The Silent Beginning of a Mid-Life Crisis

It's true. Both parties made a promise, for better or worse. And I think that being loyal to your marriage, in the end, leaves you better off at the end of life. Two people have a history of making it through very difficult, trying years and get the sweetness of the good years. Undeniable.

Hi Anonymous,

I agree some women may try to sanitize thier own shortcommings and defend one another, just as many men do and have done for centuries. Remember, women have suffered as second class citizens in a male dominated world for centuries, and in many countries including America, they still do.

Its a male dominated world when I last checked, and yes, we are breaking that glass cieling but its not broken yet. Since your NOT a woman, you obviously wont relate to Dorothy as she is a female character but WOMEN DO !

I have a theroy for you contemplate, "Peter Pan". Men dont seem to object to being compared to the storybook character Peter Pan, who ran off to netherland because he didnt want to grow up. And everyone knows its a well documented scientific theory of behavior in men.

Now, I do want to tell you that I do agree, men are bashed horribly and women are usually given a light hand concerning the same issues. So I do relate to what your very well put point that men are not sympathized with enough. Im thinking that perhaps its because women verbalize our feelings more like in this forum and men tend to with-hold thier feelings or bottle them up. Women are more vocal.

The periods are spaces between words we use as a pause instead of writing the word (pause). And it also has other uses like drawing attention to a preceeding word or phrase or just because we like to put periods in our writtings as an art form.

I do feel the negativity, in your writing and Im wondering, if you have cheated on your spouse or were you cheated on ?

It may help to talk.

Bobbi Bacha, PI Blue Moon Investigations, Security and Protection www.pibluemoon.com (281) 332-1622

I totally agree with what you have written...you don't write a poem to the lifeguard asking them to save you. But my mention of the book and the inscription was just one of a plethora of tactics to get my husband's attention at that time, which also included sitting down at the kitchen table and spelling it out in no uncertain terms how I was feeling. We even went to marriage and family therapy, which ended up just being a contest on who could convince the therapist who was right or wrong or the blame game. All efforts were met with dismissal or an insistence I was making a big deal out of nothing. It wasn't until I had a complete emotional and physical breakdown that my husband woke up and smelled the coffee. We were at the precipice of falling off the cliff directly in to divorce.

I am a trained communicator...I applied every theory...and method that I knew how to use but until we both realized that our very lives as we knew it were at stake...it was then and only then that we both had the eyes to see and the ears to hear. It was a bare bones realization...it was our ability to meet each other in the middle, setting aside the score keeping, the blame, clearing the field of pride, ego and past indiscretions and mistakes...being able to see each other for who we were and that we only had control over ourselves and NOT each other. It was then that we became a team again, friends again...a couple again. We had sufficiently torn down what we had built up over several years of marriage through neglect, taking each other for granted, being consumed by raising five children and dealing with the things of every day life.

I appreciate your response...but do not assume that I just gave him a book, a card...minimal gestures to let him know that our marriage was in deep trouble...no...I was quite in his face about the storm that was on the horizon...I saw the tornado...I told him several times it was coming...he chose to ignore me and not wholly participate until the tornado had hit and destruction occurred. It WAS like I was screaming and no one was hearing me. I am thankful that he finally heard.

What if you sat down with your spouse, said you were in great emotional trouble, and they wanted you to give them a full run-down of everything and a plan for what to do next, and you only had a vague sense of wanting to run screaming away?

Why? And what next?

Do not speak to friends about it. They will just try to say what they think you want to hear i.e. “you are probably better off without him” etc. they WILL assume that you have already basically decided what to do and just need a little validation to get on with the “inevitable”. Alternatively they will be bitter people who have ended up divorced but under no circumstances will ever admit to anyone that perhaps it was not a good idea to divorce after all. These people are NEVER wrong – it goes with the territory.

