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My mom died last week, way too young, of cancer. Her cancer had been on and off for years but last Christmas it started again. She got worse and 3 weeks ago she got the news that there is no more treatment. About a week, maybe less she got so confused that we couldn't talk anymore and a week later she died.
Now instead of mourning I have to manage her estate, organize the funeral and coordinate family. All while I constantly want to ask my mom for advice.
Goddamn. I'm sorry for your loss... Stay strong, I'm sure your mom would be proud of you handling all of this.
I am sure she would. I just wish she could tell me. But that's the wish I can't have. Not with all the money in the world.
I'm sorry for your loss. Grief is never easy, and it's especially more difficult when you have the responsibility of managing your loved ones' estate.
My mom lost her mom a few months ago. She was the executor of her estate too, and she also lamented that she never got the time or space to mourn. My relationship with my grandmother was complicated, for me the hardest part was knowing that I'll be doing the same for my mom someday, probably sooner than I'd like.
I tried to help her through it, but she wouldn't really let me. I think she felt that cutting through all the red tape and working through family stuff gave her something to keep her occupied, although it was clear that it wasn't easy. She's finally starting to make the time to mourn now, and I know that someday you'll get a chance to too.
Anyway, I'm not much of a mom, but if you need help, advice, or someone to send you a hug, I'm here for you
Please accept my condolences
I lost my mother 10 years ago, too young, to cancer
Grief becomes less sharp over time
You will never stop missing her
I hope we meet them all again
Once we cross the rainbow bridge
Thank you. I don't personally believe in an afterlife but I will always keep her alive in my memories. And I know it will get better but unfortunately it will take time. But that is what you get for loving someone.
I’m sorry you’re going through that. My mom died over twenty years ago, when I was twelve (so I didn’t have any estate management responsibilities), and it’s sometimes difficult to deal with wanting to ask her advice or wanting to have a person whose first priority was me, irrespective of our relationship (I know not all mothers are like that, but mine was, and my much older sisters and their friends agree, so it’s not just kid-glasses. They also readily share unpleasant aspects of her personality, so it’s also not a wariness to speak ill of the dead).
It does get easier, and you learn to depend on yourself, any siblings or old friends who remember her and other supportive friends who have been through similar situations.
Thank you for sharing this. I know it will get better but right now it is a horrible, no good situation. I have family that helps me but still it get overwhelming at times.
I’m in an arranged marriage with an older widower, I’m 22 and he’s 61, and we’ve been married for 2 years. We’re in Saudi Arabia, if you’re wondering. I’m making the most of my situation: he’s progressive for a Saudi man and fully supports my academic and professional goals. Since he already has children, there’s no expectation for me to have any, so I’m free to live childfree.
Super interesting. I never saw people in your sitatuion posting about it on social media until I got to lemmy. Hoping for the best for you
Been dealing with depression and anxiety for a couple of decades, sort of successfully. Couple of years ago got told I had cancer, a week after that my girlfriend broke up with me after a 7 year relationship, couple of weeks after that I got told that the garage space I was renting for extremely cheap was sold and I had to find a new place. Found a new place, got surgery on the cancer, had a few months of recovery, went back to work, rent was now 4 times more, while I was doing the move and dealing with the cancer my customers found new places. I ended up with not enough customers, couldn't pay the rent, had to close shop. Now I'm even more depressed, out of money and I have no idea what to do, how to get out of this hole. Most of the solutions I've come up with are on the darker side but as for now, I'm still being too stubborn to quit things. I have a feeling that I'll reevaluate the situation when autumn arrives.
But hey, at least the cancer is gone.
I have inoperable brain cancer, so there’s that. Sometimes pretty inconvenient.
Does inoperable mean untreatable ? does it hurt ?
It’s in my motor cortex, so if they cut it out I’d probably die. It doesn’t hurt, it affects my ability to use my left arm. Fortunately it’s a very treatable rare type; I went through chemo and radiation and it’s stopped the progression. It needs periodic monitoring (through head MRI) and oncologist visits. Will probably shorten my lifespan though.
