I don't think there has been a single new post here all day. I just left the chat room and there was nobody there either. Is it just me or is this place slowin down? C'mon people, there's gotta be something to say. I had a long talk with my ex-wife today for the first time since our divorce. It seems we get along better now than we did while we were married. Did I tell you that she is now a lesbien? See there's gotta be something interesting that happened to you today.
Later,
Steve
p.s. See my reply to this post.

Is she really Steve or is that your sense of humour kicking in? I don't think you can just become a lesbian overnight so she must have been questioning her sexuallity all her life.

Scotty...

I was'nt going to get into it here but about 6 months before we seperated she asked me about having a third party in our bedroom and I told her I would'nt do it. She started working more and more night shifts and one night I called the hospital where she worked and was told that she was'nt working that night. When I confronted her about it she made up some lame excuse and I let it go. She kept working overtime and last minute (on call) shifts and I caught her in a lie again. That's when she opened up and told me what was going on in her life and it was a girl (part whale) that had been to our house on several occasions and I realised that this was the third party (more like fourth) that she wanted to bring into our bedroom. Needless to say our marriage was over from that point but I would have put up with it for the kids sake. Soon after that we seperated to seperate floors in our home and fought a legal battle for a year and a half where the only ones who came out ahead were the Lawyers. She ended up buying my half of the house from me and I moved into a two bedroom appartment ten minutes away. Since then her girlfriend has moved in with her and I just started talking to my ex in a friendly manner. I have my kids two nights a week and every other weekend and they tell me all about "mommy's friend".

And then you wonder why I have a sense of humour, if I did'nt I'd end up putting a gun to my head.

Steve

Hey Steve,

I know I personally check in every day just to read your posts. You're pretty lively!

I try to post a message everyday.
I couldn't tell you where anybody else is.

Steve,

it is no wonder that you are hurting big time. It is very brave of you to open up in this way. It is very sad that she cannot have sexual contact in a more "normal" way.

From what you have said about the way that she treated you, she is the one who needs to see a psychiatrist because that form of cruelty means that she has a mental problem that needs to be resolved.

I do not think that it is right that she has the best amount of access of the children because of the untold harm that her relationships will have upon them as they will no doubt become confused about their own sexuality.

No wonder you feel so lonely and no wonder you feel so rejected. However, you are not alone where this kind of thing is concerned. It happens to men more than you could ever think.

We are always here if you need to get something off your chest. Please do not lose that sensitivity and that sense of humour. It is uncanny that you guessed about the effects of sneezing. However, you forgot that we have Poise, Depend and Tena as backups ;-)

MaggieinOz

Steve..
Your posts are always enjoyable to read...but this one...I cant even come close to topping...
The most excitement last week for me was joing the gym....yep...the bug is working out..thanks to Remi and the muscles that were there in my bony little arms are back..oh and my kid somehow managed to knock one of her sisters canopy posts down reach down and try to pick it up and puncture her shin with it..so we stayed in ER for stitches till 330 am. and my son tried to drink some floor purple flabioso wash. poison control said it was only soap and detergent so he's alive...and i have high blood pressure now......thats about it...

glad you have a great sense of humor....i always get a good chuckle out of them..humor is what keeps us going buddy...

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I do not think that it is right that she has the best amount of access of the children because of the untold harm that her relationships will have upon them as they will no doubt become confused about their own sexuality.

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I'm sorry, I just have to comment here.. There have been several studies done.. And NO study has ever shown that children raised by gay parents have any significantly higher chances of identifying as gay themselves. That is a fact.

If anything, what should be questioned is why she got the house and more time with the kids if she was the one having an affair.

But that's between Steve and his ex (and of course their respective attorneys).

My best regards Steve. My situation is competely different from yours, but I still empathize.

As for me today, I feel like I haven't stopped for a breath since last Saturday.. ERs, doctors, school, work, homework, trying to get my house cleaned... Aye.. Still more homework tonight, an interview tomorrow, another visit to the doctor and hopefully a trip to the DMV and a walk for my poor neglected pooch...

Margaret,

I have to agree with Belle and say that I am very troubled by the clear bias that you are demonstrating in your posts about Steve's children. I will not speak for the moderators here, but there is a clear history in KA of controversial topics such as religion, politics, and others being more or less "off-limits" unless the discussions they are part of are relevant to the treatment of AS or living with AS. The believe as to whether or not homosexiuality is "normal" behavior is right about at the top of the controversy list, I would say, and I think perhaps this entire discussion about what happens to children raised in households with two homosexual parents should be tabled right now.

