SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

That implies he has kids. That means I'd be tying myself to someone who is "tied down by some family", the very thing you seem to think would be a bad thing for a woman looking to date to have.

There are pros and cons to dating someone with children. We're not saying it's bad to be tied down to a family--we are saying that it's a bad idea to be tied down to someone like R who does not value you as a person or a partner.

What if I would prefer someone who doesn't have kids like me? If I didn't get the benefit of becoming pregnant and having my own children, why should I now be okay with someone that has kids when those same guys wouldn't want a woman who's a mother from what you're saying?

Your preferences are just that: preferences. I personally have no issue with people with children or without. My kids are emancipated so I'm not "tied down" in any way. I certainly don't have a smoking hot body, but I haven't had issues getting dates or seeing people. My current SO of the last 12 years is short, bald and 11 years my senior. I don't care--I enjoy the time we spend together.

Once again, I notice you are giving yourself the defeatist self-talk. Why do you do this?

Cat

Oh my goodness, step one is to stop giving a damn what other people think of your face or your body. Stop comparing yourself to photoshopped lies on the internet. If we're lucky, we all age and start to have "old lady" or "old man" bods and wrinkles. Step two is to look around you and see happy couples. Are they all perfect specimins? Do they have wrinkles and pot bellies? Cellulite? Imperfect facial features? Bad hair days? No hair at all? If only the hottest amongst us could have romantic partners, our population would be so low that you'd have maybe 3 kids per class in your school district. Maybe 3 per grade.

Your worth isn't tied to how many men want to sleep with you. Your worth is tied into who you are as a person. Be kind to yourself. You deserve it. Don't worry about dating others. Date you. Do nice things for you until you learn to love yourself. We're all we have in the long run, so we have to be our own best friends. We have to have patience, compassion and understanding for ourselves.

I worry that men will have less sympathy for a childless "mom bod", or in my case an "old lady bod", who doesn't actually have kids than they would for a woman who has a "mom bod" to show for actually being a mom

This is absurd. Men don't have sympathy for women who aren't skinny,because they've had children. They don't suck it up,and tolerate a woman who isn't tiny. Many,many,many men actually LOVE curvy women. Women who look like they like to eat. Women who who weigh more than they did in high school. Many men prefer larger women. Sympathy has nothing to do with it.

A close friend of mine,is in her 50's. She's a big girl. She has a page on a particular website. She makes about $10,000/month. It has nothing to do with her face..she wears a mask.

You seem to have these steadfast beliefs in how things MUST be. You are flat out underselling your positive attributes.

[This message edited by HellFire at 8:51 PM, Monday, August 1st]

This is absurd. Men don't have sympathy for women who aren't skinny,because they've had children. They don't suck it up,and tolerate a woman who isn't tiny. Many,many,many men actually LOVE curvy women. Women who look like they like to eat. Women who who weigh more than they did in high school. Many men prefer larger women. Sympathy has nothing to do with it.

Hello, thank you for your kind words but I wanted to step in and clarify. I am not a big girl, and although there's times I feel I'm getting flabby or not in my best shape, I have never actually been overweight. In fact, I've always had a naturally thin body type. I think the term is beanpole -- thin everywhere, not much at all in the way of chest or booty. My issue is that when I put on stress weight, because I am the beanpole body shape and I'm definitely not the curvy type, the stress weight goes to all the wrong places, such as on the front of my belly. I've had a few students ask me if I was pregnant before because of the belly poking out.

The good news is that this week things started looking up. Earlier this week I went to my emailed appointment at the school district headquarters to pick a school from the list to work at. Thankfully, the high school I was hoping for was still available. I signed up to work there, got my contract paperwork, and went on my way. I am so relieved that I know where I will be working now. I'm really glad I didn't try to find another job out of the district. I just wish they had done the school picking earlier in the summer, because now I have only several weeks left so now my stress has shifted to my norm for each August, stressing about how badly the new school year will be soon.

A day and a half after I picked the school that I'll be working at this fall, I actually met someone. He is the same man I think I wrote about on here before a few years back. He is a handsome retired labor union worker who seems to live only a few miles from me. I was doing my usual daily jog around my neighborhood and through the local park, and he happened to be driving by in his pickup truck, recognized me, and stopped to say hi after all this time. That led to small talk and him giving me his phone number again so we could meet up. I am so happy! I first met this man a few years ago the same way, he happened to be driving by when I was out jogging, and we went on a date but unfortunately it didn't materialize after that because I returned to work soon after and was so busy and overwhelmed with work, I didn't have time anymore to date. He probably got tired of waiting or maybe he mistakened me for not being interested when in fact I was just really busy. I am glad I have a second chance. He invited me to a date at a really nice restaurant I've been meaning to try for tonight! I don't usually talk about stuff like this, but the next day after he gave me his number again (it hasn't changed from the first time he gave it to me), he actually stopped by my house unexpectedly and well, things got heated and one thing led to another. I have never felt so elated in years. It had definitely been a while for me, as R has had ED issues ever since the prostate problems he'd developed several years back. I definitely like this guy a lot! Fingers crossed things go well tonight. I feel so out of practice with this dating stuff!