Where can you go for advice then? Certainly not members of the opposite sex in person or via internet chat/email. A little intimate detail or “my husband doesn't understand me” will get you into a hotel bed before you know it, even it it starts on-line (as my wife did – and yes, it was totally out of character for her). The places to go are this site and others like it. www.divorcebusting.com is excellent and has many threads by (almost and actual) Walk Away Wives – check out the Walk Away Wife Syndrome at http://www.divorcebusting.com/a_walkaway_wife.htm. The pain of those affected is also very apparent. I noticed some relevant posts recently by sandi2 and AmyC starting on http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=... and on the subsequent pages. Also the “I cheated” thread is enlightening http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=.... Also the “I wasn't looking for an affair...it just happened” blog at http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=.... It puts things in perspective when you see that you are not special or unique after all. Lots of other people have done exactly the same thing or are in danger of doing it. Check the excellent humorous article http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=...

Try to remain emotionally connected with your husband. Take pride in what you have achieved together and remind yourself of these things when you find yourself tempted.

When you tell yourself that you have told your husband what you need over and over for years add this phrase in your head “no, I have not really told him”. That guy is supposed to be your best friend. Talk to him – do not expect that marriage gives you both telepathic powers.

Your husband will never be able to compete with a stranger. The thrill of the unknown. The rush of feeling young, alive etc. He will always appear happy to see you. Depends what you want long term – new man will become old man at some stage as well. The grass is rarely greener. His feet will smell when he stops specially showering just before meeting up with you each and every time.

It occurred to me that at work we have “supervision” sessions once a month because it is recognised that despite all working together in the same room, we often don't get around to discussing stuff that is bugging us no matter how obvious it is to everyone. We need these sessions at home as well!

There is no “you” to find anywhere else but where you are now. The choices you made to marry, have children, where to live etc. are what defines you. When we were younger and had no responsibilities or commitments guess what? We did not manage to “find ourselves” then. Why would we stand a chance of doing so now?

Yes, you are young at 27 but the 10 years of marriage is what does it to us. Mid Life Crisis can be a somewhat misleading term. 2 years of feeling that you need to “find yourself” I believe means you are in great danger now and probably very vulnerable to an affair if circumstances conspire. If you can ride out this phase you, your husband and your marriage will be fine. Don't tell yourself that you will feel like this forever. Practical steps to stop feeling like this? No idea really – I am a man. However, worthy hobbies (learn to play a musical instrument), exercise and a challenging job I believe must squash these feelings. How can one have time to thinks about “finding” oneself with umpteen challenges waiting for you the next day? I know my wife's brain went to mush by settling for temporary jobs on returning to work after bringing up the children (she liked the way that there was “no commitment” this way – should have taken notice of that comment!) and playing solitaire on the computer for hours. Add a bit of attention from younger men at work and then on-line chat in a computer game and it is fatal. We were failing to communicate as life got in the way, she had no interests (so had nothing to talk about), we both did our own thing.

I have just seen the latest part that you have added and it is excellent that you are trying to change and grow. Do not feel guilt. Be very aware though that your words clearly announce that you ARE in the process of losing respect (and therefore falling out of love) with your husband. Because you both are not TRULY communicating, he is probably like I was – terrified. Scared that things might be going wrong, confused that my wife seems interested in lots of new stuff. He will asking himself “where is she getting these ideas from?”, “is she having an affair?”, “if I say something will it be the wrong thing?”. He will then settle on keeping quiet and hoping for the best. This is the last thing you both need.

The one person who really needs to see what you communicate here will not see it - your husband. It is unlikely that you will have been communicating as explicitly to him as you do here - you will not be alone though.

Be careful of the “not nearby” and “not romantic” justifications of forum chat. My wife used an on-line shoot-em-up game. It started innocently, got flirtatious VERY quickly (a recognised characteristic of on-line chat) and ended up in a physical affair within 2 months of beginning the game. He lives 100 miles away – so also “not nearby”.

Think LONG TERM about what may happen. Years, decades – not days and months.

Hang in there. Communicate like you have never before (different ways, locations etc.). Don't do anything rash. Take a break (avoiding any possibility of temptation). Take care. You chose to get married to your husband for a reason or many reasons – recapture that.

Yes, I hope we can remember that sometimes the other person in the equation cannot be expected to get what they don't get. It's not fair to tell someone "I want to leave" when they see things as fairly normal and never heard of a midlife crisis or took the notion as a real thing.

