Best of luck mr cross herbivor

Was in a similar situation 6 years ago. Was very down as i blamed myself and apart from work, pretty much cut myself off from the world.

It will get better, and take time. The only advice i could offer is to keep in touch with all your friends and if you get offerd out then go, even if you don’t want to!

Oh, and if it is final then as has previously been said, look out for number one as you really dont get points for being nice.

It’s a bit worrying that nobody has suggested anything to do with shoes or shagging her sister/mum/gran, this place is going to the dogs…

Time and a place my man, time and a place…..

Some great advice and really helpful posts.

The only thing I would suggest is to try and set some medium term goals for stuff that you have always wanted to do but for some reason never gotten around to it. Something like doing a 24 hour ride, leaning to scuba dive. As others have said things will get easier over time. I found that having a goal – (mine was to do a marathon) helped me keep things in perspective and gave me something to focus on rather than always dwelling on the past.

heres my shallow response

you are now single
you can do all the things she never wanted you to do
you can go and chat up any girl you like
you can go biking when you like
you will find someone else have all the fun of flirting, dating, with girls who will try really hard, give you lots of blow jobs, not fart in your presence and eventualy setlle down with someone better coz u r that much wiser

Sorry to here your news.
Bet all the advice about going out drinking and cavorting are REALLY helpful. Had a similar thing 7 or 8 years ago, messed me up for a bit, but new family now.
Some pretty decent advice on here (except boozing obviously).
If you’re in the south at all, let me know ’cause there’s plenty of good riding down here, i need updating on the music scene (guessing by the user name) and my missus can knock up some decent veggie grub.

thanks.
one problem is that my household income has noe been halved, meaning that i pretty much can’t afford to go out ever. i think i can barely afford to cover rent and bills. i’m pretty much screwed.

I think you need to seperate these problems.
1. you’ve split up with your gilfriend. It may be right to try and get back together, it may not be.
2. You need to sort out your financial situation. Have a look round on the net at rental prices. Rents are falling so you ma be able to afford more than you think.

in any case, getting back together with your girlfriend purely so you can afford the rent clearly isn’t an option. Remember they’ll be lots of people earning less than you and living happy lives etc.

Xherb
Keep your sh*t together mate; y’know how it works with depression.
Spend as much time as possible with friendly faces. You are worthwhile: the reason why all these people have made the effort to reply supportively to your post.
It will work out.
Good luck

thanks mate.
my riding buddy came round last night and that was good, we chatted about stuff. he’s gonna help me out with increasing my skillset workwise (IT stuff, he bluffed his way into an SQL DBA role having zero experience of it beforehand so i reckon i can pick it up pretty easily too) and we also talked semi-seriously about opening our own bike shop…

i just lost the best friend i ever had, and i don’t have the slightest idea why. i’ve done everything for her; supported her through years and years of serious depression. i had absolutely no idea she was going to drop this on me.

Perhaps the answer lives in the above sentance, shit happens , all you can do is try not stepping into it.

Pretty much the same thing happened to me in October (been on and off for over 20 years, together for >12 this last tome ). I feel pretty much the same. Like I’ve just wasted my life.

The only way I’ve been able to keep going is by being active.

I mostly walk. Miles and miles, it doesn’t matter where.

Ride my bike.

Good luck mate.

nothings a waste of time except doing nothing.

You’ve not spent the last few years dig nohing, so they’ve not been wasted, now make the most of the coming months and dont waste them either!

Like I’ve just wasted my life.

I find that an odd statement – do you predicate the whole of your life on some future time ? I think each day counts for itself, how it feels at the time. You may find out something later that changes your attitude in retrospect, but that doesn’t actually change how it had been.

Looking back, I can see that I should have got out of my marriage several years before I did – but at the time love and being with the children seemed more important than anything else

Please try & look for some positives out of this, if you can’t find any then it will always be a downward spiral, for a while at least. You haven’t said where you live, but if you want to meet up in herts then I’ll buy you a pint (of lemonade obviously), my shout.
If you want clean living, then I fear your in the grip of Mr Barnes, god help you.
Seriously, try & look for the upside, it could have been a lot worse, so be thankful of that & build from there.

