You know the drill. You’ve broken up with your ex maybe you’re even divorced for a few years already. But you still have nobody in your life. Then something big happens to you and since you don’t have a new love interest, the first person you think of to share with is your ex. So you call/email/text him or her.

Is it because you want to get them back? I don’t think so. You know as well as I do that you left them for a good reason. But still you contact the ex. The memories of what it felt like to have a true love are addicting.

But like any addiction, you must change your behavior and surround yourself with new friends if you want to truly recover.

Creating good feng shui to support your recovery and help attract a new love opportunity means removing all memorabilia attached to former lovers from your environment. Get rid of all old photos, gifts, clothing, etc from your ex. Find out more at my Feng Shui By Fishgirl blog.

I’m skipping ahead a little since my last post but it seemed more necessary to get to the point. Cory and I will have been together 5 months tomorrow and we are already on our second pregnancy ’scare’. I’ve never been regular growing up but have been getting acupuncture treatments to help regulate myself and its been working great but now I’m 12 days late. Granted with the acupuncture its not always exactly 28 days but its usually pretty close. I’ve been getting symptoms of my period for over a week now yet I still haven’t gotten. I’ve taken three tests which were all negative, but it still hasn’t calmed our nerves. We are always very careful but things do happen (i.e. condom tears, slips off, etc). Neither one of us are really ready to be parents yet, I am more that he is. I’ve had years of experience taking care of other peoples children and he doesn’t know the first thing about kids. He is in the process of building a house and this is totally unplanned. We have discussed it and will make things work no matter what. Then we got on the subject of marriage..is he ready? No. Am I ready? Absolutely. Sometimes I worry though–we’ve been together 5 months and haven’t had a single fight–no argument, no disagreement, nothing. Is this a good sign? Or is a huge blow up inevitable?? I already know he is the one I want to marry, but its also a matter of how soon is too soon?? Nothing like getting my mind off marriage but going to a wedding with him this weekend…

Everything is difficult right now.

I am very confused as to what road I am going down in life. I have just graduated and all my friends have dispersed back around the U.K leaving me in a new house, with new flat mates who I have little in common with. I am living with my girlfriend for the first time, have an extremely part time job that pays a measly half of my rent a month and no other jobs have got back to me save for an unpaid journalism one that swaps reviews and articles for gig tickets.

I worry I will have to move back home. I worry that I will become a financial burden on my girlfriend. I worry the stress will break us up.

I have been offered the chance of a post graduate course but I have no savings and would have to get out a loan. The course would teach me a lot and would give me a better chance of a job afterwards. I worry about the debt but feel in a catch 22.

My girlfriend and I have been arguing. We have argued about her being nice to a friend of mine when she used to bitch and complain about him behind his back. Now they are pally when my relationship with him is frosty. He has a very cruel humour and makes the same snide jokes about me which my girlfriend laughed along with and encouraged him. With my lack of morale right now it was not needed and I have been avoiding this friend since. Alex meanwhile has been getting more matey with him and then accused me of self absorption and jealousy when the reality is I don’t want to hang out with a friend who will put me down for not having a job even though I graduated and he earns 16,000 a year in his bar job after failing the first year of university twice. He also repeatedly mocks other things about me because when he first met me I could not cook and needed his help to learn. To be frank he is a know it all fuck all.

Alex and I have also been arguing about other stupid things like her spending time dyeing her hair for hours and not spending time with me when it was my last day with her before going home for the weekend. She argued that I was upset over something silly but it was more that she took over our room that time and I was stuck in the lounge with the house mate who drives us both insane. Plus she said she would show me her hair as soon as it was done only for me to see she had put posey photo’s of herself up on facebook to show it off to other people. I know it’s stupid and petty. It also drives me mad that it is O.K for her to put up these pouty, sultry photo’s of herself alone but when I put my display photo of myself making a goofy face she accused me of wanting to be perceived as single!!

Just had to get that out. Hopefully things will be clearer tomorrow.

Joey.

Sometimes with all these so called “rules” of dating, I must admit I can be completely confused about what the heck I’m supposed to be doing. I also get confused when it comes to things such as telling if he “likes me” or if he’s “into me” or whatever it’s being called nowadays. And believe me in my quest for the knowledge to decipher everything that is going on in the mind of those men that I do decide to date, I have done so much research and book reading about the subject that if I could figure out the contradictions from book to book, I could write my own book.