How many of us went through our terrible twos and got called bad children because we were loud and oppositional and not rational. It happens a lot. And when you're grown up, you're expected to handle yourself well. But an MLC is a lot to handle.

Sheperdess56, I appreciate you as a women if you actually sat your spouse down and tried to tell him there was a large issue brewing. I for one was left to come to the realization long after it was too late that as I looked backed over the years, yes, there were those "silent screams." And as I told my ex, each one in a vacuum, I just wasn't good enough to make those connections. And because I couldn't, I didn't even get a chance. The game was over before I even knew I was in one. I believe I am the absolute rule and you as a MLC spouse that actually tried to do something other than given in to it all and accept the destruction is the absolute exception.

And to the person who brought up the "silent screams," if your point was that women should given a little more latitude because they were really trying and we men just couldn't figure it out, it is simply unfair. The life changing ramifications are too great for success or failure to measured by whether a man can decipher a riddle over a period of years. At least tell him there is a riddle to be solved.

Dear Shepherdess,

I’m so sorry that your husband never read the book you gave him, thus making your attempt to get his attention a failure. But also I’m sorry to tell you that I knew that your chosen method of communication would fail as soon as I read your words to him “I have given you many books on various subjects. . . yet they remain unopened”. The book-giving method wasn’t working, and yet you carried on doing the very thing that wasn’t working. It was never going to work. Like taking out an ad in The Times newspaper, when he doesn’t even read The Times.

May I share my thoughts on communication with you? Sending your S.O.S. in the form of a book, written by someone else, may have been too difficult a code for your husband to crack. I would have suggested instead: 1. Sit him down at the kitchen table 2. Ask for the tv or radio to be turned off 3. Say to him “I have something extremely important to talk to you about and it may take several hours. May we take a couple of hours this evening to discuss our marriage and my happiness? I have never been more serious. If we do not talk about this soon our marriage may not survive.”

I truly believe the above words would get a husband’s attention.

If I was drowning in the swimming pool I’d holler as loud as I could - I wouldn’t write a poem to the lifeguard. The book idea seemed to me to be somewhat fanciful anyway. But I’ll go along with it and say ok we’ve learnt several times over that he is never going to read a book, could we perhaps find a DVD on the subject instead?

If we really need to communicate with someone over an important issue, then we must find a mode of communication that the other person is receptive to.

I'm still not understanding what to do. I mean I get that I should try to be appreciative of what I have and try to save the marriage...and I am. That's why I am seeking answers now. For me, not fearing something (health or otherwise) is best dealt with by comprehensive research. So that 's why I'm here, there, and all over the place seeking to understand.

"Our individuality doesn't matter that much all our lives and then when we get to a certain point in our lives, we have to become an individual and stop being a role we play."

I agree this is what it is all about. I have left a good career and moved the family 4 hours from home to return to school full-time, so I freed myself from most of the community constraints. I have started reading more again, listening to different types of music, slowing changing my religious and political views. I have made friends on the internet, but not nearby and not of a romantic nature. Through forums mostly, just extended conversations of what was interesting on there.

I feel good about wanting to grow but my husband seems negative "not knowing who I am." How can I tell him if I don't know?

So I feel torn between feeling good and feeling miserable. If he was supportive, he COULD be the one thing that stays constant through it all. But when he makes me feel guilty about what I'm trying to keep as positive changes, it makes me want to just get rid of him. I have tried to regress in my personal development to stay on his level, but that invalidates everything I'm proud of and destroys my sense of self.

I'm sorry all the men here seems so hurt and bitter. I hurts and I honestly feel for you. I don't like the thought of being another story written here in the future by my husband. How do I maintain a balance?

