It "ended"

And the inverted commas are entirely intentional. Finally I spoke up. I told Neil that this relationship is not meeting my needs, sexually, emotionally or practically. ...and my word did he have a response for me! A whole lot of things are wrong with me. For the record, let me get them down.

(1) If I want sex I should learn how to do it! Foreplay, I need to do foreplay I need to warm him up... btw those FBs may not have been marriage material, but they knew how to **
(2) I always have to be right, and I let that get in the way of everything including (ouch) my relationship with my child
(3) I have treated him badly (not cruelly, or unkindly, but badly) this stems from the fact that I just do not know how to look after a man.

He has been unhappy for a LONG time.

For his part he has been working like a dog. Maybe not around the home, but at his job which in his accounting ledger counts as work he is doing for me. When he completes a report at work or closes a deal at work, it is for me. This surprised me and brought me to thinking

here might be another difference between men and women

When I complete a report or close a deal at work (we are at the same level in our careers), I know am doing it for me and my career . The money that comes in as a result is a side-effect. I would never dream of saying it was for him or shirking my household chores in lieu of it.

Oh faithful readers, I expect you are trying to imagine what sort of a woman I am? or even empathizing with poor Neil stuck with this sexually overeager, self-righteous, neglectful, unappreciative woman.

Whilst I will try to my lesson, if you met me you would not recognize that woman. I am a hard working, loyal, reliable, funny and lovable friend.

So we agreed to be flatmates, until we are both living in the same country a year from now, and then think about selling the house. Which to be honest was my major stumbling block.

But it still isn't wrapped up

I still cook and clear the dishes after every meal. I pay the bills, kill the weeds, and do what is my job entirely without support - look after my son - and somehow find time for a full time job. he comes and goes as he pleases, and now does not have to tell me what he is doing. And nothing has changed except we acknowledge we don't love each other and sleep in separate rooms. What have I gained?

The purpose of marriage

Older people these days I have heard are hooking up online, and dating. But these baby boomers from the swinging sixties and seventies are cautious in one regard. They (particularly the women) are not keen to move in together. They want the fun, dates, pampering, sex but they don't want to be cleaner, nursemaid, housekeeper. And they don't want to hand over their childrens' inheritance in the form of the family home. I can completely understand this.

Perhaps you would do all those wifely things for a person you had spent your life with and raised kids with, but not for the current squeeze.

I think I have just crossed this border. Up until 40ish I still embraced the romantic dream of "the one". We all make mistakes, there is still time to try again, settle down with a new person and have a family... and then there isn't. I made this move just a tad too late.

Now I think that raising kids together is not an option. Although he may not agree, Neil is not "raising" Connor with me. We are like the single mum and the bachelor. I'm sorry, but he does not deserve the pay-off of being looked after in his old age. The prospect of an old needy, grumpy man in my home and my bed is terrifying.

Some clarity out of this

My partner cheated, and I reacted by closing down. I thought I had forgiven initially, but what it turned into was "OK I will love you less and you can't hurt me" and finally "I now don't give a shit about you". Ultimately I told him I did not feel the same, and he could no longer hurt me.

Basically under the tutelage of COSA I reasoned that I could not control who he slept with and when, so I basically may as well not worry about it. Assume it happened, and care less about it.

And this is what he heard..

"I want an open relationship" Or more particularly..."You can sleep with who you like."

Now this most certainly is not meeting my needs. You get to sleep with who you like, and I get the manage the property?

No!!!!!!

What did I just give away? The last vestige of belief in a loving, respectful, trusting cohabitation between a man and a woman. He may think he can sleep around and still "love" me. No matter how I reason it, I can't see that as love. If I was doing that, I would not be loving my partner.

I understand a lot of men can still love their partners and sleep with others.

However I think the point I am trying to make is that, regardless of what he is doing - he may be doing nothing at all now. There has been a perceptible shift in my thinking that is really the point of no return. Out of self preservation, I no longer love him. And that the relationship has become asexual is inconsequential. I doubt our relationship could now be fixed even with a good dose of healthy marital relations.