So really here is the thing. As I have discovered in my continual quest, it is said that men who are interested in a woman will go out of their way to contact her. They will go out of their way to be with her. They will do all these amazing things that woman WANT them to do. They are attentive and caring, they want you to talk to them for endless hours, they never want to leave your side because they just can’t get enough, and on and on. But am I dating a human here? Or am I dating many clones of a single human? Can a guy really just be too busy with work and his life that even though he wants to call me, he just doesn’t have the time to call? What if this same guy meets all the ‘requirements’ of every other thing?

Here’s my confusion. As I stated prior, or maybe I didn’t, I have a ‘friend’ who I am very interested in. We have both been through horrible divorces and upon him one time initiating ‘dating’ he started getting weird and now we are back to being ‘just friends’ so that we ‘don’t ruin our friendship.’ If I view this from the perspective of the book, “He’s Just Not That Into You” I come to the conclusion that he really isn’t into me as anything more than a friend. And unless I’m fooling myself, there are many outside factors here that can easily contribute to this ‘dating confusion’ that I have going on here. Take for instance instead of what he DOES do, instead of what he DOESN’T do. On days that he isn’t working he will randomly call to ‘check in’ as he puts it, even if it’s only to talk with me for two minutes, just to see how I am doing. Keeping in mind that we live several hours apart now that I have moved, when we do see each other, he makes frequent lingering eye contact, he can’t seem to keep his eyes off me, and while he doesn’t make any moves to hold my hand or kiss me, there is an awful lot of very close and ‘accidental’ touching and body contact. His body language speaks volumes when I can see it. He leans in close to me, and for someone who hates being touched, he never pulls away when I touch him. He is, more often than not, very much within my bubble. The days that he is working, he seldom calls, seldom talks to me. But even then, on occasion I get random texts asking how I am, telling me how he is, funny smart-ass comments about people he’s dealing with. The times that he does call, we tend to be on the phone for hours. We’ll talk most of the night away.

Who’s to say that someone can’t have feelings that are so overpowering that they actually are scary? And do these books take this into consideration? Well, they claim they do. They say men will risk rejection because it’s in their nature and the end result just might be worth it. They say that men will not let being ‘just friends’ and ‘ruining a friendship’ interfere with what they want. But can this ALWAYS be the case?

Yesterday I awoke in our little loft converted bedroom, still with friction burns and still feeling worried about my embarassing predicament. After a shower I went downstairs to find my love watching “Myth Busters”. I don’t know if you have ever watched it but it is a fascinating show in which, au naturelle, they bust myths. They do this usually with the help of a dead pig which will then be blown to pieces, as though having a stun gun shoved up its arse to frazzle it’s insides wasn’t humiliating enough.

We decided to go out. As usual an hour and a half later we were leaving the house. The problem was that I had noticed a mild bubbling in my tummy that was flirting with the idea of gushing out of me. After five minutes of walking I shook my head, pleaded defeat and said I would have to go home. Alex tutted and said “It’s just like going out with my Nan.” Wow, the old bowel and bladder took a beating on their pride right about there. With the innards feeling bruised I left her but kept turning round to see her still standing there watching me and smiling. She loves how I walk. I don’t know why.

I got to Sainsbury’s and shopped for lasagne and lager shandy’s to surprise Alex with when she got back from sorting her phone out. It has been broken forever. Well, by forever, I mean a week. I then rushed home, relieved myself, and then realised I had forgotten the mince. Cue journey two to Sainsbury’s.

I love cooking. I went to University having never tried brocolli or mushrooms, with a complete inability to cook anything other than processed foods. It was with the patience of my friends that I gradually improved and gained confidence which is good because girls love a good cook! Along with good looks and vast wealth… but two out of three aint bad as Meatloaf sang.

After our lasagne we went to our sort of new local for a long island iced tea. There was an annoying scruff bag boy behind the bar who, with his Jonny Borell hair and cardigan on top of a twee checkered shirt, clearly thought he could:

A) Sing

and B) crack hilarious jokes VERY LOUDLY.

When he passed us Alex gave him an almost teenaged look of disgust which made me laugh. She’s so cute. We decided to have a little serious discussion about the house and whether we want to stay there. Alex said “I like the house. I love our room. I love our street. But don’t like the area.” I said more or less the same. Plus the house mates are a far cry from what I am used to. I used to live with my student best friends. Now I live with rich professionals which leaves me feeling like some infantile peasant that should be shining their shoes. Alex said she wants to take me somewhere hot this November but I don’t want her paying for me. I am flat broke due to my lack of full time work and my constant confusion as to whether or not I should do a Masters.