Cheers.

i’m in manchester.
whilst nothing has changed, we’ve talked a bit today and i feel a bit better about it. we will still be friends; no point in being an arse just for the sake of it. it’ll only make things more difficult and it won’t make me any happier.
we’re just gonna move forward and take things as they come. see how it all turns out. if anything, it’s given me the impetus to actually take steps to further my career (get some IT certification, get more £££, get cytech stuff and seriously look into opening a bike shop)…

If you want clean living, then I fear your in the grip of Mr Barnes, god help you.

I can’t work out what this means – but I suffered depression for decades, and now I’m a happy person :o)

Work it out Simon, your not exactly know for being a bag of laughs are you.

:shakes head:

I mostly walk. Miles and miles, it doesn’t matter where.

If you need someone to walk with let me know, it doesn’t sound like you’re having fun… 🙁

xherb’ pleased to see you seam to be a bit more positive today, but now Im worried about iseeadarkness.

😀 😀 😀 😀 devastated your hav’n a laugh **** party on
no more where you going,when you back,you cant leave that there, your one of the lucky ones

iseeadarkness
same to you also, if you’re near Wales I can meet up for a ride or walk
I suffered a break up in November, and its always good to meet new people

Work it out Simon, your not exactly know for being a bag of laughs are you.

in which case the “known” is completely wrong :o)

does anyone understand what roundwheels put ?

simon you must be single

simon you must be single

oh, I see! There were some missing quotation marks! Now it makes more sense 🙂 I’ve been married twice but never had those things said to me…

Simon, I’m not surprised by your last post, but I don’t think this thread is about you… 😉

xherbivorex, you know I’m in south Manchester and I’m always up for a mooch around Chorlton-way.

Sorry to hear that xherbivorex.

Re the rent etc, how about a lodger?

Probably not the best thing to say, but just one thing to remind you, that although you are obviously very attached to the house and would love to stay there, at the end of the day, it’s just a house and it’s not worth making life so hard for yourself to stay there. As soon as we get over attached to material things, we make life much harder for ourselves and our happiness suffers.

mrsflash – Member

Sorry to hear that xherbivorex.

Re the rent etc, how about a lodger?

I read that as rent a todger. Sheesh, darn my soddin mind.

As Traildog says. I’d move out and rent a flat somewhere or better still houseshare. Get away from the place as I imagine it feels somehow empty at the moment. A fresh start.

xherbivorex this is all about being positive, you had the guts/honesty to share your pain on the forum so that shows all is not lost. The trick is to doing something that refocuses you. You really must banish the ” I feel worthless” thinking its so destructive and ultimately self fulfilling.

Every single thing about your future is in your control, it really is and you must find your own way of understanding this,I’m not saying you should not feel pissed off, feeling pissed off and down is a natural reaction but that should only last for a relatively short period of time and then you should refocus and move on with a sense of purpose and energy.

The best way to be mental sharp is to maintain a healthy life style, thankfully every day the weather is improving and with the change of weather should come a change of fortune, just remember to be positive and remind yourself of all the good stuff that yet to come your way, take care and go for it.

thankfully every day the weather is improving

if you’ll pardon me, even this is symptomatic of negative thinking. The weather changes. Winter isn’t worse, it’s just different and colder – enjoy the diversity :o)

xherbivorex,

My girlfriend binned me last week. Whilst we were only together for 18months (so I’d never compare it to your 9 years), we had a ball. I took on her 2 sons, got them into mountain biking, took them camping (they’d never been).. The whole nine yards…

Thankfully, I’m a philosophical one and we’re cool anyway, there’s no agro or malice (and no 3rd person), but it still hurts… She now think I don’t care, because I went out with mates for a few quiet ones last week…

Anyway, I digress. I feel for you, buddy… The STW collective will keep you going. If you’re anywhere near the Wirral, drop a line, e-mail in profile.

