Thursday, April 3, 2008

Still Driving Myself Crazy After All These Years

Why do I find it so hard to choose between a woman I have been married to for 23 years, and a woman I have only known for a couple of years, and with whom I was only supposed to have a light and easy relationship, with no string attached?

Why do I find it so hard to choose between a woman with whom I have raised four children, all of them now grown, and the mother of the only biological child I have ever fathered, a beautiful little boy not yet a year old?

Why do I find it so hard to choose between a woman who has shown me a love I would never have thought myself worthy of, over a woman who has shown me a love I would never have thought myself worthy of?

Why is it that having three amazing, intelligent, talented women so profoundly in love with me makes me feel so miserable?

Why is it that with two clear and obvious courses for the rest of my life ahead of me, both good lives full of happiness and bright challenges to be embraced with joy, I feel as though I would rather just fucking die and get it over with?

I remember the MRAs who were harassing me on my old blog, and how they snickered and sneered, anticipating the unhappy future I was so obviously creating for myself. But they supposed that I would wind up with three women hating me, and living in poverty while I paid child support to an ungrateful bitch. Pretty much the opposite of what actually happened, but the life I have now is making me feel so much worse than their scenario would have.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

What the fuck do I do now?

3 comments:

still hot said...

"Why do I find it so hard to choose between a woman who has said and done such hurtful things to me, over one who has never treated me as less than a friend, and has at times expressed a truly shocking admiration?"

No, it's "Why do I find it so hard to choose between a woman to whom I have said and done such hurtful things, but who has never treated me as less than a friend, and one for whom I have expressed a truly shocking admiration?"

The question answers itself. Many people have observed that a person forms his opinion of others according to how he treats them, as often as the reverse.

Sorry, but you really should tell people the whole story.

Dr. Psycho said...

Maybe you would prefer the following modified version:

"Why do I find it so hard to choose between a woman I have been married to for 23 years, and a woman I have only known for a couple of years, and with whom I was only supposed to have a light and easy relationship, with no string attached?

"Why do I find it so hard to choose between a woman with whom I have raised four children, all of them now grown, and the mother of the only biological child I have ever fathered, a beautiful little boy not yet a year old?

"Why do I find it so hard to choose between a woman who has shown me a love I would never have thought myself worthy of, over a woman who has shown me a love I would never have thought myself worthy of?

"Why is it that having three amazing, intelligent, talented women so profoundly in love with me makes me feel so miserable?"

Since you found that one passage so distracting that you felt the need to quote it out of context and devote your entire response to it, to the exclusion of everything else I said, I have deleted it.

Now, how about if you read the above, and tell me what you think this time?

Because I really do need to know what the fuck I should do now.

nene said...

When we are children we face the consequences of hard choices others made for us: parents move us away from life long friends; pets are given up or "put down"; etc. If we are lucky, we are guided through our upsets toward both what can be good on the other side of those upsets and the process of making choices ourselves as we mature.

So, my question to dr. psyco is, what was your plan when you made your choice to have lovers outside your marriage? As an adult you must have weighed the possibility of attachment beyond the original attraction. You must have considered the possibility of children. You must have considered the possibility of emotions beyond your control from the others in this tangle of relationships. What was your plan when you began?

If you had a plan, is your question really, "why do I find it so hard to keep my word to my wife and my lovers"? Did you have an implied promise to any children that might come? Are you finding it hard to keep that promise? ETC.

If you didn't have a plan, you are in the very human place that the children always find themselves: the emotional teeter-totter. Our brains have a choice to be emotional or rational. It is possible to find balance (one of my favorite playground games), but in general, high emotions mean low access to our intelligence and vice versa. The great equalizer for the mature mind is the original intent, the values that governed the intent, and structure for fulfillment of that intent (the plan).

Go back to the beginning. Examine your motives. Reconsider what has happened. Make the difficult choice. Forgive yourself and others. Manage your responsibilities. Move on.

Peace.