Hey don't be knockin' Tauruses now. Am one...married to one....sighhhhh... Neither of us is trainable unless we want to be. I have, however, 'converted' him to understanding that starting dinner before I get home is a good thing. That's so cool. And your post made me think of when we went to dinners at Canny Camp and the looks on all those faces when 5 or 6 campers jumped up from the table and took pics of the plates, lol.

Oh, (((Jill))) I am so sorry for your terrible loss. I just posted my story & noticed yours. Your grief is still so new...mine is 21 months old after losing my 27-year old son. These first few days, weeks & months (for me anyway) will be a foggy blur. You do things because they are automatic. I remember feeling SO angry when I had to take the first shower afterward. "WHY do I still need to bathe!?! EAT??? Why is everyone just going around like nothing has happened, don't they KNOW!?!" That numbness carried me through plus I had family here that I needed to cook for, watch grands, prepare for funeral, all of it. I remember finally falling into bed several nights later & finally just letting go on hubby's shoulder. We had to be strong for daughter-in-law, 3 grands & her family. You cannot be responsible for what other family members do or do not do. Just focus on what you need to do and don't let anyone or anything keep you from what you need to do. I remember listening to my son's cell phone message over & over just to hear his voice. That's normal & to be expected. Your tears will come & go. I remember when I laughed the first time, I felt guilty. We gathered at a close friend's house after the funeral and had a wonderful family & friend time together. We had to drive 300 miles to Anchorage from Valdez, Alaska so it was quite the challenge to arrange things from afar. Just take it one day at a time...every day will be different. Do you have any type of support group, church, minister or someone you can talk to? I think just coming here will be good for you. This is the first time I've been able to 'talk' to someone about what happened to us outside of our immediate family. Just keep talking to us...letting us know how you are doing. If you want to read my story, it's right above yours for now. You take care, Jill...again, I'm SO sorry for your pain. Please keep us posted on how it's going. HUGS

Kay, how are you? I haven't been around for a while, I had to take a break and get myself together. To everyone I want to tell you that I am so sorry for your loss and sadness, it is the worst pain anyone can have BUT it does get better, I promise. My heart and soul mate died 14 months ago and I wanted to die with him, I was in so much pain and so scared of what was going to happen to me without him; life must go on. I was told that it doesn't get better but it gets different and they were right. I still weep and some days are bad but I have more good days as time goes on. Life won't seem so alien after a while, I just felt like I didn't belong here any more, not in my home, my job or this world but I did finally settle with my feet back on the ground. It's not easy but you have to push youself to live and it eventually gets easier. Please take care of yourselves, get help if you need it and work hard at being strong, we will never forget and we will always love them and happier days are ahead. God Bless all, Mav.

Em, I'm sorry I am late getting back, but I'm very glad to hear that you've had no further contact from him. I hope he has gotten the message and moved on. I really think you need to let your dh know how very upset you have been over this and how it has really affected your well being. He probably saw it in a whole different light and never realized that you have been stressing about it in a big way. I think he needs to know exactly how you feel and how this other man has intruded in a manner that leaves you feeling extremely vulnerable. These days, especially, you have to be very cautious with anyone who continually makes inappropriate approaches without encouragement. Your dh isn't worried about you wanting to fool around, but that is completely beside the point. It isn't about YOU at all; it's the unknown of what is going on with someone who is playing mind games with you on your cell phone. That's scary and deserves support. My situation was entirely different but nevertheless gives me something of an understanding of how you must feel. Before the days of cell phones and caller ID, I began getting very frightening phone calls. It began as a "wrong number" call. The guy made some joking statements to which I responded jokingly as well and then we both hung up. But he called again, and again, and again. At first, it was light-hearted banter and I am sorry to say that I did not hang up immediately, but kind of enjoyed the chat. But it didn't stop and it got weirder. He made it clearer with every call that he knew exactly who I was. Gradually the tone shifted to a menacing one. I would walk in my house to hear the phone ringing and he would say, "Welcome home, Cheri! I'm going to get you soon," or something like that. There was always a threat to "get" me or something similar. I was petrified. If I didn't pick up the phone he would leave a message. If I shut off my answering machine, he would call and call and call. If I unplugged my phone, I felt so scared and vulnerable anyway, as it was obvious from the things he said that he knew when I left my house, came home, even where I went sometimes. He also knew how to play the game because I couldn't get anything done to stop him. The police refused to put the thing on my phone that would trace calls because he never made a specific threat to kill me (is that ludicrous????). The phone company recorded the calls but wouldn't trace them either for the same reason. They wouldn't change my number because they were recording the calls and even if I could have gotten them to change it, they were going to charge me a fortune to do so! Can you believe that? I was a single mother. My kids had to spend every other week with their dad, so most of these calls came when I was alone and most of them were at night. My ex was/is very capable of having orchestrated the whole thing and I suspect he may have been behind it, but I had absolutely no way to prove it. The voice was not his. It just stopped, finally, but after months of being terrorized, I had a very hard time getting over it. It seemed like an innocent thing at first, but it quickly escalated to something way out of my control. I was also a lot younger and had been pretty much...well, brutalized, I guess you could say, in my marriage, so I just didn't have the personal resources at that time to tackle such a situation. Predators sniff out the vulnerable, so the best thing to do if you can manage it is to not appear vulnerable! Sorry to say that I don't exactly know how that's done.