Advice

[Roknrol]

Re: Advice

Well, I dunno about a "good" idea For all I know she's holding a grudge and packing heat - I don't *think* so, but hey - it has been a decade

I'm still thinking about it, although I am leaning toward the visit because of the aforementioned neighbor issue...I'll have to sleep on it (when I get a chance to sleep, that is).

[ChainLightning]

Re: Advice

I just... no.

From my own experiences, I would respond with a not committal and then try to avoid the scene. I've nothing against being friends with any of my ex's, and in fact I think it would be cool to do some catching up with some. But every chance to find closure, reminisce or just shoot the shit with some girlfriend out of my past, there has never been one single outcome worth the venture. Some were actually downright scary (If you recall the "who are you and what did you do with Chain?" fiasco). I can get along with most anyone but some things are in the past for a reason. And best left there, IMO.

[MaskedOne]

Re: Advice

As a rule, Rok I'm paranoid by nature. I have infinite faith in the ability of human beings to cause harm in completely unpredictable ways for nonsensical reasons. If you have strong reason to meet her then do so. If not, don't go out of your way. I'll leave it to you to decide strong reason since motives tend to vary.

If you do meet her, arrive separately, leave separately, keep it on neutral, well populated public ground and have a set time that you're leaving. That controls most variables enough to discourage most casual methods of complicating your life. Advice on radical methods of complicating your life involve me letting out my inner conspiracy theorist and that's probably not warranted.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Advice

See, this was my initial reaction too - but really, what have I got to lose?

Plenty. Everything. But most of all trust. It's not what you do - it's what others say you did. Because you are dealing with someone where the relationship didn't work out years ago and who is therefore now an unknown quantity. Old relationships are like a foreign country - you don't know them. And anyway, what's to be gained by picking over the past?

Another thing - GG might say she's okay with this, but is she? Really? I wouldn't be. If Mr Penry came out with an idea like this I would nail his foot to the floor and remove his gonads with my embroidery scissors. ;-)

[Roknrol]

Re: Advice

Plenty. Everything. But most of all trust. It's not what you do - it's what others say you did.

And if people are going to believe her instead of me, what does that say about how much they trust me? People that know ME, know me. People that don't can go fuck themselves

[QUOTE=Tylluan Penry;45459] Because you are dealing with someone where the relationship didn't work out years ago and who is therefore now an unknown quantity. Old relationships are like a foreign country - you don't know them. And anyway, what's to be gained by picking over the past?

Another thing - GG might say she's okay with this, but is she? Really? I wouldn't be. If Mr Penry came out with an idea like this I would nail his foot to the floor and remove his gonads with my embroidery scissors. ;-)

Is it my job to question everything my wife tells me as though she's lying?

Shit, everyone here keeps talking about trust and what I'm hearing is about what other people say and should I believe what other people think- if people aren't going to be honest with me, I'm certainly not going to sweat over how they feel after the fact. If I can't trust my wife to tell me the truth, we shouldn't be married anyway. Period. End of story. And my wife knows that I feel that way and she doesn't ask me questions she doesn't want the answer to.

Sorry to be abrupt - battery is almost dead - staying at a homeless shelter with a bunch of drug addicts so my stress levels are kind of high right now. Will make a blog post (www.roknrol.info) soon as long as my battery holds out.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Advice

Rok, I really didn't mean to offend and I'm sorry if I did - but you asked. And the fact that you asked at all suggested to me (and I could be wrong of course) that you had a tiny bit of doubt. Everyone's relationship is different. Trusting your partner is one thing. I trust Mr Penry a lot. I don't trust other people very much. And as for exes... not at all. And that - for me - is where the crux of the matter is. Not that you might do something you couldn't tell your missus about. But that someone else might imply that you had.

And doubt.... even when it's a total bloody mythic invention - can do an awful lot of damage in the long term.

But again, I wish you all the best, whatever you decide.

[Roknrol]

Re: Advice

Rok, I really didn't mean to offend and I'm sorry if I did - but you asked. And the fact that you asked at all suggested to me (and I could be wrong of course) that you had a tiny bit of doubt. Everyone's relationship is different. Trusting your partner is one thing. I trust Mr Penry a lot. I don't trust other people very much. And as for exes... not at all. And that - for me - is where the crux of the matter is. Not that you might do something you couldn't tell your missus about. But that someone else might imply that you had.

