What's Your Problem?

Oh goodie I got you to comment me! Please tell me that your strike is over! And as for this "friend" (uh huh sure its a girl) you speak of I have looked into my crystal ball and I saw "her" telling her children that if said microphone was not returned by Sunday night they would be spending the rest of their lives in their bedrooms. A frantic search will ensue right after breakfast tomorrow morning. I predict it, thus it will be so.

rotflmao LMAO LMAO too funny.... oh god it hurts.... umbrella OH boy rotflmao.

She is a GIRL. I have seen photos of her and she has all the girly bits that make us boys stare and render us all tongue tied. My strike is over. The Unions agreed the offer and a return to work has been made today. However, the 200 mile journey down from foreign parts has made me sleepy and I shall really get back into full production over the weekend.

kasamba.com is an online service for experts, and you could get paid for your advice on there.. you can set your own fees. Why not???? Give it a try! As far as my problems are concerned, if you REALLY want to know I could send you a message!! Thanks for offering.

I'm a little surprised I have gotten legitimate responses to this discussion and since I started it I feel obligated to see it through until the end. If you got the time to type it all out I got the time to read it. I'm no expert by any means and what I would do in someones situation is based solely on the type of person I am so there is no guarantee that my advice would work for you but if you really want to hear it I am happy to share. I've been through a lot and still managed to come out alive so lay it on me. I'll be waiting. As for the site you mentioned, I had never heard of it. I would feel awful if I couldn't devote a significant amount of time to it like I do when I sometimes don't get to get on this site for a few days.

I'm guilty of bottling my problems up inside of me until I damn near explode under the pressure. I'm working on getting better at that. Got to love the spring cold. I just recently got one myself. Plenty of rest and maybe some penicillin is all that you can do to get over it and on with your life.

I am going to be honest with you but you probably aren't going to like my answer. I may soon find myself in this particular situation with my sweetie working M-F from 9-5:30 and we working from Saturday through Wednesday 11PM to 7 AM and me and my honey have already had an argument about it. So here is what I said. - If you can't find time to arrange your schedule so that we are spending more than 2 hours a morning together then you obviously don't feel that I need to work. You obviously feel that I can quit my job so that I am available to spend time with you whenever you have the time to spend it with me. Who cares if we can't pay the bills at least we will get to see each other. - Be prepared for a lot of eye rolling and proclamations that that isn't what he is trying to say. Then explain to him how you feel. You aren't asking him to move mountains but 1 days shift isn't going to disrupt anyones world and if he would just ask the fill in supervisor he may be surprised to learn that they may actually want the ability to have a night shift so they can get stuff done at least 1 day a week during the day. The fact that you have taken the initiative and already talked to grandma about watching your precious baby girl should speak volumes to your husband about how much spending time with him means to you. If all else fails start treating him like a room mate. Make him make his own meals, split all the bills right down the middle and make him sleep on the couch. Tell him if he is going to act more like a room mate than a husband then that is how you are going to treat him until he is ready to commit to spending more than a Saturday with you.

I agree with what you are saying. I am not asking him to move mountians just days lol. As I'm sure you know we both have to work to make the bills. I am thinking that I am going to talk to my work about working a half day once a week come in late so that I can have some more time with him. But why am I so willing to change things but he isn't? Oh and about treating him like a roommate I do... I don't do his laundry or cook him dinner. If there is some thing leftover and he wants it hes welcome to it. I sleep on my side of the bed and stay away from his. (he won't sleep on the couch thats a whole other story) We are down to necessary communication and thats about it. It's sad I guess time will tell. If I can't change my schedule and he doesn't in the next month or so we'll have yet another talk with and ultimatum. By the way - THANK YOU!

"You can't make a Silk Purse out of a Sow's Ear." - Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745) Are you ready? Here is how to make a silk purse from a sows ear as detailed by the Massachusetts industrialist Arthur D. Little, who took Swift up on the challenge. From a meat-packer he obtained a form of glue made from the skin and gristle of sows' ears. Taking an amount roughly equivalent to one sow's ear, he had it filtered and forced through a spinneret into a mixture of formaldehyde and acetone. The glue emerged as 16 fine, colorless streams that hardened and then combined to form a single composite fiber. Little soaked the fiber in dyed glycerin. Then he wove the resulting thread into cloth on a handloom-and fashioned the cloth into an elegant purse thus proving you can in fact make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

