its_Chet

The speaker-listener tool: One of you hold an object. What it is isn't very important. It should be something small you can hold in your hand. The person holding the object can speak for approximately 30 seconds. Keep it short and stay on one topic. No filibustering or ranting, just communicate one simple point, clearly. After 30 seconds, the other person must accurately summarize what was said before they can respond or make their own statement. After their 30 seconds, the first person must accurately summarize what was said by the second person before they can say what they want to say. You may want to adjust the length of the speaking turns if 30 seconds is too long. The summaries must be accurate. If they are not, the person being summarized is to offer correction as needed. Once the summary is accurate and complete, the next person gets their turn. Keep it to one point at a time and be concise. Continue on a given point as needed. Don't lump a lot of separate points together, but instead use individual turns speaking to address individual points. In my personal experience, this can make communication much more effective. It can limit or erase tension, but even more, it can provide for clear communication. So many disagreements and so much heartache can be avoided when there are no misunderstandings. But beyond that, there has to be goodness in two peoples' hearts to begin with. For a relationship to work, the couple must both be committed to it. Both must be unwilling to end the relationship. For a couple to remain together, they must choose to do so every day. If one person is too selfish to refrain from killing the relationship, there is simply no hope for it. It takes two people to give a relationship life, but only one to kill it. "Bottom line... is the couples that are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else but the big difference is they don't let it take 'em down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship every time, if it's right, and they're real lucky. One of them will say something.” -- Dr. Cox

If you're the introverted type, or the sort who's more articulate in print than face to face (like I am), you may find that the dating websites are just the thing for you. The primary reason I attracted my first wife is that she was a loose, immature, boy crazy girl with Daddy issues and envious of her friends in Institute that were getting married. I jumped in with both feet for a lot of reasons. Among them, I was lonely and desperate, never was given the time of day by girls in my school days or anytime after that (with a couple of exceptions), and I had a heavily romanticized ideal in my head that I expected would come true, and with her. I was blind to all the red flags I should have seen from the start. Without this combination of circumstances, I don't think my first marriage would have happened. When that wretched arrangement went up in flames, and I found myself single again, I knew it would be my chance to shine. I got on the dating websites and laid it all out in print -- what I like, what I believe, what I'm all about. I was still snubbed by some women, but I also found that a lot of women were very receptive to me. I even managed to get some truly breath-takingly beautiful women to respond to me. I got to know some great women and some real bad apples too. Instead of trying to get right back in the saddle and regain what I'd lost, I tried to just make as many lady friends as I could, and study their personalities as objectively as possible, as friends rather than the romance crazed, mad committer that I once was. I talked to women from the UK, the Philippines, Brazil, Ukraine, and all over the US. I talked to women who were nearly 10 years older than me, and I talked to women who were nearly 10 years younger than me (although they were usually in too much of a hurry for me). I made a lot of friends and developed feelings for several women, but when I could tell things weren't going to work out, I usually was able to let it go without getting hurt (not counting the Brit I almost proposed to). I had a spreadsheet in which I kept a picture of each woman I was either actively communicating with, or had attempted to contact and was awaiting a response. There were 40 of them by the time I found my wife. I regarded them all as friends, though I was always tempted to go too fast. But since I was methodical and held back to the best of my ability, I was able to glean the best choice out of all the LDS women I could access throughout the entire world. I know that I found the one most able to put up with my idiosyncrasies and flaws. I enjoy her company and never worry that she will intentionally hurt me or betray me. I found my best friend. You can too. I don't know if this site has a policy against name dropping. I apologize if it does. In case it doesn't, here is a list of all the dating sites to which I subscribed and on which I was active: ldspals lds singles lds mingle lds planet single saints There were a few others, but I was never sure they were legit and I never heard back from anyone on them. My favorite site was LDSpals, because of the format. I felt free to create a profile that I felt adequately described me and what I was looking for. There wasn't a huge selection, but I did find a few great women there. With LDSplanet, it was kind of the opposite. The selection was huge and I never really made it through a night of searching on that site feeling like I'd tapped it out. I didn't like the format at all though. Too limiting. I wasn't able to build a very good profile there at all. Single Saints has a cool, unique feature, where you can send them a picture of yourself with your name written on it, and they contact your Bishop to confirm you are a member of His ward in good standing. Then you get a seal of approval on your profile. I don't know how it is for the ladies, but for me, I found the women on all the sites pretty easy to tell whether they were for real or scammers. But it's nice to be able to foster confidence in your own profile with the people who see it. LDSmingle and LDSsingles are almost identical, but I was on both. One has a color code personality test you can take and every profile is color coded, which I found helpful. The other site has a very similar personality test, but the results are not as easy to see in someone's profile as a colored bar near their picture. These were wonderful, happy days for me. I met some really wonderful women, and I chose the best among them. Marriage still is inherently challenging, as it should be, but this way I found the woman who is right for me. The challenges in my second marriage make me stronger, whereas the challenges in my first marriage weakened and corrupted me. I used to hear General Authorities talk about their wives and think they were just pandering or being charitable. I did not have a marriage like that at the time. My first marriage was a cyclone of contention, hostility, and pain. Now I know what they were talking about and I know they were on the level about it. Hope this has been helpful.