What about the husband who also read the book - two years after it was published - because he had seen seevaral other marriages vaporize abruptly. I was ready, I thought. My wife began to withdraw a little. I felt her unhappiness and sensed that she felt she was living in an invisible box. I couldn't figure it all out but I knew enough to tell her I knew she might be having a rough patch and I was available to talk with her. I didn't want to prod or push. I could not have been more available withougt becoming instrusive. The bottom line is I was there. I'f get home an hour or so before her and fix supper. We have a child. She'd come in, glum and angry it seemed. She'd change immediately nto dumpy sweat pants, snipe at me about the way I prepared dinner or cleaned the kithen and then retreat to the bedroom to watch survivior or american idol or hollywood tonight. She'd have tumbler of wine and People magazine at her bedside table. I'm doing the homework and puting our child to bed. Lookng back, I remember how awful it was. She'd complain about bills, about having to work, about me driving an older but very serviceable car, about hosue being too small...We both have dream careers, a house in one of best communities in the state. She agreed to counseling. She quit after two sessions. She has done this before. Whenever the sessions focused on her childhood, relations with parents she'd walk out and blame the therapis. Couples counseling went the same way. It was always fine when the focus was on me and how I could work to help the marriage. When it turned to her there always was an excuse whey she couldn't go. Had to work late. Sudden cold. etc. Drining accelerated. She was taking anti depressants the the time. Then came late night "I have to get some work done on the computer sessions." It turned out she was contacting men on the internet and had set up a correspondence with three other freaks. The phone calls lead to late night phone conversations. 1,2,3 a.m. in the morning (These guys, perverts lived all over the place.) I never suspected any of this. She forgot to log off one night and I saw it in the morning. Then I check phone bills and had the phone company email me records for the past year. Unbelievable. She was busted. I moved out. She begged me back in tears . Promised counseling. Again she quit after a couple of sessions. refused couple's work. I became an enabler, stupidly hoping that things would organically work out. I accept my responsibility for this. Her work required her to go to conferences. I found her little brown book. More phone numbers - all men. She bought hrerself a blackberry and this time, put the account in her name. She went too AA for her drinking. I saw this as a hopefull sign. She ended up bonding with two women who were pretty sick people. They were probably sober but really miserable and destructive. My wife loved the setup. She had the perfect place to nurrse hwer codependency. A next of needy, needy people. This is not to knock recovery. AA is wonderful. Some people abuse it. So now, instead of just my wife, I had three women in my life. My wife began to bond emotionaly with these women - who, btw, were divorced, one unemployed, one barely so. My wife felt needed with these women, superior. One day, with our child, away at camp we had dinner. I wanted to talk. My wife avoided any intimate conversation with me. My wife struck first. After telling me tht the purpose of her life at this point was to have fun and be happy at all costs, she said she wanted out of the marriage. Nothing else mattered. This was all about her. She loved me but wan't getting to have fun like she wanted. She wanted a man who would take care of her - earn enough money so she wouldn't have to work, buy a bigger house, a newSUV - we have 2 cars, clothes and travel. She said her friends told her that the problem with her life was me. I was too content and would never see life the was she does and I wasn't making her happy. She ordered me to prepare to leave the house, and begin handing over half my salary for alimony. Her friends had already told her to ask for this. Of course I said no. Two months later, the friends help her move into a new apartment. They helped her buy new IKEA furniture, hang curtains. (The one good thing about this is that she depended on her friends of legal advice. These people are plain ignorant. I had good legal advice and was always 3 steps ahead of her.) Two weeks after moving out, I'm getting phone calls from dating services she had registered for. I also found her name on match.com - married but separated, lied about age, weight, she likes thunder, lightening, sports and erotic sex. We go to court next month for divorce hearing. This has been insane but it's a significant milestone for me. After all this, I feel wonderful to be this close to cutting her away from me. I think that you have good advice. Silent Scream? I'm sick of hearing about it.

My post got held up as I had used some links - it has now been reinstated but appears before some earlier posts so you may miss it if you only looked for the last entry. Please check it out as I spent ages on it!

It is called "Why? And what next?" and "This is what and why next again" and appears as comment 3 on page 3.

This brought me some tears. It's so true. Last winter I was in a state of realization that I had nothing of my own. The children take lots of attention and support. The husband is in need of a lot of love and consideration and I know it, and that puts me last. I don't need a massage or a facial--I need a me inside here.

"The withdrawal is an indication that the women is dealing with her "fight or flight" instinct....she has grown tired of the "fight" and is trying to squelch the "flight" instinct that she is continually feeling."

I've never thought withdrawal as flight but I can see that this is exactly what it is.