I am going to assume you are faithful to your husband so that this STD could only have been gotten if he were the one being unfaithful in your relationship. You need to decide for yourself if you want to spend the rest of your life married to a cheater. No amount of counseling or medication is going to make that decision for you. Since both of you are working and your baby is sick constantly and she is at your in laws house while you both are working obviously she is being neglected while she is there. Take the opportunity since you are both about to be looking for new jobs as the way to fix this. Work different shifts so that one of you is at home with her almost all the time. Example : if you work 8-4 have him work 3-11 so that your baby is only with the in laws for a little over an hour before you go and get her. Sure you will hardly ever get to spend any time with your husband but considering the way your relationship is at the moment that may not be a bad thing and spending this time apart may make you both appreciate each other more. About 2 months I suffered my own bout of depression and my doctor thought the only way to correct it was with medication. I took the meds for a month but I also reevaluated what I wanted out of my life and I begin making little changes day by day to get myself to where I want to be. Today you wouldn't even know that I was depressed 2 months ago. Just realize before you start any of this that nothing happens over night and you have to give yourself some time. You'll be fine. Maybe not today or tomorrow but before you know it everything will work itself out. Good luck.

Thanks for your help. Its nice that someone like you is willing to listen to us.

Thanks for the advice, Cyn. I'm going to stick it out till the end of this academic year. He seems to be adjusting better (though we aren't home free just yet). I'll think of an option where I won't be teaching....but I can make the teaching aides from home and do consulting work. This is just a thought in my head...I still have another couple of months to make up my mind. I don't know how you do it....not be with your 2 year old for 10 hours at a stretch. You brave woman! I don't think I would be able to do it (that's why I quit a very high paying software job). Maybe I'll get used to it when(IF) I have more kids like you do:)

I don't leave for vacation until Tuesday, lucky you. lol I would continue working. My daughter just turned 2. Have you heard of the "terrible two's"? Well she is fully into them. Cranky almost all the time, evil when her schedule gets disrupted, and an all around terror when someone tells her NO! Being the 4th time I have had to experience terrible twos I know this stage will pass and it is possible that your 20 month old just got a jump start on his terrible twos and his mood too will pass. You should actually be happy that you get the ability to be with your son (even though he is cranky) during the day. I have to drop my daughter off 9 miles away from where I work and I don't see her for 10 hours. Not to mention she is waking up from a nap when I pick her up then it is "MOMMY this and MOMMY that" after we get home and I have to cook dinner, do laundry, and all the other chores that no one else seems capable of doing. So I end up putting my 6 and 7 year olds on "baby duty" while I am in the kitchen or laundry room. I'm sure your little one will be just fine after he gets adjusted. It is always hard returning to work after being home with a new baby. But in your case like with me and so many other working parents, the benefits of a two income household outweigh the crankiness and small feelings of guilt that come with the territory. As always this is just my opinion. I'm sure you will do what is best for yourself and your family. :)

rotflmao and what pray tell is the name of this anti depressant? I think I might need it!

I've seen people, good friends, family members alike, get divorced for what they felt were very valid reasons when in the eyes of others around them the "problems" seemed trivial and ones that should have easily been worked out. You need to sit down and talk to your spouse. See if there is any way to compromise on matters if you are sure that these problems can't be resolved. See if you both can be happy with the compromise. Divorce isn't a bad thing. People grow and change and sometimes they change into people that no longer get along. Try to talk your problems out before taking the step of getting a divorce. You at least owe that much to yourselves and each other.

You are tied up at home taking care of one of the kids while he can't keep a job for whatever reason. Hmm....seems too simple. Why don't you work and let him home to take care of the kids and his family? But I am sure you thought of that already and there has to be a good reason why you can't do that because for the life of me I cannot understand why that wouldn't be the first move someone would make in your situation. So if there is another reason why you can't work then tell him very sternly that you will not have the lives of you and your children ruined over his inability to keep a good. Tell him he has (x amount of time) like 2 weeks to find a job and keep it or you will leave. It may be an idle threat and one you have no intention of carrying out but sometimes you have to bluff to get your point across. Good luck!

Everyone gets one. lol Sure use me at a later date. In fact I am surprised that more people haven't come to take advantage of my offer. That is always the way though. Give permission and it's not fun anymore.

I only date older guys myself and I too find myself surrounded by guys more than 10 years my senior who take a liking to me. My soon to be husband is 6 years my senior and he has no children and has never been married. I am the one with 4 kids who is divorced but I take no offense to you not wanting the ready made family. You have every right to your ideals and you should not compromise something you feel so strongly about. But lets turn this into an example and see if your perspective changes any. You are 31. You meet a man who is single, never married, no kids, and is 37. You two could start your own family and both be young healthy active parents in your child/rens lives. Now take you at 31, meeting a man who is 45 who has a 12 year old and a 15 year old. His baby raising days are over, whereas yours haven't even begun yet. I think you would find it difficult to meet a man more than 10 years your senior who likes the idea of 3 AM feedings and 25,000 diaper changes. But I did say difficult, not impossible. Meeting my sweetie is proof that anything can happen. I'm talking circles around myself so let me try to simplify this and sum it up. Age is nothing but a number. It shouldn't make any difference to you or anyone else if you are 110% compatible with a man who is 50 or a man who is 25. When you and whatever man start to develop strong emotional feelings for each other have a talk about where you see yourselves in 5 years. See if you are still compatible. If you are totally against the ready made family bit now then don't compromise that issue for the "possibility" of what might be. But don't stress yourself out over an age difference. You are a bit too old to be any mans midlife crisis. (from what I understand older men what eye candy that is under the age of 25) I think what you need to start focusing on is finding a man (of any age) who has the same goals and aspirations as you do. Good luck.

