Love Bites

It's been a year and a half since my pal, Gaston, got divorced. He has three kids, is good looking, and has all his hair (no fair). I think he still has feelings for his ex but he was broadsided (by his broad, no less). Since then, he has been the king of dating. What I can't fully comprehend yet is why he is aggressively dating if he sabotages his chances by revealing his lingering feelings and his deep-seated fear of commitment. I fear that when he finally IS ready to get serious, he will have no one left to date because all those who could've potentially been attracted to him, have already crossed him off their list.

This past Shabbat, he told me he met a nice woman from NJ who has FOUR kids and she is able to relocate. He has expressed that his former love is still ever present in his mind but he is starting to develop feelings for this woman. The biggest concern he has currently is how seven kids can live in one house. More specifically, neither of the two have a home that can accommodate more than what they already have. Do they sell both homes to buy a bigger one or do they build? And if so, who sells, whose kids get uprooted, how can you determine if the children can adjust to all these changes especially the addition of rival step-siblings? Should he even continue this relationship and perhaps fall in love, only to find that logistically it is impossible? How can he balance finding love with practical realities? Does he risk getting hurt or hurting her by continuing the potentially doomed relationship only to end up experiencing premature exasperation?

I don't have answers for him, just a few thoughts. Discuss the scenarios from the onset. I feel that if you know something can't be resolved, don't risk love. But if things have potential to work out, it's worth the risk of falling in love, even at the risk of extreme pain. As Jonny Cash sang, "Love, is a burnin' thing..." Your playing with fire, folks. Invariably, someone is going to get burnt.
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I'm No Cardiologist

Read this post first.

There is no way to sugar coat it. No manner to make it more palatable, more acceptable. I broke our engagement and Tali's heart. It will never feel right even if I justify logically the need to separate. Since it is so fresh, so raw, I expect her friends to defend her vehemently and pour forth their righteous indignation. And they have. I deserve it; I accept their rebuke.

So how does one delicately tell the person he loves and wishes to spend every waking moment with, that there is no way to make it work. Compound it with a commitment of engagement with a ring and watch exchanged. Her friends deplore the fact that I just, out of the blue, amputated her from my life. Is there an easier way? Should we have had long tearful, gut wrenching discussions for weeks on end, only for me to come to the same realization, that I can't make this merger work. I know she tried her best and was succeeding (as far as I know). I gave it my all and I failed. The past many months have had the specifics addressed and all the techniques that we could think of were put out forth. There was only one major discussion on the matter a few months ago and more specific minor discussions as to how to handle the problem as each incident arouse.

I guess she and her friends are mortified by the fact that she was unaware of my feelings. I should never have proposed if I had made peace with the issue. (I thought I had). The reality is that I was trying to make those feelings disappear and if they vanished from my mind, everything would be OK. But once I started realizing that it can't be ignored, it was already too late and the merger untenable.

I even seriously considered marrying her and living in separate homes but she wouldn't hear of it. Yeah and it is kinda weird. I saw a psychologist to give me insights into child behavior. I read books about transforming the difficult child and family dynamics. I tried having the kids interact often and in the end I just felt like I was losing my mind from them as is clear from the previous post.

So, again I ask you how do you end it? I told her simply the facts, that I tried, I thought I could do it but I can't. I love her dearly but it's not going to work. Was I supposed to put my arms around her while I dropped the bomb? Was I supposed to start acting distant, then pick or look for fights, then escalate over time so that when it finally comes she would say, "Good riddance he's an ass for the way he treats me."?

Believe me if I felt there was any more answers to make this work, I would jump on it in a second. But there isn't. She told me in August, "If it's right, you make it work." She told me to speak to the psychologist, to read the books. Living separately was not an option nor was waiting many years to see if the kids grow out of their behavioral issues. I thought I was OK but I wasn't. I thought the kids were getting more manageable but they weren't. Love blinded me and I wanted to be blind just to have Tali. But my insides were torn apart by my inability to find resolution. From all our discussions over the past few months, there was nothing new to add, only perhaps guilt that plans were made, that we were going to town hall in a week to let the government once again interfere with our lives. There was very little time left and I know ultimately my decision was right for me and my family, horrible for Tali, and maybe not so bad for her children.