I miss being able to connect with people over books, films, and other long-format media. I think about how most of my friendships and relationships formed over that type of bonding, and it makes sense why I really have nothing in common with new people anymore. Nobody I meet the past 5+ years has any interest in these things.
Everyone is driven by social media and short form media. Even some of my oldfriends are crackheads for Instagram and Reddit still. Everyone just talks about whatever is trendy, rather than having their own distinct interests they've cultivated. The last time I met someone who seemed to have their own distinct interests was 2018.
I study languages, and I've noticed this also has drastically affected speech patterns, and to most people now I sound 'funny' because I talk in complex sentences and ask questions meanwhile they are all using short declarative. I was at a party a couple of weeks ago and I was just flummoxed by how people were interacting, and it makes sense to me why people feel lonely and disconnected... because nothing of substance can be exchanged this way. Not to mention the rapid topic switching that was going on. I tried to have a more involved conversation with one person but told me I was 'too intense' for asking them details about their job... a pretty normal conversation to have for me 10 years ago.
And I think... yeah 10 years ago I used to LOVE interacting with people. And now I HATE it. Probably because the interacts are so meaningless, short, and trite. And nobody can stay on topic for more than a handful of exchanges. In 2018 I could sit there and talk about a single author for an hour... now every conversation I have the topics barely last a few minutes before they are swapped out for another rapid set of trite commentary.
I've also noticed this between other people now more and more. At bars and such, people no longer talk or focus on each other, they are either on their phones, or kind of looking to the side and just making random quips at each other. People don't look face to face and have a focused discussion...
Dealing with immigrating to another country for the second time in my life. Fuck Trump.
In a fight for my relationship. We stumbled into a relationship after a mishap that got her pregnant. I only noticed when she got a belly showing at 5 months as she had not told me and assumed I would leave her the second I knew. She had already decided to have it with or without me.
Proceeded to have another two kids while she slowly but surely withdrew from any partnership activity. Learned after ten years of wondering what's holding her back that she is the anxious avoidant relationship type and due to her forcing herself to have very infrequent sex with me anyways, she picked up a sexual aversion up along the way.
Apologized for my role in that, I obviously noticed her lack of enthusiasm but didn't think much of it as she offered infrequent but of her own volition. I asked her to go to therapy either alone or as a couple but she refuses. We live together while being officially separated.
I love her and am not interested in anybody else while she claims I should just find somebody else while getting very aggressive when the opportunity presents itself. (I obviously don't partake)
Shit gets dark and lonely regularly, she can't even hold me in her arms. The kids love obviously helps but it's not the same.
As people of that relationship type do, she drifts from flirty and nice to being angry and hurting me with the intention of keeping me at a distance within weeks, sometimes days.
I bought a book that opened my eyes, which pretty much reads like our diary. Put it in the living room and told her about it. She won't even touch it nor acknowledge that she has a problem. Obviously its a problem for me not for her that she decided to never have a relationship or sex ever in her life again.
I mourn the years I lose while waiting for her to find back to the woman I though I had met. I regret that my children have a steady home but no good example how a healthy relationship looks and I fear that this might last until my kids are all moved out and I'm about 60 and decide to give love up myself for good.
For various reasons leaving is not an option I'm willing to choose. Mainly because I have a responsibility to my children and my wife not to abandon them even if she has psychological trauma she needs to process. (Both parents not being available emotionally at all and growing up with an alcoholic step father and lots of violence in her home.) There is also a small chance that my wife might hurt the kids if I'm not there to intervene, has happened before in small ways which she denies obviously.
As long as I fight for this home daily and keep everything stable everybody is happy but me. Its hard and has already taken a toll on my health, but I keep fighting the good fight and hope one day life will be bright again.