We then spontaneously went ice skating, holding hands most of the time. Neither of us fell over, but a girl doing the moonwalk who shockingly didn’t have eyes in the back of her head nearly smashed into me. Talented idiot. We had been told bad things about the ice rink but don’t believe the hype. The few rude gyal’s there wouldn’t even let go of the wall and at one point Alex held hands with one to help her along. Two hours later we went home feeling refreshed to have cuddles and watch “The Life of David Gale”. I’d recommend it.

That’s about it for now.

Alex and Joey.

The ex called today…man was that fun. Left me in tears for the majority of the day. He pretty much informed me that I never do anything right and that he ALWAYS pays for my financial mistakes. I guess that spending $200 that I didn’t really have on my oldest son’s dental work is a bad financial decision. He doesn’t seem to grasp that he is supposed to pay for 80% of all unpaid medical, dental, vision expenses and that he is supposed to also pay 80% of my work related childcare expenses as well. He makes SO much more money than I do that it’s completely ridiculous. I’m enrolled to go back to school, I start up again in October and have about nine months left until I finish my Master’s degree. At which time I plan to go on to get my PhD. This was construed in his mind as sacrificing the children for the sake of MY improvement. Why doesn’t he see that if I can make more money, this makes the children’s life easier, nicer, more comfortable? Why can’t he see that I am doing this not only for myself, but for the children as well?

He knows how much of an emotional person that I am, and sometimes I feel like he uses that to try to control me, or manipulate me. The thing is, he hasn’t been a manipulative person in the past and I don’t understand why this seems to be his new MO…I guess his changes have gone beyond the surface at this point. It’s sad that someone I have spent so many years of my life with now is a total and complete stranger to me.

So, it’s been two weeks (more or less, I am terrible with specifics. The good thing about having our anniversary on the 1st of each month is that it’s impossible to forget!) since Alex and I moved in together. It is going great and the best thing(s?) without a doubt is falling asleep with her everynight and waking up with her every morning. Another good thing is that she now has two weeks off work before going into another role so that means lots of cuddling up on the sofa, cooking lovely meals, having mini adventures around London and sexy times. The bad thing of course, with too much sexy time, is that I now have friction burns and am out of action for the next few days, putting on a brave face but inside screaming with the panic that I will never feel pleasure again.

I am not going to lie to you and say that we have a relationship without arguments. On the contrary. We are possibly the most schizophrenic couple with our changeable and slapstick behaviour that is reminiscent of school yard tactics of giving the girl or boy you fancy a dead leg or cauliflower ear, bully! I personally have a rather cruel joy in jumping out on people at the most unsuspecting moments which is why I now have a bruise the size of a 50 pence piece on my groin. Alex was carrying cereal bowls into the kitchen, I jumped from behind a door and shouted “Boo” and then felt like I had been kicked by a horse. I’m not ashamed to say that I cried. We have also bickered about food. Alex takes my food up to me in bed but when I cooked her a bacon sandwich she came downstairs so I said “It will be ready in a minute!” She took this as “It will be ready in a minute, my sweet fair maiden, do please thus put your pleasant physique back in to thine fine bed of feathers and clouds and sunshine flowers upstairs so I shalt bestow on you this most succulent of bacon sandwiches.” which is NOT what I said at all! She then told me she was going upstairs to brush her teeth, which I took as “I will be back down in a minute.” which is not what she said either….

Her cup of tea went cold.

Her sandwich went cold.

I got grumpy.

She was waiting expectantly in bed.

I stomped upstairs to ask why she hadn’t come down. She asked why hadn’t I brought up two scolding hot cups of tea and two plates of bacon sandwiches. I questioned her eye sight and whether she saw four arms on me instead of two. She threatened to throw her sandwich in the bin. I said do as you please. She microwaved it because it was “ruined” and ironically ate it after having it zapped with radioactive cells.

There is also my forgetfulness which makes me feel very terrible indeed. Yesterday we were meant to go see an ice hockey game after I finished work. It was a busy shift and my mind was blank as to what I had to do in the evening. To rub it in I thoughtlessly had a drink and chat with my work mates when we had finished before heading home to see Alex looking beautiful yet pissed off. She coldly gave me a hug and explained we had missed the game. She then asked if we were going to the zoo the next day and I had to tell her I had a wine tasting course at work. This was followed by me crying and saying I am a horrible person to be with and was very sorry. I hate letting her down. She’s my everything.