So, I am curious to hear how you would have ended it; what marvelous techniques I failed to employ? It had to be done and there was no way to make it hurt less. I AM SORRY for all of us but most of all, for Tali.

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Engaged In Something Funky

This is a long post. If you are just joining there are some nice short ones that will be below this one. This one takes place over a span of months, gaps indicated by dashes (----).

I’ve been here before. You know the place. The one where your mood is dulled and your spirit muted. While different things can cause these feelings, my funks seem to center around my relationships. I don’t get too upset or down when business is bad because I trust things will turn around and I will find a way to succeed or at least provide the basics for my family. But in my relationships with women, no matter how amazing, there is something that feels like an SAM missile that locks in on me and shoots me right out of the sky, right out of my high. An example would be, a lovely woman I started dating a few years back. Things were exciting and enticing. After a while we even settled into a long term relationship. Then it hits me. To be more exact someone else hits me, so to speak. I run into an old friend who sees the excitement in my eyes and asks, “Soooooo, what’s happening???” I describe the woman and then I see a facial change, a pensive look. “Are you sure you what to get into this?” Needless to say I have to fish a bit before some ungodly secret/defect/dysfunction is revealed to me. I know everyone has baggage and problems and I’d like to think I’m the kind of guy who rolls with the punches and will step up to the plate. But some things can’t be compromised. I can’t abide by mental illness for example. Been down that road and she destroyed my life on many levels.

Other relations since then involved short stints (Freud would have field day with the fact that I actually wrote "stinks" by accident instead of "stints"). I was surprised to find so many really nice women, pretty, funny, who are willing to take on my load….... of children. My kids happen to be wonderful but they are a handful and a lot of work.

And now to my latest quandary. I have fallen in love with Tali. I can find no faults with her nor has any top secret information been delivered that would create an international incident. She is pretty, so much fun to be with, and easy going. I rarely encounter a woman who consistently thinks logically. Hence, I suspect she must be abusing testosterone hormone pills. I’m comfortable being with her in all situations and she makes me happy. She even takes on all my children as if it was a walk in the park (NO, not Jurassic Park). She acknowledges that they are a handful and can stress her out, which is expected, but she says, “If it is right, you find a way to make it work.”

Those very words were uttered to me regarding our future together. I had initially told her we would go out for a year before I would commit to anything. After a half a year, I apparently added the word MINIMALLY. She is not prepared to spend years of her life in limbo or without a clear objective of marriage, she’d rather move on. I respect that. But here is the kicker and the funk-maker. Our children have significant issues related to merging of our families. I believe both our sets of children are adorable and even lovable in their own right but together it's a volatile mix.

I can't find peace, I'm entirely overwhelmed. I feel that I have to be so vigilant that I can’t enjoy my time with the kids. Often I can’t find my happy place, so even though Tali and all the kids are together, I can’t find the love or pleasure. I’m on guard. I don’t like myself when I’m like this. I don’t believe I can sustain this level for an appreciable amount of time. I feel like I need medication when their together. Sometimes I hear myself mumbling I wish I were dead. Scary.

But I love Tali. Shouldn’t that be enough? Shouldn’t that give me the strength to overcome this obstacle to inner peace? I can’t relax. People have told me that kids can ruin a marriage & ruin a family. I wanted to go out for an extended time, watch them hopefully mature or at least allow me to learn how to better cope and see for myself that it is totally implementable. But the pressure has been put on to come up with a timetable and that pressure imbues in every interaction so much more meaning for the ultimate outcome of our success or failure. Times I feel I can do it, others I can’t. I feel like I owe it to all of us to continue to slowly built tolerance/immunity rather than jump ship at the first port of call. I believe I can find a way to learn to deal with this and train myself to react or feel more at ease even under stress.

