I am wondering why the OP is still upset over this 4 years later when everyone else has moved on? If it still makes you shake as you write the words....isn't it time to do some letting go and forgiving yourself? People do hurtful things. But we hurt ourselves over and over if we don't let go and forgive them anyway. And basically, people such as the grandma may have made a mistake, or not- she may have regretted it and she just never told you. The father may have been defensive and acted arrogantly....but later softened. The 13yo was speaking out about her pain and perhaps wasn't handled so well by a father in the throes of a new romance. But...they survived. And your pain for the girl doesn't help her or anyone anymore. I was in the same situation as the 13yo, and i found it extremely difficult to be around either of my parents' new partners as I was so devastated (both partners were on the scene before my parents separated, but I think they were a sign that my parents had given up rather than the actual cause of their breakup). Neither parent was sensitive to me about it although I think they did try- I reacted very strongly and negatively to the whole breakup. These threads about children of divorce are stirring up a little in me that hasn't been fully healed, too, although I have done much healing work around the issue...the way I see it, it is 100% my responsibility to handle my feelings, to forgive and let go, to heal. If I am blaming anyone anymore, I haven't healed yet, and the only person I am hurting is myself.

Vitamin B6 works for some people. I agree with trying the chiro.

I agree, but its easier said than done for adults in grief and turmoil. One thing I learned over the years from my parents break up is that they were just unhappy people trying to be happy- and they weren't mature adults. They just weren't. I agree the kids should come first, but I can see both my parents jumped into new relationships desperately hoping for the love or compatibility they felt was missing with each other. My dad is still married to the woman he went to, 30 years later, but still tells me he needed to put work first in his life, and that he needed to leave mum- the way I feel he says it, he is as selfish now as he was then. I love him anyway, but I do not feel he has learned much about love. Mum got with an alcoholic. I left home at age 16 to escape the whole situation. Later, she got with a good man who she is still with- too late for me. I agree to some extent. I see my parents and I wonder why on earth they couldn't have managed a few more years, for the sake of the kids. There was no abuse. Life fell apart dramatically after they separated and I was 13- it was so horrible. But, life is also complicated and complex and times have changed. I think many of us who have lived through divorce in our childhood try really hard for the sake of the kids- I know i do and it has been a huge motivation to hang in there and keep the marriage not only functional but also alive. But if dh hadn't been as willing, and willing to change his own behaviour...I wouldn't have made it for the sake of the kids. It would have crushed my spirit too much. We live in changing and unique times. Traditional cultures always put family and community first- at the expense of the individual. In many, you dont even choose who you marry. We have swung to the other extreme. I think its a bit like the womens lib movement, where things swung to an extreme before heading towards more balance between the sexes. We have swung to the extreme of people feeling entitled to individual happiness...but they throw the baby out with the bathwater, thinking you can be happy as an individual if you are selfish, or that being selfish is even the way to be be happy. Its not. But I think its part of a process where people learn to honour family and community without sacrificing their personal happiness as well. I think both are possible. No one wants to have the sort of marriage we have all seen where the couple are just quietly hostile and together but there is no spark or love between them any more. Not even for the sake of the kids. But we are not going to get meaningful and alive relationships by only thinking of ourselves, either- if we are not deeply thinking of the impact on our children, chances are we are too self centred to find happiness anyway. There are no glib answers to any of this- I think the answers come from more consciousness, more awareness, more maturity, not black and white pat answers.

Both the circumstances of the marriage- how bad, what the conflict issues are, what the atmosphere is like for the kids- and the circumstances of the divorce- how mature the parents both are around the kids- make all the difference. There is no clear cut answer. As a child of divorce, and I was deeply wounded, I understand personally the damage that divorce even when the parents can communicate civilly can cause. But I would never say parents should stay together for the sake of the kids. It should be a motivating factor to keep a family together, but never a reason to stay in a soul sucking or abusive situation. However on the other hand I think many people do leave marriages thinking it was the marriage that was the problem when in fact it wasn't. Its easy to hang unhappiness onto marriage and blame it, when it was in fact coming from inside yourself. Many people end up in similar situations, with similar partners, and similar issues, because they never changed themselves. I think we know- often as women, sometimes men too- when a marriage has reached its end. I once read that women often recover from divorce more quickly than men because they spend so long grieving for its end while they are still in it. They leave once they have moved to acceptance that it has already ended, for them at least, which could be years after the grieving process has begun.

