The Over 40 Crowd

DebraP · Post by **DebraP** » Fri May 20, 2005 12:54 pm

Please indulge this HUGE whinge I'm about to write.

I feel like crap today. I guess it will be ups and downs but today is a definite down. A long-distance friend called to ask how my scan went last week as I'd forgotten to write and update her. She was so excited for me and I felt rotten having to burst her balloon. She's just failed her 2nd tmt and can't start a FET as her endo refuses to respond to the meds. We had a good long tmt focused chat and tried to finish on a positive - we both hope to start again in August, but it was a sad conversation.

Since then I've done nothing but complain to DF. I think it's justified but I'm looking around and don't like what I see. We're neither social nor active enough and that bugs me. It's his country and his home town, his language and his culture, I therefore expect him to have more oomph to get going but instead we stay quietly inside ALL the freakin' time. Not helped by his night shifts + having a toddler but we do NOTHING and it's driving me insane.

Sorry....I could go on and on so will stop now. I've invited a friend + her toddler over for supper to keep me company but by coincidence her DH works with DF so not sure I'll be able to talk about what's going on. She didn't know I was pg. I feel better sharing and getting things out but know that DF would prefer me to keep it quiet. I'll try.

wallow, wallow, wallow....
Debra

Emily Rose · Post by **Emily Rose** » Fri May 20, 2005 1:04 pm

Hi Debra,

Sorry you are feeling low today. I can sympathize with you about not socializing. A friend invited me out tonight to Paris with some others because he is welcoming a vietnamese friend to town. But I scarcely know him, let alone his friends, and I just can't really relate because they're all singles and no one is dealing with anything like what I am.

What I really want is to be going out with DP, but as I am hidden now, I can only see him when he is alone. It just seems so ridiculous.

Emily

LittleP · Post by **LittleP** » Fri May 20, 2005 1:08 pm

Debra

Just wanted to send you huge cyber hugs - I know not much but it might help to know that you have a lot of friends here who care very much about you.

Try and keep your spirit up. Have a cuddle with DD - she's your precious reminder of what can be.

Little P

DebraP · Post by **DebraP** » Fri May 20, 2005 1:12 pm

Emily - go, go, go. Of course you don't know them all well yet, but an evening out will help enormously. What's that shocking cliche about everyone is a stranger until you meet them? call the guy back and say things have changed and you'd love to go. Dress up (Friday nights should be dress up nights), wear something that makes you feel confident and good about yourself and smile, smile, smile. You don't have to talk about relationships, crappy life experiences or ttc - in fact not even thinking about it might be the break you need.

In my experience, men often respond rather well on learning you can have a fun evening without them. Besides, you'd like to network and meet new people wouldn't you? neither of which will happen on your sofa (I'm an expert on this one!!)

Go for it!

hugs
Debra

DebraP · Post by **DebraP** » Fri May 20, 2005 1:37 pm

Thanks LittleP - all that talk of hair but no photos....how are we supposed to know how good it looks?

Emily - just bumping this up to the top, I'm waiting to hear if you've changed your mind about tonight?

We've booked our trip within a trip now. We're in Suffolk/the UK between 23/June - 18/July but will go to Sicily for 5 days early on. It will be too hot but DF and I seriously need some better quality together-time than we've had recently. DD will stay with my parents and have a blast.

We've also made a indoors date for tomorrow + booked MIL to babysit next week for a date night. Things won't change on their own so we'll have to engineer some moves in the right direction.

D.

LittleP · Post by **LittleP** » Fri May 20, 2005 1:41 pm

Debra

I hope you have a lovely night tomorrow and a good fun evening next week. It's important to have that quality 1-on-1 time.

Your holiday sounds lovely - England is supposed to be on for a good one this year - well, I'll believe it if I see it

Take care

Little P

Emily Rose · Post by **Emily Rose** » Fri May 20, 2005 2:40 pm

Debra - No, have not changed my mind.

The weather is not good (been raining off and on) and I just don't feel into it. Got to say I have been out with this guy several times before and I guess I just don't relate. I'm about making it in France; he's moving to Vietnam in a few months, is only interested in Asian women for partners. One of his friends (a woman with a serious disease) that will be there is the permanently single type (so not at all looking for what I am looking for); another is his female cousin, who is very young, in school, and again not facing anything I'm facing. I guess I'm probably being too picky, I just think I would be miserable. Plus, wouldn't have been able to dress up without standing way out -- this group doesn't dress up, AT ALL. I know, it's not independent-making, but the one thing that will pick me up will be seeing DP on the Champs-Elysees Monday night for the movies.

Emily

LittleP · Post by **LittleP** » Fri May 20, 2005 2:42 pm

Emily

Roll on Monday night for you - that sounds so beautiful and romantic

Little P

taylorjools · Post by **taylorjools** » Fri May 20, 2005 5:51 pm

Ok Emily, see where you are coming from but am going to say this. DP is off mountain biking for the weekend isn't he??? Is that supporting you sweetie???
I hope you have a lovely time on Monday, but I do worry, he has his reasons for you being hidden but it all seems terribly convenient for him, and he doesn't seem to be making any compromises atall??? Your life seems to have stopped on his behalf, I wish I could meet you and chat about it...
Sorry to be so direct, but if you don't show him you can have a good time without him he'll just take you for granted even more

Please tell me to mind my own business if I am out of line here

sorry

love and kisses to you, I feel for you sweetie

Love bigJ

taylorjools · Post by **taylorjools** » Fri May 20, 2005 6:06 pm

D

I wish I had seen this earlier today, I was trying to be a good girl and rest. You poor sweetie, what a pile of c**p to be going through. You make your dates with dh and you tell him you need more time together. You work so hard darling, and if dh does shift work I wonder that you guys see eachother atall

Also you are hyper I'll do it person (you know I am right) and so people think you are coping and don't need help. People like us get lonely as people don't gravitate to us as we scare them I have been told

Can you find /make time to do one thing a week outside the home just for you???? where you can make some girlie friends or something????

