Thank you all for your good suggestions. They are all thoughtful and sensible. I wish I could take your advice. I hate to sound like I'm just whining and not willing to try but there are reasons why some things won't work very well. Coolmama, we do have three sweet dogs and they are very dear to me. They are outside dogs and that's good for them because they have lots of room to romp and play but they are not close by like a house dog would be. They are supposed to be guard dogs but they are a little too quick to make friends to be really good at it. I don't care because I love them anyway. Close1972, I would be happy to talk with a counselor but I'm afraid I just can't afford it. My insurance wouldn't cover it and I don't know when I would be able to make an appointment. Do those people work on weekends? The same applies to the cleaning service, Monablair. My job doesn't pay very well although it is the best I can hope for in this area. Since I've been working there I've gotten a raise of 35 cents an hour but my health insurance premiums have gone up about $25 a week. So I'm gradually working my way out of a paycheck. I don't have any retirement plan and will just have to work til I can't work any more. There isn't any possibility to retire for me. I'm just glad that my husband could. He has worked even longer than I have starting with picking cotton and potatoes when he was only 6. I am really glad for him to have the chance to play a little although it would be really nice if he could see that it is hard for me to carry so much of the work at home when you think of my heavy work schedule. At least he isn't one of those husbands who complains that I don't do more! Most work nights I don't cook. We just snack if we are hungry. He is a good cook but he doesn't get around to it and I'm usually so tired by the time I get home that I am not hungry anyway. Thank goodness for that. If I had to stand over a stove after the days I put in I would really get upset. Popi, I'm sure exercise would be good for me. I do better in the summer when I do more in the garden. In winter my arthritis really gives me fits. Exercise would be good for that, too, though and I should do more. We live WAY out in the country so there isn't really any neighborhood to walk in. I don't like to even go outside the fence to the mailbox on account of stray dogs and such but there is room inside the fence to take a turn through the woods. I'm lazy I guess. I just hope housework counts as exercise. You are right about getting down on account of dwelling on this problem a lot. I try to fight it but I do get blue when I think too much about myself and how things are not the way I thought they would be at this time in my life. I have had a hard time with depression in my life and sure don't want to get there again. In a way I guess it is a good thing that I have such a stressful job that keeps my mind completely busy so much of the time. At least that's eight or nine hours a day when I'm not thinking of myself. As for your questions, Popi and Monablair, I've been with my husband for about 15 or 16 years. We have been married for 13 years but we were friends before that. We used to spend a lot of time together and had a lot of fun. I honestly thought we would always be like that. We both worked in the yard or on projects in the house. We cooked together and made jams and candies and all kinds of things. We used to go out to eat often or to listen to music or see movies. It's been at least 5 years since we went to a movie. But I am completely committed to the marriage. I would never cheat on him and I don't think he would cheat on me. I promised to stay with him in good times and bad so there is no reason for me to quit just because things are not as I would like. I'm sure you are all right about trying to find ways to make friends and have fun things to do sometimes. It is just really hard to find time and money to do that. I can't see to drive at night and it's such a long drive to town that I don't even do that every weekend. And weekends are so filled up already. I do thank all of you for your suggestions. I need to think about them some more and try to figure out some way to make some of them work.

Yes, I think you are correct in that I'm usually very trusting of people. It's not my nature to look for the worst in people and I'd like to think that people will treat me the way that I treat them. However, in the past few years my husband has taught me a valuable lesson in what happens when you are too trusting. When I look back on some of the different situations that have happened I can't believe that it totally slip past me or how deceitful he is as a person. I trusted him to move money out of my checking account to pay monthly expenses until one day when I was trying to make a purchase and the clerk informed me that my debit card was declined. My first thought was my account must have been hacked. On my way home to figure out what had happened I remember how during the past few weeks he kept reminding me that I was spending a lot of money. I only spent what I knew that I could afford to spend and never more than what I was making. His statements should have been a clue. When I went online to view my banking account I saw where he had transfer more than $30,000.00 out of my account over a period of year and half without consulting me. Hence the "you're spending a lot lately". I never really checked my account because I always knew that I had a pretty good cushion for what I wanted to spend. My spending was nothing more than a visit to Walmart every now and then and I knew with the amount of money that I make (retired Federal employee and now a government contractor making six figures) that I really never had to worry about my card being declined. When I confronted him about it the first thing he yelled was "I pay the house note out of my check'! There was about an ounce of truth to his statement with the exception that the money was first transferred from my account to his account and then of course he paid the house note but using my money. What a snake in the dirt! At that point I really just wanted to know what was going on with him so I was willing to sit down and discuss the situation with him but he got angry and slapped me across my face. He told me that I had repeated to him that I didn't really need to know what was going on with the budget just as long as everything was paid and on time. That was his excuse for not telling me that he was taking money out of my account. Well needless to say when he put his hands on me I used his cane and beat the crap out of him. No one, and I mean no one is allowed to touch me in that way and every since that night we have not shared a bed. I knew then that the marriage was pretty much over for me. That happened last March and I'm still trying to figure out how to get out. It can't be that difficult because people do it all the time. I think I need a some sort of life coach to help me to navigate all of the changes that I'll need to make. The other thing that I noticed is that he no longer takes his mom and sister out to dinner and movies anymore and he's not offering to guy rounds when he visits a bar. REALLY?? When I look back at the time that I've spent with him and various situations that are questionable I realize how he's been lying to me all these years. I've had people question me about his comments and how they say he bashes me behind my back. Oh well, I'm sure you're probably bore and have heard enough of me. Thanks for your time. Pam (forgive all errors in this almost book that I've written. I'm writing this while on my break so I don't have much time to proofread.)