I have several good friends and many, many "friends" that I call friends, and who may or may not be there for me in a crisis- and I feel lucky because I really haven't spent a lot of time cultivating friendships over the years especially with homeschooling- and I am an introvert who enjoys spending time alone when not with family. My friends are generally connected to my spiritual groups and our connections are maintained because of shared activities, not because we are really good at phoning each other up or visiting regularly, although we do do that at times too (I am not so good at that bit). I spent a long time trying to find people I could relate to deeply and be friends with on a deep level- andt I did find them (or perhaps they found me- not sure). I am happy to be "friends' with most people and especially many people in my social circles- but it does generally take shared interests for me to maintain friendships. But then, if I knew you IRL and we had some good shared interests, and had some shared experiences, and opened up to each other now and then- we wouldn't have to see each other regularly for me to call you my friend. I seem to be becoming more of a networker as I get older, and especially as I am no longer homeschooling. I love moving in different circles of people and then connecting people up- talking to one circle about what is going on in another. Strange, because i am not really social in one sense. But I could not live in a country town with no like minded people in the spiritual sense - I would feel isolated even though surrounded by good people. I have never relied on my dh as my sole friend because we are very different, not "two peas in a pod" or anything like that. I need other people to talk to. I think I am really learning to value healthy community more as I get older.

That is the key in my mind- I think being lesbian or at least women being "intimate" with each other (not necessarily sexually, but affectionately) is far, far more socially acceptable than it is for men. We are talking two "active" polarities rather than two "passive" polarities here. The positive poles tend to create sparks- there is a distinct "reaction" more than when two negative poles come together. SO it is pretty instinctive in a sense. Although I am pretty sure in many other cultures they are far more mature about it and its not such a big deal. However...me....cant even sleep with dh. Give me space. I was asked to share a tent with a gf recently on a trip to the country with 19 people. We needed to minimise luggage because the bus was small. We were camping- they asked us to share tents. YOu wouldn't believe how many of us decided to be the one person who wouldn't share a tent, though! I woudln't. I just said to my gf, I cant sleep with anyone- call me wierd but that's how I am.

DH always worked from home and it was hard while homeschooling. I had to really put my foot down about interferences and set some boundaries- with him. And yes, it would be nice to have more space from each other at times- but like you our house is large and we make it work. It took work to make it work, but we did it. We have our own separate spaces in our home. However, I will say that the lifestyle part of it is FANTASTIC and I wouldn't wish on him that he go off to work for 8 hours a day at all. We have so much flexibility and freedom. With him, he has clients at home so doesn't have to discipline himself to make the time to work in his office. But overall it works well and I would recommend it.

I think if the media took the attention off the ideal woman's look, if they stopped giving the whole issue so much attention- possibly combined with people moving back to real, ordinary food rather than fast food- after a generation or 2 we would just naturally fall back to whatever our natural weights are- some bigger than others- but probably less than now. I think it has to do with the media, and with multi national companies such as those that control farming and processing of foods. They want us to take this on as a personal issue because there are billions of $ to be made. Teach us not to eat fats- and create a whole market for low fat foods- and then you have a whole generation of fat people because it's not a sustainable way to live so binging occurs. So then they vilify carbs (because all those fat free foods were high in refined carbs which burned out our sugar metabolising capacity ) and now there is a huge market for that. I dont think being a bit overweight is necessarily unhealthy, but its just about impossible to maintain a lower healthy weight when constantly bombarded by foods, both in advertising and on the shelves of most shops, that feed our primally driven desire for high energy foods. We are designed to take those foods when we can get them because they weren't always available seasonally for thousands of years. But now they are available all the time. Its very hard to over ride those primal imperatives. Generalisations are of course just that- generalisations. I think we all know what is healthy for us and when we don't feel so good. An interesting statistic I learned a while back is that those people who are a little overweight have a higher chance of living longer than those who are not- whether obese or a healthy weight. Its because they have some physical resources to draw on- makes sense to me. Is it about what we look like or about our health? I prefer to be smaller for my looks yet I feel healthy weight a bit more than that too. I would say most definitely though that the "average" weight in America is not something to base one's ideal on, at all, with skyrocketing diabetes and cancer levels. It's not a healthy nation (and Australia is close behind).

