Have you ever had to start again?

[hatchelt]

Evening all,
Just wanting to get some advice whether it be from personal experience or recommended books, etc.
I moved away from my friends and family to Cornwall a few years back in order to start a family with my wife and live happily ever after.
Unfortunately things didn't quite turn out like that; I have two amazing boys but my marriage is over. I don't really want to get into the guts of it here, but it's done. I have a great deal of respect for my ex and I'll always be around for her and the boys, but we just cannot live/be together.
I'm staying in Cornwall (I'll go wherever the boys are), but problem is I don't have any mates or family down here. It's not all boo-hoo; like I said I have two great kids, a job, a gym and my rented flat. I think I'm ready to start getting out there and mixing it up a bit, I'm just not sure how to begin.
Have you been in this sort of situation? How would you go about building your life back up? Any advice or tips would be great.
Cheers

[erebusii]

Your situation is similar to mine, though not the same. Read my thread, just a little ways down. I don't really know what to say to help though. How old are you and what type of crowd are you looking to mingle with?

[hatchelt]

Ah sorry Erebusii, didn't see your post. The powers that be can deleted this one if they want..

[erebusii]

No that's fine. You can post here or in my thread. I don't think anyone is going to hate on you for wanting to better yourself. Afterall this is the purpose of the site. I think if anything, you'd be looked down upon for not wanting a better life. It also takes a lot of humility to admit that your life isn't where you want it to be.

[Mehdi]

Rebuilt my social life several times from scratch. Friends settled, I outgrew them, etc.

Realize that nothing last forever. All relationships end sooner or later (through loss or death). Only thing that is permanent is change. Puts things back into context.

[hatchelt]

I guess it's the social programming we get drilled into us. You know, settle down, have kids, get a bigger house, bigger tv, etc. Trying to shed the years or conditioning just seems so overwhelming when you're at the bottle of it.

[erebusii]

Doesn't mean you are stuck though. You can change, but Mehdi is right, don't expect for friendships for the rest of your life. The longest friendships I had were like 10 years, which I ended because of how far apart we were in personality.

[vixensdan]

Setbacks can really define a man, check out MY sob story and try to beat it! I traveled from the Northeast to North Carolina three years ago to take a job I was recruited for. With my wife of twenty years and kids in tow we re-settled near Raleigh. Three months later my wife left me for someone she met down here, transferred all the profits from the sale of the house in Connecticut into her account and ran off with it. I put my head down and pushed on, living check to check for the first time in twenty years, (that's harder than I remember) the kids are in school getting good grades, I am rebuilding my credit (she trashed it) and just going day to day. The good news is I found a wonderful woman. The bad news is in March we BOTH lost our jobs (different industry, crappy timing). We went to the unemployment office and sitting in the parking lot realized that our luck had all turned against us. For some reason we laughed, I mean what else is there to do. Sounds corny but keep counting your few blessings!
Everything is temporary, she got a job at a hospital (she is a pharmacy tech) and I have interviews lined up that look promising. BTW started 5X5 in Febuary and that has been instrumental in keeping me sane. Medhi's a good man, hope he makes a little coin off Stronglifts!

[baatzt]

Small loss, small gain. Big loss, big gain.

[itsbruce]

SL5x5 is one of the things I'm doing to rebuild a life after seeing much of the last 6 years wasted by a useless marriage.

One thing, though, that I disagree with from posts above: romantic relationships often don't last, but friendships really can last for life and I think they can be more important. Many men are worse at keeping friendships going than women, though. Typically, a man will confide most in his wife/girlfriend, partly because he's too proud to talk about personal feelings/issued to friends, while she is more likely to confide in friends, because men often don't listen so well. When the relationship breaks up, he then has nobody to talk to, while she can usually talk to her friends about it.

[Mehdi]

SL5x5 is one of the things I'm doing to rebuild a life after seeing much of the last 6 years wasted by a useless marriage.

One thing, though, that I disagree with from posts above: romantic relationships often don't last, but friendships really can last for life and I think they can be more important. Many men are worse at keeping friendships going than women, though. Typically, a man will confide most in his wife/girlfriend, partly because he's too proud to talk about personal feelings/issued to friends, while she is more likely to confide in friends, because men often don't listen so well. When the relationship breaks up, he then has nobody to talk to, while she can usually talk to her friends about it.

