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My missus (we've been together 38 years) remembers everything I've done or said.......when she mentions something from the past I've got no idea!

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Your not alone there. I think it's a woman thing. I've been married 41 years and needless to say there's loads of stuff I can't remember but my wife apparently can. Mostly things I did wrong. The fact I can't remember them of course means that she can claim I did just about anything which is a tad irksome.

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I have found this thread absolutely fascinating, and it has given me much food for thought – not least because I have known for some time now that I have a Luddite view of mental health, and that I really ought to do something about it. If someone tells me that they have mental health issues I’m sorry to say that I am that person who’s likely to tell them to get a grip and pull themselves together. It happened a few weeks ago, when a smashing young lad at work came into my office to tell me that he was suffering from anxiety. In my typically crass and insensitive fashion I told him that he should try sitting in my chair for a couple of months and see what that does for his stress levels. When I saw his face drop I knew I’d f*cked up.


As bad as it was when my old man kicked the bucket it didn’t make me depressed or suicidal or anything remotely like that – I’m just not the type. What it did was make me very angry for a very long time. I took an extremely combative approach to dealing with it, and (I’m deeply ashamed to say) with anyone who got in my way. Even what was left of my own family wasn’t immune: my response to some typically snide comments my mother made about my then girlfriend was to tear the bathroom door off its hinges and lob it down the stairs after her, and when my brother and I argue now he still reminds me about the times I broke his nose. :roll:


And as it was in our house, so it was elsewhere in my life. I hated my father for what he had done to us, despised his cowardice and lack of guts, and went out of my way to prove that I was nothing like him - no ‘chip off the old block’. When life put obstacles in my path, I just battered them into submission. It got to the stage that my mother genuinely thought that every time I left the house would be my last, until I finally opened the front door one evening to a group of lads who’d come to pay me back for an earlier hiding I’d given one of their clan. I knew that something had to change, and still being a teenage knobhead I decided that I needed to up my game, and took up karate. Funnily enough, it was the making of me. I joined the club as someone who just wanted to be a better fighter, and by the time I left some years later I was a totally different person: “Any more laid back and you’d be horizontal” as my instructor used to say.


It took me a lot longer than it should have done to realise that ‘soft power’ – being friendly and always going out of my way to help people whilst still being totally emotionally disengaged – worked just as well, required considerably less effort, and left everyone (me included) feeling good about the experience rather than being in need of medical attention.


:oops:

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My missus (we've been together 38 years) remembers everything I've done or said.......when she mentions something from the past I've got no idea!

 

My Wife is the opposite and can barely remember what she's had for breakfast :lol:


I seem to remember every little thing very vividly and can almost playback scenes from my life in my head like a movie, but of course its only the shit stuff you don't want to remember :roll:

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14 years of "pass me the thing" and "let's watch that show we like, the one with the actor" does get a bit grating :lol:



It's quite amusing actually to see the difference in our memories. While looking through films to watch she will pick one and I'll say you didn't like that when we last watched it. She will be absolutely adamant that she's never seen it while I can not only remember watching it with her but will remember that we ordered a pizza and I kicked over my beer :lol:

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Back in the summer of 1988 we were driving home after a family camping holiday in France – me, my brother, my mother and my father. When we arrived, three of us jumped out of the car and went inside to do all those things you do when you get home after a long holiday – putting the kettle on, opening the mountain of post behind the door – the usual stuff. Being slightly preoccupied, it was several minutes before we realised that my father had driven away.


Sitting here 32 years later it’s a struggle to remember the precise sequence of events that night, but I know that at some point my mother phoned the police to report him missing, and that I went out to look for him several times. What I do remember very clearly is the futility of a 15 year old boy walking every inch of the neighbourhood in the pouring rain, desperately hoping to find his father.


The next morning the police came round to tell us that they had found a body 30 miles away in Buxton, and that my mother had to go and identify it. They knew she couldn’t drive - and in any case didn’t have the car- but they just told us where we had to go and left us to it. Thankfully one of our neighbours took us. I can still remember as clearly as if it were yesterday sitting in the passenger seat of his car as we waited for my mother to come out of the police station, listening to the rain gently drumming on the roof and watching the rivulets of water run down the windscreen.