So I am just some internet stranger without full context - but I gotta say... the way you describe it, it sounds like you should break it off. To review:
Again, I am an internet stranger working without full context. But I would say you should lawyer up, completely split up and move out, and move on with your life. Get the lawyer to figure out the best way to ensure custody of your kids beforehand, then give her an ultimatum - get help, or you are leaving and either taking the kids or going to court to take as much guardianship as possible.
I'm not saying she has no redeeming qualities or that the time the two of you shared wasn't special. But it sounds like she can be mean, aggressive, and possibly violent, like she doesn't consider herself to be in a relationship with you and doesn't want to, and that she is unwilling to try to change and probably won't. And this state of affairs is having a negative impact on both you and your kids.
Meanwhile, by sticking with her, you are giving up the opportunity to find someone else who does want to be in a relationship with you, who can model a healthy relationship, and who will make you happy.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Your argumentation is correct, no doubt about it.
If its about making kids she is all over sex. Avoiding sex is about avoiding emotionally bonding to be to avoid being hurt.
She is most of the time an exceptionally loving mother and the kids love her as much as I do. Our kids need both parents in their life and making that decision would hurt my kids and the woman I love. I have always said, that the day our kids lives are more impacted by my staying than leaving (because of ongoing conflict) I would leave.
Pressuring her won't solve this conflict sadly. People only chance through their own volition which makes this tricky as she has no real incentive to change.
Im also the sole breadwinner and although I earn good money, the local cost of living is too high to keep my kids lives strable if I need to finance separate accommodations. They would need to move and change schools and friends and I'm not willing to go there just for my well being.
Trying to "take the kids" is also a gamble. Even a progressive country like Germany seldomly awards full custody to a man. And again I'm not willing to hurt her or the kids by separating them from their mother.
Its mostly a stable and safe life for my kids. Her refusal might change, or might not. But considering all the things as they are, separation would hurt all the people I love including myself.
I have recently tried looking for therapy for myself to help with coping with all this and I'm waiting for what life throws at me next.
My situation is similar.
My partner just treats me so poorly I've long since lost a romantic attachment to her.
However, we have 2 young children, and my partners employment prospects aren't great. We can't afford 2 houses. As in we would share custody and i would pay her whatever was required, but no matter how you slice it the same income has to pay for 2 houses instead of one.
For the time being i just have to carry on.
Yes, my kids dont see a "happy loving relationship" but they dont really see an abusive one, just a miserable one maybe.
IDK if we're super "successful" co-parents but we are at least an effective team i think.
Thanks for sharing. It helps to hear I'm not the only one in a situation like this. Try living your life anyways. Take your kids on trips and spend as much time with them as you can. :)
Sending you much love.
I think your intentions are very noble. You clearly care a lot about both her and your kids.
But at the same time, I feel like you've fallen into the trap of "I must be miserable for them to be happy". Which is a variation of "I must be miserable in order to succeed."
If I have one regret in life, it is that I spent so much time being miserable because I thought "this is just how life is", "I just have to wait it out", "this is how I'll be able to achieve my goal and then I'm allowed to be happy." And after being miserable for a long time in a bunch of different ways, what I realized is that I've seen the people around me reach the same goals faster and easier because they didn't embrace the grinding-and-suffering methodology. And really the only thing that was different was that they had different expectations - they expected to achieve their goal while being happy and having fun along the way. If a path to their goal required being miserable, they rejected that path and looked for another one, because they simply assumed that there is not just one, but many paths to achieving any goal while being happy at the same time. The problem is that if you assume the "be miserable" path is the only one that exists, then you stop looking for the other, better paths. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - you believe no better path exists, so you don't look for other options. And since you never look for other options, you never see the other options, and since you never see other options, you assume they don't exist.