BOOKS: The Book of Swords saga by Fred Saberhagen (with the success of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies, I believe making a movie of at least the first three books is an imperative) GAMES: Someone has GOT to make a movie out of the first three games in the Thief series. I'd also like to see a movie made out of The Elder Scrolls 3 - Morrowind. Great back story, but informing the plot with all the lore could be difficult to do without being boring. NON FICTION: If it could be done right (with respect, honesty, and a LOT of detail), a movie about the life of Joseph Smith Jr. would be nice. Too many attempts without too few details to meet my expectations though.

Granted, this book is a self proclaimed theorem, and neither the author nor anyone on this thread is claiming that it is Gospel, it sounds like you're sumarrily dismissing it as wrong, using a story about different people discussing at least somewhat different subjects. You make a good point, that unless a General Authority, the Gospel, or the Holy Spirit says something is true, a responsible person should at least entertain the possibility that it's not true. That's a valid point and I commend it. Some of us are just trying to say that in absence of any authoritative statements establishing the inaccuracy of this book's claims, we find its theories to be plausible. Some of us have chosen to believe them at least for the time being, pending verification by the General Authorities, when or if that day ever comes, or opting to faithfully discard those beliefs should those same General Authorities proscribe it. No harm in that, I submit. After all, having an open mind is how I came to be a member of the Church in the first place. And that's worked out pretty well.

Absolutely in agreement there, Tarnished. If he's going to kick her out of the house, even for one night, he's got no right to demand she sleep in her car. That's cruel. If it was me, I'd go straight to a hotel out of spite. Then I'd order anything I wanted to eat from room service and have pay per view running all night. In this particular case, based on the side of the story we've all heard, we can all agree he's in the wrong. I just disagree with the notion that a person's gender makes them guilty or a victim by default, or that if two spouses have a fight, it is somehow to be expected that it's okay for the wife to kick the husband out of the house, but not the other way around. Unless there are circumstances such as an affair, fear for personal safety, etc., if it's just two people who aren't getting along, I disagree that the sole determining factor on who is the kicker and who is the kickee is gender.