When she did finally come out it was to confirm what we already knew, which was that the body they had found was my dad. The feeling I experienced then is one I’ve never been able to describe accurately - as though the ground had disappeared from beneath me, and that I was tumbling through space. Everything that had given my life structure up to that point had collapsed around me, and I completely lost all my bearings.


I remember very little of the funeral. It was held in the huge chapel of the university where he worked, and it was packed. Clearly a popular man then, my dad.


I’m not ashamed to say that I adored my father, and thought he was fantastic. I had wanted to learn everything I could from him, and I craved his company. Although I didn’t really give it any thought at the time, I always knew that he wasn’t quite so enthusiastic about spending time with me. Whenever I did spend time with him - fixing the car, doing some DIY around the house, or joining in his main hobby which was photography - my presence was barely tolerated at best, and certainly never encouraged. I assumed it was because I was just an irritating kid who pestered the life out of him when what he really wanted was a bit of peace and quiet, but it was an open secret that he much preferred my younger brother, who he thought was far superior to me in every way – especially intellectually and musically. Funnily enough it never bothered me at the time, probably because I was too stupid to realise how morally repulsive it was.


Like most people who take their own lives, my father had left a note, and after some initial hesitation my mother allowed me to read it - some time just after the funeral, I believe. Her reluctance was well founded, because in it he made it very clear that I fell some considerable way short of being the son he wanted – if indeed he wanted me at all. As criticisms go it was pretty damning, and the fact that his last thoughts of me had been so hateful came as another devastating blow. He must have known full well what effect that would have on a young boy.


But as bad as that was, it got much worse when she went through his papers. His original idea had been to have some company on his journey into oblivion, and he had made quite elaborate plans to take me along with him. This was motivated for the most part by his dislike for me, but also by his desire to spite my mother. In the end it would seem that the logistics of the enterprise were what put him off - not so much a case of what Hunter S Thompson would have categorised as “Too weird to live, and too rare to die” and more “Too worthless to live, but too much effort to kill.”


That was the beginning of the end of whoever it was that I was ever going to have been. Perhaps there is a more effective way to take a kind, loving and trusting child and completely destroy every aspect of his personality, but I’ll be damned if I can think of it. The father that I trusted with my life would have had no hesitation in taking it away from me - not out of that misguided love and fear of eternal separation that drives some suicidal parents to take their children with them, but out of contempt, and a mind-set that saw me as nothing more than a disposable commodity whose murder might add a bit extra to the hurt he wanted to cause my mother. It was as though I had unknowingly been in the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle, and that at the last moment, for some random reason, they had decided not to pull the trigger; that the only reason I was still here was because of some arbitrary decision he had taken. The anger that made me feel was like nothing I had experienced before or since – a visceral rage that burned so intensely for so long that it incinerated every last trace of the person I had been.


Of course if he had decided to take me along with him on that day in 1988 I would have been a lamb to the slaughter, not suspecting a thing until it was all too late. For years my mother had a recurring nightmare that he had come back for me, and that there was nothing she could do to stop him from dragging me away to the grave. Even now, on the rare occasions that he appears in my dreams we are always fighting, and I am always losing.


I learned a harsh lesson at 15: if you can’t even trust your father with something as fundamental as your life, you’d be a bloody fool ever to trust anyone. In much the same vein I eventually came to see ‘friendship’ for what it really was, and came to the conclusion that I’d be much better off without it. With the sole exception of my wife, I am as detached from meaningful relationships with other people now (or ‘ruggedly individualistic’ as I prefer to call it) as I was 30 years ago. On the rare occasions when people ask me about not having any friends I make a joke about it being my SAS training (you know – be friendly to everyone but be friends with no-one) and quickly change the subject. The truth is I’m not entirely convinced it’s such a good thing, and have always had a sneaking admiration for people like my wife who make friends easily. It’s done though, and the die is cast. No sympathy for the devil.