A very different end

I was with my ex-husband for 16 years, and for a lot of that time I was very unhappy. Because though I didn't realise it, I was being controlled. I wanted a home and a family. I felt he had to eventually come round to my way of thinking, but he never did. I cried on the way to work, I was frustrated. I felt trapped, but had a dogged sense of duty to this relationship. I looked with envy at couples outside. I thought the fundamentals were good. Even though I was impotent in every meaningful decision in our lives, and I was in the hands of an irrational dictator.

Maybe the actual truth was that I wanted a family for most of those 16 years, and it was the sunk cost type of decision making strategy. I had hung in there thus far, if I left now, at 37 I felt I would never meet someone else and be able to have kids.

So I got my kid. He, having lost control of me, and the family situation, had a breakdown, and we split up.

I was so relieved.

Whilst I know I do not want to be here in this relationship, it is different. A generaliszed discomfort and mistrust, profound uncertainty about the future, and a sensation of being a square peg in a round hole. I can keep on sanding myself away. I'm not distraught, but I am afraid of the consequences of "just leaving" in that I have no idea if he will react violently.

But perhaps once again there is an ulterior motive. What I am just as afraid of is that to get out of this, I have to lose my home. The thing I craved for so long.

Breaking up (is hard to do-o)

Its hard for a whole new reason that I have just realised. When I try to break up with Neil in the normal way it simply "fails to compute" for him.

(1) How could someone not want to be with this paragon of manly perfection which leads to
(2) I must be mad

That's it in a nutshell. I have known for sometime that I absolutely do not want to be here. Intellectually, spiritually, emotionally - not to mention the dreaded morally. If I were to try to workshop telling him... (some of this has actually happened some has not -yet)

Fiona: Its not you, its me. I have been unable to accept what happened between us.
Neil: Well get over yourself. It happens in all relationships. What did your mother say?
Fiona: She said it happens
Neil: Well your mother is right as usual.

Fiona: You are not meeting my needs sexually
Neil: Well accusing me like that is very "Sexy" isn't it. The more you talk about it the less likely it is to happen.

Fiona: You are not meeting my needs to be part of a family
Neil: Well you gave that away when you got divorced. I can't be Connor's dad you know.
Fiona: Why can't we eat as a family? go to bed around the same time, get up together?
Neil: Sorry that's just the way I am. You can't change the way I eat and sleep.

Fiona: I need practical support help around the house
Neil: You just won't be happy until I'm doing it all will you?

I'm realising I will never "wrap it up" by nagging, or even improve it. Basically to him, this form of communication is just me having a head-rush. I need to be humored, firmly put back in my place (physically intimidated if necessary) because I am clearly out of order. Then life will carry on as normal.

So the upshot of it is. When the decision has been made, when I am bold enough. I have to just go. Not telling, showing. Which is apparently what his last fiance did, and he simply could not understand it. For years.

What I've learned

Its been four years since my marriage ended and somewhat less since I was introduced to the murky world of infidelity. At 40, I was a babe in the wood, truly. I believed that many, if not the majority of married/de facto couples had meaningful, mutually respectful relationships and regular satisfying sex. I knew that couples argued, and at times loathed each other because I was married for 16 years. In my marriage I was somewhat controlled, and my needs (for a home, a family) were disregarded in favour of his "higher" needs, but we could always trust each other.

Neil has introduced me to a whole new world, in which people are not faithful, 1 in 4 babies is born to a man who is not the partner of the woman concerned. Women and Girls who dress in a certain way literally ask for sex (as in FMBs - he believes they are in fact code). Women and Girls who ask men back to their home/hotel after a party want sex. And if, as a man you merely progress towards sex, without asking permission, 9 out of 10 girls will not stop you. Further 80% of the women are chasing 20% of the men. We are mobile breeding machines, they are alpha males, it is a jungle out there. As I have often said in this blog, I reluctantly accept this. How could I be so naive?