Wesley Hein Wesley [at] lifetwo [dot] com Sign up for the LifeTwo Newsletter!

This past week I noticed that I didn't want my husband to make any gestures of affection like the hugs and pats and the arm around the waste while I'm standing in the kitchen. I tried to avoid it. I even made gestures like dodging away suddenly. And it must have looked playful to him, but I meant it! I didn't want to be touched like that. In the past I've said, "Don't touch me," but he didn't seem to want to believe that I could possibly be offended by those little gestures of affection. And, I don't really understand it myself. What's wrong with me? We used to do those little things to, I guess, connect in a casual way. Now I'm withdrawing from it but he doesn't see that.

This is part of the silent beginning, I think. I've been in my midlife transition for a year now, and I guess it's not something that passes cleanly away. I'm still struggling with it. It's an "I love you and I hate you too" kind of feeling.

Logically, and judging from what I read in here, I ought to be so very thankful I have a loving spouse. Or should I? Should I force myself to think grateful thoughts, or should I speak only the truth? Or should I just keep my mouth shut to avoid giving any pain? I want to be left alone--is that so bad?

This woman's post is the biggest pile of bullshit I've ever heard or read. It's interesting that when a woman writes about a female "Mid-Life Crisis" it's completely sympathetic, and involves poorly-written rationalizations such as this post. So, the woman Earth Mother Gaia Goddess is "drowning", "fighting for her life", fleeing to "save herself", et cetera. When a man has a so-called Mid-Life Crisis, and strays or runs away he's called every sort of foul name, and he's referred to as childish, weak, and pathetic. The "Dorothy Syndrome"? Oh, my God, that's too funny. Thank you, though, for one of the biggest belly laughs I've had all week. I just love the politically correct, estrogen-infused, Oprah-ized, man-hating culture we live in nowadays. There's literally no sympathy at all on the part of women for men who are suffering, scared, and unhappy. Look at the post from "Lisa". She calls her loathing and rejection of her husband a mid-life "transition". I love the way women sanitize their speech when talking about their own neuroses, illnesses, and contemplation of greener pastures out in the world.

By the way...What's with...all the...periods...in your...post?

I'm just sayin...

Okay. It's just started to be clear to me how a description of my struggle gets taken as an indictment of the other person in the relationship.

Or, it can even begin to look like marriage is hopeless, if Venus' path moves far out of Mars' path. What do we have in common after that?

But I think the real enemy is a kind of a specter. It's the ghostly hovering expectations of what and who we thought we were supposed to be, based on models we were shown.

Even the models are not to blame! The good wife, the good husband, the good family...we looked at them in cross-section from time to time, and only on the surface, never realizing that every couple has problems and over the long run it's not always lovely to be married.

The specter is that when we were young, we thought we'd be different. We thought we could have that shiny model marriage. So I, as a wife, tried to act like the good wife, never dreaming that I shouldn't have to act like anything. And, maybe this is just me but I made a promise when I was a kid and I have to stick to it, even though I have so many thoughts I am not permitted to say out loud, according to my own rules.

So, blame and bitterness can't stick. Only a search for understanding and a light on what a good next action might be.

I'm just saying, too...And asking.

Actually, my wife and I are very, very happy together (for over 12 years now), and, because of that, I admit, we're almost universally loathed. When we were younger, though, we had no troubles with other people around our age. Now, we're both over 40, we both look at least 10 years younger than our ages, we're both thin and in great physical shape, we have no large debts such as a huge, ridiculous mortgage, we have no children and we're EXTREMELY thankful for that. Kids ruin your life. We have no responsibilities to anyone but each other, and we love it. We're constantly laughing, we spend all our time together, we think almost everyone else in society is a fat, lazy, over-indulgent, frightened, miserable moron who blindly followed the rest of the herd like a brainless automaton wildebeest, without thinking about what life would be like if they actually did what they wanted to do. We're totally free. My wife's brother, who is a cocaine abusing alcoholic and habitual aldulterer with a wife and two kids he hates, recently threatened me physically because my wife and I were at a wedding smiling at each other and hugging briefly, and he happened to see it from across the room (no kidding...that's all we did). He was drunk, and totally out of control, as usual, and trying unsuccessfully to pick up another wedding guest who was about half his age.

