What POSITIVE CHANGES are you making in your life?

Chapel wrote: I'm glad you all are giving up facebook, cause that sure sounds like out of all the shit in this thread so far THAT is the main problem. At least I hope it does, cause you guys are fucking depressing.

Don’t assume my gender

I remain on FB for two or three groups only.

The first is Wargamers Marketplace which is great place to get stuff cheaper than BGG and nicer behaviour.

Secondly comes the ASL page which is great for rules questions and updates

Lastly, but definitely not least, is The Church of the Sub Genius (Praise Bob!) which never fails to amuse me

Oh yeah and Viz which is indescribably better than The Onion and specifically British.

I think I have maybe 15 friends on FB total.

Otherwise, I'm not interested. I tend to unfollow people when I don't want their nonsense on my feed which saves upsetting them (especially, if I happen to work with them).

Don't do Twitter

Chapel wrote: I'm glad you all are giving up facebook, cause that sure sounds like out of all the shit in this thread so far THAT is the main problem. At least I hope it does, cause you guys are fucking depressing.

Said the man who gave Terra Mystica a 10.

dysjunct wrote: I am now coming up on a straight week of daily meditation and about four straight days of flossing. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

I just wanted to highlight the awesome-ness of anyone that can consistently meditate and floss. I am in awe.

Thanks. I’m still meditating daily but fell off the flossing wagon.

I am in counseling to try and get a handle on my temper and other mental health issues.

That’s great jeb. Therapy is a cheap luxury in the Western world and we should take more advantage.

I think I could use some help with anger too. A week ago at poker, some guy called a clock on me after twenty seconds. I snapped and called him a faggot without even blinking. I got in some trouble. Maybe my old Call of Duty days making an appearance? Either way, that’s no way to react to stimulus.

Pewdiepie syndrome. That's pretty bad. I say some pretty rotten shit while gaming but uh... they can't hear me. "Fucking dog dick!" is my current go-to. Don't ask me about my language while driving. My girlfriend says I need to tone it down. A lot. Lol.

If swearing is wrong then I don't want to be right. I do know that I'm still angry. I don't think I could possibly meditate enough to not be.

Sunday after Thanksgiving I moved out of the house.

We're working with a therapist, who recommended zero contact between me and the wife for two weeks.

I don't know if this is positive change, but it is change. As a friend told me, "Things don't change if things don't change."

I really have no idea if this is a temporary separation or the end of my marriage. I'm not even sure what I want it to be. I always imagined that when people split up, it was clear-cut that it was over. Maybe it is for some, but not for me. I just know I wasn't happy (actually, neither of us were), and I couldn't see things getting better. I've got plenty of my own stuff to work on, so I don't blame her for all of it, but I do resent her for blaming *me* for all of it.

Currently, the worst part is my new living conditions. I'm staying in the shell of my parents' house, which was damaged in the Houston floods a couple of months ago. It's like camping, except there's always crap around that needs to be sorted through for donation or trash. My commute went from 5 minutes to an hour. So my old stresses have been replaced by new, different stresses.

On the plus side, I've been able to watch more movies and play more games over the past week.

Hey champ, really sorry to hear that.

There's going to be more and more "on the plus side" as you'll see over time. it's not easy to see just yet but good for you for already finding somethings to do for yourself (that's going to be important).

Two things.

1. It's never clear-cut that it's over, even when it's clear-cut that it's over. It takes months for it to FEEL clear-cut even after it's over. So don't worry about that aspect of it at all. But one of the important early steps in the psychological process of taking care of yourself is to immediately admit to yourself that it's over. That's important.

2. It's obviously not all your fault, it's obviously not all her fault. It's both of your faults and that's all there is to it. Girls tend to blame the guy 100% (mine still does), but it's just a classic accountaiblity dodge and how they deal with it. You know full well it's not 100% your fault.

The therapist recommended a 0% contact for two weeks? I've never heard that before. We took a month break, but no one recommended that.

love ya big and share stuff here all you want, PM me anytime too.