You've listed a bunch of things, like how your kids would have to change schools, like they are reasons you can't separate. And I think it is reasonable to say that you don't want your kids to have to change schools. But I feel like what you have done here is listed all these reasons like they are insurmountable obstacles to your happiness, which then implies that your happiness is impossible. I think instead you should see them as metrics for success - your ex stays in your kids lives and they don't have to change schools and you are happy and have a loving partner.
Like, imagine that you and your ex have another kid. And for whatever reason, because this happened, your oldest kid now feels as miserable as you do now. Would you accept that? Would you say "my eldest child's misery is the price we must pay for everyone else to be happy"? Or would you say "this is unacceptable - I will to whatever it takes to make sure all my kids are happy." Because if you can have that mindset to ensuring your kids' happiness, you can adopt it for your own happiness. And once you have that mindset, it's just a matter of looking for solutions until you find the one that works best for you.
Love your answer. Thanks!
My eyes are open, my statements are more about right now. You are correct, at the moment suffering is worth it because of a lack of alternatives. Life will offer opportunities that change the calculus and hopefully my kids will be a few years older and able to understand better. Right now its still more on the psychiatric problems stage and I feel I need to give her time. But that time will sooner or later run out.
Hey, Bud.
I lived almost exactly this. Three kids, no romance, no sex, no joy. Just business partners running a household.
It finally came to a head when I was driving and the song Self Esteem by The Offspring came on, and I just broke down. Even if you're familiar with it, go ahead and give it a listen.
After being together for 15 years, I filed for divorce. The entire process was very emotionally challenging, but it was amicable enough that we didn't need to involve lawyers. We split custody 50/50 a week on and a week off. (Although, I don't think it works as well as we expected. The kids get lost in the shuffle, and next week's problems just become the other parents problems. I'm starting to think the kids don't have as much stability as they need.)
That was in 2018. I'm remarried now, with two stepsons in addition to my original three kids. Things are much better now, and my only regret is waiting so long to do something about it.
Go find love! It's worth much more than all of the reasons you've convinced yourself to stay together. You deserve it!
I wish the best. Stop throwing away your life for someone who doesn't even care about you!
Thanks for your insightful comment from the other side. I good to hear you have found love again :) so will I one day :)
Just listened to the song. First comment is that it caused a divorce 5 years ago. You are apparently not alone xD
I love her and am not interested in anybody else while she claims I should just find somebody else while getting very aggressive when the opportunity presents itself. (I obviously don't partake)
Friend, have you considered that your wife may be asexual and gets nothing from sex? Or potentially is dysphoric about her body/sex? Asking because I have friends like this (and a partner to a much lesser extent).
I would seriously consider taking your wife up on the offer, if for no other reason than to make sure your needs are being met, which is very important. I know you love your wife and don't see interest in others, but a dead bedroom can generate all kinds of resentment that your kids most definitely will see. My wife's parents had a relationship that sounded very similar to what you described, and it blew up like 3-5 years ago and we're still dealing with the aftermath, including mom going bugfuck and developing Munchausen's.
I would at least find a therapist and discuss it with them. Your needs are important too, and there are ways to get those met without sacrificing the relationship or disrupting things too much for the kids.
There are obvious signs she even misses the connection but fears giving in to that which incidentally matches the image of her issue.
I have considered and would to a certain extend be fine with asexuality or homosexuality or even some kink she fears disclosing. But im pretty sure that's not it.
This is not a healthy environment for you or your kids. My friend's wife grew up in the same kind of environment and is now doing the same thing to him, she's currently working on kicking him out of their home while still expecting to control his paychecks. You should strongly reconsider getting yourself and your kids out of that situation or at least into therapy. Her unwillingness to work on the situation should not mean you have to suffer.
Thank you for your concern. I'll think I will maybe reconsider.
I am painfully losing the ability to use my limbs and doctors don't know why. It really sucks.
It's a lost cause, so I've nearly given up, but I still give 1-star reviews to apps that don't work because my phone is rooted. Every time they update.
