Category Archives: Daily Living

Did I just completely miss that he was unhappy?

ASPD, My Story, Your Mind

If you had asked me in January if Jay was happy, I would’ve said that overall, yes, he was happy — we were just in a rough patch due to our financial situation, which resulted in us being apart temporarily.  But looking back, maybe not. Being in a relationship with a deeply emotionally unavailable person is difficult on more levels than I ever imagined.  Add in a personality disorder, and it is impossible to understand their feelings on more than a surface level, mostly because they never […]

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Am I healing?

Daily Living, Mindfulness, My Story

Can it be? Am I finally healing from the trauma of this relationship? I don’t think about him every day anymore.  I don’t feel sad when I wake up. I haven’t cried in a couple of months. I don’t fantasize about just walking into the sea and disappearing.  I don’t wonder what I could’ve done to change the ending of this marriage and the implosion of my life as I knew it. As much as I thought that I would never recover from this, there is somehow […]

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My beloved island of Crete

Daily Living, Travel

I wanted to use one of my own many photos of Crete, however the emotions are still too raw for me. So I found the lovely image above, which was taken at an ancient place very close to where I was living. As a well traveled American, I never expected to fall so in love with Crete and the wonderful people I developed friendships with in the time that I lived there.  I would still be there today if my life hadn’t imploded this year. Words cannot […]

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Expectations

Daily Living, General, My Story

One of the issues I’ve been thinking about in my intimate relationships, and in particular this last one, is the role expectation plays in success or failure. My expectations were pretty basic I thought.  I wanted a partner.  Someone who could help to support our household.  Someone who would plan for our future with me.  Someone who felt that contributing to our marriage and household was important.  Someone that I could share my dreams and hopes with.  A simple life.  And in the beginning, Jay seemed interested […]

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Untangling a decade of ties

Daily Living, My Story

When you think about the ties that bind long term relationships together, the list usually goes something like this: Housing Finances Kids Lifestyle Belongings Gifts Friends Responsibilities Pets And in some cases, businesses Trying to untangle a decade of ties in this relationship is proving to be difficult. Our housing situation resolved when I left for the US and he was evicted.  We have no children. Our lifestyle also obviously changed because I was no longer on Crete. I took our pets with me (to save him […]

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Am I a hypocrite?

ASPD, Daily Living, My Story, Your Mind

I have had to take a deep look at myself and my own behavior in my relationship with Jay. Here’s what troubles me the most. I wanted to help Jay to overcome deep seated issues that I wasn’t qualified to deal with — I thought with enough love, support and understanding, he could become the person that I knew he was deep inside.  Get that?  Do you see all of the I statements above? I mean, I still have excuses and justifications for this behavior on my […]

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Perspective

Create Your Story, Daily Living, My Story
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What if peace comes with a new perspective? Events only having the meaning we ascribe to them.  Will a perspective change improve everything for me and help me to create the next chapters in my story in a positive way? In reality, for the majority of my life, I’ve been mostly upbeat and happy. I think that’s because I’ve usually gone for the silver lining in most clouds in my life.  I’m adventurous and know that every new adventure comes with its challenges. There have only been […]

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Cognitive Dissonance in Relationships with ASPD partners

ASPD, General, My Story

Just a reminder – I am not a professional mental health expert.  As with everything on this site, the following is based on my own, deeply personal experience. I only came to fully realize that I was involved with, and married to, a partner with ASPD during the discard phase of our relationship. Because of the way it ended, I started looking for any information that I could find that would help with my own mental health.  ASPD checked almost all of the boxes in terms of […]

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Anger has saved me in the past

Mindfulness, My Story

Why can’t I use it now? Almost every time I’ve made a huge change in my life, some amount of anger has been involved in pushing me to the final step.  Pissed off my parents as a teenager? Got thrown out. Pissed off at job? Find a new one. Pissed off in a relationship? Time to get out.  Angry at something that happened or was said? Change the environment or the narrative. Something is different now, though.  Anger doesn’t fuel my big decisions anymore.  I’m much more […]

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Reclaiming the joy in music

Daily Living, Music, My Story

Music has been a form of meditation and peace for me.  Getting lost in the rhythm, lyrics and meaning has always been a particular love of mine.  When I am feeling down, music has been my go to for relief. I don’t know about you, but my life has always had a soundtrack. Jay and I shared a true love of music (I think…).  He was a ‘musician’ of sorts… noodling on his guitars brought him some measure of happiness.  Or, that is the image he portrayed […]

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