It's who I am and what I do, lol.

Right on MG! I think many times the very same things that make up our strengths make up are weaknesses as well.

I'ts been well over a year, (almost a year and a half) since I contacted "my fantasy girl." Sometimes I have to admit I wonder what (if anything) she thinks or remembers of me. She now has three kids, from two different guys, and the last is almost 2 years old. I sometimes wonder if she is married.

I used to think this girl had a mutual crush on me; now I just think her mother liked me, and encouraged her to like me at an impressionable age. I now believe no girl has ever had a mutual attraction to me, which I thought she was the first and only that meant anything to me. I don't call her; she doesn't call me; seems like mutual rejection to me.

Mike

I enjoyed your story even though I'm sorry for your pain. It was just a well told and interesting read.

It always stuns me when I hear a guy talking about a girl the way I've always wanted to be talked about by someone special. I tend to forget that there are a few decent men out there, or maybe more, but my co-dependency keeps them all running from me and me running from them...I guess. I'm definetly number 15 on that list. It seems I always fall in love with the idea of who I think someone is or could be. I "what-if" and "if only" myself into believing everything will work out and not to give up. I also call this the "fairy tale syndrome" where we all keep watching and waiting for our night in shining armor, or damsel in distress, so that we can live happily ever after.

I think it's funny that you go by Captian Morgan because I've had 2 fantasy men in my life and the first would always buy me a Captian and Coke when we went out. It became my favorite drink for a long time after he moved 1/2 way across the country, just because I had loved him so much and it reminded me of him...and obviously still does.

Hi Capt.Morgan, I can relate to your post. Only diference is I married my first wife. We ended up divorced. After that I ran around looking to fall in love. It is only in the past year or so I've learned that it was," being in love, with being in love." I have to say that even my present marriage happened like that. The difference now is I'm looking at it from a different perspective. Because I was sexualy by family members, I falsely learned that as a sign of affection. I was ready to fall in love with anyone I had sex with. This, over the years was my way of making up, showing love etc. This might sound strange but, I figured my brothers and sisters must love me, and they show it in this way, so the lesson was learned. I think this is one of the false lessons MG talks about. I now believe I'm in the process of unlearning it. My wife is looking for more affection from our marrage. The old lesson isn't working. I'm now learning to simply hold her hand while walking, hugging, etc. And the biggie, OH MY GOD, WE HAVE TO TALK MORE, AND ABOUT FEELINGS ALSO. I'm kidding, it's not that bad. I'm learning that when I'm troubled I don'y have to worry alone. I can share with her and I feel better, and she feels more a part of my life. Sometimes, I forget that the things I learn here and at meetings can and should be brought to my outside life. Simple thought, difficult lesson. Don W

Thanks again boys for sharing your stories.

Though I don't think I'll ever understand why most men do have such a hard time talking about their feelings with the people they are closest to?

Don, I think true love can grow under the right conditions even if it wasn't there at the beginning of the season. So I pray you and your wife will grow closer and more in love each day. And I think it's really healthy that you two are learning to talk more....because I think that will open the door to becoming each other's best friend for the rest of your lives.

Hugs,
Jenna


P.S. Captian, I also failed to notice the fact that my "fantasy boy #2" was living in Tenn. when we first got together. He moved out there and then rolled back into town for a reprieve from the Nashville life of starvation (starvation only because he spent all his gig money on booze). He went back for a month before giving up completely (at least for now anyway). During the most devestatingly painful part of our crazy relationship, it seemed everywhere I went and everything I did....someone would somehow start talking about Tennessee. And since he's the only connection I've ever had to the state...I can't help, but think of him.

So...I don't know what the signifigance is or if there is one...really, I'm just yapping, but the words Captian Morgan and Tennessee will probably always be "triggers" for these old memories. I wish I didn't have them. They hurt. All those memories just remind me of so much loss. Not just loss of the 2 guys, but loss of my most dearest and most precious hopes and dreams. Crushed.

At least I guess I'm thankful I'm learning all this now in my life instead of after conguring up a "fantasy husband #3" and a "fantasy husband #4" and so on...continuing the painful and unbarable fairy tale gone bad. Like MG said, I can enjoy my days for what they are and not what I think they are suppose to be. Now I can cut my losses when I realize a relationship is right for me instead of hanging on to some irrational belief that he will change and everything will be as I dreamed. Because, while he can change (which I pray he does), chances are he won't and even if he does, chance are that he still won't be the right partner for me. It's a hard dream to let go of completely, but one that all of us fantasy creators must do if we are to ever find happiness.

Hugs,
Jenna

It always stuns me (for the first time) to hear (read) a girl indirectly calling me decent. I have no game. ( I don't tell girls what they want to hear) I do not think "The American Way."

I wonder where God is in religion: ( I can't find him there)

Isaiah 29
13 Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:

I wonder where God is in America: (I can't find him in politics)

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.

In my opinion, religion is more destructive to people and their families than alcoholism and drug abuse, old age, and STD's combined. Conventional religion gives false hope; it preaches a tainted gospel; it teaches a distored view on life; it mixes truth with deception. There's a lot of money to be made in traditional religion.