Somewife, I have to tell you, I see parallels with my own failed marriage. She occasionally threw the D word at me. Like the time I caught her emailing love letters to an old boyfriend, and knew that she had seen him while out of state visiting her relatives, and demanded that she come home immediately. She got mad at me, like it was my fault, and said she wanted a divorce. Plenty of other times she admitted she didn't love me, though I refused to believe her. I tried to convince her that she did love, but she just didn't feel it at the time. She had a habit of going to visit her relatives out of state every once in a while. It got more frequent, the visits got longer, and eventually she didn't come back. We're about to get a divorce, and I'm finally at the point where it can't come soon enough. Nobody deserves to be treated the way you and I have. The funny thing is, we're the reason why we get treated like that, in a way. We can always leave. But we never do. We keep trying. We don't give up. We get emotionally abused and convince ourselves that it's just a fluke. And then one day, months after being abandoned, we finally achieve a moment of clarity in which we realize that was what our marriages were all about, and those happy times we remembered were only happy for us, because our spouse was all absorbed in himself/herself, and unhappy because they weren't getting everything they wanted, unable to be happy with what they had, what we tried to do for them, to be for them. You cannot please someone like that. They are impossible to satisfy. They are cold. They are distant. They don't claim you as a friend. They yell at you constantly. They treat you like garbage, and if they don't literally run you down and belittle you, they make you feel that way through the rejection and scorn that constitutes the bulk of their interations with you. My wife has been leaving me for years, but I never saw it coming. I will not make this mistake again. I do have one question though, for anyone who feels like answering, and I don't want this to sound like I'm taking the side of Somewife's husband in their dispute. Why can't a husband kick his wife out of the house? I've seen wives do that before. Is there some sort of chromosome requirement? I know if my wife ordered me to leave the house, I'd tell her she forgot to bring her army and then go find someplace to sleep. Of course, she'd come after me and follow me from room to room yelling and screaming at me and hitting me (and yes, this has happened before), until I just decided of my own free will to go find some other place to sleep. But you can bet your last dollar I'd either go to a friend's house and tell them all about it, or I'd go to a hotel and I couldn't care less what she thought about the cost. Anyway, I've gotten off the subject of my question. If someone stays and someone gets kicked out, are we really suggesting that the man has to be the one to get kicked out, that if he kicks his wife out then he's not a real man? But I suppose if the woman kicks the man out, that's just swell? Some of the comments I've read supporting this assertion strike me as kind of sexist. Maybe I've missed something here, and just don't understand.

What the heck? Hemidakota got banned? When? Why? What's going on around here? I've been away for a while but this is two people now I've noticed got banned and they seemed like good people to me.

What the heck? When did crazypotato get banned? And why?

My wife done "R-U-N-N O-F-T", as they say.

I should probably clarify. I am not feeling vengeful. It's just that when your so called spouse accuses you of abusing her verbally, emotionally, physically , as well as, um, in other ways, and physically abusing the kids, you can't just ignore it. I honestly can't deny that we never got physical with each other when fighting. I'm not proud of it, but I shouldn't have to accept being blamed in court as the only one who did it. I told my lawyer that I'm very scared about her accusations, and he has requested that she give a deposition to back up her reckless claims. Now, this is the physical abuse portion. The rest of her allegations are simply lies or outrageous, ludicrous exagerations. I'm not out to get her. I gave her almost $3k from our income tax refund. I give her $270 every paycheck, twice a month. This is voluntary, even though my friends disagree that I should do it. If she was willing to move back within driving distance, I'd prefer to split custody 50/50, even though I think it might be bad for the kids to spend that much time with her. But the fact remains that she is bad for the kids (for example, she has called them "G.D. retards", and one time in public and in a very loud voice), and she has, without justification, accused me of some very serious things. I have to defend myself. I can't say I'm not bitter, but I'm doing my best to keep a lid on it. I know I'm being nicer than she is, and I know that I have to take her allegations very seriously. She and her mom already bamboozled me into signing over guardianship of my oldest son, even though I very, very strongly didn't want to, because they convinced me that it was what my wife needed, for her mental health. They are bringing the pain, under the cloak of a smile. I'm trying to be as nice as I can be, but I truly do have to defend myself. Them having the oldest child (my lawyer said I will not be able to get him back, period), that makes it less likely that a judge will let me have the younger two. The deck is stacked against me and I can't just approach this like Marquis de Roxbury. She will not leave the greater Phoenix area. Probably won't even leave Gilbert. There's no getting around the reality that 50/50 custody is not possible in this case. One of us will get the younger kids (at least the middle one, as the youngest is not in school yet) for the whole school year. If I lose, I lose everything. And then I get to pay for it in child support. I hope that doesn't sound shallow, but it's adding insult to injury to take a man's children away from him and then take 25-50% of his income away from him on top of that. I don't know how guys that have been through that make ends meet. It's not that I want it to be this way. It's the situation I've been forced into. I wish I didn't have to defend myself.