Its a tricky area because for many, faith in the unseen is a deep part of their experience of their spirituality and belief is irrelevant, because of their faith AND their experience. I don't think you can choose to believe something that all your rational reasoning AND experience tell you is not true or existing. You can keep an open mind and choose to not dismiss it as impossible- but you can't make yourself believe it. I don't think you can choose to believe in a Christian God, and believe the Bible is literally true, if your experience and rational mind tell you otherwise. I know I don't believe in Christianity as a religion because it involves too much blind belief, and I just can't believe it. I don't even know if Jesus existed. But I can still appreciate the essential messages- the same as I can appreciate the central messages of any other religion I also don't believe in. I think though that many jump to taking on many beliefs because of an experience. So to me, the energy phenomenon of the Christian laying on of hands or speaking in tongues or all sorts of things like that....are real. Same with prayer- its very real to me. However, I don't personally then put those experiences in a Christian context because I have other contexts to put them in- but I can see that the Christian context, which involves a whole lot of beliefs, is how Christians put those things. In other words, just because I pray to God (any God of my choosing according to be upbringing or culture, most likely), AND my prayers are answered, or even if I see visions....doesn't make the WHOLE of that religious context valid or true. I don't jump to that and believe the whole Bible just because it has some beautiful wisdom in it that I have checked out and found to be true or valid. These issues are too deep and complex to be dismissed one way or the other. No, I don't think you can make or choose to believe something you don't believe in. But I think you do believe in something...even if you don't believe in, for example, a Christian God...and it's worth continually examining ALL your beliefs, all the way through, to check their soundness, rather than stopping at dismissing religious dogma. Many westerners have dismissed the whole of natural medicine, for example, because of science- and also all of religion- because of science. So, in effect, they just now believe in science. Science is the new God, the new Truth. While ultimately its intention is to find truth it is so one sided, so left brained...so not inclusive of the mystery of life and the unseen- it cannot tell you the whole truth. Religion is the other side. It is possible to be inclusive of both and not get stuck in dogmatic beliefs either way. I have been examining ALL my beliefs, to the best of my capacity, since I was a child. I was always interested in the essence of all religions rather than taking on beliefs. Beliefs make us feel secure but I would rather ultimately know the truth and be secure in that, even if its uncomfortable.

I personally have never managed any kind of fast for very long- it feels too extreme for my system, and I have blood sugar issues. I might one day try again when I have time to be alone rather than trying to look after a family at the time time, But I can totally recommend the raw food approach, with juicing as part of it. And just juicing in the mornings and not eating till lunchtime is a great way to cleanse, too.

I think homeschooling in and of itself could create over protection from the rigours of life...but it doesn't have to. It can help up tailor a program and a lifetstyle for each child that helps them grow backbone and foster their strengths. Keeping them away from all difficulties I would agree might create a greenhouse effect- when they get out in the "real world" it might be tough. The term homeschooling can be a misnomer- it doesn't mean we spend all day every day at home, usually. I know we didnt- there was plenty of having to deal with other people. My kids are now teens, no longer homeschooling, and both in institutionalised education. It was a little tough for both at first but they have adapted and are thriving. I think, sure, there are parents who neglect and abuse their kids and their are parents who over protect their kids and do everything for them. Don't most of us aim intelligently for something in the middle range- care but not over protect- give but also empower ?

Its Sunday- we went to Swapmeet at 7am. I bought a beautiful hand knitted shawl, a plant, and an emerald green silk scarf. Then we went to the Farmers Market where I bought organic fruit and veg, non organic fruit and veg, and breakfast, and then socialised for 2.5 hours drinking chai and listening to a folk singer. It's a wonderful community meeting place. It was bitterly cold today though- I was glad for the shawl I bought. I also bought flowers which are now around the house, and the kitchen is clean. This afternoon I am doing work on the computer. It is not necessarily one of those highly productive days, but it is a good day, for a cold, wintery day.

In Australia nicknames are very common Redheads are called Blue or nowadays, Rangas (after Orangatangs). I am frequently called Blondie. Whatever name you are given, your peers will find a way to nickname you. My daughter with the beautiful name Genevieve is commonly called Generator. We spent years calling her Genevieve but eventually shortened it to Gen which is also what her friends call her. We also call her Genabubble from her baby days. Or Gentle-vieve. Some names lend themselves to many deviations :) I choose not to have a problem with it- it is a way of familiarising and joking around and teasing and playing...I think it is up to the person themselves to deal with it. The parents don't get a say after a point (probably the first few months.)

Mmm, I like Summer or Sky.

Keeping focused on potential terrorists probably stops you worrying about the rights your government is taking away from you. Keep it in perspective.