The Bible tells me of one religion that is worth practicing, and it isn't found in some "Christian denomination" on Sunday:


James 1
26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Exactly. That's what this thread is all about: the deception of the fairytale story. It's great as long as you realize it doesn't exist in reality, at least not for most of us.

There is so much addressed by you and shutterbug that I get lost in my own thoughts to what you both have said.

I'm going to make a list of my own thoughts and observations of things relating to life and yada yada yada...:

1. My life is not my own. It is ultimately God's to do with as He chooses, and I am in no position to defend myself.
2. I do not deserve anything (nothingness) Anything good I experience is a gift, and anythihg bad I deserve. As a sinner saved by grace, God has mercy on me every day.
3, Love is one of the many gifts of God. Love is an experience I can have with every human being, whether male or female. Love is not an attraction, but is simply an acceptance of another human being exactly the way he or she is.
4. I can love someone without feeling any sexual attraction.
5. Sexual attraction is a built in mechanism for procreation, or propetuation of the species. I can love another girl, but not be romantically or sexually attracted to her. I can be sexually or romantically attracted to a girl, but not love her. I can love someone, but not be sexually, physically, or romantically attracted to him/her. I can love another girl spiritually, but not be physically or sexually attracted to her.
6. When I say spiritual attraction I mean attraction to what the girl ultimately desires. When a girl sees past the deception of this life I find that spiritually attractive. This does not make me romatically or sexually attracted to her, and does not necessarily make me want to marry her. I only want to marry a girl if both come together.
7.Sex is not simply for procreation. Sex is a gift of God representing Christ's love for the church. Sex is within the marriage covenant. (otherwise it's just f'ing) Sex is a physical marriage, or enjoinment, of a man's desires with a women's. representing Christ's desires being one with his bride. (the church) Not 2 becoming one if they can stand each others' idiosyncrasies, quirks, or cultural differences.

Random thoughts on this thread,
Mike

sounds like me too...
 

I read your post and it sounds alot like me I do the same things alot of times but you just it's all in your mind and I had a stint of relationship w/someone at work and I had all these feelings and they kept getting stronger and stronger so it made me feel so guilty cause I am married so I tried to bury them and I knew they were just feelings so I made a letter to him and tried
to figure out how to get rid of them so I put them all on paper and threw the paper away. I finally realized they were just feelings but I continued to talk to him and that is when I passed the point of just wanting someone to love me I was acting on it and now I am tryng desperately to keep my distance and my self respect for my marriage's sake not to mention my kids and everythng that we both have together. I know it's not all my fault that I am doing this and I don't know any more I feel depressed but relieved that I finally spit it out. Thank you Captain Morgan for pointing my thoughts in the right direction. I was getting lost there and I know what I have to do now.

Captain, I haven't posted in your thread since, because I don't get all of what you are trying to say with the Bible scriptures. I am trying to build up my spirituallity and my understand of the God's words, but I'm having trouble. I need things explained to me in very simple terms these days.

I know that I am addicted to the thoughts and feelings of "thinking" I'm in love. I don't believe I really have truely been in love before, but ya sure coulda fooled me at the time. I thought I could never ever love a person more. No way Jose. Now all I know is that I don't know diddly sqwat.

hum

Dont feel bad Bug, I don't understand what I'm saying half of the time either, haha. Actually the scipture I post has a special meaning to me that I sometimes forget other people probably won't perceive the same way. That doesn't make my perception right and others' wrong, but it just makes a misunderstanding more likely to happen. I started to explain what I meant by them, but not knowing how familiar you are with the Bible, I would probably confuse you, and possibly myself, even more trying to explain it to you. If you have any specific questions you want me to try to answer feel free to post them here or PM them to me.

The Bible is constantly being taken out of context, such as when I post it on this site, or when someone just picks it up and randomly chooses to read a small passage, but the actual context keeps buiding on itself as you read it. For me, the more I read, the more I understood, and the more I understood, the more interested I became, which would lead me to read more, and the cycle would repeat itself. For example, I may read something in the New Testament that gives context to and helps me understand something in the Old. What I understand about one passage may depend on what I understand about another.

This is why it's difficult or even impossible for me to interpret scripture for someone else, and sometimes it's even difficult for me to convey what I mean by it. In this way, the Bible is extremely complex; Christianity is not. After reading the Bible, I get one message repeated throughout, and summarized by Christ in these two commandments to his followers:

Matthew 22
35Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,


36Master, which is the great commandment in the law?


37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38This is the first and great commandment.


39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.


40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets


To me this is the essense of Christianity, and anything taken away or added to it is vain religion.

Ecclesiastes was one of the first books of the Bible that really fascinated me and captured my interest. It is relativiely short, (12 short chapters) and it addresses something I can really relate to: the vanity and insatiety this life offers. Christ for the first time offered me true hope.

Matthew-John (the four snynoptic gospels), in my opinion, are a great place to start for anyone who is reading the Bible for the first time. But of course, there is no right or wrong place to begin.

I'm not sure if I cleared up any ambiguity or just made things worse. Let me know any time you want your head to spin from one of my scatterbrain explanations, haha.