However, it does not appeal to my experience. As a married woman I went to literally dozens of parties/receptions/conferences dressed howsoever I wished, where people came back to rooms and that was not the agenda at all. We would drink, flirt, talk then go home. If the above were true, it is a wonder I had not been either victim or assailant in seduction/inveiglement/lure or rape on numerous occasions.

I would proffer that I gave off "Married vibes" and I was steadfastly committed to my marriage vows. I would also proffer the crowd in which I circulated, hard working, professional, men and women of integrity. But not once was I propositioned. I am only human (as we shall see) and may not have been so strong under duress.

So I learn the hard way. About a year into our relationship I learn that Neil is having sex with someone else. I am (in my naive way) shocked, nauseated, horrified, stateless, confused and.... changed.

I struggle not to blame anyone else for what happened next. This erstwhile choir girl, married woman, pillar of society quietly embraced revenge. If you can do it so can I. Not actively, not rushing out there, but alive in that world I had previously doubted existed. And in the fullness of time opportunity came my way.

For maybe a decade before he met me, Neil had no formal relationship, he had a roster of "FBs" who satisfied his needs, and they his. There were no strings, although they did sometimes show troublesome signs of wanting to commit, in which case they were kindly but firmly reminded of the terms of the relationship and if they didn't want it they could go.

So what we have is 4 or 5 women actively trying to "catch him" whilst outwardly declaring they were fine with friends with benefits status. Their role very much akin to that of the other woman (having now been one myself). They would always be dressed well, coiffed, plucked, perfumed, never nag, badger, or complain.

I have learned that living with someone who has been this kind of a "bachelor" (read SA) makes for a very hard act to follow.

I have learned that the reason I did not cheat on my husband was less iron will and more lack of opportunity/motivation.

I have learned to be careful what you wish for

Is this post feminism? One thing that would've kept me on track in my younger days is the sisterhood. How could I do that to another woman (assuming I knew about her)? Are we all just back to snaring a man by fair means or foul? Why am I jealous of my lover's wife who, at quite a mature age managed to marry him, have two kids and give up work for the forseeable future?

How could I undervalue my career so? as I lurch from near disaster, to headlice outbreak, to forgotten lunch, lost hat, board meeting, presentation, bikini wax, sales pitch in the blurry life of a near-single parent? I should remember, she gave up her freedom, her identity and her so-called husband is playing away.

One of the things Neil trotted out when he reached exasperation with my high moral stance was
"There's no law against it"

Well negotiating your way through it without rules may be an intellectual and personal challenge but it does not favour women.

Forgive myself - Understandable?

I wanted a baby, but I realised in the nick of time that I didn't want a baby with him. Or rather, serendipidously it turned out I couldn't have a baby with him in the nick of time.

It is unfair to him because all this was at the core of a shared dream.

I'm not sure how I could've been blind to this. I felt as though I was in love with him

Ein schlechtes Gewissen braucht keinen Kläger

As you may know, my partner of three years is away overseas. And the state of our relationship means that this is little more than a relief. I have half-heartedly attempted to break up with him, and I am still undecided as to whether to follow him overseas, as my folks are over there, but my son's father is over here.

As the COSA philosophy goes on snooping, basically evidence does eventually fall into your lap. So here's the latest. Once again like my "no smoke without fire" it could be my imagination.

First, Neil's widowed father is planning to visit him overseas and during the visit Neil has a business trip to Germany. His father suddenly cancelled because he didn't feel able to organise/afford accomodation or be left on his own whilst Neil went to Germany. If my mother was visiting me on her own, I would have a whale of a time taking her along as my consort to conference dinners and having her explore the town during the day. I have been wondering why this is such a problem...

Second, some time ago a "little bird" told me Neil was rumoured to be sleeping with a colleague who has, incidentally, gone back to Germany.

Third, each day Neil and I send each other SMSs. It is always the same boring "Good morning, darling x x " so I decided to be a bit playful and wrote one in German today. Not consciously thinking about it, just wanting to have some fun with him "Guten Abend Mine Liebling" probably shocking German, then I wrote another... and finally I got one back "W.T.F." (which I'm sure you can translate)

Either he really doesn't understand any German at all (you'd've thought doing business in Germany he might've whipped out a phrasebook once in a while) perhaps he thinks I am making a fool of him, or trying to show off how clever I am...or he was reading something more into my SMS.