I don’t necessarily believe that if it’s right I can make anything work.

God please help me. I’m in a funk and feeling funked up. I don’t want to lose Tali or hurt her feelings but I don’t want to lose myself either.

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As time passed and our love grew deeper, I forced myself to repress my feelings of misgivings regarding the ultimate success of our family merger.

I drew a line in the sand never expecting to cross but the shifting winds and passage of time have erased the painful markings of the past and allowed me to once again transverse the dunes of engagement. So scarred was I, that I made myself promise to wait a year before I dare utter any proposition. I had close friends take an oath to protect me and set right, my errant wanderings. Some were to give their consent, others to be the voice of reasons-past, ever vigilant with words of encouragement to be firm, advise caution to be wary. The fruits of nine months of labor, a time well spent in contemplating the unthinkable. Do not imagine this nine month courtship to be anything but a marvel. For we did not fight, our disagreements were kneaded out without the banter of raised voices or hurt feelings. In short we functioned like a Swiss timepiece (not a Rolex, heaven forbid. They are notoriously poor at timekeeping). Our time had come.


Engagement. (Flinch). I'll tell you why I dread engagement. It really has nothing to do with commitment. Everyone knows you should be committed for even contemplating marriage. The reality is that by the time the proposal for marriage comes, your heart and mind have already committed to this person who you cherish dearly and hope to spend the rest of you life. The issue is the stress that accompanies engagement. People envision this as a blissful period where you are showered in mazal tovs and well wishes, a period of starry-eyes and romantic moments. I find those to be worthy of only honorable mention. Instead, plans, projects, research, lists of who to invite and who to offend, engagement parties where a population the size of a small country are invited. Worse is not living up to all the mental images that you have been saving up since the magic moments of divorce. For my second wedding, I imagined that I would take a longer engagement time to make sure that I had time to work out all the kinks so that whatever final product we agreed upon, it would turn out as best as possible obviously, recognizing that somethings are unforeseeable.

Tali printed beautiful invitations. I volunteered to stuff the envelopes, print and stick the address labels and return labels. After many many hours, I was all done labeling and stamping. It never occurred to me that there should be a special font or that the font on the labels should match the invitation itself. Heck, I'm a guy and the truth is, all this pomp and fluff are a big waste of time BUT it makes Tali happy and to that end I'm all for giving it my best. That said, I failed. Tali, to her credit, didn't criticize me or get angry at me but when I realized what happened I beat myself up. I rode my stationary bike for over an hour (never, ever did that length of time before) at 3AM. I couldn't sleep until 530AM. I had a chance to fulfill her idea of perfect invitations and I blew it. I offered to spend another entire day of my life redoing the envelopes but Tali wouldn't hear of it. I'm watching the whole process snowball out of control. The party is huge and Tali suddenly tells me she has to cook for it. I was under the influence, er, impression that her friend would coordinate getting people to volunteer so that there would be minimal preparation on Tali's part. I guess strategies shift as the sands in the kitty's litter box. She hasn't said so but I think she is really stressing over this.
This period is torture.

And the guest list! I hate crowds. I despise walking through the human traffic jam known as Costco. I am not even looking forward to this engagement party. So many people. I want a small party of close friends. I want a small inexpensive wedding. I'm tempted right now to throw away most of the invitations from my side because I just want my closest friends and family to share in my simcha. Once it goes too much beyond that, it's just another shark-infested, shabbas-kiddush feeding-frenzy.
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I had prepared the following speech for our engagement party.
-Some people are inclined to seek out a blessing from a rabbi or a gadol to facilitate or enhance his chances of success. It was shortly after I proposed to Tali that I was relating the good new to a chasheva person and he, from his own initiative, insisted on giving me a bracha. He said it would not be the long drawn out bracha that you hear many people offer; "..a gezinta bracha, mit mazel for da whole mishpacha and..." a run on sentence that is reminiscent of the court documents that must be all inclusive to avoid any difficulties later. He promised to use proper GRAMMAR. Instead he offered a few simple words- Run for your life! (JJ). Actually he quoted the verse, "shomer p'tayim hashem." God watches over fools, so watch out. (We laughed and I told him that we intended on processing the GET first to get it out of the way so we wouldn't need to think of it again). Boy am I gonna get it.

