Value-add to faith

Had a nice visit with my uncle yesterday who wanted to check up on me on how I'm handing this utterly heart-breaking process of divorce. I find I'm feeling the same type of feelings I think I'd feel if my wife had passed away. Just a total feeling of utter and complete loss. We had nine years together, and after only 2-3 months of no longer being together, she's already in a new relationship and it's tearing me to pieces.

Just had my 3-yr old, Emily, jump on my lap as I'm typing this, thank Christ I still have her at least.

Speaking of which, I can now completely understand why so many people find Jesus and their faith in times of personal tragedy. It must be enormously comforting to seek solace in prayer and to have total faith and conviction that someone is looking out for you and that's all part of a plan and such. I was raised Catholic, went to church growing up, lost my religion later in life, didn't get married in a Church, didn't have Emily baptized or anything. I sort of became a non-practicing atheist I suppose.

I'm not going to rediscover my religion or anything (I've started smoking again as a temporary crutch) but I had an epiphany these past couple days. For the first time in many years, I don't think any less of devout people, rather I find I'm profoundly envious of them.


Just wanted to share knowing I have friends here and fellow FATties have been through this recently as well. I love you guys.

I've got a little religion and not sure if it'll mean anything to you, but you and your daughter are in my prayers.

Ha! Guess i'll be Subotai to your Conan...execept I wont cry, but pray since you won't.

(Actually your post did make me start to tear up a little. Not sure a forum post has ever done that.)

I haven't been through his trial, but I'm sure better days are ahead for you. Hang in there, brother.

I feel for you. The dating thing is rough. My ex-wife immediately started dating someone as soon as we split (makes sense, final straw was phone sex), which was hard for me at the time. Obviously, long run, it doesn't matter. But it gives the whole thing a grim sense of finality. You aren't getting back together and this makes it abundantly clear.

Besides the faith part you touched on, I think the other thing that something like religion does in a more practical fashion is connect you to a network of people. Which is kind of vital to do again after a divorce. I'm not religious myself so I simply couldn't do it, but the community aspect of religion was pretty appealing to me post divorce.

I had a common law wife for 19 years before finally fucking it all up good and proper. I had quite a few sessions with therapists about a lot of things but we talked quite a lot about how losing a long term partner in a way that doesn't include keeping in touch is basically like having them die, and that fucking sucks. When it's primarily your fault it all went to shit (at least, what brought it all to a head, way too late), that just makes it more shit. Counting myself incredibly lucky that I quickly found the one I should have been with the whole time and had just enough time to settle down and even cranked out a couple of kids while moving to a new country and learning a new culture and language as a 40 year old. Pretty damn tough, but with a great ending. It's never too late.

Stay strong Barney. I'm dealing with it too. It sucks. The good news is you will live and you will come out stronger. Hold on to your little girl. She will need your love.

It DOES get easier ... just not any time soon. I just realized yesterday that last week WOULD have been my 20-year anniversary had my first wife and I stayed married. That's totally weird to even think about. I'm happily remarried now (and I chose MUCH better the second time around), and my first marriage all seems like a bad dream that I barely remember or even think about. BUT ... it takes time to get there. Hang in there.

My dad died six years ago. The next several months were really tough. I caught the flu twice and the common cold four times within seven months. I nearly got fired over a misunderstanding at work. And then my girlfriend's cat died. An old friend talked me into going to church and even sent me a nice bible. I went to church nearly every Sunday for a year. It was somewhat comforting, and changed me from a total atheist to more of an agnostic.

Since then, I have actually drifted even closer towards believing in God. However, the prospect of the existence of God doesn't fill me with happiness. Instead, I am bitter and angry about the idea of a supreme being who allows so much suffering in our world. What I went through was rough, but normal enough. But there are so many other people struggling through miserable lives, and it's horrible when innocent children are suffering like that.

I know you're in a bad place now, Barney. Make sure to hang out with your friends as much as you can, or get some if you don't have any. Things will get better at some point.

One does not simply walk out of Mordor.

Shellhead wrote: Since then, I have actually drifted even closer towards believing in God. However, the prospect of the existence of God doesn't fill me with happiness. Instead, I am bitter and angry about the idea of a supreme being who allows so much suffering in our world.