I can’t even begin to describe the path I had to travel to get back to being something even approximating the sort of person I might ordinarily have been, or the years it took. As an adult I was once asked to describe my personality in a few words as part of one of those pointless personality tests that second-rate employers are so keen on. I said “It’s the best I could do with what was left.” That’s probably as truthful an explanation as it’s possible to give.


On the plus side, I’ll never be an alcoholic. The early stages of inebriation are always pleasant enough, but then it shifts gears on you without warning, and you find yourself in a waking nightmare of hellish introspection; two or three hours of catatonic despair with nothing for company but dark thoughts and the relentless ringing of chronic tinnitus in my ears. Socrates may well have believed that the unexamined life was not worth living, but in my experience there are some things it pays not to look at too closely. Even simple things like a hug from my kids can pull me up short sometimes: as the wave of love for my children washes over me it makes me wonder why my father couldn’t feel that for me: what must have been wrong with me? I think back to his funeral, and how many people packed the place to pay their respects to a friend and colleague: surely they can’t all have been wrong about him? It must be me…


But none of this has ever caused me any mental health issues. At the time I guess I was too preoccupied with surviving – just keeping our heads above water whilst the debt collectors queued up at the door until we were finally turfed out of our house – and I simply didn’t have the time to dwell on it. Perhaps I should caveat that by saying that for years my biggest regret was that medical science couldn’t bring my father back just so I could have the satisfaction of killing him with my bare hands. I’d genuinely enjoy that, although I realise it might not be a totally sane desire…


Of all those who have posted here the person I identify most strongly with is Xtreme (apart from that bit about tucking into Edwina’s hairy pie, or whatever deplorable Welsh depravity it was that he was getting up to). My early experiences taught me in the most brutal way possible that life sometimes turns to shit in an instant through no fault of your own, that no-one has truly got your back, and that you’d better find a way to deal with it if you don’t want to go under. I came very close to not being here at all, so I’ll gladly take whatever life throws at me. I also lost my best friend some years ago in a horrific accident, and not a day goes by when I’m not grateful for the fact that whatever unpleasantness I may have to deal with, I am at least here to experience it.


:thumb:

 

F*ckin ell.

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Thanks :thumb:


Something good seems to have happened to you lot whilst Ive been gone.

This thread is quite incredible.


Puts me in mind of my bezzie returning from Oz, she was a mess and it wasnt going to end well so I persuaded her to come back n live with me for a bit. For a while she made life very hard work but every now n then whilst being a PITA she’d get a glint in her eye and sing a line from a song

🎵 All my friends are f*ck ups

but they’re fun to be around 🎵

Edited by Slowlycatchymonkey
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Ironic that a government that wouldn't give me the time of day has just changed the time of day . It'll be dark enough when I go home from work at five o'clock in a few weeks anyway without hurrying it up . There's enough people suffering depression as it is without this shit . Time it was knocked on the head .

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Today was one of those that I wonder why the F***k I got out of bed :scratch:


Started by cutting some wood to make a new desk. With lockdown making me working from home I got fed-up wit working at the diner table.


So up to the table saw (made from a tile cutter because I'm cheap :P ) First sign that I should have stayed in bed was a bit of wood flying out the blade and hit me on the finger.

After 2min of swearing I went back to work.

Because I'm recycling some well weathered decking wood I had to cut it to usable width, no drama here.

Then had to remove the groves from the boards.

For thatI had to make a crate for the router so I can slide it over the boards and cut off the top bits and make it flat.

Made 20cm and the router decided to pack up. Short circuit in the inductor and make the thing more expensive to repair than getting a new one. That one cost me a whopping £30 :| :notworking:


Then the wife decided that for lunch we would have mash so I had to make it. 3min into making the mash the accessory from Kenwood decided to join the router and had to finish the damn thing by hand.

As bad things come in 3's the wooden spoon decided to go in halves and made me bang my already hurt finger on the edge of the pan.

Another "me" time with the wife asking what was I saying :popcorn: and finally managed to finish it. Luckily she never spotted the extra nutmeg I have added to the mash.


Probably, later on when I go to bed will end up sleeping on the floor... :violin: :crybaby: :crybaby:

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Today was one of those that I wonder why the F***k I got out of bed :scratch:


Started by cutting some wood to make a new desk. With lockdown making me working from home I got fed-up wit working at the diner table.