And doubt.... even when it's a total bloody mythic invention - can do an awful lot of damage in the long term.

But again, I wish you all the best, whatever you decide.

No, I'm really sorry TP - my snippiness was more a matter of me being in a hurry (15% battery on my laptop and nowhere to plug in) as well as a bit of stress. I've never "lived" in a Homeless Shelter before, so this is a really new experience for me. Not one that's entirely unpleasant, mind you, but some of the folks that live there are...well...not good people. I'm sure that stress was impacting *how* I was reading your post, and of course I replied in kind. I'm going to re-read everything (now that I've relaxed a bit) and reply appropriately. Once again, I'm really sorry

---------- Post added at 03:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:55 PM ----------

To do this properly, now that I have power and time and I'm not in the ghetto

Plenty. Everything. But most of all trust. It's not what you do - it's what others say you did.

Under normal circumstances - if I were dealing with a current girlfriend (instead of my wife of 11 years), for example, I would completely agree with you. But really - if my wife doesn't trust me (she should), it wouldn't make any difference who said what: I am an honest person. If *anything*, honesty is my watchword and is a fundamental part of my being. My wife knows that and she knows that if she were to ask me a direct question: "What happened?" she would get the complete and total truth. I think that's part of why I got snippy earlier - I take my honesty very seriously and having my integrity questioned (even unintentionally) affects me in a very negative way.

Because you are dealing with someone where the relationship didn't work out years ago and who is therefore now an unknown quantity. Old relationships are like a foreign country - you don't know them. And anyway, what's to be gained by picking over the past?

But that's part of the trip, isn't it? To have new experiences and to gain things that I didn't even know was possible. Wisdom, maybe? A friend, possibly? The knowledge that I *don't* have to revisit that time of my life (much like finishing up my business in Spokane/Tum Tum).

Don't get me wrong - at the time (12 years ago) I had said my piece and moved on. I'm a different person now...as we all are. I have "moved on" from that relationship, but that doesn't mean that new relationships should be avoided (here, I'm using the term "relationship" to mean friendships as well). My ex wasn't stupid...she was crazy. And I like dealing with intelligent people as long as I can tolerate their craziness

Another thing - GG might say she's okay with this, but is she? Really? I wouldn't be.

To be honest I hadn't expected her to be ok with it at all. Like I said though, is it really my place as a husband to question everything that my wife tells me? If I ask her where she wants to eat dinner, should I re-evaluate that for her and decide on a different place because "that's what she really meant"? I've had people do that to me and I absolutely despise it - if I say I want to eat at Jack In the Box, I *don't* mean McDonalds. If you're going to ask, I expect that you want the truth. If you want to hear lies, I figure that people can tell the lies to themselves - they don't need my help, you know?

So I don't know. I don't know how she *REALLY* feels. But being my wife for so long and knowing how I feel about honesty, I certainly don't think it's appropriate for me to second-guess her opinions. I *know* that she's "nervous", but she's not nervous because of what *I* will do or anything like that. I think she's probably nervous for the same reasons that anyone would be - this is an ex...someone that I was close to for a very long time.

Now, there's a flipside to this that most people here aren't aware of: GG has ex's too, and she's spent quality time with them when I haven't been around. It doesn't bother me because (like this situation), she bailed because she knew she needed to. I'm not worried about what she will do "behind my back". It's all about trust - if I didn't trust her, I wouldn't be married to her (and I would like to think that she feels the same way). 13 years has built a lot of trust between the two of us, and it's allowed both of us quite a bit of freedom that we (as is evidenced by this thread ) wouldn't have been able to experience were we with someone else.

If Mr Penry came out with an idea like this I would nail his foot to the floor and remove his gonads with my embroidery scissors. ;-)

lol...I can't speak for your relationship, of course If GG said that she didn't want me to meet with my ex, I wouldn't. She wouldn't have to fight me or force me or anything - it's all part of the relationship to respect your partner

[Medusa]

Re: Advice

And my wife knows that I feel that way and she doesn't ask me questions she doesn't want the answer to.

I have a feeling you might have taken that same advice before you asked all us busy bodies what we thought too.