Free will and faith, man. We have free will and without that faith could never be tested.

Barney - sorry to hear you are going through such a rough patch, but like Mr. White, I'll be praying for you and the family.

I feel for you Barney as I've been there too. Time does make things better, but you'll probably get tired of hearing that. I know I always thought I wanted to feel better right then and not wait. When it happened to me, my mother had passed earlier in the year, my brother was a drunk and homeless and I was going through a depression. That was when my wife decided to start sleeping with a guy we both worked with and left. A couple months later the divorce was final and child support was determined so of course I lost my job of ten years like 3 days later after. I lived out in the middle of nowhere and had no family or support system and I found myself trying to learn how to take care of my 4 year old boy in the mental state I was in. Those were dark times and I was in a bad place. My son kept me going. Believe it or not, discovering the board gaming hobby a few years later probably saved me from the rest of myself. Mostly it was finally being around other people I could relate to.

I totally get what you mean about being envious of people's faith. Over the years I've seen my fair share of people trying to convince those of faith that their faith is misguided or a waste of time and I just don't understand that mentality. Religion and faith means a lot of different things to people, including comfort and I just hate to see someone trying to take that away from another. I'm not religious really. Myself, I've come to terms with the fact that I believe in God, but the rest of the stuff is questionable to me.

Anyway, try to be around people that care about you and don't spend inordinate amounts of time alone. If you need to talk, let it fly man, it's good to get that stuff out of your head. I'll be thinking about you and hope things get better sooner rather than later.

Yes, Barney, bad place to be.

10 years ago my recent ex (less than 2 wks separation) decided to move in next to me and start to date the entire male population of Kuwait (or at least it seemed that way to me). To cap it all she 'accidently' sent me an email, meant for one of her boyfriends, asking if it was OK to give him a blow job in the shopping mall when she saw him!!! That was really bad.

She tried her best to make friends with me but it didn't really work. I went and found a nice Russian girl who was non too impressed that the ex wife lived next to me!! Worse, she would get drunk, fuck someone and then come over to talk to me, her best friend, about her problems with alcohol and relationships.

Eventually, after she remarried (still living next to me) I had an argument about child support with her (too boring to go into). Her response was to ban the two girls from ever seeing me, instruct her maid never to take the girls round and eventually leave Kuwait, with the girls to Shanghai, without a word. Only one of the sisters deems to talk to me now after both of them being banned by their Mum from any communication with me for 9 years.

Basically, don't let it degenerate to those ridiculous heights of absurdness. Make friends, as others have said, use your family for support and fly to Russia!!

Religious faith is not in my skillset, and never will be, but faith in humanity and friends definitely is. Lean on folk, they will understand.

Prayers and well wishes sent to you.

Regarding faith and religion, even the doctors of the church went through constant cycles:

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>Atheism

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>agnosticism

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> theism

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Oh man, Barney. I didn't know you were going through that. That really sucks and my heart goes out to you.

I went through a very similar break up a coule years ago, Barney. She was in a new relationshipnalmost immediately.

It felt similar. Death, and perhaps my own. Got treated for tako tsubo heart condition.

But it made it easier to deal with. If someone doesn't want you and make it that clear how much you meant to them by just going to the next guy, then the only thing to morn over is the time lost.

I'm better off for it.

I'm very sorry to hear about your troubles, Barney, but also glad to hear them in that it's great that you're willing to share with us. As you've seen, even this virtual community is full of good thoughts and support for you.

I am not a religious person. I guess, like you, I'm a "non-practicing atheist." I don't believe, but I also don't mind that others do. However, I attend church every Sunday. I go mainly because my wife wants to go. But the important thing is, I still enjoy listening to the sermons. There are always things to learn, whether it be spiritual, moral, or historical. I enjoy the company of the other people there. My lack of belief in God doesn't stop me from gaining something from the church.

I think if you can find a community that you like, even if it's through a church, you should capitalize on that. Meet new people, find support, join in something bigger than yourself. It ultimately doesn't matter what you believe, since everyone's faith is a very private thing.