Hello to Mingle people. The following post should not be taken as a gender issue because as human beings...the feelings that are manifested are universal. Unless you have had no experience with a relitively long-term relationship or simply are new to the "relationship" thing...you may not relate...although this post you may find interesting nonetheless. For those of you who will relate...you have my sincere empathy. I have had my share of relationships...long term as well as short term. Some I have walked away greatful and a better person for having known them, but for whatever reason I had to accept the fact that we just couldn't make it work. Others, the outcome left far more bitterness in me than I thought I could ever experience. Some seemed like they were designed and manufacted in Hell... leaving me feeling like a fool who purchased it (without reading the manufacturer's manual or even taking so much as a test drive...the Devil is always in the details)and then drove like a bat out of Hell to what I hoped was Heaven..totally ignorant of the fact that I would end up hitting granite rock back in that horrid place again. But it is said that wisdom is born of pain...so here is what I learned. Being human I have not only have been the recipient of pain...I have caused it at well. (Although it was usually a result of lashing back at happenings that were beyond my threshhold of the pain I was enduring.) It was never intentional...as it usually never is with most people. I have found that no matter how badly I felt I was treated...Perhaps no one was really to blame. No matter how much we feel we have left the baggage behind...we still come into a new relationship with the clothes on our back...Clothes we have had for a very long time and simply are refusing to do away with. It's like bleeding from wounds we have no intention to heal. But sooner or later, we will try on a different wardrobe and style that will suit us better. Fotunately, I am finally "getting it" and I believe that we all have the ability to escape the pain we have endured and will thus find a relationship that we can call "home". I will end this with a line from a Gordon Lightfoot song...Carefree Highway. "Now the thing that I call living is just being satisfied with knowing I have no one left to blame."

Geez, what a monolouge... I had to quit 1/2 way through. (sorry)
I wish you better luck next go-'round.
Hi and Welcome.

Totally agree with your post and like you I have learned from the past and hope that I will remember those lessons as I move forward!

Aye. Carefree Highway is a good tune. But so is the the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, matey. Now there is a yarn ya can sink yer teeth into. After all it is November and them gales when they be lashing up can swallow ya whole. I would rather inherit the earth but beggars can't be choosy. I know that may seem strange coming from the old captain but there really isn't thing wrong with a RV. But try to tell that to Mrs. Muir. Shes a real landlubber that one. If Betelgeuse would help me we could help her to see the truth. This house is really a ship. I guess I should have left a plank. Arrgggg.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

and it's all small stuff.

agree..sorry.

To those who felt my post was to long...perhaps your attention span is too short...sorry. I'd prefer that you responses were related to the actual content of the post. I don't ask for agreement but some are more interested in form rather than content.

It helps to double space more. Its easier on the eyes. In a paragraph that long, its painful to keep your place.

Try reading it.

Get glasses...Don't sweat the small stuff

It has nothing to do with glasses. It has to do with a bunch of sentences all running together and being hard to read on the computer screen.

I'm sorry you don't seem to be able to stand some helpful hints.

Next time I just won't read your post.

HA

If I haven't worn it in a year it goes to the Goodwill