tercelkisor

dsayers: I know that those claims are competing, and I would raise the same question if someone were to say to me what I said there. I guess I mean that she behaves in generally caring and thoughtful ways when not under external stress. I know that it is or seems superficial, but I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume that it was a moment of weakness. It still scares me. What I mean by " she gets me" is also somewhat superficial and unimportant, but comforting. I'm a big jokester and have silly quirks that seem to be a turnoff to others, but not to her. I know that it's super surface level, but it's nice to have someone who you can generally be inhibited around. By violent deconversion, I mean that it tore me up inside. It uprooted everything that I thought was permanent about myself and forced me to shift and remap my identity to something of an entirely different nature than what I thought was important for basically my entire life. Basically, it was a way to get at the idea that the "deconversion" would have its unmitigated affect on every aspect of my life since all of my life was build on the rug of christianity. What that rug was pulled out, everything shifted in ways that seem unpredictable and terrifying.

Brucethecollie: Sorry for the confusion. I can only sum it up as feel I have explained it already. I was married when I was a christian. After a violent deconversion, I decided to divorce my wife since she was only my wife because of christianity, and I needed to tangibly do what I considered to be course correction. She basically attempted suicide, and now I'm only married because I'm afraid she'll actually succeed next time. I believe it is clear that there is at least one problem in there somewhere. If you find it difficult to understand-and I don't mean any disrespect-, but you don't have to have input. Maybe you just cannot connect to what I mean when I say I wasn't a nominal christian, and the trauma that came with the departure from that. I don't intend to write you off, only to inform you on the nature of the issue so you can use your judgement when deciding to respond or not.

The pithy title of this post aside, I am currently, and have been for some time, experiencing difficulties with my marriage. To preface, I think that my marriage is probably my largest blindspot when it comes to self knowledge. It's so emotionally charged that I fear coming to solid conclusions about anything, leaving me paralyzed, unable to take action. Here's the short version: When I was 14, I became a Christian. I wasn't raised in the church, and my family never converted. It wasn't nominal in any sense. I lost all my friends, and I eventually paid my own tuition to a small christian school since my mother couldn't afford it. There was nothing more ultimate in my life than the preeminence and glory of Christ. Quite literally, all of my decisions were filtered through the lens of Christ being glorified. There wasn't any bedrock to my identity, since my very identity was secondary to the aim previously stated. Christianity had its hold on my until the age of 22, and it was then that I was awakened to the truth that I had squandered my existence for the most important or formative years of my life. It was like I was pulled from the matrix, my existence being spliced onto the tail end of that of another. I was forced to continue on in the life momentum and constraints of a man that wasn't even recognizable to me anymore. In real words, I was married and owned a home at 22 or 23 (I'm 25 now), and I felt placed into the arbitrary existence of another man. So I panicked. I not-so-affectionately refer to the time as my quarter-life crisis. I was lost for a few months, and when I felt as though I arrived at a decision to make in response to the psychological chaos, it backfired. I proposed divorce, and for several weeks, there was much pain in my home. I wife handled it as you'd expect a surprise divorce request at first, but when I persisted, she ended up taking way too many sleeping pills and passing out. I didn't sleep that night for fear that something would happen to her. It scared me, so I retracted. We've discussed it here and there since then, but it's always a difficult topic for her, so it never goes far. I find myself longing for emotional connections with other women, even women that are clearly less of a catch than my wife. Honestly she's pretty great. She's beautiful, intelligent, caring... She mostly gets me, and that's rare, but I flirt around quite a bit, and I'm always interested in connecting with other women on an emotional level. I just can't disconnect her from my past. The only reason that she's in my life is because of christianity, and I can't get over that. I cannot maintain the amount of enthusiasm it takes to have a good relationship, and I know she's ultimately unhappy. I am too. I am certain that I would not be the man she would choose if she had to decide today. My issue is this: The way I have been getting through each day is by telling myself that I'm just being immature, that eventually, I will wise up and realize that she's a great woman to be married to. It may be kicking the can down the road, and I'm not sure if that is a wise thing to do or not. Am I just being immature, or is this a legitimate issue that should be addressed with divorce? How do I deal with the guilt if she does something like she did last time? How do I overcome the fear of the unknown if the correct choice is divorce. Thanks for the input. I'm sure I missed or glossed over some things. I'm more than willing to clarify or further explain something.