In his beginning post, Steve was simply talking about an event that happened in his life, one that he feels was AS played a part in. After rereading them, I cannot see anywhere that he made any value judgements about his wife's sexual orientation or it's effects on their children. He certainly let his ex's new mate have it with a few other well-timed potshots, but they didn't involve her sexuality. Heck, who could talk calmly about the man or woman who helped break up his/her marriage? Steve was just expressing emotions you would expect him to have, and with Steve's already infamous outspoken attitude here at KA, I gotta say that his comments were unexpectedly, uh, mild (I bet I'd hear the "non-mild" version if I PM'd you on that one, wouldn't I steve? ).

In your first reponse and your subsequent answer to Belle, however, you have made it very clear how you feel about homesexuality when it concerns families and raising children. I disagree with you on this matter completely, and that is where the problem begins. Because a topic like this one IS so controversial and brings about extremely strong feelings in most people no matter which side they believe in, and because it has NOTHING to do with AS in this context (certainly, there are ways this issue could be part of a relevant AS thread, but this is not it), I think it would be best if the discussion of that portion of this thread stopped immediately. It is is not, I have no doubt that the moderators will step in and lock the post.

I want to make one important point very clear right here: I am NOT asking that the topic be droppee because I disagree with you, although I have made it clear I do disagree. I am asking that the topic be dropped because it clearly violates this portion of the KA Rigts and Responsibilities (see the link at the top of every page):

[color red]All KickAS members will be expected to:

a) Conduct themselves in a respectful manner, which includes, but is not limited to, the following:

i) The use of language suitable for all, including those of a young age or sensitive nature
ii) Consideration for the opinions, religions, nationalities and political views of all other members. (Color text and bolding added by me to indicate that this section was quoted material --B.)

This discussion no longer meets the expectations established in section ii of letter a. Sexuality is not specifically mentioned, true; "consideration for opinions" is, however, and the R & R document continues on to make perhaps its key point:

[color red]All KickAS members have the right to expect:

a) A safe and supportive environment where sufferers and their loved ones can share with - and learn from - the experiences of others coping with Ankylosing Spondylitis and other rheumatological conditions.

This discussion has already veered away from "supportive" aspect of KA amd will only get worse if the oncoming debate over sexuality is allowed to continue. I can say that with certainty because I know that my own feelings on the issue are quite strong and I would not be able to stand by without making my own strongly worded post in reply to items already posted. That, in turn, would lead to other strongly worded posts taking me to task, and off to the races we'd be. But wait, doesn't free speech allow us to talk about any topic if we so desire? I'm an editor and writer--I worship the idea of free speech, but as we have been told before (and I support in theory), this is a privately owned and operated forum, an free speech extends no further than the owners of the forum allow it to extend.

A long-winded way to ask that you, Belle, and other let this part of the thread die a natural death, but there have been a LOT of new members joining KA lately, so I thought it would be good to explain why anyone--moderator or member--would ask that a topic be made "off-limits" Please know Margaret--and anyone that agrees with her--I am in no way doing this to attack you personally or to stop your views on this topic from being heard. I would be doing the same if someone had touched off this thread with posts directly contradicting yours--all I can do is offer you my word on that. Just because we disagree on this topic does not mean that I respect you any less or value your contributions to KA any less than before this matter arose. I do hope you believe that; I have enjoyed many of your posts in the past few months, and I know I will continue to enjoy your future posts as well.

Moderators--If I am wrong about how this post should play out from here, please let me know publicly with a post in this thread, and also send me a PM so I know to return to this thread and edit my last post (delete it, that is; in fact, if you I was wrong about this, any moderator has my permission to delete the content of this post). I was not trying to do your jobs for you--it's just that I figured I was the only insomniac here at 4:30 a.m. Eastern time so I would be proactive and try to nip this in the bug. If I was wrong, very sorry about that, and won't happen again!

Oh, and just as an FYI Steve--my wife also, uh, tried out for the other team once during our marriage, but she decided that she was happy with her original orientation and did not take things any further. It might have been a very good thing if their relationship had worked, as my AS was flaring horribly at the time that she met this woman, and it probably was partially due to the stress caused by our already deteriorating marriage, which procedeed to get worse. Had she left me for anyone at that time--man or woman--it would have saved more heartache down the road, definitely.