Suddenly a curious suggestion pops into my head. He is off to Germany for a tryst with the ex-colleague. That's why dad can't come, and that's why he is angry at my use of German he thinks I am backhandedly accusing him

For a translation of the Title visit "The English German Dictionary"

Loud and Clear

I know, I know, you've lost patience with me. You all voted on my future. I am telling you loud and clear I want to leave, yet nothing happens. This is how it is sometimes I think. Need the right impetus. In the meantime I seem to be conducting my life in two parallel streams.

(1) Please show me a way to get out of this. Just one little exit and I'll be gone
(2) Planning my life in the long term getting the house set up creating a future for my boy

I can't be the first, but I think I would be happier and more able to focus if I was true to myself.

I hear you Elinor

"I have known all of love's pain and none of its reward"

Elinor Dashwood: Sense and Sensibility

I can't find this exact quote anywhere, but I swear I heard it in the 1981 BBC mini series.

This is how I feel about my current relationship. He gives me so little apart from a half share in a roof over my head, and some sort of weird brother-like affection. We no longer have sex, because he is not interested.

It is partially my own doing. I broke off the engagement, around the time we discovered we couldn't have children. Because 2 years after his sudden proposal of marriage, I still could not trust him or understand either his sex addiction or his supposed recovery from it. And after several rounds of IVF I realised I did want another child, but not with him.

And now I think to ask myself the question "why did he admit to sex addiction? why didn't he just admit to a little meaningless sex?" He is quite practised at manipulation and lying why would he have been so candid with me? A little slip-up would've been so much easier for me to accept. In fact that's pretty much how I have dealt with it - imagine it was just the end of his "philandering ways"

So here's the timeline

*Trying to get pregnant
*Shock email from ex-girlfriend describing numerous trysts
*Confession from Neil of sex addiction
*Proposal of marriage
*Uneasy acceptance by me
*More trying to get pregnant
*Give up trying to get pregnant
*Try to end relationship admitting I have not properly forgiven him and the only way I can cope is to disengage.
*I actually want him to go off and find someone else to have babies with
*Sex life ends

From his point of view maybe he was only having sex with me to get pregnant, or maybe he was so hurt by me putting the brakes on our marriage plans, or perhaps, he is just getting sex elsewhere. It isn't such a stretch is it? on current evidence.

In exploring "Husband not interested in sex" the answer by barbarafl about half the way down struck a chord. It starts

Wow Ladies,
I feel compelled to respond. I have been in this situation for 18 years. It is only the last year that I truly discovered the real problem. My husband is a sex addict. After lots of research, and therapy, he is in recovery. A long hard road for both of us. There is many levels of sex addiction. Some only use masturbation and porn and some use prostitutes, affairs, etc. There is something also known as sexual anorexia. Where the sex addict will masturbate but avoid intimacy with you.

I can't discuss it with him. In fact if I do he gets angry or facetious saying things like "you nagging me about it is so sexy"

But he still occasionally says he love me, or that I am his love. I think perhaps he needs a mother. His was depressed angry and unavailable to him. Now it seems he is trying to find this lost comfort through me. Here is what would really work: If I were to run the house like clockwork. Quietly and efficiently moving around him, and never making demands on him. Let him lie in, clear away his mess without ever complaining, never ask where he's been or why, defer to him on every decision and opinion... He will love me totally and will reward me with hugs, and adoration, but never sex.

Really folks what's in it for me? A half roof over my head (I work too remember) and stability for Connor. But Connor is not going to come back to me in 20 years time and say, "thanks so much mum for putting your life on hold and living with that man so that I could grow up in a misogynistic, self centred, dysfunctional - yet stable household"

Is he?

