Big Changes

You meet someone, you move in together, you get married, have kids.  You think you are going to be together forever.  You know that its going to be hard but you’re willing to put in the work to make it succeed.  Then it falls off the rails.

My chosen partner and I knew each other for years before we started dating and were great friends when we got together.  She is one of few people that challenges me in a positive way and makes me better in all the things I do.  Unfortunately, as a couple we didn’t have staying power.  We agree on all of the big decisions, we are a great team when something needs to be accomplished.  But we are no longer happy being together.

All of my life I have worked to not be a statistic and get divorced.  20 years ago I thought that I was done dating.  As a child of divorce, I know how hard it is to be a kid whose parents aren’t together.  I think that is one reason I had so much trouble finding a relationship I wanted to stay in, and was willing to commit to “forever”.  I believe that she was willing to commit as well.  We are both sad about how this part of lives has closed.

She and I are working hard to split amicably.  We want to remain friends.  We know that we need to be a team to raise our children.  We will always be in each others lives because of what we created together.  I will always love her like no one else.  But things will not be the same.  It kills me.

It’s really hard to break 20 years of habits.  I still want to take care of my ex, I reflexively step in to try to fix things and most of them are no longer mine to do.  Its getting better but well ingrained habits are hard to break. I am really glad I have a therapist that I like and trust.  She has been invaluable in helping me work through all of the things.

I’m worried about how this impacts the kids.  They will have 2 different homes.  They will need to deal with their parents not being together.  They are going to have drama that isn’t of their making.  In the long term it will be better than the tension that’s been going on in the house for a long time, but in the short term they are going to have challenges.  How will this impact their views on relationships going forward?

Things are much different from when I was a kid.  My mom had full custody and we visited my dad on the weekends.  That was the way it was done.  I still have issues that I’m dealing with because of that experience.  I’m not going to make the same mistakes as my parents.  I’ll find all new ways to screw up. LOL.

Now I’m dating again.  It’s hard. It is so different from 20 years ago.  The good thing is most people are more mature, get relationships, have been burned and we all recognize that everyone has their baggage.  It is refreshing to have real conversations about things that we want.

The one thing with dating that I’m most concerned about is how it impacts my children.  No one is going to meet the kids for quite a while.  I remember meeting a lot of people my dad was seeing and then they disappeared when he got bored.  You learned not to get attached.  I don’t want that for them.  This is hard enough anyway.  If they meet someone I’m dating I fully intend that it is someone that I plan on continuing to see.  Luckily their mother and I are on the same page with this.

I’m still trying to figure out what I want.  I know I am going to be guarded for along time because of how things played out with my marriage.  And I know that I can’t get into anything approaching serious because I’m still working through all of my emotions related to my marriage ending.  I’m already seeing that.  That’s going to take time.  On the upside, I get to figure out a lot about myself and where I want the next chapter of my life to be.

my journey with depression

I’ve struggled with depression & anxiety for a while.  It was definitely longer than I’ve been willing to admit.  I used to view it as a sign of weakness that I couldn’t just will my way out of it.  I avoided therapy, medical intervention, etc because of the stigma associated with it.

For a while I’ve been in and out of therapy while I tried to find someone that worked for me.  My latest therapist is great and she’s really helping.  Working through my issues and figuring out how to address the things that make my depression worse is valuable.  There are definitely some things I’m grappling with and having a safe environment to discuss them is invaluable.

We’ve been trying different anti-depressants.  We couldn’t find anything really great until after we did a genetic test and found that many of the things we’ve tried aren’t metabolized by my body well based on the gene polymorphisms I have.  We also found that I’m predisposed to a vitamin deficiency that we are addressing.  Modern medicine is great.  There are definitely side effects with any of these meds and we need to do a benefits vs. side effects assessment to make sure the benefits are worth the downside. Until we switched up my meds I didn’t realize how bad I felt on the old ones.  The new meds side effects also appear to be less severe so the benefit vs. side effects decision is easy.

Until I got over my hangups about going to therapy and medications I couldn’t get the help I needed.  As a society we need to figure out how to get rid of the stigma of mental illness.  its a medical issue like high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.  People resist getting help because of the way it is perceived in our society.  Many of us need help and aren’t getting it.  Therapy really does help.

I still struggle but I know that I have the means to make things better. Knowing I’m not alone with the challenges helps.  Being able to admit that I have difficulties and not resisting getting help is amazing.  It saddens me that people don’t realize they can make things better.