Hell yeah. It is also now one of my goals in life to review ass apps like that
I've lived my entire life with imposter syndrome. Any time I get remotely comfortable in a position I either get laid off or promoted. Being laid off confirms my fears. Being promoted makes me feel like I have to work even harder to hide my fundamental inability to execute my role. I have recently taken a higher position at a startup which is a whole new level of stress and responsibility.
I can step back objectively and see the respect others grant me. I can see how my humble talents contribute. But I never stop questioning if it's even possible I am contributing enough value to justify my wage, and it doesn't stop me from feeling like I'm one tiny mistake away from being fired.
This isn't a battle thrust upon me or with dire consequences. But it's the battle I am comfortable sharing.
Apparently, I am fighting a pointless battle against some random users in Technology due to a shitpost. I was on the defensive, but I made some more replies, so I guess I'm on the offensive now. I'll probably be on the defensive again once they reply or I get banned. We'll see how it goes.
You're saying this is one of your toughtest battles yet? Have you tried telling them you consider it a shitpost?
LoL no, of course it's not. Have you read some of the comments here? My crap doesn't even compare.
But it's a matter of attitude towards life. I made a shitpost here, but I'm not drowning in down votes because of it. Few as it may be, people weren't offended (mostly) and even quietly appreciated it a little. On the other hand in that other spot, I did start shit, but enough people happily jumped in to poke it further... And that says something.
Now I'm not saying your way of seeing things is wrong, it's a trek like any other. But if you don't recognize shit when you look at it and even poke it with a stick, can't blame the stink for wafting over. (Just as i wouldn't blame any reasonable action taken against me due to posting that shit in the first place.)
Life sucks. It's shit. It stinks terribly. And making fun of that should be a basic human right.
Life sucks. It’s shit. It stinks terribly. And making fun of that should be a basic human right.
Noone wants to take that right from you. Your comment is still on, see? Even without the 'fun' part. I sincerely hope for your life to become less sucky.
For decades I'd been battling PTSD. After at least 5 therapists and many medications, I'd say it's under control.
I learned very late in life that I have ADHD, so I'm trying to balance that out. What stinks is that it affected my childhood and I had no idea, and there's nothing I can do about it now.
The last boss of Dark Souls I, I'm not a great player, I remember I punched the wall twice in a row in the process and got my fist hurt, it took a month to fully recover even tho I could still use it more or less.
My depression. And I'm mid 30s now and my parents are in the 60s. I do not look forward to what will inevitably happen...
Fortunately I got professional help and haven't been majorly depressed in years. I didn't do hard drugs or fell into alcoholism back then. On a different timeline with different group of acquaintances I can see myself dead OD. Or jumping. Or bled out. Instead a lot of money and debt accrued coping with material junk and parasocialism. I can't deny the parasocialism is really the anchor that kept me long enough to get therapy and medication. Now I understand the dangers of it but still.
I am eternally grateful that my government has some semblance of functionality to at least have subsidized healthcare for mental healthcare (and a lot of other health issues).
Of course I'm not fully out of the woods. Nobody with depression truly does I think. It's always there, bubbling. Now I'm always alert to how my friends, family are of signs of depression. But what worked for me doesn't always will work for others, so on that aspect I struggle. But at the very least I will lend my attention and shoulders.
A big fear of having children, while simultaneously knowing I want at least one child for sure. I know that there is never a correct time, but man, my job situation is shitty with no end in sight. A child brings the possibility that I might have to work minimum wage in the future, because academia might spit me out. The free market seems to auto-reject me since two years and unfortunately my qualification is kind of a nieche. I fear the dependance on others a child brings and the lingering disappointment in a lot of people. The friedships it will cost, because some are hardcore childfree or there is only so much time in a day. I fear the criticism it will bring and the sleepless nights. I fear all of this and more but still want it so bad it kind of tears me appart sometimes.
Sword Saint Isshin, the final boss of Sekiro. I beat him once years ago, but I'm replaying the game and boy is he tough.