I was going to answer baver3's question, but bl8tant did such an outstanding job saying what I was thinking that all I can say now is that i agree 100%. I have shuddered at the thought of bringing into the courtroom copies of pages from my wife's journals in which she writes about wanting to beat me to death (or nearly there) and abandon our oldest child in order to run off with an old boyfriend (and of course, from her perspective, it's all perfectly reasonable). I have shuddered at the thought of saying in court that my wife is just a child who is not ready to raise children herself, especially as a single mom. But after the horrible things she has accused me of, I have stopped shuddering, and have realized that I'm in the fight of my life. When she takes off the gloves, I overwhelmingly feel like I have to do the same, to defend myself.

I guess it kind of depends on how one defines addiction. Can you be addicted to something other than a chemical? Some people consider themselves addicted to gambling, shopping, extreme sports, dancing, or, uh, well, let's just call it "affection". None of these are, in and of themselves, chemicals. But on the other hand, they often are associated with increased levels of chemicals in the brain, such as dopamine or endorphins. So maybe one can still call them an addiction. Whether gaming is an addiction or not, I think most of us can agree that the important thing is to make sure that it doesn't come between family members, and that if it does, ultimatums and domineering behavior are not to be used as a first line means to address the problem. Some people game as a means to escape something about their environment that they cannot handle. Some people just get habitually carried away, lose track of time, etc. Whatever the reason for the perceived excessive gaming, I believe nothing good will come without mutual understanding and if at all possible, agreement. Trying to force a resolution to the problem without those things can lead to disaster. I'm not sure the best way to deal with someone who has at least temporarily lost the ability to control himself/herself is to rub their nose in it and place limitations and restrictions upon them. I mean, there need to be boundaries, but I think the most effective way to deal with someone who's wandered off the reservation is to coax them back into it, rather than chasing after them baring fangs and claws. That'll only send them running farther away. What worked for me was moving back home, spending time working in the yard and with nature, and feeling emotionally closer to my wife. But then, my environment and my "unsatisfactory" relationship with my wife were the primary reasons why I spent so much time gaming. When these were no longer problems, I didn't need that escape anymore. I got a positive solution. I've learned (the hard way) that one can never underestimate the value of shared interests, hobbies, etc. Those out there who have learned to both be gamers, to share in it rather than allow it to become a wedge issue, I salute you. We should all be so good at growing together instead of apart. That's kind of the point of marriage, isn't it? My next relationship has got to be with someone who "gets" me.

Well it wasn't all a vicious cycle of contempt and rejection. One thing about BPDs, when they're on, they're ON! It just happened less and less over the years. When we were courting, that's the only way she was. In the balance, I have to say, I cannot do that again. My spare tire may be more like an inner tube, but it's there. At that point, she knew I'd filed, but I had also decided not to serve the papers. I was not prepared to follow through yet and still didn't want to lose her, and I believe she knew this. We were getting along really well, considering that she wasn't living with me anymore. I thought we were still gonna make it. All I wanted to do was make sure that her psychiatrist was made aware that the person who had spent the most time with her and knew her best over the last 13 years had observed many of the symptoms of BPD and wanted to know if he could check her out for that. Only reason I didn't tell her what it was that I'm sure she has is that you're not supposed to tell people they have it unless you're qualified to treat it. The medication concern comes from her psychiatrist here, who had her on this cocktail of pills that did more harm than good. She's only taking two or three perscriptions now, and she and her mom think that proves something other than that she's happier now. And she's only happier because she is in her comfort zone again. Also, she believes that a person should be able to count on relatives to help raise their children for them. Around here, people are a lot more independent. Not to say she didn't have help. She just needed an unreasonable amount of it. And she never appreciated anything anyone ever did for her. But I digress. They're a little over 1300 miles away from me. I saw them in February, and my oldest flew out to see me in March. That's a little hard to manage because even if he flies out here, I have to drive all the way to Kansas City to pick him up (4 hours away). There's an airport much closer, but the airlines that fly through there don't do unaccompanied minors. Nah, I'm not chasing her anymore. I do NOT want her back, though I'd take her back if she got help and brought our children back home, but I'm off the hook there because she'd never do that. Problem is she and her mom bamboozled me into signing over guardianship of my oldest and I have my doubts that a judge is going to give me custody of the other two, splitting them up. That's what's got me depressed right now. Everything else is a little scary, but I can deal with that. Of course, I see no harm in trying to learn how not to make the same mistakes that you or any other woman's ex made. I see an opportunity to speak to a sane, kind woman about what didn't work in her marriage and learn how not to repeat that mistake on the man's end, and I can't help but want to learn. Men just don't understand women, so much of the time. To have one sit down and explain things to you is a golden opportunity, especially considering the stakes involved in marriage/divorce/re-marriage, etc. You don't appear to be uncomfortable with my inquisitiveness, but if you are I can back off. I messed up the finances one time and she took over. I don't know how sharing control would have worked, but it must have been better than never having so much as a dollar in my wallet, all the time hearing her complain that I didn't make enough money and wasn't ambitious enough. But that's a result of her being an ingrate that was never satisfied with anything that anyone (me or anyone else) ever did for her. She didn't want to share control. I was never encouraged to take any of it myself. She comes from a way of life that says that women are supposed to be the head of household, and if the man does anything other than bow down like a mouse, than he is a chauvanist jerk. I even noticed this outside of her extended family when I lived out there (8 years in total). This is why I'm not surprised that my wife and mother in law are utterly unable to understand that I've prayed about what to do and have consistently received an answer to stay right where I am and not move out there again. They just assume that I'm supposed to do what they want. Priesthood means nothing to them unless it acts as a rubber stamp to their matriarchy. Okay, now I'm sounding bitter. I digress.

