Happiness, Is it the Key to Life?

How true how true! It's just common sense isn't it? Or maybe John Lennon's mother was just very wise. I think she was on to something. How to obtain happiness is the question.

Steve Jobs told everyone to "love what you do" or words to that effect. Love what you do for a living. Love your lifestyle choices. Love your home; love a hobby; etc. etc.

Love and happiness should go together like peanut butter and jelly in my humble opinion. Find someone to love who makes you happy...at least as happy as you allow yourself to be. Ahhh...that can be a problem for some people I think.

I seem to fall in love with men who have a difficult time being happy. Perhaps they feel they don't deserve to be happy. They have a hard time feeling comfortable with happy. Just my observation but I think I'm correct about this. What about this trait makes them attractive to me, or am I attracted in spite of their lack of overall happiness? Unfortunately, it's a trait that becomes annoying. In hubby's case, I have always tried to brush his "unhappy" off; or tried to replace it with "happy." Sometimes I was successful.

Anyway, happiness for me comes and goes. I'm happy about certain things but not everything, and in my mind not enough things. But there are things that definitely make my heart sing. All of my grandchildren for instance. Summer is a big source of "happy" for me. The ocean. Holy cannoli, bring me to the ocean and everything changes for the better...my allergies disappear; I smile, a lot; life feels better in general. Good food. Being near my children. Travelling to fun and/or relaxing places. A good book or movie. Finishing a painting. Writing something I'm satisfied with. A man who loves me including and in spite of my numerous faults.

Love and Romance and Family

I would like to recommend to new readers that they read the posts listed under "romance" especially, Love, romance and how I got here and Yesterday, everyday. I want you to know that my relationship with hubby wasn't always so sour. It was rooted in romance and an amazing love and respect for each other. Also, I knew about his being a polygamist before we ever met, actually from our first conversation, so know I walked in to this with my eyes open, a spring in my step and a smile on my face.

As I think upon what possibly has gone wrong, more and more I think most, if not all, of it has to do with me missing my family. Have there been problems, especially with #2, yes. But 1600 plus miles is a long way to move even when your children are grown...unless you are like a friend of mine who has the money to travel back and forth for every occasion and then some. I just missed them a whole lot but even more than that they missed me. I could suffer leaving my career, and friends behind, but there has been a deep emptiness from missing my kids.

I am a firm believer in the theory that couples need to put their relationship as the primary relationship and their children as second. However in reality I'm not sure that always works. My children, I thought, would perhaps move to where I was someday. But as time went on it became clear that wasn't going to happen ... and why should it? Where I was may as well have been a different country, another world. I went away seeking a happier life. Somehow, without my telling them they seem to have sensed I wasn't totally happier. But I also think after my cancer operation and treatment, when they saw me with almost no hair, looking so much older...I think they started to speak their minds about wanting me closer to them. Truth is, I really wanted to get to know my natural born grandchildren as well.

I remember when I was feeling so sick how I longed for more hugs, more empathy. Selfish I know. But it started, I think, the feeling of being lonely for my kids and I missed them more and more.

Anyway, read that section if you haven't already. I just did and it made me smile :) Hopes were so high at that time. Love was in the air. And in some ways I felt better than I ever had.

I doubt I will ever find that degree of romance again. Long courtships are wonderful and that's what we had.

All Relationships take work

Relationships with my kids, my grandkids, my sisters and with the family I've left behind for now, have been making me sad lately. I have been letting the guilt I feel when it comes to my kids get to me. I'm hoping it will pass as it usually does but to make matters worse Hubby all of a sudden seems to be missing me and pressuring me to come back. The holidays are approaching and he has a tendency to be sad around this time ... even though he does the actual holidays pretty well. He doesn't understand why I have to be here. The thing is I'm missing the grandkids on the other side of the country a lot and I am missing the nice warm Octobers they have there but I'm not missing all the built in stress of dealing with #1 and #2.

My relationship with #1 had deteriorated by the time I left. Something that was very distressing. She is basically a dear person. She has called me a few times and she answers the phone frequently so we talk. She also sends me photos of the kids. I've only talked to #2 once in these past couple of months and that was because she answered the phone and spoke to me very briefly; hubby was in the shower and she never gave him the message!!! Typical.

In my opinion plural marriage has pros and cons and one of the cons is the difficulty in dealing with sister wives. As I watch the TLC show Sister Wives I really concentrate on how well they get along. Even with the jealousies and all that, they truly like each other, love each other or so it seems. In the last episode I watched Kody, the husband, talks about how intricate and complicated the relationship is. First there is the "marriage" of all 5 of them. Then there are the separate and distinct "monogamous" relationship he has with each of the 4 wives. According to them they work on those a lot. Then, there are the relationships between each wife with one another! That's a lot of relationships!!! So in order for things to run smoothly all of those relationships have to be working. Of course I'm sure it's not perfect all the time, and they allude to the difficulties but the point is they each agree that it is all worth working on and they don't seem to have any animosities.

Another thing I've noticed is that they all seem to act like adults and don't go to Kody with their individual conflicts, when and if they occur. Even Christine, who has been worrying about her relationship with Kody, doesn't blame Robyn that Kody pays so much attention to her, she blames Kody and herself. It's refreshing.

