Stress management

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• February 16, 2012 3:37 p.m.

  Maybe I've doomed myself...but sometimes letting go isn't about wiping your hands and your emotions of something that's gone. Long story short: I am together again with my girlfriend who left me 30 years ago to marry someone else. I love her and she loves me but, as hard as I try to tell myself we now get to start our lives together, I WANT to start our lives together 30 years ago, when we were young, when we could have raised children together, when we could have worked together to build a life. Unfortunately, my business went down with the economy so I HAVE to start over. She got a decent settlement from her divorce, but part of it is alimony which she loses if we live together. So, until either she starts making good money or I do, we will have this physical distance. The problem with the past is that now I know that she believes she made a mistake and also wishes it had been different. So, while I don't want to be anywhere else, she, her (grown) children, our situation with the alimony, all are constant reminders of the life we missed. I try, I try, I try, but I can't get it out of my head, my heart. It makes it even harder to get back on my feet. I'm in therapy, but things aren't getting any better. I feel like I'm on a countdown to the end here. I so want to be happy.

  - CJ

• September 9, 2010 4:38 a.m.

  Moving on after a breakup was the hardest thing to do. Sometimes it feels like it was the end of the world.

  - Alice

• July 11, 2010 5:32 a.m.

  The best way I found to handle stress is Dianetics. This is the working method of handling problems with stress per my opinion.

  - Kolja

• June 30, 2010 11:28 p.m.

  It is not easy to forgive someone because it will always try to hunt you from their wrong doing towards you but you chose to do it because you want to be relieved from your stress. It is a wiser decision to make.

  - Stressless06

• June 30, 2010 7:32 a.m.

  If you want to be released from all the stress in your life, the next step is moving on and it is not an easy task to take. You have to look back and forgive yourself as well from all your mistakes. It is like trying to heal your wounds in the process.

  - Stressless06

• June 30, 2010 7:16 a.m.

  Forgiveness isn’t easy because it means taking responsibility. We take responsibility for the way we behaved and contributed to the betrayal. The awful truth is that we can’t change or control other people, it would have been great if we could. However, fact is that the only degree of control we ever had or will have is over the way we think and perceive.no situation is totally black or totally white, it is what we choose to focus on that will determined our experience. I had a similar incident to the one mentioned above and I had to acknowledge my part in the making of it, how I contributed and even unconsciously allowed this person to take my work and claim it as hers. What helped me forgive was the realization that this is as far as she can go really. The moment you see that nothing was taken from you, you have already won. To forgive is to love oneself.

  - Avinoam

• June 29, 2010 12:43 a.m.

  They say that in life, the more struggles you encounter, the wiser you become. It is true, because you learn from all of them and become more of a better person. It only take such courage to become one.

  - Stressless06

• June 22, 2010 11:18 p.m.

  Do not let your past keep on hurting you because you can be better if you choose to be. Leave your past and be more inspired for your future.

  - Stressless06

• June 21, 2010 10:34 p.m.

  The only wayto be released from a traumatic stress is helping yourself to accept things the way they are. We cannot simply change things especially when in it out of our hands.

  - Stressless06

• June 17, 2010 3:32 p.m.

  When you experience pain - the loss of a child, a relative or friend, a pet, a limb, independence, a home, finances, a job, experience a horrible childhood, the horrors of war, nothing can make the hurt worse or better. Some may seem like trifles compared to others. All of these can be recalled like they happened yesterday and arouse the same emotions. All of us feel emotions. All the clichés in the world: count your blessings, time heals all wounds, get over it, grow up, stiff upper, none of them sooth. We’re human, we’re allowed to get angry, cry, withdraw, feel the pain. We’re not allowed to lash out, seek revenge. Maybe we can forgive, but never forget. This may be corny, but Billy Idol makes some sense when he sings: When there’s nothing left in this world, when there’s nothing sacred in this world… START AGAIN!!!! The feelings, all of them, including joy, are there for us to experience. Do not look for happiness, but use it as means to reach your goals.

  - Rosie

• June 15, 2010 2:22 p.m.

  People...it is never too late to start over if starting over is more positive than negative. Take nothing personally - the hurts that were done wereee not done to you but rather in spite of you. Stop asking "Why me?" and start asking "Why not me?" We all have lessons to learn - why do we as people think that we should be exempt from the trials and challenges and yet seem to think that others somehow should have to face them. The human journey is tough - get a helmet.