I'm a lizard

I guess this happens to everyone to an extent, but maybe I am worse affected since I have moved countries 3 times since I was 25 and I got divorced. Here is my problem.. I keep leaving large chunks of my life behind. Usually quickly and under traumatic circumstances. Like a lizard losing its tail. For all I know they keep on twitching after I leave them, like the those perfectly nice circles of friends, those groaning bookshelves, a couple of decades shared with my husband. Those severed parts can twitch all they like. Me I just walk away.



Photo credit: www.naturephoto-cz.com

But look, my beautiful tail, it grew back, but not like before. Something is lost, something is changed.

I've been away

I'm sorry, I've been away. I'm not gone. Actually I got a little sporting injury and now I have some metal in my leg. Time consuming. But whilst resting up I have had time to set my blogging agenda (always keeps me on case) and do a lot of reading. So here is what's coming up in the next month:

(1) I'm a lizard
(2) Celibacy and Anorexia
(3) The world according to my ovaries

I watched a lot of Jane Austen and developed a special affection for Elinor Dashwood. She will appear in (2). But how could I be disappointed to discover I am actually Elizabeth Bennett?

You Scored as Elizabeth Bennet As one of Austen's most beloved characters, Elizabeth Bennet represents what most women would like to become: strong, independent, and loyal. Of course, she has her faults including a stubborn will of iron and a clinging to first impressions. Overall, Lizzie is bright and lovable...something to admire and aspire to.

...and read a most disturbing book, disturbing because I found myself in it. Myself of the last post in fact.

Things that kept me awake last night

I have come to the conclusion that I am a weak person. I didn't used to be - as I have explored on this blog before. My parents sent me out into the world with a work ethic, a moral code and an inner happiness that I rode along on more or less comfortably until I was 40.

Now I question everything.

Which may be a good thing.

My new partner blew away my concept of marriage. I weakly accept (in the face of his evidence) that most marriages are not monogamous - despite the fact that I was in one myself for 16 years, and my parents set a sterling example for 40 years.

So I reset my moral compass. Downward. In disappointment, in disillusionment, to my own detriment.

I wasn't the kind of kid to be drawn into the wrong crowd. I wasn't easily swayed. I didn't smoke behind the bike sheds...

What I did do was accept my parents' moral code lock stock and barrel. Which Neil would call a Mc Moral Code. I didn't question it, and it worked well for me. Until I met him. This to him is abhorent. As thinking adults we should make our own decisions about everything in life - right and wrong, politics, who we sleep with, the death penalty, what we eat....

And here's just one funny thing about him..he thinks nothing of having unprotected sex with >100 women, but he would never eat an out of date yoghurt.

Is it good for parents to hammer a moral code (e.g christianity) home to a child? How can I find an alternative acceptable approach for my son?

Vote on my future now

I have to make a decision it seems, which is always hard for me. Of course my natural instinct is "No change" accept the status quo. In this case I am not even sure what the decision is. However I press on...

My partner, Neil, has accepted a job overseas, and my child's father is in the same country as me. I know my partner will eventually come back. In the short term I need to decide whether to go with him. The cost is high. There will be a court battle, I will risk losing my job. If we loved each other wholeheartedly this would be a no brainer - I would go and particularly if we had a child together (which had always been the plan). But with my survival mantra - "My self, my child, my health, my work" in mind I can't find it in my heart to risk my job and my child's happiness in exchange for a half-love.

There is another dimension to this. The country in which he is working is my home country. Near to my folks, and my child's grandparents. The last sentence there seems redundant. Perhaps after all this is not going to be too much of a risk to my child - he will be back with his Dad in a year or two and in the meantime he has his extended family. Dad could visit, if he could afford it. Or move even. He has the passport. If I had more self esteem, perhaps I would care less about holding onto this particular job.