[Roknrol]

Re: Advice

I have a feeling you might have taken that same advice before you asked all us busy bodies what we thought too.

Uh, at no point did I say I didn't want your guys' suggestions - I was just looking for...you know...actual reasons instead of gut reactions (which was the bulk of the responses).

[Medusa]

Re: Advice

Uh, at no point did I say I didn't want your guys' suggestions - I was just looking for...you know...actual reasons instead of gut reactions (which was the bulk of the responses).

Maybe you should just write our responses for us? Or could it just be the majority's gut just might be valuable advice. I know you are going to make the right decision for yourself. But it's starting to sound like you want us to give you the go ahead.

*shrugs.

[Roknrol]

Re: Advice

Maybe you should just write our responses for us? Or could it just be the majority's gut just might be valuable advice. I know you are going to make the right decision for yourself. But it's starting to sound like you want us to give you the go ahead.

*shrugs.

It sounds to me like you're pissed that your back is out and you're looking to stir up shit on the Forum. You assume (erroneously, of course) that this Forum's advice is the only advice that I'm seeking or have sought, or that I would base my decision exclusively on what other people thought. Dunno what gave you that idea, but if you think that your opinion is that important to other people you might wanna take a step back and think on that awhile...

[Medusa]

Re: Advice

It sounds to me like you're pissed that your back is out and you're looking to stir up shit on the Forum. You assume (erroneously, of course) that this Forum's advice is the only advice that I'm seeking or have sought, or that I would base my decision exclusively on what other people thought. Dunno what gave you that idea, but if you think that your opinion is that important to other people you might wanna take a step back and think on that awhile...

My back is fine . I just wanted to play hookie from work. I don't assume anything., You've just seem upset that most of us just said no. And call it gut reaction. Nothing wrong with gut reaction. I don't care to assume where else you've been asking advice for this. If you feel the need to ask for it all around town then don't be so pissy this town is full of gut reaction no's. Maybe you should step back and think on that a while.

[Roknrol]

Re: Advice

My back is fine . I just wanted to play hookie from work. I don't assume anything., You've just seem upset that most of us just said no.

This would be your assumption. I did not "get upset" because "most people said no". What was irritating me is that most people said "no" but nobody was providing a reason. Shit, the folks that said "It might be dangerous" had the closest thing to a reason that I could find. Should I not expect a "reason" to do or not do something? If I'm asking for advice from people, does that mean I should get the shortest answer possible without any room for discussion? I'm fairly certain that if you were looking for advice or suggestions you'd want a reason too.

And call it gut reaction.

Yes, it's a gut reaction when there isn't a reason (or at least, that's what *I* call it).

Nothing wrong with gut reaction.

I didn't say that there was, however multiple times I asked for reasons and continued to get "gut reactions". If that's all you want to give, that's fine, I can safely ignore your gut when it comes to people that you have never met or who have only met online. I would be completely retarded to trust people just because they said their "gut" told them I should.

I don't care to assume where else you've been asking advice for this. If you feel the need to ask for it all around town then don't be so pissy this town is full of gut reaction no's. Maybe you should step back and think on that a while.

More and more assumptions. I think you should probably step on out of this thread before things get ugly. I would step out, of course, but it's my fucking thread.

[Medusa]

Re: Advice

Here's your advice:
Caelia no
hawkfeathers no
Tylluan Penry no
Danie Marie sorta yes/no
Thal sorta yes/no
MaskedOne no
Chain no
Medusa no

knock yourself out.

[Caelia]

Re: Advice

I have to echo Medusa here and say you really sound as if you want us to validate your decision. Medusa has never been one to do cosign someone else's stuff and I only know her from this forum.

However, you asked us for our advice. I don't understand what constitutes as "gut instincts" for you, but I gave you a very logical reason for why I say no and why you should move on from her. That was many years ago and she didn't want friendship then. While it is possible for people to change, what do you benefit from a "blast from the past" at this point? Is it apart of the thrill of this trip, or is it because you want closure? Is it due to something else? I think it's time for you to logically examine what you want out of the visit and the pros and cons.

If you decide to go against our advice we can't stop you; you are an adult capable of making your own decisions and accepting culpability for them. I hope either way you are at peace with your decision.

*backs away from thread*