"I'm a 45 yo female with no job skills really" THAT is your real problem. Without employment potential, you will always be one man away from disaster. But it's not too late - look into some short term programs at your local Community College, and see if you can get something going for you, training-wise. Most places have a Career Center or a women's center. Avoid those pricey tech schools that advertise on daytime TV - they are not good. Ask about financial aid for tuition if you need it. There are programs just for women your age who need job skills. Be your own best friend here. What are you going to do: 1.stay and suffer 2.beat the bushes for another man who will support you 3.clean houses or wait tables for a living? You can't take control of your life until you take control of your income. The rest follows.

Imagine some guy walking up to you & saying, "Hi, there, I think you're cute & I'd like to get you to straighten out my credit, pay my rent, wash my underwear, & cook & clean for me, in return for which, I'll let you do it." This made me laugh - seriously. I love my husband dearly but it would be nice for him to have said this to me upfront lol it's taken a year for me to get him to realize that he just decided to sit back and 'let' me do everything he was doing for himself before I came along and in turn, he became extremely lazy. Which caused us to have a very difficult first year of marriage. We are past this hump now but ever so often I have to allow his laundry to pile up before it clicks with him 'oh crap I need undies and she isn't gettin' em done fast enough, I better help' It was just a bit funny to me and what I've been through lol As far as the lonely, longing feelings for exbf, Amber I do know how you feel. After I got divorced, I met a man that was in the military and was only here on leave. We communicated by phone, text, he visited, I visited him etc. I loved him so deeply, I never thought I would or could love the same as I loved him. I really thought I had found my 'sole mate'. Compared to what I had been married to previously, he was everything I had ever longed for in a lonely marriage. He was devoted, dedicated, polite, honorable, loyal, not only to me but to this country, we shared interests, he taught me things I never knew about, took me places, the traveling was one of the most enjoyable parts of our relationship. My parents liked him a lot and really supported this relationship. It ended for reasons that were not our control. He could not live here and I could not follow him around the world to his different deployments because I can not leave the state with my daughter - I would have had to give custody to my ex (and that was not going to happen). We struggled with a long distance relationship because we got to a point where neither of us could continue to afford to go back and forth traveling. I decided to take the break. He would text or call occasionally and I would ignore. I cried for weeks. I think actually months. I was very depressed. Everyone told me to call him!! We could work it out - it was only until Dd turned 18.. She was 5 At the time. LONG time until 18. I never called. In fact, I had deleted his number and because I was so reliant on speed dial, I never learned the #. I deleted his emails, I could not bring myself to throw away his pictures but I put them away. It took me a good 6 months to have him out of my system. I don't know what he went through because I never talked to him again. Once I ignored him for a while, he went away and never tried again. I also had changed my number. I eventually wore a smile on my face and I started putting myself 'back out there'. I had become a hermit and never went anywhere except to work and back again. I met my now Dh but that doesnt mean I ever stopped 'loving' that ex. The existence of him in my brain faded over time and I started realizing, wow I've gone 2 weeks without thinking of him, wow I have gone three months. Until most recently, I realized, gosh I don't think I've thought of him in probably an entire year or more. And that was when he had asked me to be friends on FB. I actually hesitated. I left his request there for quite a while before I decided. In fact, the impact of the request caused me to not even log on to FB for more than a week. I decided to go ahead and accept. I found that he is married and is getting out of the military next month. He is really happy as am I. He sent me a message and said wow little myfam is SO big!! I can't believe it's been this many years and wow you have a little boy! Congrats! It's good to see you happy. By the way, I think we made the right decision back then even though it was very hard and it took me a LONG time to accept it, I'm so glad you're happy and I'm happy too. I'm glad we can be friends. I didn't log back on to FB for even longer after reading that message because I just wasn't sure how it was effecting me. I put it out of my mind expecting that I was going to become miserable and have 'drama' over it. Lol then I realized, holy cow I completely forgot he sent that message oops I never responded. I thought it was going to be hard for me but ha! I fooled myself. It wasn't hard, I'm happy and have NO reason to look back on that time of desperation and loneliness... I am where I'm supposed to be. It was my time with him that landed me where I am today and honestly, I don't think I believe in soul mates but I think I found the one that I WANT to be with, not the one that I thought I was supposed to be with. Healing and moving on just takes time. It is hard. It takes you removing yourself from any contact. You have to want to stop the contact and you have to want to move on. It takes time. I hope you'll find the strength during those hard days to stay strong and to push through the urge. I seriously believe dieting and quitting smoking are much easier than healing a broken heart - cause I've been there. My divorce wasn't even that hard. Lol Good luck stay strong!