So up to the table saw (made from a tile cutter because I'm cheap :P ) First sign that I should have stayed in bed was a bit of wood flying out the blade and hit me on the finger.

After 2min of swearing I went back to work.

Because I'm recycling some well weathered decking wood I had to cut it to usable width, no drama here.

Then had to remove the groves from the boards.

For thatI had to make a crate for the router so I can slide it over the boards and cut off the top bits and make it flat.

Made 20cm and the router decided to pack up. Short circuit in the inductor and make the thing more expensive to repair than getting a new one. That one cost me a whopping £30 :| :notworking:


Then the wife decided that for lunch we would have mash so I had to make it. 3min into making the mash the accessory from Kenwood decided to join the router and had to finish the damn thing by hand.

As bad things come in 3's the wooden spoon decided to go in halves and made me bang my already hurt finger on the edge of the pan.

Another "me" time with the wife asking what was I saying :popcorn: and finally managed to finish it. Luckily she never spotted the extra nutmeg I have added to the mash.


Probably, later on when I go to bed will end up sleeping on the floor... :violin: :crybaby: :crybaby:

 

You need a machine to make mashed potatoes . Fork me !

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Today was one of those that I wonder why the F***k I got out of bed :scratch:


Started by cutting some wood to make a new desk. With lockdown making me working from home I got fed-up wit working at the diner table.


So up to the table saw (made from a tile cutter because I'm cheap :P ) First sign that I should have stayed in bed was a bit of wood flying out the blade and hit me on the finger.

After 2min of swearing I went back to work.

Because I'm recycling some well weathered decking wood I had to cut it to usable width, no drama here.

Then had to remove the groves from the boards.

For thatI had to make a crate for the router so I can slide it over the boards and cut off the top bits and make it flat.

Made 20cm and the router decided to pack up. Short circuit in the inductor and make the thing more expensive to repair than getting a new one. That one cost me a whopping £30 :| :notworking:


Then the wife decided that for lunch we would have mash so I had to make it. 3min into making the mash the accessory from Kenwood decided to join the router and had to finish the damn thing by hand.

As bad things come in 3's the wooden spoon decided to go in halves and made me bang my already hurt finger on the edge of the pan.

Another "me" time with the wife asking what was I saying :popcorn: and finally managed to finish it. Luckily she never spotted the extra nutmeg I have added to the mash.


Probably, later on when I go to bed will end up sleeping on the floor... :violin: :crybaby: :crybaby:

 

You need a machine to make mashed potatoes . Fork me !

 

Of course!!!! What kind of chef you think I am :P :P

Is one of the accessories of a set from the hand blender. If I can use a machine to do it I won't be reducing my belly with brute force :P

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Out on the bike today with a guy that follows me on YouTube; another Triumph rider, we're off to sample the culinary delights of The Original Tea Hut in Epping Forest.


I was musing about the bike, and riding, last night whilst chatting to my other half. Month after month of shielding (as a type 2 diabetic), a business that's all but collapsed whilst falling through the gaps of any government support, another series of lockdowns on the cards, Brexit looming after what will no doubt be a somewhat surreal Christmas, a new granddaughter overseas that I can't even get to see (and probably won't for months yet)... I genuinely think that biking has kept me sane this year and I don't know what I'd do without it.

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a new granddaughter overseas that I can't even get to see (and probably won't for months yet)... I genuinely think that biking has kept me sane this year and I don't know what I'd do without it.

 

We've got 2 grandsons in Poland that we've never seen......and probably never will.


Cos the POS that our son is with (the boys' mother) is a seriously disturbed psycho! Not my opinion......medical fact!


She's done everything possible to destroy our son's connection with us so she can keep control of him. And he's pitifully weak.


So I just add the 2 grandchildren to my misery list of 3 missing sons......and just get on with life!

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That sucks. Hopefully at some point he’ll think “I’m not happy, my children aren’t happy” and do something about it.

 

No.....she's f@cking bonkers!


Already the older one isn't coming on Whatsapp or Skype to see us like he did......so we suspect that he's now old enough for her to get to him.