Brad

YIKES! I was definitely not the only one toddling around KA right now, as three new posts went up in this thread while I was busy righting my book-length post, two of them making a very similar point to the one I made. That makes me feel better, and on firmer ground. I forget that just because my corner of the workd is supposed to be asleep, many other parts are wide awake (nice response on yor post Jeanna).

Brad

Think of how your kids would feel reading these comments or some of these responses in public.

the children should come first, and that they need to be exposed to the normal family relationships

Some normal families are pretty bizarre places, but what children need is the time, and the love, of their parents, whatever the sexual orientation.

Good morning to you Jeanna,

You had this quote in your post to Steve: " . . . it's not the first time I've heard of a friendship lasting beyond the end of the relationship." Amazingly enough, I have remained good friends with the only two women who I was in committed, serious relationships with. One I dated for over a year in college, and I was convinced we were going to get married; so was she at one point, but she got bored and slept with someone else then confessed it to me almost immediately. We weren't too friendly for about six months, but then we found ourselved living across the hall from each other during a summer term in Ann Arbor at UM. I don't know if it was the laid-back summer vibe that always filled A2 or just the fact that time had healed the open wounds, but we started talking when she moved in across the hall, and by the end of summer we were good friends again and we ended up trading letters for two years while she attended grad school at USC. Soon enough, she got married out there, and hat was the immediate end of any letters of phone calls--apparently her hubbie was the jealous type. Which is too bad, because we never once even thought about the friends with benefits thing--we were just good friends who shared a lot of the same opinions.

The second one involves my current situation.My wife and I split up back in early 2004, but we had drifted apart a good two years before that. It took her finally making the move to bring things to a head, as she had made me promise I owuld never leave her (serious, serious abandonment issues from her youth, which I understood and respected, although it did lead to undue difficulties for both of us). Once she said she had to leave and we were done, it was like a huge weight was lifted off both of us. Sure there was a lot of sadness when she finally moved to her own place two months later, but without the anchor of the marriage around our necks, we were free to once again be ourselves and reconnect with the good parts in the other person, the parts that drew us together in the first place. We recognized that we had just developed some different goals and values over the course of six years, and that made the separation much easier.

And I say separation because, believe it or not, that is still where we stand. Since she moved out in 2004, we first agreed not to divorce until early 2005 for tax reasons and so she would hav better healthcare for as long as possible. When we finally did see the lawyer in 2005 and have the paperwork drawn up, she came down with some serious health problems that actually were bad enough to rival my own. She was temporarily unemployed then, and NO WAY was I going to let her face her illnesss without insurance or meds. She got one of her old jobs back not to long after that and had her own insurance again, but her problems continued to get worse and she was facing tremenduos stress because not all of her ailments were easily or quickly diagnosable (although the docs did eventually find everying and she is finally getting better ). We then decided to wait until Jan. 2006 to wait for THAT round of taxes, and we talked tonight and agreed that as soon as she gets back from a one week trip to Maryland, we are once and for all going to file all the paperwork and actually get that divorce.

Oh, did I mention she's been living in my house since November 2005? No? Must have let the slip. She had moved to Baltimore area for a while to try working at a branch of the retail chain for which she worked and because she loved the area and had friends there, but the job didn't work out and then her health rapidly deteriorated. She needed her family and friends, and I invited her to move in back with me. It's been very tough on us at times--once again, we're both seeing first-hand that we are MUCH better friends whenwe don't live together, and man, I just WANT MY HOUSE BACK!!! I lived alone for 10 years before I was married, and it took me, oh, about a day, to get used to living on my own again nce she moved out. Neither of us are particularly neat people, although I do have her beat by a fair piece, and I am SO glad that she will be moving out no later than June 1 (a friend from Baltimore is moving here and hey are going to get a place together). Despite any differences we have, I am very glad we have been able to reman friends through all that we've experienced, and I know that she cares about me very deeply (as do I care for her)--things would so much harder if our split had been acrimonious. Still, it's funny when people ask why she is at my house, and when I explain she is living three and we are still good friends, almost all of them are just stunned (esp. the ones who have been through their own divorce are the most incredulous!!!).

Ugh, enough, enough. I have to go to sleep. Have a good day across the pond Jeanna (and everyone else near and far, for that matter)

Brad

Playtpus,

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It is very sad that she cannot have sexual contact in a more "normal" way.

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What is normal for one, may not be normal for another.....define normal.

Steve,

Things will get better. Focus on yourself and your kids. One more thing....you and your wife had to of been in love at one time. You share the world's greatest gift...children.

Take care,
Cara