Relationship Advice

I’d be satisfied with that too. I used to have a bunch but all of them have moved to distant locales where I hardly ever see them, and many of them don’t have email yet either, and that’s not the same anyway. There are people who I am friendly with who I see regularly, like the members of my band, and other people who I know from that and related activities, but they’re not friends like I could confide in them, talk about problems with them, or say ‘hey lets go have a beer/coffee/sandwich’ or whatever & just hang out. I know I need to be more outgoing, but again there’s always this feeling in the back of my head that I seem to have brought myself to that if I don’t absolutely *need* to be away from home & my wife, if I"m just out having fun hanging out or whatever, even if it’s really ok with her that I am, I get this feeling that she’s going to be pissed off at me for not being at home doing some kind of work or watching the kids so that *she* can be doing something. So I really pretty much avoid being outgoing because of this huge guilt complex I have going.. something I"ve gotta shake.

No, I wont follow my kids all over! But I can point them in the right direction… like my parents did with me! That is fine if they want to play with that cool kid, BUT they also need to know that the lil boy or girl sitting on the side of the sand box or on the swing is probably just as good of a friend as the one with all the cool toys! I will never shelter my children… i just want them to grow up loving and accepting EVERYONE… this world has way to much prejudice in it all ready… the last thing i need is my daughter coming home crying because we wont let her date the black boy, or the mexican boy or whatever… I want her to know (as well as my son) that EVERYONE is ok to be friends with. You dont have to put people in catergories of race, color, religion, or even shape or size.

I have a contest right now in which anyone can win who has enough guts to go on stage and tries to sing.. no talent needed.. people with no talent love it.. people with talent ask for a talent contest… I won’t do one..there are enough around of those and if you want to be a star, you’re in the wrong show anyway…lol… It’s great though to be able to give a sense of self-worth to some of these people… especially when they end up winning. There is one guy who always comes to sing in a wheelchair. He is severely handicapped, but he is able to think straight. He doens’t have the muscle coordination though and keeps banging the microphone against his teeth (ouch!), so I bought a foam.. which also solves the problem about other people feeling "disgusted" to sing after him (I have been told that). Anyway, he won some money last year and you can’t believe how happy he was. It’s moments like that that this business is worth the while, not when someone who has an awesome voice comes up and sings, cause they’re like sand at the ocean (including myself..lol).

I agree with you in teaching your kids about how to handle the situations and how NOT to make fun of others. My kids are young. I have an almost 3 year old and an 8mo old… and I will make sure that my kids intereact with ALL kids! For me, I was popular in school, and i did not push anyone away from me.. i think that is why i had as many friends as i did… everyone respected me for not being the one that sat in the corner and talked about "Johnny" who was 200lbs and wore glasses as thick as soda bottles! And I intend for my kids to be the same way! It really bothers me that this world has put us into "divisions" so to speak.. if you are over weight… this is your crowd, if you are Mexican you are in this crowd, and so on…. it is sad! anyhow… i really admire you Monika.. you are a very strong person!

I think the best thing you could do is to tell him that as of now you cannot be with him because of his drinking..not as friends and not as spouse.. however, also tell him that if he EVER decides to quit the drinking and is sober for 3 months or longer, he can look you up.. then you could be friends… maybe once he’s sober for a couple of years you can build some trust again. It WON’T work if you will tell him that you’ll stick around if he quits drinking, cause he will promise the world to you right now. (I think you know that by now). Give him AT LEAST 3 months of being sober (with proof) before you even start speaking with him again. Like you said, you need that clea break and he needs to decide what’s important in his life..the booze or his relationships. In Love and Light,

.I recently broke up with someone who I was in a long term relationship with. Although this person was the love of my life, he was a binge drinker. After three years of trying to help him stay sober,(it never worked) I asked him to leave.I know Im doing the right thing in ending the relationship,it’s the best thing for me and my kids (11&13)but it’s so hard cause I still love him. I have no intentions of getting back together with him, but remaining friends with him is something I would like to do but don’t think I can because of the strong feelings that are still there. I need to make a clean break.I am an extreemly strong person but this has been very hard for me. This man really had nothing in his life except for me and my children, and now that we have had enough, I know that he will go down hill from now on. I realize he is a grown man and that I am not responsible for him or his drinking, but it’s going to be the hardest thing to do to watch him drink himself to death and not do anything for him.I need some advice please.