Listen, believe it or not, I have great sympathy for people who are so unhappy. But, I'm really getting tired of shrill, angry women who just HAD to have a husband, kids, and a house by the time they turned 30, and then, at 40, they find themselves fat and unhappy, and hating their husbands. It's not necessarily his fault, you know? It boils down to this: Stay young, stay thin, don't have children, don't participate in our country's useless consumer culture, avoid debt, and try to laugh a lot at the world, life, and the idiocy therein. Believe me, jokes work. Otherwise, from everything I've ever seen in my 45 years, you're just going to end up overweight, miserably unhappy, sexless, and divorced.

If so, this is a good place for you. People are doing all sorts of things you don't agree with. I am too. You probably wouldn't like my big butt, either.

I'm glad you're happily married and the two of you agree on who's worse than you. It gives me hope.

Lady, you're obviously looking for someone to dump on. I knew you were overweight, even though it's hard to see you in your very small photo.

Actually, honestly, I don't wish to engage anyone in anything. My original post was simply a comment on the moronic fairy tale fantasy post which started this thread. The woman who wrote it sounds, literally, like a delusional crazy person. She's talking about "Oz", and "Dorothy", and the lion, and all the rest of it. And, she means it. She really thinks the world is like this. It's actually frightening that such disturbed and ignorant people are walking around in society. True, I mentioned you in my first post, because you sound like every other angry, man-hating married woman I ever heard. You sound like a dishonest and unfair person who seems to want to hate your husband with impunity, and have us all agree that, yes, men are evil and unfeeling scumbags. Well, as a reader of this forum, I have my doubts about a lot of the bullshit people post here, because it's always the same "I'm grossly unhappy, and it's all his/her fault." Please, for your own sake, cut the shit. You probably were the sole architect of your own miserable and unhappy life, and you should admit that, I think.

As far as my supposedly disagreeing with what other people do, actually, I couldn't take the time to give a shit, really. What other people do doesn't interest me in the least. Most people are stupid, religious, obese, whiny jerkoffs, who take no responsibility for their own troubles while they max out their credit cards buying crap they don't need. I may notice these things and comment on them, which is my right, but I don't really care at all what you or anyone else does with his or her life.

Glad I could give you hope, though. You sound like you need all you can get. It's a shame.

If you are so happily married, living such a wonderful and perfect, childless life, why are you commenting on Mid-Life Crisis threads and taking pot shots at someone who is searching for answers?

You, my anonymous friend are a coward and have no clue!. The fact that you can comment so strongly on my article and then attack another LifeTwo member with such ridicule and anger is NOT the demonstration of any honorable man that I have ever met. Go ahead and be so judgemental of others...you are a liar when you state that you have great sympathy for those who are unhappy, for if you understood the dynamic of how MLC in men AND women destroys marriages, breaks up families and damages children, you would not be so critical of what I write, speak and coach on. I would dismiss your uninformed, misguided, overly critical and similiarly woman-hating bashing of what I have written, but you have taken it upon yourself to attack a reader that actually might find help in what I have written and the extensive research I have done on this topic. Take your pompous, judgemental, angry comments elsewhere...YOU are helping no one!

I would just like to say i think that what you have said about people that chat on this site is disgusting children are a wonderful thing to have created and i am so grateful i have them i also have a fantastic marriage i have still got this marriage because a lot of people on this site listen to me and gave me great advice we cant all be peter perfects which obviously you are. Also you have got a hang up on fat people which im sorry in this day and age is very sad fat people can also be very fit. i am fat because i am on steroids for an illness does that make me a bad person? should i stop taking my meds get thin again then, but oops i will be dead so what would you say i should do . i personaly think you should think before you say things cause you make yourself sound a complete arse. and when you are old sitting at home on your own think of us with our children and grandchildren and who will be missing out then.

I am going to take the sweetheart message out of your post, and say I respect that you seem to have a caring heart, couched in all that violent, negative talk.