But now we come to the nub of the issue. All this obfuscates one fact. If I turn to my only working decision making tool, my gut*, I get the following answer. DO NOT GO. DO NOT FOLLOW THIS MAN. LEAVE HIM. BREAK FREE. And following this, should I take this course of action, some questions


(1) How will I cope with the smug self-satisfaction of my ex and his new partner? (Not having my own partner will doubtless create a power vacuum in which Simon will move in, metaphorically, and try to control my life)
(2) How will I manage to discipline/manage/parent my child? and who will support me in this emotionally? (this is a place where Neil takes a role)
(3) What will happen if I get sick, who will care for me and my son? (In the short term I have health and income insurance - I fondly imagine Neil would take care of me, but in reality he could not, with his job responsibilities, and he never takes care of Connor in that hands-on, bathing, story-reading, sport taking kind of a way)
(4) Where will I live? (this is probably the most emotive part. I love my house. I have waited 20 years to have my own home, I have put more cash into it than Neil - and there would be a court battle to try to retrieve that)
(5) What will I do for sex?
(6) What about my aging parents? will I ultimately opt to re-patriate to be with them?

If I go, I should go for me (because I have a good job opportunity, I want to be near my folks), if I don't go I should realise that I am in a holding pattern where I can live separate for him for some time, but eventually it will only tear us apart and the questions above will have to be addressed. Not going and not even taking extended leave over there saves me from court-battles. If I go semi permenantly I have to lose my job and fight connor's dad for custody. If I follow my gut, do not go (at least not with Neil) use this as a chance to sever ties. I have to have a court battle over the house .

Here it seems are my options

(1) Move No Action: Stay here. Remain in relationship. Avoid all court battles.
(2) Explore the boundaries: Stay here. Remain in relationship. Plan extended leave over there and minor court battle with Connor's dad
(3) Gut Instinct: Stay here. Get out of relationship. Have financial settlement battle. No attempt at custody in near future, although reserve right to go and live near folks when connor is old enough to make his own mind up. Put myself at risk of domination/interference by my ex.
(4) Armageddon: Drop job - follow Neil (my SA partner) - have full on custody battle, leave my job and tenure, go an be near my folks with no plan to come back - this would give me a power base. Neil will want to come back but having made the move I would have family support.

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Musings on codependence

It dawned on my rather depressingly this week that, if we believe such a thing exists as codependency, I have it. Apart from the control patterns of codependency (which I don't have), I have a good handful out of each of the other lists. Where did this come from? I have no idea. I did not grow up in a dysfunctional home. But as I look back on my life, from the discomfort of my mid-life crisis. I realise that for no good reason that I can discernm, I have been living my life for other people. And what have I got to show for it? Nothing. No, sorry, very little....

(1) A very unhappy disatisfied mentally ill ex-husband.

I rearranged my life to be with him. I changed countries, left the family I loved. Accompanied him on all his hair-brained adventures, never once saying NO, THAT DOES NOT INTEREST ME, GET STUFFED. I held off on buying a house, having a baby, all the things that meant so much to me, because he was not ready. I cooked the food he liked, shopped where he liked and carefully packed it in the in environmentally friendly bags that he liked, I went on holiday where he wanted to go, did the sports he wanted to do, often to the point of physical exhaustion.

The only thing I have to show for this is my beautiful son, who was a result of my only act of rebellion when I got to 35 and refused to wait anymore, and he was the catalyst for the breakdown of my marriage.

(2) A disrepectful, unfaithful, sex-addicted partner

I do all the household work, and I never argue with his opinions, it is not worth it. This suits him just fine. I feed his addiction by saying "I don't care" and allowing him to be out all day and night and not provide me with any support, and allowing him to objectify me, and to progress his career at the expense of mine. Worse still I have no idea whether or not I do, in fact, care. I remain with him when he has offended every moral value in my soul, and stepped over more marks than I can count, and I have no idea why.

It occurs to me that if I persist in this pattern of self-sacrifice around no-good men, I will not only totally lose myself, but I will have nothing to show for all the hard work such blind devotion entails.

So here's the punchline. If I can't shake myself out of it I may as well put my self-sacrifice to good use and volunteer or give back to society in some way, rather than hitching my wagon to their capricious stars and being dragged heaven knows where.

No smoke without fire...again

Well as you know my SA partner went into recovery for about 3 months (almost two years ago), declared himself healed, and defied me to discuss it with him, because I was too angry and it was not helping. I went on bearing a grudge and being quite angry and sad about it for about a year. Then I realised I could let go. Unfortunately I "threw the baby out with the bathwater" and stopped loving him as selflessly and freely as I could. And this laid the foundation for my own slip.