I thought his terminology very interesting. God WATCHES over fools. As it happens, the only fancy watch I owned hadn't worked for years. As if time froze and my life had stopped in the darkness of the past. Tali, always one to offer her help, volunteered to run an errand, suggested that she would take it to a jeweler and get a new battery. I had mentioned to her that I went to two jewelers and they said the manufacturer had to do it. So Tali diligently took the watch to Tourneau and they said it had to be sent out to fix because it does not take batteries. The estimate was $800 to repair, so when the collection plate goes around, keep that in mind. I opted for a showpiece rather than a timepiece and declined the repair. When I picked up the watch, something possessed me to wind it, just for old time's sake. It suddenly and has ever since, been functioning fine!

In the movie, Stranger Than Fiction, Emma Thompson, the narrator described how Harold went on about his life not realizing that his watch was trying to tell him something. As a general rule, within the Torah world, we are entreated to look at events with a penetrating eye. Why did I witness a given scene? Is there some extra lesson that I can glean from circumstances? Here too, it was obvious to me that Tali was the impetus for me to move forward and live life again. She got my old ticker a tickin' again and when I look at the face of the watch, I consider all that I have faced and the only face I want to watch and have by my side is Tali's.

Tali clearly is a beautiful. Outwardly, easy on the eyes, and inwardly, her neshama is a rarity. She is good hearted and easy to be with and always giving of herself to her children, me and mine, and the community at large. As a seasoned EMT, I'm sure she is exceptional in providing for the patients' physical as well as emotional needs. She gave me a flu shot and I didn't even feel it. That's a talent. There shall be other kinds of shots offered later, hopefully. Though she told me she plans on calling all the shots.

I'm looking forward to adding supermom and her children to my tribe. And I'm looking forward to adding all the dear people in her life to the dear ones in mind.
I wanted to thank all of our wonderful guests for their delightful company and their well wishes.
The End
(Little did I know)
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I thought I had made peace with the merging of the children. But as the engagement party loomed ever nearer, Pandora's Box reared its ugly contents.
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I did it to myself and that’s why I want to hurt myself.
Why bother merging many kids who kill each other and stress me to the point of wanting to cut myself or smash my head into the wall to make it all stop. They are constantly hurting each other.


Sometimes I want to give my kids them back to their mother, no matter how unstable she is, so that I can avoid these horrible interactions. I need earplugs to drown out the noise. I want to kill myself for the shit I get myself in. I swear, if I DON'T get high blood pressure soon or die of an aneurysm soon, I will be surprised and I will take that as irrefutable proof of a vengeful god.

But falling in love means short circuit your brain and fuck your life and fuck your kids lives.
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I dreamt that I went into the ocean with Tali and her kids. The next thing I new, we had drifted very far from where we started. The shoreline looked small and distant. I knew we had to get out to help her kids and feed them. I realized that I forgot one of my boys in the water and rushed back to get him. I took him ashore only to realize I neglected to put sunscreen on him and one shoulder was very red so I put aloe on it but looking at the other shoulder I realized how negligent I really was, forgetting his needs for Tali and her kids. His other shoulder was blistering with boils from the burn and as I attempted to rub cream on it, the entire skin from his upper arm started to peel off like a snake molting. It peeled all the way down to the elbow. I woke up crying.

This was but one of the nightmares that has caused me many sleepless nights the past few weeks. They reinforce what I already know, that I would be neglecting my children if I take on Tali's. I have been negligent for allowing myself to be blinded by my love for her. I know what my family needs and I know what I can handle. I can't be her superman and our families will not merge successfully.