I love liver. Cook it (chopped in bit size pieces) with bacon and while I like it just like that, adding gravy powder and water is yummy too. I like mine on mashed potatoes.

Lindt dark chocolate. Or any dark chocolate. And if that fails, any chocolate. I guiltily admit to eating the rest of a pkt of white cooking chocolate pieces which I am not sure had any chocolate in them at all, but they were close enough for me at one point. Ever since the cold weather hit here, I have been chocolate obsessed, and I am normally quite reasonable and sugar free :) Dh keeps it in the safe. I literally have to beg him to unlock the safe and get me out a portion at a time.

I have pangs of envy when I hear pregnancy and baby stories. It's a part of me that didn't quite get fulfilled- I wanted one more child and didn't get it, and even though I don't dwell on the longing much at all, and I accept my situation, and am grateful for the 2 kids I have and our lifestyle....the pang of envy shows me it is not something that has gone away completely. In some moments...I am also glad for those days to be behind me. I see friends who are just starting out with babies and small kids and I remember how all consuming those years are- and exhausting- and truthfully, the strain on the marriage as well, even though kids are also bonding. It is nice to have a cuddle and give them back- but that could be me just distancing myself to handle my feelings. I think those years are a blur for me now.

I had started homeschooling and had researched Waldorf homeschooling and Natural Learning...found my way to Charlotte Mason homeschooling and I kept seeing these negative references to Classical Homeschooling as being dry and extreme. But it made me curious and one day I ventured into the world of TWTM and never looked back.

Gluten free pasta with home made pesto or any other sauce. A potato dish of some sort. Something with rice- chilli, curry, dhal, stirfry.

I gave away my mixer once I bought my Thermomix. I use it several times a day. Anything I want to use has to stay on my counter top. I rarely used my mixer because it was in the cupboard and it was heavy and tedious to get out.

As a transition (unless you just want to jump into the paleo type diet full throttle) I can recommend that you get yourself some gluten free bread and some gluten free pasta. It will give you some breathing space where you can eat familiar foods while researching new recipes- although I cant say I have found a great gluten free bread yet, I keep trying, and for me its better to have a so so gluten free bread for my eggs, than the rice cakes my (gluten free) dh likes! The paleo works for many people but it is also possible to go a more vegetarian route- that is what we do. We just don't eat wheat or other gluten grains. We eat lots of rice and potatoes and vegetable curries, salads- I eat dhals, miso soup. Dh is strictly vegetarian- I eat a little meat. I like polenta, quinoa, although dh doesn't so much. You will find a zillion internet sites to help you. I suggest you just start saving recipes that appeal and try them one at a time. I have been gluten free for several months now and my inflammatory symptoms have really gone, amazingly, although my auto immune antibodies haven't yet. It IS worth the trouble and it does get easier. I am rarely tempted to eat gluten nowadays because of how much better I feel without it. The kids...I still buy bread for them and cook them wheat pasta. If they were younger I would probably just switch us all to gluten free completely. YOu can do it...and your diet will probably get healthier, and you can get creative in the kitchen. I made an amazing gluten free cake the other day. I was given an emu egg- which is the equivalent of a dozen chicken eggs. It was made with coconut and almond flour. It was so yummy and when you take gluten free food to pot lucks, I can tell you there will always be at least one or 2 others who will love you for it.

Any improvement on your diet will facilitate detoxing. More fruit, more vegetables, more raw food. Cut dairy and sugar and reduce meat. YOu ill detox. Half a lemon squeezed into warm water first thing in teh morning gives the liver a good kick to start the day. Its a very easy to do but effective detox. Do not eat past your normal dinner time, which should be no later than 7pm and preferably earlier. Preferably eat your biggest meal in the middle of the day. Your body detoxes at night time while you sleep- it is best to sleep with an empty stomach so that it can really do its job.

Yes, I woudl give it up in my own home if I could access it somewhere. That's addiction talking, right? :)

I wonder how much is conditioned. I had to get up early for school when I was a kid- had to leave home at 6.45 am. I would even go jogging before that too. And my dad was up early to get to work before the traffic. Mum would sleep in and i would take her a cup of coffee if she was awake before I left home. I spent most of my childhood having to get up early to get to school. When I could sleep in, I did. Then as an adult I went through times of sleeping in and staying up late, before kids. Once I had kids, sleep became a precious commodity and going to bed early just seemed sensible. I do like mornings. But I wonder if I am a "morning person" through nature or nurture. I wonder if its just habit, life circumstance, etc