The wife can't travel because of her arthritis......so we're stuck! And the crazy bitch in Poland knows it and will quite happily turn the screw.


As I said, she's seriously deranged!

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That sucks. Hopefully at some point he’ll think “I’m not happy, my children aren’t happy” and do something about it.

 

No.....she's f@cking bonkers!


Already the older one isn't coming on Whatsapp or Skype to see us like he did......so we suspect that he's now old enough for her to get to him.


The wife can't travel because of her arthritis......so we're stuck! And the crazy bitch in Poland knows it and will quite happily turn the screw.


As I said, she's seriously deranged!

 

Start a crowdfund for a hitman, i would donate :thumb:

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These sort of people are exhausting to know let alone be tethered to cos of a blood tie. Not that u get a lot of choice in it.

They make everyone miserable and generally aren’t happy themselves. It’s just a sad waste of life.


Children though seem to be good at eventually recognising if their parents are unhinged and often review everything once they escape so there maybe improvements later... I hope.


Or yeah there’s the hitman option :lol:

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That sucks. Hopefully at some point he’ll think “I’m not happy, my children aren’t happy” and do something about it.

 

No.....she's f@cking bonkers!


Already the older one isn't coming on Whatsapp or Skype to see us like he did......so we suspect that he's now old enough for her to get to him.


The wife can't travel because of her arthritis......so we're stuck! And the crazy bitch in Poland knows it and will quite happily turn the screw.


As I said, she's seriously deranged!

 

Start a crowdfund for a hitman, i would donate :thumb:

 

Not worth getting bent out of shape about.....I've learned to roll with these sorts of things over the years.


But the irony here is I told my boy back in 2016 how his relationship with her would go.......stage by stage. Because I clearly identified her personality type at the outset.....and I was spot on.


He's seen those things play out bit by bit......but he still hasn't wised up. He was quite happy to lie to, and deceive his parents, and even walk out on a business that I put in his name to give him a future!


Now they've got to live at her grandmother's house, he only earns €800 a month, and are struggling to make ends meet.


We, on the other hand, have completely done the house up inside and out with new windows, boiler, heating, redecoration etc......and replaced the car and bike with more up to date vehicles! We're doing OK! And last year my Pension kicked in as well!


Ironically, the crazy bitch told me point blank on the phone in 2016 that we'd be out of business in a year (and we'd been going 18 years at that time). Didn't quite work out like that though!


She's a seriously stupid and deranged m@therfucker!

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This gives me chills cos you just don’t know what’s in store when it comes to your children’s choice of partner and apart from being obliged to warn them if your early extreme nutter alarm bell sounds when you meet them you’ve pretty much gotta stay out of it.

 

That's it really! You can't let it destroy your life.


If you read my earlier entry in this thread, you'll know I also have 3 sons from my first marriage (43, 41, 39)......and I don't even know if they're still alive. Neither does their mother last time I heard either!


They all went off the rails (drugs etc) so your guess is as good as mine! Then number 4 son (second marriage) met the psycho and that was him done for.


But there is light at the end of the tunnel! Because son number 5 (29) has been in the Netherlands since 2013, has a great job in IT with an international company (we're talking six figures here for a boy from Swansea who didn't even finish school), and a lovely girlfriend who actually went to Cambridge!

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This gives me chills cos you just don’t know what’s in store when it comes to your children’s choice of partner and apart from being obliged to warn them if your early extreme nutter alarm bell sounds when you meet them you’ve pretty much gotta stay out of it.

 

That's it really! You can't let it destroy your life.


If you read my earlier entry in this thread, you'll know I also have 3 sons from my first marriage (43, 41, 39)......and I don't even know if they're still alive. Neither does their mother last time I heard either!


They all went off the rails (drugs etc) so your guess is as good as mine! Then number 4 son (second marriage) met the psycho and that was him done for.


But there is light at the end of the tunnel! Because son number 5 (29) has been in the Netherlands since 2013, has a great job in IT with an international company (we're talking six figures here for a boy from Swansea who didn't even finish school), and a lovely girlfriend who actually went to Cambridge!

 




i blame the parents
















:popcorn:

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