I stopped posting here just over two years ago. I have made a couple of random posts in that intervening period, but I pretty much stopped posting about 2-1/2 years ago.
For me there were a number of reasons. First I was nearly done with my MBA, I was in the middle of my 3rd to last class, and my wife and I separated. This was one of the most devastating periods of my life. I had been divorced before, about 18 years earlier, and that breakup happened when my oldest was less than a year old. My second marriage had lasted 10-1/2 years, and I have two younger children (8 & 11 now). My wife and I separated for about 5-6 weeks, and then we briefly reconciled, and then we separated for good in July.
I don?t know if any of you have ever been divorced, but it is a gut wrenching experience, at least it is for some people. My first divorce was extremely difficult for me, not so much for my wife. After it was over I was incredibly bitter, and the next 18 years with her were very difficult. I did as much as I could to mollify the situation, and I regularly sucked it up, simply for my son. My second wife made it all the more worse, because she would not let it go.
My first wife was 7 years younger than me, and she was very selfish, and very narcissistic. At the time she really didn?t care, and she went to great lengths to blame and criticize, never really engaging in any self-reflection, never making any real effort, and she chose to avoid counseling at all cost. She never really faced what she was doing, and not long into her second marriage the realization of the consequences of her choices caused her life to unravel. She became addicted to prescription pain medication, and her second marriage became a horribly destructive and hateful existence. I got pretty much full custody of my oldest son when he was 10, and while he still loves his mother, their relationship has never been the same. After hitting bottom she has finally started to get her life in order, and moving forward. The upshot of all that is, her struggles had a hugely negative impact on me, my son, and my second marriage.
My second divorce was very similar, only worse by orders of magnitude. The bitterness I feel towards my second wife is so deep, and I believe at this point that our relationship will be forever, at best, frigid. It is unbelievably heart wrenching to watch a person I dearly loved, lie, cheat, steal, back-stab like she has. It has been the most crushing experience I have ever endured and I am far from recovering from it. After my first divorce I dearly wanted a different and better relationship with my second wife in divorce, and I made so many efforts and extended so many olive branches, swallowed my pride repeatedly, and in the end she treated me more despicably than I could ever imagine.
As that process started, I was going through counseling. In the process of counseling I did much self-reflection. I tore myself down, and then tried to rebuild myself, and I did that repeatedly. I am under no illusion as to who I am and the type of person I am. I also came to realize some triggers from my marriage that I struggled to deal with. As I went through that process I became increasingly intolerant and hostile towards those types of behaviors, especially when they are directed towards me. I have made the choice that I would much prefer to be alone than to live with that any longer.
So how does all of that relate to this community? There was a time when I really enjoyed this place, just like I dearly loved my wife and would have done just about anything for her. In time though this place became a place that I really began to dislike; I would prefer to be alone than to live it any longer.
Now I know that Reality can be way over the top, and most of it is directed at the Lakers. It isn?t directed at me, and I have always chosen to remain detached from all that drama. In my counseling I learned about and really came to understand the pernicious effects of Karpman?s drama triangle. I lived it almost daily for 11 years, and in the last 3-5 years that way of living was destroying my life. Not only was I living it at home, but it was a regular part of this place as well.
I am not going to sit here and place all the blame on Reality. Sure he was, as Ted says, the king of the trolls. In my opinion it was by and large not personal in the beginning, but as time went on the personal crap just took over. The Laker fans were the ones that turned it personal. Now I am not going to say I don?t have some empathy for our Laker posters here. I lived with TrueLaker at MSNBC, and his garbage was so intense that I came very close to walking away from MSNBC, and if he had been a poster here I would have never posted here. I understand how frustrating it can be to deal with a constant barrage of negativity, and yes I think sometimes Reality goes over the line, and I really wish he would just take a break from it all.
At the same time I want to make this very clear, there is only one poster on this board that I used the ignore button on, and he was a Laker fan. That situation was really the impetus for why I quit posting. This victim/persecutor/rescuer mind-set destroyed my marriage, and frankly it destroyed this board. My marriage was destroyed by the constant and undermining reality that is personalized criticism. My marriage was destroyed by passive/aggressive manipulation. My marriage was destroyed by long held resentments, and blame. I got so much of that with one poster that I decided I didn?t want to deal with it any longer. I chose to jump off the triangle.
There is only poster here that I am done dealing with entirely, and he is a different Laker fan from the one I refer to above. His arrogance, condescension, self-righteous pomposity, and vindictiveness was flat out too much for me. His deliberate attempts at provocation, and his frankly personal attacks just wore so thin for me. Just to be straight I am not referring to either of the two Laker fans who have already posted to this thread. I have no problem with either of you two.
So my point in all of this? I went through great self-reflection during my divorce. I spent many hours reading Nietzsche, Camus, and Kierkegaard, as well as a number of other books to help me put many things in perspective. I read a book about how easy, and destructive it is to objectify people. I read a book on the redemptive nature of The Blues. I went to church for the first time in years. I challenged myself and my arrogance, and I wallowed in my own self-pity, dug myself out of that pit, and then chose to dive right back in. I had some momemts of deep Kierkagaardian self-reflection, and had I moments of great angst/anguish/anxiety/despair and I threw myself off the proverbial cliff on more than one occasion. I have blamed, and criticized, and I have developed deep contempt for my ex, and used pejoratives to describe her that I never thought I would ever use.
Am I a better person today? I will let others judge that, but I do know that my life with my children is infinitely better today than it was the last couple years of my marriage, and in all reality that is all that matters to me. As I told my ex a few months back, when she gave me a pathetic, half-hearted, back-handed apology asking me to give her a full pardon for everything that has happened.
OWN YOUR CHOICES, OWN YOUR BEHAVIORS, OWN YOUR BULLSHIT.
This place will never get any better until that is what we each do.