We are also a very competitive couple. Alex loves to win everything and be the best at everything. She was in all of her sports teams at school and was known for chipping ankle bones and nearly blinding a friend of hers by booting the ball in her face. I meanwhile, am a far more docile yet sly kettle of fish. I do not particularly care about winning, merely beating the people who are smug with their constant success. So games like Buzz on the playstation are more of an all out war. Play fights also tend to go too far, nearly always with Alex winning. She has good moves like bending my fingers backwards and putting my hand into a vice like lock then cracking all of my unwilling knuckles.

Our relationship is coming up to it’s ninth month but we dated exclusively for a few months before that. We both love reminiscing on the first time we met. She says the world stopped the first time she saw me under the spotlight. No, I wasn’t on stage singing Shirley Basey songs, I was just well placed in a darkly lit bar. I remember our first shy conversation and the way my words got all tongue tied in my mouth because she was stroking my inner leg and staring at me intensely. Alex is not usually like that with people. Her past relationships were a sucession of people asking her out, her shrugging and saying “O.K” and then it not really going anywhere because she wasn’t really interested. Our first kiss was amazing and we hated leaving each other so instead text and rang each other constantly. I couldn’t believe my luck. In this day and age it is very hard to walk into a bar and meet the person you will fall in love with and want to stay with to the extent you can’t imaging them not being around.

Recently she met my family and they love her. She is very good at first impressions with people, is very vocal, polite yet cheeky and to put in a cliche “can charm the birds off the trees.” My friend says she has “The X Factor” and I would agree. I meanwhile, am more introverted but have been told I have impeccable manners and make a good host when meeting new people. I love our differences as a couple. It makes us work.

Now going to make my love some breakfast. Ta ta.

I’m still working my way through this stuff, but I found a book online that was called “Men Made Easy.” I have started reading it and it seems to be a lot of things that I have known all along and just have refused, or unknowingly haven’t, put into action. I thought I would share this great find from Kara Oh and let everyone know about this book. Perhaps as I start attempting to implement these suggestions in my daily life, things will start to change for me.

Anyway, here’s to hoping right?!

I have discovered part of what it is about My Cute Boy that makes me feel the way that I do about him.

For the first time in my life, for the first relationship in my life, be it friends or lovers, I have found someone who is secure enough within themselves that they encourage me to be strong, independent and successful. For the first time I am with someone who does not anger easily, who isn’t jealous when I talk to other people, who doesn’t feel I need to be the quiet and supportive housewife that stands behind everything that they do. I have found someone who wants me to be exactly everything that I am. Strong, independent, social and outgoing.

My Cute Boy has been texting me all day while he is at work. This is very unusual for him as he usually is so absorbed in his work that he doesn’t even look at his cell phone until he gets off, which is a very positive thing due to the work he does. But today has been extremely slow. I was out doing yard work and told him that I needed someone to help come take care of my tree because I am afraid of heights. He told me I should get over my fear and take care of my tree. I told him that there were two things that I could not seem to get over my fear of, heights and grasshoppers. And he replied, ‘Why not fix that and be able to do anything?’ When I told him no way, he replied that he thought it was ‘endearing I was able to do anything but heights and grasshoppers’. Someone who wants me to always try to improve myself and yet is happy with the way I am? What is this??

My Love,

How many letters have I written trying to reach you?

Holding back all I fell for you and the love I NEED to share with you is changing me!

I am increasingly having difficulty concentrating on daily tasks and my spirit is becomming more depressed.

My loving and caring heart (for other people) is becoming numb with each passing day.

I must know what you want from this relationship… NOW!!!

As much as it is uncomfortable for you to speak to me, you simply must (in some way) explain what this relationship means to you.

I must know your hopes and desires for our future.

I MUST SEE A INTEREST IN SEEKING HEALTH FOR YOURSELF !!!

I MUST know what “Love” you want and need from me and what you do not… YOU HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT FOR ME !!!!!

Whatever I have done in the past; trying to bring you closer to me and building our love, has either been wrong or you have simply forgotten what my love used to mean to you.

I honestly feel you have replaced me as your husband with either the medications you jealously protect or a general lack of interest in me.

WHATEVER IT IS… you must respond to me. I must know if you wish to regain what we used to have or if you want something else entirely!

Time is vicious and waits for no one. Our lives are passing us by and we are just watching it from the sidelines!

All we have to do is remember what we mean to each other; how BLESSED we are to have this love; and start pouring it out on each other !!!!!!!!!!!!

I Love and Miss You!

Yo Man!!