I'm not superstitious nor do I believe that I should take dreams as gospel. But I do see a clear manifestation of my angst within these dreams. The dreams are symptomatic of the very problem I have wrestled.
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I hope everything ends soon.

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And it will. Tonight I'm going to call it off with Tali. I haven't slept well over the past few weeks. These troubling thoughts keep me awake at night. Even now, I write these words as the rest of my household sleeps. I know I will crush her and break her heart. I love her and she me. We would have been very happy with each other if only our kids got along. I failed to be her superman and I can't do what it takes to integrate the family. To continue this would be to sacrifice my happiness and that of my kids.

My major error was allowing my deep love for Tali to gloss over a real damaging issue. I wanted to spend my life with her so badly that I allowed those feelings to interfere with my judgment in this crucial area. And now there will be two broken hearts.

It hurts to give up the one you love but it will be worse to do it later after the state gets involved, after she gives up her apartment and changes her children's school. I can't worry that people made plans or that money was spent on a ring or that she gave me a watch. I know what I must do, now I must strap on my balls and do it.

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("The Horror" -Marlon Brando, Apocalypse Now).
After a dinner out, I took her home and just sat her down and told her what I wish never had to be said. I couldn’t look her in the eye. I cried as I told her that I couldn’t handle the merger and that I never meant to hurt her. She was perfect for me but it can't be. She sat there stunned. It broke my heart to break hers (and mine). She asked me to leave and we haven’t spoken since. Life is so painful.
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Interesting thing, this morning I tried winding my old fancy watch and it has stopped working again. Spooky.



Now jump here to get an update, then read any newer posts.

Conflict of Interest

Friends we make during our year abroad, post high school, seem to be the ones we can never get rid of, er, I mean, are the ones we remain so close with that even after long hiatuses we just pick up where we left off. I was lucky enough to go to a small yeshiva in Israel with a lot of personal attention and a fine group of guys. If I had to do it all over again, the one thing I would change is I would make the yeshiva co-ed.

This brings me to my friend Jonathan. He was so homesick, that regularly after night seder a group of us would sit with him, cheer him up, and ultimately convince him to stay in Israel just a little longer. He was very shy and had never spoken to a woman. We discussed women, dating, dancing, hanging out among other things but we thought he would always be the same old Johnny. After my marriage, I lost touch with him for some time.

Lo and behold, a few years later he became Mr. Upper West Side. Always having large groups of Shabbat guests including women!! I nearly fainted. He was now confident and TALKATIVE. He knew how to chat up the ladies. What a metamorphosis! But life is cruel and he had some crippling injuries that made him unable to work and he's always in pain although he hides it well. So his dating record took a nosedive. Years go by, more surgeries, poor results. But we seem to converse more often now (I guess because I'm single again and so we are in a similar stage).

A few months ago, he called with a question. His best friend Robert is pursuing this woman even though she keeps him at arms length. Jonathan and other friends get the sense that she is interested in Jonathan instead of Robert. So, should he ask her out or in the very least attempt to find out if she has feelings towards him? The serious issue being does he stab his best friend in the back while he looks out for his own best interests? Remember, his prospects are extremely limited; perhaps he should jump on the opportunity regardless of his friend’s stated intentions and feelings. I advised him to, at least through the grapevine, find out if she likes him or Robert or neither. Jonathan remained steadfast about never compromising his friend's feelings or steal his thunder. In fact, he tried to help Robert’s case by frequently mentioning his name to her with a positive spin. He put his little guy in neutral and remained loyal to his best friend. He was entirely selfless.

Last night he told me that in the end, he found out that she was interested in neither of them but liked them as friends. This episode had lasted over many months, and yet he restrained himself, so I commended him for showing me how a true friend and gentleman acts. I thanked him for giving me a life lesson just as he in turn thanked me for those I had given him all those years ago.

Now look were it got us...