I'm not sure #2 and I can ever live harmoniously with each other. Yes, we have some things in common, but our differences really stand out. If you came to our house you would notice it right away. In one of the recent Sister Wives episodes Janelle makes fun of (in a nice way of course) the way Robyn runs her relationship with Kody, all romantic and all...and Robyn defends herself saying that's the way her parents were all the time. That's what #2 does. The difference is #2 gets on everyone's nerves with the way she hovers over Hubby, and waits on him hand and foot like he is helpless or something. And the overtly sexual ways she has, the flirting and constant touching...oh and she'll complain out loud if she doesn't think she is having enough "private" time lol. It's quite annoying. Nope, sorry I don't miss that. She definitely has the Christine syndrome where she was used to being the "new" one for 15 years then I came along and spoiled that for her...in her mind, because Hubby certainly did his best to protect her feelings. It's hard for me to forget that it was her doing that led to me not living in my separate house.

I miss a lot of things. I miss watching tv with Hubby, discussing politics with him, cooking meals with him, but I don't miss the "marriage" of the 4 of us....yet. I feel badly about that but it's the truth. All of our separate and collective relationships need to be worked on,with the possible exception of Hubby and #2's marriage, and have for a long time. We tried occasionally to have little "wife meetings" which never seemed to change much of anything. Both of the other wives still go to hubby with their complaints about me, and I;m ashamed to admit I got in the habit as well....sigh.. I wish the others would understand that we need to "work" on all of it.

I should be stressed to the max...

Seriously, I should be biting my fingernails (not one of my vices thank goodness), or screaming, or burying myself in sleep, or spending mind numbing hours playing inane computer games, but I'm not.

1) I still haven't gotten back on depression meds or found a doctor here for primary care or cancer care, nor a dentist.

2) I'm far from what I have called home for several years and thus have few of the personal possessions I usually find comfort in. (books, trinkets, blankets, etc.)

3) I hate the weather here, may as well live in England or Seattle it's rained so much.

4) I miss those grandbabies back there terribly.

5) I even miss hubby's jokes (but not his mood swings).

6) The lack of appropriate funds is getting on my nerves.

7) I'm living in someone else's home (maybe I got used to that being a poly wife and living the way we do.)

8) I miss my bed. Omg, my bed! When I was so terribly unhappy in my former marriage I spent the last several years of it sleeping on a small two cushion loveseat in my home office. Once I moved to my own apartment I had all second hand stuff except for my one splurge....my expensive (at least in my opinion) queen size mattress and box spring. It was heaven! Gone were my chronic morning back aches. While I still had intermittent insomnia, when I did sleep I slept like a baby with a full tummy and a dry diaper. When I moved across the country I sold or gave away all the hand me down furniture I had collected but I dragged that bed with me. :( I miss it. Is that silly?

9) I haven't spent this much time with my grown children in....YEARS...gosh more than the three and half years I have been living in the southwest. For some reason, my kids are stuck in their teenage years, or at least in my mind they are, and I fret and worry even more when they are close than when they are far away. Ok maybe it's equal, but not as intense.

10) I don't have enough clothes with me for this climate.

Anyway, I should be stressed to the max and totally out of my mind but for some odd reason I'm not. I think about this stuff but it's not driving me to the brink of anything. It could be simply because my life is so simple, I'm not sure.

Me

I doubt I've ever mentioned some personal things about me that in retrospect may help in eventually understanding why a woman gives up everything near and dear to her to move FAR away and in to a plural marriage..although, the plural part is only part of it, as you may have realized by now.

For starters, I suffer from depression. I think throughout my life it has been an issue but became more acute as my children and I lived in an unhappy, stressful home. I never took medication for it until approximately 7 or 8 years ago. I did however occasionally see a therapist through the years. In other ways I handle stress well. I had an extremely stressful career for 15 years and for the most part was successful and enjoyed the work. Before that I worked for a small newspaper and loved, loved the grind to a deadline type of atmosphere there. I've worked on political campaigns and trust me they are more stressful than you can imagine. Anyway, I have depression. I have been off the meds for about 3 months now and have noticed that little things, like one of my adult children having a problem (not necessarily a big problem btw) can trigger weeping. So I'm on a search for a doctor. I need a doctor here in this location anyway.

I am indecisive. Please don't ask me to pick the restaurant or the flight time or anything else. Give me at the most 2 choices! Better yet, you decide. Because of this I think parts of my life have been left to others. If you read older posts you'll see how that has affected me. For instance, not moving in to my own house when I joined hubby and his 2 other wives. BIG MISTAKE.

I have trouble letting things go. Getting better at this when it comes to small stuff but still I have a tendency to go on and on about some things, especially in my head. This as you can imagine sometimes leads to insomnia, and lately along with my cancer medication and my age... I worry.

I hate the cold! Hate it. One of the things I looked forward to when I moved across the country 3 and a half years ago was the warmer climate. In a perfect world I would live in Mexico. I'm a beach person, unfortunately where I moved to was far from any beach. Now I'm near the ocean but the weather has turned. I used to like autumn but not so much anymore I'm discovering. I am a summer person.

I wrote for a living for quite a long time and thus sometimes I just want to write and write. So sorry to bore you with all this personal, not really poly type stuff. Did I mention I miss my real breasts?