So, you got the job, met a new man, got a date, dumped the limp loser and had some sex.

Rockstar!

Things can indeed change quickly, and I'm happy you have settled on a school and perhaps have found someone to do things with.

I have only several weeks left so now my stress has shifted to my norm for each August, stressing about how badly the new school year will be soon.

This negativity bothers me. You have chosen to see the school year as awful instead of looking forward to a fresh start at another school. When we start to anticipate negative outcomes, we get them (for the most part).

Why haven't you framed this as an opportunity? You're now out from under your difficult colleague, it is an opportunity to forge relationships with new colleagues and it's a chance to reframe your teaching for better classroom outcomes. Remember how I told you about my HS Geometry teacher? He started off the year by telling us that we were very unlikely to have to figure out how much wallpaper we needed for a round room, but that the THINKING and PROBLEM SOLVING skills from his class were what he wanted us to get out of it. I DETEST math, so this was comforting to me.

It's unlikely, unless some of your students want to go on to a career in things like medicine, that biology skills will be required in their lives. But the takeaway is that you want them to learn these critical thinking, observation and examination skills from your class and labs. If you pivot like this, it's likely you will start off the year on a positive note with your students. Also, make it clear from the outset that your classroom is one of respect and courtesy for one another--student to student, student to teacher and teacher to student. Setting the tone (proactive) vs. responding to issues (reactive) is always preferable.

A negative self-dialogue will likely get negative results. Give yourself a pep talk instead.

Cat

Hi Catwoman. I am so sorry that I am disappointing you. I do not mean to be so negative. I just know that even if the school is better than my last school (which I've heard it's NOT, it was just the least bad from the list, and the closest to home although not as close to home as my last school was), it will still be a lot of work, paperwork quantity-wise. I know this because I've been teaching for over 30 years now and the workload has never decreased for me. I have just accepted that that's what happens during the school year, I'm forced to put any social life or wants to the back burner to focus just on work, so that I can get through another school year and be one year closer to getting my pension.

Why is this school so bad? Is the entire district bad? and what makes it bad?

You're getting a fresh start away from that mean teacher!! You have the opportunity to build new professional relationships with co-workers and students. This is good! 5 years to go! Make each one count and better than the previous year.

What kind of paperwork do you have to do?

I'm excited to hear more about drive-by man. I hope you're able to make time for him in your busy work schedule. You deserve to have happiness and joy in your life. ♥

I just read a GREAT article in the Harvard Business Review about being overwhelmed. You might want to see if you can find it, because there are some good suggestions offered.

How to counteract feelings of being overwhelmed:
1. Pinpoint the source.
2. Set boundaries around your time and workload.
3. Challenge your perfectionism.
4. Outsource or delegate.
5. Challenge your assumptions.

You might want to look into some of these points--it's a new school year and an opportunity to work smarter, not harder.

Cat

Why is this school so bad? Is the entire district bad? and what makes it bad?

You're getting a fresh start away from that mean teacher!! You have the opportunity to build new professional relationships with co-workers and students. This is good! smile 5 years to go! Make each one count and better than the previous year.

What kind of paperwork do you have to do?

I'm excited to hear more about drive-by man. blush I hope you're able to make time for him in your busy work schedule. You deserve to have happiness and joy in your life. ♥

Yes, truthfully, the entire district is pretty bad. It has had its fair share of struggles in recent years, with low graduation rates and even lower test scores, and it has gotten a bad rap with a lot of the teachers because of prior salary freezes, layoffs, and increasing workloads and class sizes each year. The last two years have been particularly worrisome for the district because of record number of resignations including partway through the school year. I heard the school I'm going to has had its problems too, but it has seemed to be the best I can do for now and more importantly, it's not that far away from where I live. The last thing I'd want is to go to some ghetto school on the far opposite end of the city, where I rack up a lot of mileage on my nearly brand new car I bought last year, and have an expensive gas expense, and have to wake up much earlier each day to get to work, all for a job that is even more disrespectful than where I was at recently or where I'm going to. Relatively local is important to me.

We have all these Professional Development online training modules that they assigned to us over the summer with little to no warning. Great, they're already starting a week earlier than usual this school year, and now they want to rob us of the little summer we have left too. The district also made us redo all of our criminal background checks and clearances again, less than 2 years after the last time they did this, even though the state mandates that we only need them updated once every 5 years. This time there's been more paperwork involved which gets really confusing. A lot of colleagues from my recent school emailed back and forth for a while trying to figure out how to tackle them. We weren't really given much direction from the district administration that assigned all of this to us.

Once I am back in school, there'll be much, much more paperwork to do. Lesson plans. Grades. Designing or locating and printing out worksheets and lesson materials. Detailed input forms for IEPs that the special ed teachers put together. More Professional Developments. Standards alignment spreadsheets. It goes on and it seemingly never stops, until June.