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My loss

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Re: My loss

#51
post #4

Wow. That reminds me of last year. My ex made up phony charges to the police so she could keep more of my money (which the crown had to drop). After work found out they threatened to fire me to negotiate themselves a better position. Lost most of what I had to lawyers fees, lost the rest of it to the market. What I did in response: Lost 60 pounds Met a great, funny, vibrant, intelligent, much thinner and younger woma…

Met a great, funny, vibrant, intelligent, much thinner and younger woman Because being "much thinner and younger" is what we should celebrate about our new partners.

To be fair, his ex was a septuagenarian pushing 300 lbs.

Re: My loss

#52
post #5

Side note - anybody thinking about getting married should look into the financial implications of getting divorced. It shouldn't stop you, but you should at least understand you're putting at least half of everything you own on the table and potentially more. I think you don't completely understand marriage unless you've been divorced. It may just be confirmation bias but I've been thinking about heading off in a muc…

Ask your lawyer about Family Limited Partnerships. Don't own anything yourself. It's better for tax and estate reasons. And agree up front how assets are split if their ever is a divorce.

Re: My loss

#53
post #35
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that half of everything you earned and bought while married is on the table. Stuff you owned or earned before the marriage is not on the table unless you want it to be. Non-marital property vs. marital property. I'm not a lawyer.

A co-worker of mine got divorced not long ago. I believe it went to court, but not sure (they both had lawyers). No kids were involved. His wife received half his assets, 100% of their co-owned business, all of his retirement money, and substantial alimony for 5 years. He got a devalued house with 2 mortgages and a 15 year old car. The wife is also a skilled, in-demand professional who could easily make $60k/year+. H…

> The truth is, family courts are highly biased against men

Does anyone know about a study supporting this claim? Not that I'd be surprised, but confirmation bias can be a bitch...

Re: My loss

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Met a great, funny, vibrant, intelligent, much thinner and younger woman Because being "much thinner and younger" is what we should celebrate about our new partners.

Because being "much thinner and younger" is what we should celebrate about our new partners. The Western notion of romantic love papers over a lot of the primate realities. His ex probably thought she'd be trading him in for somebody more alpha so I don't begrudge him his success in an ironic turnabout. What people think should be true about relationships tends to get in the way of what is true about relationships.

The Western notion of "thinner and younger" also papers over a lot of the primate realities. I know quite a few women who when I first met were completely unremarkable if not downright unattractive, who over time became as attractive as any other.

And being more conventionally attractive would not increase my eventual attraction to them, just as the vast majority of conventionally attractive women are not so at all after a very short time.

Re: My loss

#55
post #41
post #5

Side note - anybody thinking about getting married should look into the financial implications of getting divorced. It shouldn't stop you, but you should at least understand you're putting at least half of everything you own on the table and potentially more. I think you don't completely understand marriage unless you've been divorced. It may just be confirmation bias but I've been thinking about heading off in a muc…

Why do people get married? It's a poorly defined contract with ill-defined consequences into which they enter apparently because it's what everyone else does to signal their feelings. Similar to giving a diamond engagement ring or using off-the-shelf business forms.

Children.

Re: My loss

#56

I am at rock bottom right now, and as I struggle to get up. I've searched for resources to help me figure out the best way out. I have made plans. Created structures for myself. Kicked myself. A lot. However, I've fallen flat on my face again and again due to a simple reason. I don't have the resources to execute any kind of measures to get myself out of this mess. I can't concentrate without getting suicidal imagery…

Some things that might be helpful to you, in no particular order:

-Look at David Allen's book "Getting Things Done" for getting organized and putting a loose general system that lets you feel un-overwhelmed. Very important if you've got lots of random to-do's that are overwhelming

-Look at Josh Waitzkin's book "The Art of Learning" - start to understand deterministic and incremental learning. Incremental learning sees success and failure as a result of gradually putting in training, deterministic learning sees things as a result of how good/bad you are. Incremental learning is empowering, deterministic is disempowering.

-Have a listen to Tony Robbins' "Get the Edge" audio program - it was recommended to me here on Hacker News, and I was never into that sort of thing, but it's really good. He'll give you ideas on how to start an exercise program, start setting goals, etc. You should start walking at least 15 minutes a day.

-If you don't have an iPod or other mp3 player now, beg, borrow, scrap, and scrape to afford a very cheap used model. Get some inspiring podcasts or audio books. Listen to them while doing errands or exercise that's boring. I hate doing mindless stuff, but it's a lot easier to get into a very good flow about cleaning, exercising for long periods of time, or running errands when you have interesting things to listen to.

-I also like Brian Tracy's "The Luck Factor" on audio, it describes all the attitudes and mindsets that produce generally positive outcomes, what most people call luck.

Normally I'd never advocate this as I believe in supporting content creators, but if you have literally no money and are on the verge of losing your mind, maybe go get a bittorrent client and download all this stuff. I think the creators will understand in this instance. Buy it later if you want to support their efforts, which you should with how much it can help you. Don't do this if it's illegal in your country or it seems wrong to you.

