead of having any natural curiousity about the rest of the world and venturing out into it while they are young and single, they fall for the line that says they should stay near what they know because they need these people and marry the best thing they can find.

what the hell kind of logic is that?

then, in a fit of despair sometime between 22 and 25, they freak out, leave the guy (who is generally blameless and clueless), sometimes leave behind kids, and decide to venture out. i'm speaking of more than my sister in law. i'm speaking of many women i know and see all the time. even those in my own family who made these mistakes many, many years ago.

the time for a woman to venture out and see how they want to live is before they have made a lifelong commitment to a man and/or children. one of the things i like about my slave is that she gets that. she almost made the same mistakes, but pulled her head out of her ass just in time. the other day she told me she wanted to get her own place nearer her job (away from her family) without any friends, roommates or boyfriends. i told her i thought that was very important. i'm helping her look.

if a woman spends no time by herself she will never learn to be herself. it is so in our nature to be what we need to be and what others need us to be. the advice i would like to give dave is to tell her to pack her shit. she needs to go for a while and she needs to realize that's ok. there's a catch, though. there are no guarantees that she'll come back, and the chances are really, really good that if she does come back she will be way, way different. he may not like that. one thing is for sure. it sucks that she did this all backward and pulled him into it, but she will never, never be the same and he may as well give up on the idea of having his old wife back. that will not happen.

[MAC]

Dave's not eating, not sleeping and looking for a new job. Right now he is gone on a week-end trip with his Mrs. to San Antonio. It's a work trip for her and she has alot of meetings so he's sitting around alone alot, but he's there for her. When he comes back, wednesday, he's getting on a plane and going to LA to see his sister (my ex). She's there for him and he could use the break.

Sheryl's shoes haven't been very impressive as of late and when she asked me to go to a movie tonight I said "no". Now that I've listened and talked to her a bit, Sheryl is full-of-shit.

Shoes aren't all that matters about a woman; just ask Dave.

[Koliedrus]

just ask Dave.

That would first require him to get a membership here. I know; that's not what you were suggesting and it may result in a collision that ignites an unquenchable inferno. Or something.

Eh, it's just difficult to watch as a passenger while the car begins to skid. I want to leap into the front seat and grab the wheel but that'd only make things worse.

I spoke three words to my passenger before we impacted, IRL. Once I realized that the car was out of control, I said, "Here we go..."

He responded with, "WHAT?!!!"

He couldn't have done anything about it if he'd tried.

So Mac, right now you're driving this vehicle. I'm just a passenger. It's better if I just go into shock and clutch the armrests.

Hey look! A horse just went by my window!
There it is again!

There's a good chance of surviving this thing after impact. The car might be totalled and the injuries lifelong but vehicles don't seem nearly as valuable once you walk away from a crumpled heap with lives somewhat intact.

That also applies to relationships. Dave and Sheryl will take the most damage but if they can walk away from the wreck and nurse themselves back to health, the only thing that will keep them from buying a new "car" is memory of a previous crash together.

Hopefully, neither one will be afraid to get back behind the wheel, be it in the same vehicle or otherwise.

"Otherwise" is less traumatic for all involved only because it takes much less effort.

I'll shut up now. Horse just went by the window again but looked smaller. The trees look pretty.

[MAC]

careful not to mix my metaphors, old friend

The car wreck represents my fear that dave's break up is inevitable.
Sheryl's shoes is the echo I hear of my own break up.

I try to only be encouraging to him but he seems pretty certain what the outcome will be with his current wife. He took a trip with his wife last weekend and tomorrow he goes to LA to see his sister (my ex). She's the one relative he has who genuinely loves him and I hope she can give him some good advice and comfort too.

I just made this one thread so I could vent my negativity and doubt instead of taking it to him.

[MAC]

so, lets see:

after some serious time together, it all comes down to their jobs:

he hates his (I don't blame him. it's 9-5 with good benefits, but it's going no where and buried in beurocracy, a frustrating place for a talented, dedicated, young guy to stay)

she hates her's (it's a really cool job with great potential, especially resume wise, but the company has totally fucked up the product she represents and she gets hit on non-stop.)

I think they could both change their attitudes and make more out of their jobs, but then again, I don't have to go to their work every day, so what do I know?

once again, I'm trying to be supportive and positive but I have one doubt:

she seems to want (or possibly expect) nothing from life except what she has now

I worry that in a few years we will do this all again. But in the mean time I'm very glad that they seem to have worked through the "this isn't working between us" part

as for sheryl, she had some sort of operation and has a limp now.

Things that appeal to us at first rarely turn out to be what we think they are.

[ms. bing]

i don't get it.
they are a young couple with no children. they could do anything they wanted. why do they insist on doing things that they know makes them unhappy?
they can switch jobs
they can move.
they can start their own business selling lawnmower parts and green bean plants out of the back of a truck, for pete's sake. whatever they want.
why the long faces, kids? this is a golden opportunity, and it's never gonna get this good again. they need to do something this time, or they will go through this whole thing again in a few years.