Good morning, Sunday!! It was great to read your replies last night, but I was out of thoughts at the time. I took my two girls summer clothes shopping yesterday (what an experience, especially when I have them both on the same trip!) They compete for my attention and carry on verbal sparring matches with each other --that is, when they aren't being best friends. And then, of course, there's the actual choosing of clothing--I try to keep the following principles--not to overstretch my budget TOO MUCH, to buy them clothing that won't make them look like (in their words) FREAKS, to buy them clothing that won't make them look like (in my words) floozies (probably the hardest part of it all), and to keep my sanity in the whole process. Actually, I really do enjoy the experience of spending the day with them, even with the tremendous concentration of female hormones and sibling rivalry always present. I just feel blessed to have this opportunity to be with them.
Gigglez--I'm sorry about your breakup with dh --don't blame yourself and what you've gone through with the menopause too much. It sounds to me like HE made a choice.
Reading what you wrote made me think about my own marriage and what hubby and I have gone through together (we'll be married 14 years in August). We've been through sickness (I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, and I had a rough time with it in the first 6 years of our marriage--I'm on medication and in remission now), job loss and unemployment (hubby lost a job he had for 20 years when our youngest was 3 months old and didn't work for 2 years while he went back to school to retrain), financial troubles (as a result of the unemployment--still trying to dig out of that), sickness of a child (our oldest had undiagnosed allergies, adenoid, and sinus problems for most of her childhood--partly due to lack of our attention--there's that job loss coming into play again-- and poor medical care--doctors who either weren't there or didn't take the time to probe symptoms enough--wefinally resolved things a year ago!!), sickness of other family members (hubby's mother and brother), personal relationship issues (we both come from families with alcoholic fathers and have had to spend our whole marriage figuring out what a healthy relationship is--not easy to figure out when you've never seen or experienced it), and now my perimenopause has arrived with its own special marital twists and turns to add to the whole salad.
I guess what I'm trying to say that I think a lot of marriage is just plain commitment and hard-headed stubbornness to keep that commitment. Did your dh give up on the commitment part? Like I said, it sounds like HE made a choice. Hang in there and take care of yourself.
Hi, Musicgal, glad to hear from you. I too have found that this thread has helped me. Even if we're not talking about symptoms, just hearing the words of other women at a similar stage of life helps me. Also, my exercise of choice is walking. It helps me relieve stress, and I enjoy the outdoors while I am doing it. More next time on that subject.
Congratulations on your weight loss progress, gma2one! It sounds like you're really motivated and on a good course.
Well, it's time for me to go. I've got to cut the grass before it starts raining and then get to church. See you later!!