To make you feel worse, i got a trivia question wrong last night on the name of the hurricane that ravaged Houston. I thought it was Hugo. Dammit.

Gregarius wrote: Sunday after Thanksgiving I moved out of the house.

We're working with a therapist, who recommended zero contact between me and the wife for two weeks.

I don't know if this is positive change, but it is change. As a friend told me, "Things don't change if things don't change."

I really have no idea if this is a temporary separation or the end of my marriage. I'm not even sure what I want it to be. I always imagined that when people split up, it was clear-cut that it was over. Maybe it is for some, but not for me. I just know I wasn't happy (actually, neither of us were), and I couldn't see things getting better. I've got plenty of my own stuff to work on, so I don't blame her for all of it, but I do resent her for blaming *me* for all of it.

Currently, the worst part is my new living conditions. I'm staying in the shell of my parents' house, which was damaged in the Houston floods a couple of months ago. It's like camping, except there's always crap around that needs to be sorted through for donation or trash. My commute went from 5 minutes to an hour. So my old stresses have been replaced by new, different stresses.

On the plus side, I've been able to watch more movies and play more games over the past week.

Been here. It is hard. Regardless of what happens, things will be much better. If your situation was anything like mine, things can be quietly bad for a long time and you can just get used to it and think it's normal. Shaking it up means either improving the situation actively or, if it comes to it, ending it. Either way things will almost certainly be better after that initial grief.

FWIW, if it ends, the most important thing is to remove what your partner thinks, who is at fault, or anything like that from your mind/life as quickly as possible. The positive of breaking up is that you don't have to sweat about any of that stuff ever again, but it's really easy to keep that old habit going after the end of the relationship and it's brutally unhealthy.

Alright, I'll give my own positive change attempt.

I have been trying as hard as possible for the past several weeks to just be happy for people who are doing better than I am at the academic job system. Instead of bitterly thinking what about me, I'm really working to just feel happy for good people who get job offers, do well, etc. My automatic thing is to bring myself into thoughts of how other people are doing (why not me?) and it's the most unhealthy, embittering, counter productive thing in the world. Things haven't been going very well for me in terms of solving my brutal commuting situation, but that doesn't mean that I should begrudge or question other good people's success.

I nearly lost everything during a long stretch of unemployment in 2013-14. Since then, I have been treading water, even after getting a better job last year and moving up significantly in pay. Part of it is that 2016 featured some surprise spending on my house (new furnace, electrical work, chimney repair, hardwood floors) and replacing my computer. The biggest problem is that my long-term girlfriend has been dependent on me for significant help for too many years. It has been over 3 years since she finally got a marketing degree from an expensive university, and she still hasn't been able to land a full-time job with benefits. She lives for free in my house, and I pay her monthly student loan payments. I also pay for extras like used vehicles, car repairs, and some of her groceries. I also helped her a lot with her college classes, but she often takes me for granted and bitches about really petty stuff. I know that I would be better off without her, but the guilt of abandoning her when she really needs me would eat me alive.

Anyway, starting this month, I will be cutting back some on the spending on her, and focusing on paying off my credit cards. I also have been paying extra on my house payment for a while, which should eventually allow me to pay off the house in 18 years instead of 30. I consider it a high priority to pay off my house before my mid-60s, in case my career gets cut short by Alzheimers or some other medical condition. Absent any health problems, I hope to work full-time until I am 70, then cut back to part-time for as long as I can stand it.

Shellhead wrote: The biggest problem is that my wife and children has been dependent on me for significant help for too many years. It has been over 3 months since she finally got a humanities master's degree from a cheap online school, and she still hasn't been able to land a full-time job with benefits. She lives for free in my house, and I pay her monthly student loan payments. I also pay for extras like used vehicles, car repairs, and some of her groceries. I also helped her a lot with her college classes, but she often takes me for granted and bitches about really petty stuff. I sometimes wonder that I would be better off without them, but the guilt of abandoning her when she really needs me would eat me alive.

I made a few changes rather than write an entirely new post. My home repairs are pretty close to yours too.