I smell some negativity in your post (no offence) watch out with that, you could attract more of the same.

I really think guys are better at friendships than girls. Example: guys know you stay away from your friends' girlfriends (yeah there are exceptions). We know that we'll be kicked out of the "tribe" for doing this. We don't want that. Especially since men are a bit more driven by ego & approval than girls. We just don't want to go there. Girls don't seem to make a big deal out of this. I've seen girls hooking up with the ex of their best friend and stuff many times, guys usually don't do that stuff (yes I know there are exceptions, but those aren't quality friends).

What I think you're aiming at, is that some guys once they're in a relationship they forget about their friends and start spending their time with their gf only. They think they don't need their friends anymore and so when things go bad, they really go bad. Some girls make the same mistake. It's really your own fault when it happens. You shouldn't let your life revolve around her, she doesn't even want it in the first place.

[itsbruce]

I really think guys are better at friendships than girls. Example: guys know you stay away from your friends' girlfriends (yeah there are exceptions). We know that we'll be kicked out of the "tribe" for doing this. We don't want that. Especially since men are a bit more driven by ego & approval than girls. We just don't want to go there. Girls don't seem to make a big deal out of this. I've seen girls hooking up with the ex of their best friend and stuff many times, guys usually don't do that stuff (yes I know there are exceptions, but those aren't quality friends).

Friendships between men are often more straightforward, which goes with what you are saying there. I think, though, that women are simply better at talking to each other than men; they're more emotionally literate. This can be a very positive thing and make for extremely powerful female friendships. But what goes with that, also, is that they can (if they choose) be more emotionally destructive to their friends - they know better how twist the knife.

There tend to be a lot of unspoken things in male friendships - things that guys know but don't talk about (unless very drunk). That works fine as long as the code holds up - when some guy breaks it (which is rare, as you say), it's often hard to know how to react. And sometimes the code sucks - it's generally easier for a guy to bullshit about a women to other guys than to talk honestly about how he feels about her.

This mostly applies to straight men, of course. Gay men are often more emotionally open - although not always (bet it sucks to be a gay guy with a straight guy's hangups).

What I think you're aiming at, is that some guys once they're in a relationship they forget about their friends and start spending their time with their gf only. They think they don't need their friends anymore and so when things go bad, they really go bad. Some girls make the same mistake. It's really your own fault when it happens. You shouldn't let your life revolve around her, she doesn't even want it in the first place.

That's certainly true. Well said.

[TakeFive]

The bad news is in March we BOTH lost our jobs (different industry, crappy timing). We went to the unemployment office and sitting in the parking lot realized that our luck had all turned against us. For some reason we laughed, I mean what else is there to do. Sounds corny but keep counting your few blessings!

Everything is temporary, she got a job at a hospital (she is a pharmacy tech) and I have interviews lined up that look promising. BTW started 5X5 in Febuary and that has been instrumental in keeping me sane. Medhi's a good man, hope he makes a little coin off Stronglifts!

I keep in mind a thought from Robert Ringer's book Million Dollar Habits "Every failure plants the seeds of an equivlent success" I think most of us have experienced this, where you realized something good that eventually happened as a result of some unfortunate event.

On Tuesday it was announced the investment group the owns my employer is shutting down the division and everyone will be terminated. Had my exit interview yesterday - after 17 years with the company. I'm one of the lucky ones, I get to stick around for a while and wind down operations. Others were walked out of the building on the spot. But I'm trying to look at this as a positive - being forced out of a rut and finding an oportunity I would have otherwise missed. Also, focusing on the needs of my less fortunate coworkers by scanning Craigslist for jobs redirects some anxiety.

So hatchelt, vixensdan, (and you too, TakeFive!) realize that in this are those seeds of success. If you stay positive, you'll find them.

[mackanno]

Man, I feel you. I've been living here for ten years now and my social network is close to none, but I have come to realize it has to do with me. I've always felt like a visitor in the social groups I frequented back home. I was in a lot of social groups, friendships, etc., but now I know it takes effort and willigness to explore things in order to build a social life. I cannot blame others for me being a bit of a outsider, if any, I would "blame" my dad who is somewhat and ass(&%, thinking he and we as his family were above pretty much anyone.

While people in the part of town I live in are a bit coldish (very respectful and amicable, though), I know it is me who in the end tends to be more of a loner, and with some effort a nice friendship can bloom.