I know exactly how you feel, exactly. I don't even like the country we are in, but the idea of coming here was that dh had the contacts and could get a job to support us so that I could finally get on with the IVF....sometimes I resent being here big time, away from my mum and sis, sometimes I am glad of the distance but still would rather be in France (where I met dh) than here - French is my first foreign language and I can be quite independent in it, in German my spoken and reading is fluent but I need help to write anything sensible or official - does my head and confidence in. I have a couple of good girl friends that I met in the looney bin, they had breakdowns like me and are a great comfort, but they are both single so have different lives and expectations....now I am doing the IVF they think we are mad.

We stay in all the time too as we have no money, I am unemployed but on minimum benefit because of so long sick pay, and need to do a rehabilitation prgramme before I can work again, and dh scrapes money together to get us through the month. Thank God for my mum paying for the IVF. We need to sell our UK house but the tenants from hell have wrecked it so now we have to decide whether to take a low offer or borrow money to refurb it and hope to get more.........

I want to leave here and go to France, but of course till we know if we can or can't have babies we can't make any sensible decisions

God I hate it here - especially today after dealing with all the officials at the benefit office yesterday

I paid my dues in Europe for 22 years this is my first time on benefit and they make me feel like a money grabbing parasite

Sorry that has turned into a me rant, but I guess it's meant to be a sympathetic "US" rant. do PM me if you want to be more graphic!!! I'll be online tomorrow morning as dh is working til 2...

thinking of you D and sending you a special girlies abroad cyber {{{HUG}}}

Love and kisses

bigJ

Emily Rose · Post by **Emily Rose** » Fri May 20, 2005 6:33 pm

Hi BigJ,

I know what you are saying, but the thing is I had no desire to go out with this group tonight. I've been out with them before and haven't enjoyed myself. Didn't avoid it for DP's sake, and honestly he never seems jealous anyway. I suppose the only dent I could make with him is if I left him completely. But, then, he probably knows he's got me right where he wants me at the moment--I can't do an IVF with out him, plus I have the PACS with him. If he annuls it, where would I be? I wouldn't even have the right to stay here.

Getting a job would give me more power, I think, but even then I wonder how it works in France (and not sure exactly how to find out, though haven't done any digging) if I get a job and then the PACS is annuled. You still have to have a carte de séjour, renewed every year (where if it's though marriage/PACS you have to show all kinds of bills and statements for the period of a year with both names and the common address). A company cannot sponsor a non-EU citizen for a carte de séjour/work permit unless it's a position paying more than 45,000 euros, I believe, and I won't make that. Though I don't know what happens if you get the PACS and the c-d-s, then find the job, and then cancel the PACS...

Emily

Emily Rose · Post by **Emily Rose** » Fri May 20, 2005 6:37 pm

...and I know you and I don't see it as enough, but he sees the PACS and the IVF already as compromises. Getting to these stages with him is a minor miracle that took 2 1/2 years.

DebraP · Post by **DebraP** » Fri May 20, 2005 6:40 pm

Emily. You must do whatever feels right and if not going out tonight is best, c'est la vie (about all my French is used up now). A last word, you always stand the chance of meeting other people whilst out, even if this guy's friends aren't your type of people. I will also agree with BigJ though, and please don't kill me for saying this but provided you're always there, always waiting, always asking him for his time but accepting less - what incentive does he have to change? You deserve more, much much more, we all do.

BigJ - thanks for the empathy. I don't hate living all the time, last week's care in hospital was 2nd to none and I value the safe, clean society I live in BUT people here are famously closed and rarely open up to newcomers. I'll post the rest of my waffle in a PM!

thanks again everyone for the sympathy, I'll try to snap out of this mood before DF is home at midnight.

Debra

taylorjools · Post by **taylorjools** » Fri May 20, 2005 7:02 pm

you just carry on sweetie, that's what we are here for - and dh should get some of it too..........just better when it's thought through

The health care here is also 1st class, I wouldnever have had the treatment I have had for my breakdown in the UK it would have been here's some pills and in about a year you might get to the top of the counselling list, how long do you need to pull yourself together??? (I know cos I had a pre-collapse at the beginning of 2003 while we were in the UK). Now I am drug free and feel very good about my life and being 42 and most things because of the holistic and amazing treatment over 1 1/2 years now.

It's the social bit isn't it? look forward to PM. There's a blues festival in our local town this weekend, as long as it doesn't pee down that's cheer me up.

Hope you feel a bit better, have some tofu

LOve bigJ

Emily Rose · Post by **Emily Rose** » Fri May 20, 2005 8:11 pm

Debra,

I totally know what you're saying. It's just that I'm (as you have probably surmised) quite depressed. When one is depressed, desire fades, and hopelessness and fear and a sense of being overwhelmed set in. I know I need to find my way. I guess it's hard even to think about trying to make friends without having the security of a job first. I guess I should force myself, but it's really hard right now and especially just after the IVF failure. But I hear you...

I also wonder if anything could give him incentive. Will he ever change anyway if that is his nature (to be distant, reclusive, etc)? On the other hand, I don't think he's feeling peachy at all, sees a psychiatrist once a week, obsessively thinks about his kids that he rarely sees now that their mother desliberately moved them to the south of France, his father died at the end of March, and he lost the custody decision in March as well. He does see friends (mostly couples) from time to time and dines with his mom and sis once a week, but that's about it. (I'm sure he's not on the prowl for other women at least.) But I'm making excuses for him, I guess.

Emily

The Over 40 Crowd

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