I felt similar to how you felt during high school, except I was picked on for being smart and liking school. I was also called ugly by guys and talked about by the girls, but nowadays if I see anyone that I went to high school with who used to make fun of me they talk to me like high school never happened. Of course people change; people change all the time. Change is growth; it makes us stronger and more able to cope with life’s situations in our own unique ways. But it does hurt teens more than people think. I did some research on the psychological effects of bullying in junior and senior high schools for my Adolescent Psychology class this past semester. The statistics were astounding. Most teens who are bullied develop some form of depression and are more prone to contemplating suicide than teens who are not. And it goes both ways–bullies themselves struggle with their own insecurities and also suffer from depression. I feel for you, but boy do people come a long way as life progresses. We do need to take into consideration the worser cases of ridicule, however. Sometimes verbal pain is worse than physical pain.

t’s still going to be hard to "bring up the topic", just cause I know she has a hard time talking about this problem and I know the reason she even said anything was cause they just got done fighting where he told her that he would get a divorce if she found someone else to have sex with (I think I would’ve been mad too). She said that he had said he doesn’t feel like a man anymore and then she told me.. "Ha, he hasn’t been a real man for years".. (I presume this was sexually directed too, but who knows).. and I AM a little uncomfortable talking to her not just cause she is, but also because there are a lot of years between us. We can sit and talk about kids and stuff, but we never really talk about anything personal (until that conversation)…. so I think I will have to do it as a "joke". Or maybe have one of the guys give it to him or something. I know I’ll find a way, cause they are a sweet couple and I would hate to see them drift apart because of that. I know my parents have had fights like this as well (not so much over sex, but hurtful and accusatory fights) and it always just brings them further away from the love that they should be feeling… but then when something happens to one of them, they get all lovey dovey again and you can see they love each other… strange relationships with all that yelling going on…lol.

I think a "joke" cock ring might be a good start. I know folks who are "traditional" and old fashioned might find this difficult to talk about because they might feel that this is a "normal" part of aging. It USED to be that is what doctors told their patients; they were just as uncomfortable speaking on this issue as their patients were asking them questions. No longer; with the advent of Viagra, the topic of erectile dysfunction is out in the open. It is a FREQUENT side effect of diabetes and hypertension and most urologists get questions about this every day. I work in a VA hospital so most of my patients are men. You would be AMAZED at the little old 85 year old guys who want something done about this problem. If they do get the pump (which has to be surgically implanted), they are pleased as punch to tell EVERYONE about this and I almost expect some of them to yank down their pants to show off their "new toy". The sad thing are those that still feel uncomfortable even discussing this topic. It can really cause discomfort in a relationship; it is easy for the woman to feel her man does not love her any more or for a male to feel he is less of a man when all it really is is a "plumbing problem" that can be improved in the vast majority of cases.

but I have to add that people who put other people down usually don’t think they are 100% wonderful and that’s why they need their kick by putting down others. I have been getting a lot of crap from people when I was younger (I have never been skinny) and used to deal with depression pretty bad. I used to think :"Wait.. I’ll show.. I’ll make something out of myself and then you’ll see".. sort of like the song "How do you like me now"… now that I’m a successful in the Daycare and Karaoke business and I’m more at ease with my weight and actually like my looks.. I kinda find that I don’t really care about the people who used to make fun of me. They would probably be great friends nowadays..(most of them anyway, some people never grow up), cause kids can be so hurtful but when people get older they change (what would the world be like if they didn’t)… and if I were to tell them how much they hurt me back then, they would probably react like the people at Maurie Povich (I was a kid for crying out loud… I would never do anything like that nowadays)… so I gather, the person who wrote the nasty e-mail was probably some Teenager who is in an identity crisis right now and needed to assure himself that he’s a good looking hunk. No biggy. But I did want him to know that it’s not alright to do what he did, that’s why I responded… I’m sure if he does it to me, he does it with someone else and that someone else might just need his remarks to push her to the edge. Heck, he might not even realize how much it can hurt when you’re a Teen and you hear somehting like that… I do…. and I remember mostly cause of my diary.. a lot of self-inflicted pain back then, but mainly because society wasn’t very nice to me for being fat… nowadays I read the diary (I started putting that on my site too) and I shake my head… guys liked me back then and I would write about them and how guys would come up to me and ask me for the time, or start a conversation and I would write in my diary "He’s soo nice, too bad he doesn’t like me." roflmao nowadays.. some twisted thinking back then, isn’t it…lol… but.. that’s because of all the teasing I got and the self-esteem got lower and lower until I almost was to the point to commit suicide…at that point I really don’t know what happened, but it started going up from there and have been ever since. I guess if I was an alcoholic I would say I hit rock bottom..lol