I resolved not to snoop on him, and that the evidence would come to me. So now it is coming in, and I still ignore it.

The browser history shows craigslist - I have never visited it. The phone bill has two receipts for an online adult chatline - when we were away - all of us. I find receipts in my car for fastfood and car parks, late at night in suburbs far away when I thought he was at work, and finally...he accidentally leaves himself logged in to his email, and so help me I take a look. Half a dozen flirty emails to women I don't know with among the seemingly light friendly banter words like "lick you" "pinch you".

And on the way home in the car, he sighs, tells me he is so sorry he is just not interested in sex... even cites a well known male problem.

So I replied - oh no doubt it would all be fine given the right conditions, and looked at his face in the half light - Dead Pan.

Funny thing is...I feel nothing...this is not a marriage....

Thursday Haiku

Were my hopes founded
On a moment of folly
Or twenty one years?

You introduced me
To the girl I used to be
then led her astray

My phone is silent
A weapon of destruction
it lies here inert

And I am still here
The passion has subsided
but still I need you

The olympics make me feel old

Everytime some olympic veteran looks close to triumph, and the commentator says "This is wrinkly podgesome's 4th olympics, and what a story, what a triumph, what a competitor, at 33 she is quite the veteran, quite the seasoned athlete..." I think hmm 33 that's old... about my age...then realise I am almost a full decade older... and feel my olympic dreams fade. I remember not so long ago when the only ones of my age were the para-pubescent gymnasts such as Nadia komenich or Olga Korbet did I take my eyes of the road??? how did I get to be so old????

Needs Meme

An old one from MamaMPJ

The rules: Google your first name with the word "needs" behind it and post the first 10 results.

1. Fiona needs loving home
Yes, one where it's not me doing all the loving

2. Fiona needs clothes
My work colleagues would undoubtedly agree

3. Fiona Needs | Facebook
Like a hole in the head

4. Fiona needs star treatment
Oh, go on then

5. Fiona needs some foster family help ...
OK take me in

6. Fiona needs sangria
yes Yes YES

7. Fiona needs a Cowboy
yes yes Yes Yes YES YES

8. Fiona needs cash for mercy mission
Mission impossible

9. Fiona needs a boyfriend
Like a fish needs a bicycle

10. Fiona needs a caption.
Because no man is the isle of Iona

Does my ass look guilty in this?

Since my last post a number of sequels have come into my mind. I usually don't put pen to paper until I have the thoughts well formed in my mind, but I think I need to take the taste of the spectacular misbehaviour away!! I got less comments than I expected. An ominous silence. Anyway here are the three possible sequels:

(1) Why I never need a counsellor again, and have reached serenity in my life
(2) How infidelity looks now I have tried it on for size
(3) Vote on my next step (in which I put up a reader poll and you tell me what to do)

So I will opt for number (2) with the others coming up shortly

My higher power, in their wisdom has brought me two pieces of reading material this weekend. The first was from a british newspaper. Why I cheated, inside the mind of an adulterer which tells the story of an affair from a man's point of view. The line that really was a wake up call for me came near the end where he describes the reaction when they were found out.

"Emma was stigmatized as a cheating spouse and a disloyal friend. People reacted less violently to my betrayal. The fact that I was a man seemed to make it easier to understand. But the societal condemnation of Emma, the woman, was brutal. It was too much for her. She went back to her husband"

He thought, as a man might, that he could have it all. Love his wife, and indulge his passion for her friend. The second was about sex and the dems by Michael Wolff in vanity fair in which he asserts that

"Men in public positions who have sneaky sex are weak. The very fact that they would risk their public positions for sex (just sex) is a sign of their weakness. "

It is clear to me sadly that when I move aside from the quasi-romance of being with someone from 20 years ago, and dreams of what may have been. The risk of being found out is too high. Apart from the damage to our small children. I am the one who has most to lose. I would be stigmatized and hated, he would at worst be considered "weak".