I'm not here to defend myself against you, and the problem with what we're doing here is that LifeTwo is a wonderful forum and if we start an ugly exchange, it hurts the forum. So I must withdraw from responding to you. I shouldn't have started.

I care about the people at LifeTwo who are undergoing midlife crises and like you I know there are people who have been hurt by spouses undergoing MLC and I want to speak with them too.

It doesn't sound like you're dealing with a MLC. If you were, or had dealt with it, you'd have more empathy. So, while it's kind of interesting to see how we look from the outside, speaking for myself I don't have time or energy for old fashioned tear-downs. And your judgment only means anything to you. Please keep it.

I didn't say I was fat. I said I had a big butt.

I'm not defending it, it's just that a percentage of women of Western European extraction have wide hips and big butts and strong legs.

I used to think I was defective because I didn't have very nice bodily proportions, and I've worked through that issue and have appreciation for my good health, strength and ability to heal. It's wonderful to appreciate these things while I still have them, as I understand they might be gone one day.

Now that I have that insight, I work hard to see other people, with all their flaws and signs of aging and whatever their habits have done to them, for the life that is in them. Everyone has a gift and I'm trying hard to exchange my old, cold way of thinking for a more loving one. And I'm trying to move through this crisis in my life with self-respect and willingness. But I get angry and I look for answers, and I'm changing and I'm sick of the Dr. Laura proscription. (Not dogging her. I like her a lot.)

The Dorothy story is a wonderful metaphor and I look to it for creative inspiration. I don't want to trash my husband, but I resent marriage in particular and I want to be free. It's a huge problem and I want to be there for others who are trying to cope too.

His words are bitter, harsh and puzzling (what does thinness have to do with anything?) but i do think he has a point about the "Dorothy Syndrome" claptrap. I don't think this leads anyone towards addressing any issue that may be troubling their life or marriage. It's inane and insulting really. This dumbs down what could be a very helpful forum. What purports to be "help" is actually repackaged psychobabble brought down to the lowest common denomoinator. Fog when people need clarity. A lot of people are dealing with some very sad struggles, some better than others. Honesty and straightfowardness, I think, is perhaps the most effective way out. People will gladly buy into any diversion to avoid looking squarely at their lives and facing themselves. Some will pay money because it's better than living with themselves. I wonder how many subscribers to this "Dorothy Syndrome" actually progress through their troubles and emerge healthy. My guess is that it becomes another seat on the carousel. Today it's Dorothy,Oz and the Crystal Ball. (This has got to be a joke!)Tomorrow it's another quack theory. Or maybe Ophrah has the answers, or Dr. Phil, maybe an affair, maybe the comfort of another dysfunctional soul...around, and around and around. They never get off and the people who profit are the snake oil merchants who churn out books and sell tickets to their forums. Meanwhile time goes on, the only thing that changes are the seasons. People get older, no clarity, never healthy. It becomes their life. I talked recently with my ex-wife, who walked out five years ago because I was not making her happy. She deserved to be happy. It was all about her. We had large house, affluent community, friends, travel and well into upper middle class. I was a "modern" husband who shared childrearing, domestic work and so on. She found a wretched friend, someone she happened to meet a a women's meditation group. This woman - unemployed, substance abuser, miserably married but stays because husband bankrolls her lifestyle - spouted some Dorothy Syndrome-esque philosphy and gave her books. My wife ate it up. Now, my wife had something to cling to. There was no reason to do any work. Her new psychobabble concept, she thought, explained and normalized her being selfish, ungrateful and hungering for "more" eventhough she had no idea what it was that she wanted. (That was another of my faults - she blamed me for knowing what she wanted.) It was all okay now, and perfectly excusable, because SHE was the one suffering. The world should understand. At 43, she had two affairs, internet liasons before the divorce was even finalized. In the aftermath, I struggled but did manage to assess my life and lessons learned and then moved on. With my wife, it's as if our breakup happened last week. (I had to see her to discuss finances for our son's college tuition.) She is the same person, only now more harshly convinced that rotten behavior in a marriage and self-pity is quite normal. It's like she's locked in time. Now she's part of a confederacy of disappointed women who have blown up their marriages. Rather than face truth, they cuddle up with their delusional thinking.Stupid and Sad.