  - Adele

• June 11, 2010 9:49 p.m.

  Its not a case of my health problems. He is the one disabled - completely, I have cared for him for the last 10 years that he has not worked. Not even around the house. How ever his social security check makes the house payment. My benefits pay his health care. The stress of dealing with his problems - and now dealing with his cheating has about finished me off. I have a good education. And an even better job. However it now takes two incomes to have anything. I have acerage and Grand children that will suffer if I leave hm. I don't feel sorry for myself as much as it just hurts

  - kathy

• June 9, 2010 7:01 p.m.

  I myself have been having a hard time with getting over something. In 7 days it will be 1 year since the tragic death of a classmate of mine. It was the last day of 9th grade and of course everyone was excited to be done with our first year of high school but a group of guys decided to go jumping off of a cliff into a near by river. Unfortunetly it had rained and rained and the river was raging. One of the boys was obviously struggling to stay above the water so this boy who I had gone to school with since 1st grade jumped in to save his friend. He managed to get the friend to a rock but he went under. He wasn't seen again until exactly a week later when his body was found floating down the river. I was never good friends with him but now that he is gone, I wish I had been. He was one of the only people in my grade that didn't hate me and now that he is gone I regret everyday not being better friends with him and getting to know him better. I am trying to heal myself and although the one year anniversary will bring up some bad memories but I think it will help me accept it more and realize that because I care so much, that means that I did know him to some extent.

  - Lex

• June 9, 2010 11:09 a.m.

  I had a long distance relationship with someone, and he started seeing someone else. He didn't admit this to me until after he had met her, ignoring my messages for weeks, or telling me he was just morose and self-absorbed. He manipulated me into breaking up with him so that he would be "unencumbered" as he dealt with these serious issues. Yeah, like most people are morose when they fall in love. The act was so unnecessary, makes me feel so stupid, and I hate him for being a cowardly, manipulative, deceitful person. But hate hurts me more than it hurts him. I'm trying to look at him as a broken man, who has no integrity and doesn't know how to treat people with respect. I don't want to pity him, but I want to move on. The shame of it is, because it was a LDR, I would have recognized his need for someone closer and wished him all the best if he had just told me. But the way he did it poisons all those good memories I would have had of us together. Instead of feeling like his friend, I feel he used me. His behavior devalued what we had, and it devalues me. And it affects how I see other men now. I don't trust them. I don't want them in my life, even though I feel lonely. Even if I can forgive him, I don't see how I will ever open myself up to the possibility of such a friendship/relationship again -- let alone to let myself love. ERG.

  - Kate

• June 8, 2010 9:39 p.m.

  Get over yourself, wife who clearly loves being a victim and created her own unhappiness, but doesn't want to take responsibility. You poor thing! Never went out and got some skills and training? Can't leave? Boo hoo! Get over yourself - but you can't because you are too in love with your health problems. Grow up and face yourself. Your husband deserved to enjoy himself, since you are so negative and so unwilling to be whole. Your happiness is your own responsibility, no one else's. For you to think so says you are a pathetic hopeless case who LOVES being a victim more than a whole woman. I'm surprised he didn't leave you for happiness with someone else likely more loving and whole.

  - J

• June 8, 2010 8:27 p.m.

  Letting go, forgiving, has come very hard for me. But I am learning how in a way that works for me. Silly as it sounds, I am praying for those who have hurt me. Just tonight I prayed for a former boss and co-worker I haven't seen for almost 20 years. I do not want to pray for them, but I do anyway, asking God to bless them and give them what they need. I also look for and find where I might have been in the wrong in these relationships, asking for God's forgiveness. Praying for one's enemies isn't a one shot thing. I have to pray for others many times before I begin to feel release from feelings of bitterness and resentment. God wants me to become more like Jesus, as the scriptures teach. When he was asked by the disciples how many times we are to forgive others his answer was "70 times 7." I don't know about you, but I can't keep track of 490 acts of forgiveness. If God has forgiven me for the wrong I've done in my life my response MUST be to learn how to let go of past hurts with others. This has proven the hardest of lessons to learn and uncomfortable to practice, but it is working. Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts. I'm learning much from each of you.

  - Paul

• June 8, 2010 8:12 p.m.