I have to agree with Bini, though Funkenheimer makes a relevant point too. The video games themselves are not the problem, and are not inherently evil, as some will tell you. The problem is a person's proclivity to let the video games become more important to them than they should be. And making that decision gets more complicated when you have a family of your own, as the needs of more than just one person have to be factored in. But essentially, the problem is with the person who lets it consume them. It's kind of like caffeine, the way I see it. I once took half a box of caffeine pills to try to keep from falling asleep, and fell asleep anyway. I can drink a cola before bed and have no trouble sleeping (at least no more than usual). On the other hand, I know people who have to have a cola every so often or they get headaches. Different peoples' bodies react differently. Caffeine is not a problem for me, but if going without it gave me headaches (and I go without it often enough that I should know this), then I would know I needed to leave it alone, or at least put in place very rigid controls over how much of it I got. I used to have a problem with video games. I felt a very strong urge to play them whenever I could. My wife and I eventually worked out a schedule of when I could and couldn't, and if she left the house for a half hour or more, I'd sneak in some unauthorized game time whenever possible. It became a real problem. Now, I can say that my wife (soon to be ex wife, and for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with video games) and I never had the kind of relationship in which I would be encouraged not to play. In fact, the rejection and coldness were one of the things that drove me to play. I needed an escape and video games were it. This is why I encourage gamer's widows to take the following approach: If you want to break the addiction, you have to do it gently. Make sure you're not driving him to escape you. In other words, positively encourage him to step away from the games. Try the carrot before using the stick. When you do use the stick, make sure he understands that your concerns are deeper than how "hip" being a gamer makes him look to you, or he may start to do it just to spite you. Remember that removing an addition from a person's life is a lot like trying to remove a wart with a knife. It has become a part of them, and you have to take it slow and careful, and they have to realize that even if you do it's going to hurt, just less than if you tried to rip it right out of them. The slower and more careful you go, the less it hurts. But then there are some who prefer to just rip the bandage right off in one shot than to tug on it slowly. You just don't want to make that decision for the one getting the bandage taken off.

Time to come clean about my avatar. That's not me. It's Craig Charles, portraying the character David Lister from the British sitcom Red Dwarf, one of my all time favorite shows. In fact, the user name "it's Chet" is not my real name either. I borrowed it from Weird Science for my nickname during a game of laser tag several years ago and it just kind of grew on me. I use my real name when I private message people here, but in the open forums I prefer a degree of anonymity. Nothing personal. I'm just a little paranoid when it comes to online security. As far as weight goes, I've heard before that it says in the books that if someone my height drops below 135 his life will be in danger, but my frame is unusually small. I've had friends wrap their fingers around my wrists up to the kuckle joints. My ankles aren't much larger. I'm just really small boned.