Sounds like this woman desparately needed rescuing It sounds to me like what she saw was a solution to her problems, not a real person with strengths and weaknesses of his own. What she loved was a 'way out', her idealized vision of you, not you in particular. So did she use you? IMO yes, absolutely. Did you use her? Probably. It sounds like you wanted to rescue her. You were also looking for a new life - out in the country, lots of children, fresh air, warm, smiling, happy wife -- the simple life -- one big happy escape fantasy. And while it sounds like your escape fantasies were perfectly compatible, the real and imperfect humans behind them weren't. You were both disappointed and felt cheated when the real life people didn't measure up to their fantasy counterparts, and when real life problems and annoyances interfered with your utopia. So what do YOU want to do now? You need to make a living to support yourself and your child together. She's got 8 kids to take care of. Are you (plural you, including the kids) better off trying to do this together? Are you better off getting away from this mess so you can rebuild your shattered self-esteem, restart your publishing empire, and just send checks and visit the little one? Only you can decide --

Thanks Flamey, LOL! I wanted to be fair to everyone. Good thing Evelyn was occupied with her "baby". :) Jenn-That is exactly what our visits are always like. My mom and Jason's parents visit us now and then but my brother's never been here. Grrrrrr. :) I have had fantasies about not telling my family when we're there but I can't even imagine the fallout if we bumped into them in the mall or when we were out. Eep! Vicki-I know, eh? It's so nice that they all love to see us so much but...maybe we should come down every weekend for a few months and make them sick of us! If only that were affordable. :D Flamingo-Oh, you are so right...he does work all day and it is nice for the kids to see him. I thought you meant that he was often away like on business trips and such. Silly me. :) Dilly Dally-Believe me when I say it's not like that. Her family stays when they want and so do we. The issue is that my brother is determined to host us no matter what we say, LOL. My future sister-in-law is not a control freak in the slightest and has been engaged to my brother for almost two years. What I'm trying to say is that it is my brother who is PUSHING for us to stay, not us. :) I do love him dearly even though he cheeses me off sometimes. Our parents are clamoring for us to come so that they can see us and hang out with the grandchildren. Seriously there is no imposition. At all. Ever. Zeetara-They are pretty awesome. I'm very lucky. Susan-Hotels are still freakishly expensive here in Canada. We just can't afford 85-100+ dollars x three nights. Sucks, but it's the truth. Carla-I'm sorry that it's hard to understand. My in-laws live in a newer bi-level with two bedrooms up and one down. They spend all of their time unless our family or Jason's sister's (and she live in Germany so that's very infrequent) are there to visit. After a two month visit or so from his sister, you can tell that they're glad to have the house to themselves...but a weekend isn't long enough as far as they are concerned. And no, I am not making this up or speculating, they have told us many times how much they love our visits. Every time Jason talks to them, they ask when we'll be down next. I don't think that we are unpleasant to host. We take care of our own children (except when they let Jason and I go off and watch a movie which is maybe two or three times a year) and clean up after ourselves. The kids all share the downstairs room which has a double bed (Evelyn sleeps in a playpen). They have toys at their house and a swing set outside. The kids love going and have so much fun. :) My in-laws have no set schedule on the weekend except to go out for breakfast on Saturday morning and we all go together. We usually pull out the cards and play for as long as we can stay up. It's a blast. When we stay with my own family it's pretty much the same thing minus the cards but we visit and maybe go shopping. So anyway, my mom called last night while I was at a meeting and I thought, great, now Jason can let her know our plans as we had made an itinerary before I had to leave the house. He told me when I got back that he had done so but she wanted me to call her. I called her back and she had some questions about my wedding for my brother and then we talked about the weekend. Jason and I decided to stay at his parent's house for the entire weekend with Saturday going out for breakfast with his parents and then shopping for the dresses with Saturday evening open for my family. Sunday was a date night for us and visiting our two friends with the girls staying over at my mom's that night, while Monday is for the girls to go swimming with my mom and for the museum and then coming home. I thought that it all sounded great and all of these activities were things that were already discussed so we seriously AREN'T being presumptuous. :D While my mom and I were talking, she said something about when the girls were sleeping over on Friday night. I said, "Didn't Jason let you know about what was happening?" She said yes, but I told her that we had discussed it and that this time we would be staying at his parent's house and that we had a few people to visit and some definite things that we wanted to do and that this was a vacation for us. She seemed perfectly fine with this when I explained that we wanted to see everyone that we hadn't seen in some time. So I'm feeling moderately relaxed about this until I phone my brother to let him know. :) Thanks for all of your help! I truly appreciate it and it felt very good to be firm to my mom about what WE wanted for a change. :) I think the weekend may be fun now. Danielle

Some of the quotes are right on, others you have to think about . Kafka's writing always has been too complicated for me. Got several of his books, read and re-read them, but it did not help.

Quit a mixture today of opinions. Many good ones, but the one which stood out for me was by Hector Hugh Monro. "He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed". I talked to that guy yesterday evening.