Keep it together, it can only get better…

Rob.

well i’ve got my hands on an old laptop and i’m in the process of doing my first ubuntu install on it, with a view to learning how to use that.
also i discussed learning SQL with my boss so that i can diversify, and since my current job pretty much covers all the A+ certification requirements then i’m gonna sit the exams and get certified…
so that’ll be a means of having an income secured (as much as anyone could claim that in the current economic climate i suppose), so i’ll have my rent and bills covered.
spoke to her a couple of times over the last couple of days- she’s viewing a couple of flats nearby later today as she doesn’t want to move away from the area but she just wants to live on her own.
i’m taking things as they come, but i won’t allow her to take advantage or anything. she wants to remain friends as she says she’s not planning on entering into any other relationships at all, she just needs some alone time to figure out who she is. fair enough.
so, we’ll see. it’s not going to be easy though.

I would echo a lot of the above for staying positive, setting goals (not just work/income related). re-evaluating your situation etc etc. All good stuff.

Personally, I don’t think staying friends with an ex is a good thing. I guess it depends on who you are, but by maintaining contact with them you can slow down the process of moving on, and you may find yourself getting hurt more often as you are reminded of the good times, or if she starts another relationship. I think a clean break is better and just move on. There’s nothing to stop you from getting in touch in a year or more when the dust has settled. It might be tempting to still hang out with her, after all there’s a mutual moral support and company, but you may end up just doing it in the hope that you’ll get back together… But that’s just my experience; only you know what you’re comfortable with.

xhx – sorry to hear about this, my man.

Having had nearly the same happen to me at 10 years (we held on – seems to be working out 2.5 years on), I came to understand the value of speaking to one’s partner, to understand what makes them feel so desparate to leave the relationship.

You have clearly been doing this, which in my view is good. But be careful that, if there really is no winning each other round, that you don’t flog a dead horse (sorry, poor taste – you’re vegan). You both need to understand where you stand, and you both need to maintain your sense of pride and self-worth.

then you need to step back. Just stop and think about what actually is (not what might have been) and say “OK, here I am. This is what I need to do for me, for my sense of self-worth”. You’ve started that on the job front, but you also need to deal with it really practically on the housing and financial front.

A place you like living is important (one of the reason’s why me and Mrs North nearly split up – we owned an expensive house we couldn’t afford to decorate or make our own; it felt like living in a dormitory), but accepting that you need to think differently about your needs and priorities is something you now need to consider.

Don’t try to think and deal with all of these things at once, no matter how satisfying the effect of taking your mind off the reason why you’ve ended up as you are. Think about each problem separately (work, housing, money) and consider (on as much of an arms’ length basis that you can) how you might make small steps to change each in the right direction. Every time you achieve one of those small goals, you’re a step closer to getting your self-worth back.

Good luck!

Tom

Well Xherb from one Vegan to another i’m sorry this situation has landed on you, I went through the same this time last year after 13 years together, I was really worried..at 40 that i would never find another Fitness mad Vegan…but as luck would have it I have…And its quite strange cos we live 50 yards away from the Ex and our son and everybody gets on great, we’re all best of friends…a year ago i didn’t think it would happen…but time will sort things out and remember you are the special person..and someone out there will find the way you live your life irresistible..you will be a good catch …..
Best of luck
Anthony

The STW collective will keep you going

whilst the collective group hug scenario is obviously well intentioned, I think it is at least partly misdirected, because it encourages dependency. What I learned in overcoming depression is that it’s best to learn to rely on your own resources – no one has more time for you than you do yourself, and other people have their own lives to attend to. Sympathy is all very well, but ‘help’ in the form of attention is a distraction from sorting the depressive mindset

i’ve done everything for her; supported her through years and years of serious depression

I’ve not read all of this. I think, from my limited understanding of depression and its treatment that there must be a very big risk of a supportive partner being let go as soon as someone feels better. If someone has felt miserable for years they will probably have been in the mindset that they are unhappy because they deserve to be, they can’t do any better etc etc. As soon as the depression lifts and you realise you ahve options and aren’t trapped there must be a huge temptation to jettison the people associated with feeling bad.

Good luck anyhow.

Jon

As soon as the depression lifts and you realise you ahve options and aren’t trapped there must be a huge temptation to jettison the people associated with feeling bad.

only if they’re partially cured and still clinging to dysfunctional thinking modes 🙁

Simon, would you mind PM’ing me if you’ve got a mo?

jonDOTrollasonAThotmailDOTcoDOTuk

Much obliged.