Sorry but I have to interject here. For instance say you have found a man who was widowed. He and you become friends only becuase of your no premade family policy.. Which is your belief. We'll say his kid are 3 and 5 ... they are old enough to remember there mom but young enough to open their hearts to you..No you two end up spending alot of time together and you start feeling and emotional bond ...What do you do? continue on the band of a premade family becuase you feel that everysituation with a step mother and kids causes tentions in the new marriage or relationship? I hate to say it but there are always tensions in a relationship wether it has been things between you and him or things with kids that you have of your own with that person. There is never a relationship that doesn't have some sort of tension at one point in time. You don't alway have a happy happy joy joy relationship. So you'd throw away love that evolved from friendship just becuase their were kids? We can't help who we fall in love with. But I want you to know I'm not saying your wrong but I'm also saying you might find someone that is the perfect man you become friends and then you fall in love and then say I'm sorry you have kids. You then end up running a chance of losing the friendship that you built and the possible one piece that fits you...

I'll be here Neil. Thanks for stopping by!

I have 4 children of my own, the youngest being a 2 year old girl. And I know from experience that if a child isn't hungry they aren't going to eat. I suggest first making her lunch time earlier or giving her less to eat at lunch. If that doesn't seem to work try making dinner an hour later. If it is taking you about an hour now to get her to eat then I think it is nothing more than her not wanting food when you are trying to have her want to eat it.

Your parents raised you, it is only natural that you are going to agree with them on certain matters and about certain things. It sounds like your husband is one of those men who likes to always be right and when there is no right or wrong simply a difference of opinion he wants to blame that difference on your parents because then he can take it out on you. He needs to grow up and get over it. When rationalizing doesn't work with him try stooping to his level for a bit and write a list of things that you and your parents disagree on where you agree with him on those matters. Then when he tries saying your parents are influencing you, you have the ammo to turn the table on him (and his way of thinking) with a list of matters "he" could be guilty of influencing your opinions of. And at the end of that argument tell him you are your own person and your thoughts, feelings, and opinions are your own and if he can't accept you for the person you are he needs to take a long look at himself and ask himself why (if you are so different) he loves you the way he does. That gets them every time :)

Your comment says a lot about your own emotional maturity level xchris. Break ups happen. They are very very rarely ever a mutual decision so you have to expect some level of pain/heartache is going to be felt by the person who doesn't wish for the relationship to end. Also, don't be too quick to proclaim that you love her. (I was 18, 11 years ago and thought I was in love too, so I not trying to make this an age thing) People don't fall in love over night and I have met few people under the age of 22 who really know what they want out of a relationship, and even the ones that age or older who think they know still don't get it right all that often. Her being even younger than you also may have a lot to do with her hysterics every time you try to call the relationship quits. So here is what you do. You sit her down and you tell her that you care about her but during the time you have been with her you have come to realize that she just isn't the type of person you want to be in a relationship with. (Be prepared for the "but I love, I'll do anything, just don't leave me" speech) Stand your ground and tell her that you have made up your mind and you are sure that you two cannot continue to be boyfriend and girlfriend but if possible you would like to remain friends with her. Her feelings are going to get hurt. She is just a child (even though at 16 I thought I knew everything and was invincible)But staying with her in a relationship you don't want to be in is only going to cause more problems the longer you keep it going.

do you happen to have this novel in a digital format? There are plenty of places on the internet that will allow you to transmit your work to them via e-mail. (which saves on the cost of shipping it out) They certainly don't pay as well as a "real" publishing company would like double day etc, but you might find yourself making a few dollars off of your work. I would also like to read a little bit of your novel just to give you my opinion on it. I am a real finicky reader and if you can keep my attention and leave me wanted more you most certainly have a best seller collecting dust on your shelf. I would hold off on starting a new novel right now though. You are currently discouraged over your attempt that keeps getting rejected. I think you need to try other avenues of exposure before you give up on just how great the completed one might be.

Welcome to myLot Fadetoblack. Great username! I've been around for about 6 months and don't have any plans of going anywhere so if you think of something you know where to find me. And by the way...it would be "girls" like me.