My father died of liver cancer. We knew about it for a few months before he passed. We shared no religion; that was something I found apart from family. He was a drunk and did exorbitant amount of drugs, and that's what killed him. I think out sleep issues are almost identical. Anything particular thing that you find helpful with that? I love my wife, and honestly admire many things about her, but I can't separate her from my religious past. When I left religion, I was extremely close to leaving her, and would have if she had not taken it so extremely roughly. I don't know how much of my disillusionment has to do with my own immaturity of wanting to be romantically free, but feel strongly that I wasn't in an appropriate state of mind to make a lifelong decision. That decision feels burdensome to me most of the time. It has nothing to do with her as a person. I just feel as if my choice in the matter was made for me by some other person entirely, and that rubs me in an odd sort of way. I generally refer to people as intelligent if they display a desire to understand themselves as I find most people to be utterly lacking of any sort of introspective capacity at all. Many of the people that I deem intelligent may very well have a higher IQ than I do. I am passionate about what I'm doing in general. At this particular moment, I'm taking classes that I find are utterly useless with professors that are just milking their tenure or are just plain incompetent. It's also difficult work. I'm in engineering, and my passion lies in robotics and controls, which aren't focuses at my school so it requires much extra effort on my part to gain sufficient knowledge and experience in those things to do this for a living. Sleep is certainly an issue, and much of that, I believe, is just a matter of self control, but by doing nothing, I mean generally looking up interesting thing online or watching porn. Basically nothing useful. I'm generally a positive person. I always say that I don't have the attention span to be negative about things. Thanks for the response. I'll certainly consider what you've said.

Drew Woods, Thanks for the offer. I'm certainly interested in doing whatever it takes to deal with my issues and straighten my mind out. I know you appreciate my skepticism about trusting someone with my mental life, especially when there is money involved, and that's cool, but I may be difficult to convince of the value you can offer me. If you are up for the challenge, I may very well be interested in your services. Thanks again.

I appreciate the responses. I'll respond to each in a separate response for clarity. regevdl, I didn't respect him at all. My parents divorced when I was young, and he was always in and out of jail or running to other states to flee jail sentences. I have extremely positive memories of my childhood with him, but, and FDR has helped me see these things, I know that he always put his addictions ahead of his children. I didn't really expect to feel much, but the fact that it was nothing at all kind of shocked me. I really make an effort to surround myself with intelligent and thoughtful people. That being said, to me, intelligence is almost entirely about a desire to know yourself, and by extension, accurately understand the world around you. I believe that I've surrounded myself with the available people who most hold those values or characteristics, but people concerned with self knowledge are extremely rare, and even these people that I spend my time with seem almost incredulous at the thought of me getting therapy for something that isn't a traditional mental issue. I feel, and I suppose I could be wrong, that my lack of empathy isn't a major issue to most people. I honestly think that I do better on that front that other, possibly more empathetic people. To me,empathy (or the appearance of empathy, at least) is a logical thing, and it's not complicated to just think of how I would like to be treated in a particular situation. It's usually an entirely emotionless process for me. I'm honestly not sure how much of the other stuff applies, but I appreciate the response, and will soberly consider your words.

I am 25. I am male. I am married. I am an agnostic atheist. This will likely be lengthy, and I hope it finds a person or two who are genuinely interested in assisting an online stranger with his issues. I do realize that I therapists exist, but I fear being taken in or tricked into something that isn’t right for me. Maybe this fundamental mistrust is part of what is eating away at me. Firstly, I know that my value as a human isn’t based on my emotional health or whatever psychological issues I may have. I think that I have an above average self image. It may even be too high. Unless there is something going on under the surface, I don’t think that this is an issue. I’m not really sure how to get at what is bothering me, but, at risk of rambling, I’ll just type and see what sticks. Firstly, I’ll list the issues that concern me. Then I will address each, I suppose. The death of my father 5 months ago had absolutely no effect on me. I consistently avoid sleep, staying awake doing nothing at all. I have unresolved disillusionment with my marriage. I still feel as though religion in my past has set aspects of my life on tracks that I regret being on. I’m cynical, sarcastic, and cold the majority of the time. I have pretty severe ADHD, but am afraid of taking my medication for fear of permanently altering my brain or becoming dependent. I am arrogant, finding it difficult to empathise with people that I deem to be intellectually inferior to me. I honestly feel caged, like I was never able to experience the kind of freedom that I should have, which leads me to fantasize about leaving everything in my life for the chance to make a life all over again. My drive and motivation in my studies and work are not scaling at the same pace as my studies and work, leaving me feeling burned out and overworked when I don’t think I should be. On second thought, I won’t go into depth now. I can elaborate on the topics of interest of whoever is kind enough to lend an ear.