Good luck. The answer is to take small steps and celebrate the wins. Every minute you spend in nature, doing light walking, reading and learning the skills you need to dig out, progressing, and building yourself up is a win. Celebrate every time you have the meal you want to eat, wake up on the sleep schedule you want to be sleeping on, go for a walk, go to the library, make a phone call to someone, or so on. I've been to the depths of hell a couple times, you always come out of it much stronger. But the only way out is small steps of fundamentals and celebrating the wins. Don't get yourself down for not being perfect, celebrate every time you eat well, exercise lightly, handle your errands/priorities, stay focused on what you want, learn something, and otherwise take good action. That's the way out.

Finally, think about taking some martial arts. If you really have no money, tell the martial arts studio that you're very serious about training, have no money, but you'll clean the studio and run errands for them if you can get an occasional lesson at a mostly empty class. Tell them you're willing to do whatever it takes to contribute to the studio until you can afford your dues. Martial arts is good on lots of levels. Normally I'd recommend a scientific, military-based martial art to most people (like Krav Maga), but you actually might get more mileage out of Tai Chi, Kung Fu, or something with a spiritual/philosophical element to it.

Good luck. You'll get out. When in doubt, keep moving forwards. You'll be stronger than the vast majority of people once you come out of this, because you'll know you were at the bottom and survived. Nothing will be so scary after this. Prosperity! Claim it. Small steps. Be creative, celebrate the small wins, and you'll be back as fast as possible, and then ready to thrive even further.

Re: My loss

#57

I am at rock bottom right now, and as I struggle to get up. I've searched for resources to help me figure out the best way out. I have made plans. Created structures for myself. Kicked myself. A lot. However, I've fallen flat on my face again and again due to a simple reason. I don't have the resources to execute any kind of measures to get myself out of this mess. I can't concentrate without getting suicidal imagery…

What people don't tell you is that for every inspiring story about somebody rising above adversity to succeed there is another story that doesn't get told about somebody not becoming ultimately successful, every market process will have winners and losers. I definitely think you should seek help vis a vis your suicidal thoughts, up to and including reporting yourself to the police for suicide watch if you think that's necessary. Suicide is a permanent solution to a (usually) temporary problem. In regards to your comment about "running out of time to apply for college," don't you think that's a little silly, people of all ages return to college at various times during their life, you're never too old to get an education (unless you meant you are running out of time for the current semester, in that case just apply for next semester).

Re: My loss

#58
post #4

Wow. That reminds me of last year. My ex made up phony charges to the police so she could keep more of my money (which the crown had to drop). After work found out they threatened to fire me to negotiate themselves a better position. Lost most of what I had to lawyers fees, lost the rest of it to the market. What I did in response: Lost 60 pounds Met a great, funny, vibrant, intelligent, much thinner and younger woma…

Met a great, funny, vibrant, intelligent, much thinner and younger woman Because being "much thinner and younger" is what we should celebrate about our new partners.

While you're busy pretending to be sensitive some of us are willing to admit that youth and looks are important to us in a partner.

Also I note you disregarded the "great, funny, vibrant, intelligent" part.

Re: My loss

#59
post #37

Nobody cares for your stupidity. Please stop making reddit out of HN.

Well I found it interesting. One of the scary things about trying to do something great is the fear that you'll fail and everything will go to hell. So it's quite nice to read someone who's had a terrible year say that they got through it okay.

Also, describing it as "stupidity" seems a bit harsh. Everyone will make mistakes from time to time. I'd say Derek is a lot less stupid than the kind of person who didn't do anything and hence didn't have a company, savings or wife to lose.

Re: My loss

#60

I am at rock bottom right now, and as I struggle to get up. I've searched for resources to help me figure out the best way out. I have made plans. Created structures for myself. Kicked myself. A lot. However, I've fallen flat on my face again and again due to a simple reason. I don't have the resources to execute any kind of measures to get myself out of this mess. I can't concentrate without getting suicidal imagery…

Some things that might be helpful to you, in no particular order: -Look at David Allen's book "Getting Things Done" for getting organized and putting a loose general system that lets you feel un-overwhelmed. Very important if you've got lots of random to-do's that are overwhelming -Look at Josh Waitzkin's book "The Art of Learning" - start to understand deterministic and incremental learning. Incremental learning see…

Thank you.

The funny thing is that in bits and pieces I had figured out most of the things you wrote, but I never connected them in this way. I also never had it in me to try them through, but now I am at least learning from my mistakes and we'll see how that turns out. I've realized that there aren't too many secrets to a beautiful life; it's just choosing the path that's too damn hard. Again and again until it becomes a habit. Start; Fail; Iterate.

You know what scares me the most?

That I might not be smart enough/hard-working enough to actually make it work.

You know what keeps me awake at night?

I actually know that in all probability I don't have a future. Unlike, almost all of my peers I really can't have a linear life, and that is shit scary.

Thanks once again.

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