  WenD, Your comment is a revelation to me...as I feel the same way you do. The sensitivity, vengeance; even the invisibility/unheard/unacknowledged. How true. Time is helping me get over the bitterness and disloyalty in my family; I will never be the same but I am growing stronger each day. Forgiveness does come but forgetting is extremely hard.

  - PM

• June 8, 2010 4:53 p.m.

  Letting go is an important step to healing on a number of sujects - divorce, break-ups, business, debt, family -and holding on can cause people to stress eat.

  - Karen

• June 8, 2010 4:04 p.m.

  At my meditation group we learn about three kinds of business. My business. His business and God's business. My business is how what has happened affects me, and one has to let go and move on. His business is how he feels about what he has done and God's business is self-explanatory. I am trying to learn to forgive people for past things, and our leader said to go right back to the event, put yourself in the other person's shoes and try to see why they did it. Sometimes that helps, and I have been able to forgive someone I was harbouring a grievance against for over fifty years. Life is too short to make ourselves angry over something that has already happened. Move on, and try to forget.

  - Rose

• June 8, 2010 2:25 p.m.

  Forgiveness isn't saying what the other person did was all right or letting him "off the hook". Forgiveness is being willing to live with the consequences of the other person's sin. Most of us can't do it on our own. But like George said, God and the Bible can see us through. Jim, ask forgiveness from those you hurt. You may not get it but you will have tried. Make restitution for money or property. And ask forgiveness from God. You WILL get it from Him.

  - Kathryn

• June 8, 2010 9:57 a.m.

  FORGIVENESS is not what we know, expect nor believe it to be. It means, simply stated, LET GO. Now, to do this is next to impossible. For in doing so, you acknowledge personally & professionally that, "It never happened." None of us are completely able to get to that point. For in doing so, it is as if we've reached Nirvana, a place most never go. Consequently, at best, we acknowledge with the other what happened. Do not expect to be understood, revered or properly acknowledge. In fact, your act is not for the other person, it is for you. It is your gesture at reconciliation with yourself where "forgiveness" is possible. Never the other way around. This is explicit in your friend's retort, Doctor. Afterwords, go to reflect in solace, never again allowing such trust in a callous, selfish person again. Rather, trust in the passion of knowledge that lies before you as you seek GOD.

  - Sharmen

• June 7, 2010 9:52 p.m.

  I think whether or not you can let it go depends on how bad you were hurt. The case you gave was a very small hurt. When the person that you loved and depended on for 36 years betrays you, the pain does not go away. Its too great. Instead you are filled with anger and pain and a feeling of failure. In time you learn to live with it but forgiveness is not there and the love has died. I stayed with my husband but I returned my wedding ring and told him I never wanted to discuss our marriage for in my mind its over. I would have left but at almost 60 there is no starting over. As a friend said " your in too deep to get out" I can not support myself without his income and I would have lost the home that we have been paying on for 30 years. No forgivness is not an option. Maybe God can forgive him I can't and if that makes me a bad person then thats what I am. He has ruined my life and all my memories. I have develped health problems due to stress and they will be permanent problems doctors tell me that they are not treatable. I have developed tinnitus and meinheirs and a large portion of my hair has fallen out. I hope my husband enjoyed himself

  - kathy

• June 7, 2010 9:48 p.m.

  My solution to life dissapoiments and betrayals and trust me I had and still have them more than I can handle, is reading the bible, praying and beliving in God and Jesus. Its not a fantasy therapy but the truth about this life. Ok you may not or want to belive in any God, but one think is certain in this life:DEATH. You choose how you want to die, hating someone and being miserable or laughing and smiling to death. Remember hate and unforgivness is like you drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die from. We all are created to worship something. Why not try to read the bible and find about the true God and creator of yourself and letting Him to take care of you life. Give Him that chance and you'll never regret. I did the same think and it worked and I have no worries or stress over my life dissapoiments or betrayals. Take care and may God bless you all.

  - George

• June 7, 2010 6:37 p.m.

  You also need to tell the personthat you should have been given credit for your contributions. Not in anger, not in vindictiveness, but in truth. You are as important as he is.

  - mary

• June 4, 2010 2:14 p.m.

  I feel I can relate to your story--My parents raised dogs and I spent my childhood caring for them. After I left home, they separated and these animals I had spent my childhood caring for were all put down. What helped me move on was developing my own hobby, although it took a while to figure out what it was I like to do. Later I never thought I'd care for another dog, but I took on my mother's last dog following her death and don't regret it.

  - Carol