I knew for years after "my fantasy girl" moved away there was something strange about my obsession with this girl, and the fact that I never seemed to be able to get over her and move on to someone else, but it took coming to this sight and reading about codependency (I think) to recognize it as an addiction.

I think a good place to start bug, is what do you define as "love?"

I'm not sure why, but I can never just get to the point of anything, write a few sentences, and be done with it. With that said,

To be continued...

Ok, so where do we begin to explain a term as complex as "love?" As I look for any profound answer in this life, I look to the Bible (surprise, surprise). First I'll start with what Christ claimed to be the ultimate expression of love:

John 15
12This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
13Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

So this is the greatest expression of love. Is it the only way we can express our love for another?

Here's another example of love:

Genesis 29
15And Laban said unto Jacob, Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? tell me, what shall thy wages be?
16And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.
17Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured.
18And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter.
19And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me.
20And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?...r=29&version=9

Here's yet another example, however trite it may be, of an expression of love:

John 3:16 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain

16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

So what does the Bible tell me love is? What is the common theme that ties these three examples together? Love is giving, and not only giving, but sacrificial giving. The ultimate expression of love is giving one's own life, because what does a person possess more valueable than his own life? Oh yeah, his soul.


Matthew 16
24Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
25For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
26For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Luke 12
4And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
5But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

Christ left us a commandment I don't often refer to:

John 15
10If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
11These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
12This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...2015&version=9

"Angel"

I believed that love was sacred
As I dove blindly into her sea
You see, that warm embrace felt more like drowning
As endless waves crashed over me
She was an insatiable black hole
Feeding off my mind and off my soul
I find love humilating
Sick and desperate need that drains me
God I hope I never feel again
But I've never been loved by an angel
I've never felt anything so pure
I've never been loved by an angel
Until tonight your heaven filled my room
She showed me love could lift me higher
With a kiss she reparied these broken wings
She revived my fading spirit
Restored my faith in everything
I have never felt I had a home
Even in a crowd I felt alone
I'd almost given up on life
I'm fully determined now
And never thought I'd ever feel again
I believed in nothing
But you believe in me
I thought that life was worthless
But you told me I'm a star

Those lyrics from my last post are from a band called "stabbing westward", one of my favorite bands from the 90's. I hope I didn't violate any copyright restrictions by posting it...

STABBING WESTWARD LYRICS

"I Remember"

Do you ever wonder where
We would be if we'd have tried
A little harder?
It seems like yesterday
That we were making plans
For the future
But it's been so long
Since I have known the truth
These dreams we've left abandoned
And I'm haunted by your face
And the memory of your kisses
Sweet kisses
Do you remember?
I still remember so much
I remember never feeling so alive
Do you remember?
I still can't forget your touch
We swore that we would never end
We knew our love transcend space and time
Do you remember?
I still remember so much
I remember never feeling so alive
Do you remember?
I still can't forget your touch
We swore that we would never end
These memories slip away
The ghost of what we were
Is fading
But there is no more pain
Which is funny 'cause that night
I was dying
Now I don't even recognize
The girl I swore that someday
I would marry
But I can't forget her face
And I can't forget her kisses
Sweet kisses
Do you remember?
I still remember so much
Or how we swore that we would never be alone
Do you remember?
I still remember so much
I remember never feeling so alive
Do you remember?
'Cause I still remember so much
We swore that we would never end
We knew our love transcend space and time
Do you remember?
God I remember so much

"Cigarette Lighter Love Song"

I know you’re not asleep
I can feel you moving over there
You’ve been playing with the seam
In your worn out underwear
My lips are raw as hell
From biting on them just to stay awake
It’s not like I’m gonna need them, you won’t be around
To see them bleed and break

Chorus:
All that I do, comes back to you
So I’ll just think about you
’til there’s nothing in my head
All I can do, is try not to screw this up again
And just be friends, I’d rather be dead

I drove out of east atlanta
With a headache the size of my car
I called to say I was okay anyway
’cause I know how you are
I’m like a movie without an ending
You know I’ve got nowhere to go
And it makes me wanna throw up
To see you wanna give up
More than you’ll ever know

(chorus)
Bridge:
Everything’s supposed to have a happy ending
But the record keeps skipping and the needle keeps bending
Like the road I’m driving to the bridge that has no end
I wanna take back everything that I’ve broken
But the bridges behind me are burning and smokin’
I guess this is the end

Getting past the deception of my "fantasy girl" has been one of the biggest, if not the biggest spriritual struggles in my life. I have to keep reminding myself of this:

2 Peter 2

20For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...%202&version=9

Luke 17
32Remember Lot's wife.

http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?...ontext=chapter

The carnality of being
 

Christ is...

alcohol without the hangover
lust and sex without the pregnancy and travail
food that satisfies hunger
liquid that satisfies thirst
meaning without words
intelligence without logic
wisdom beyond understadning
pain without sorrow
drugs without addiction
beauty without vanity
the answer to questions unknowable
predestination without coercion
a choice with a multitude of answers

I'm still tangled in the sins of my past. I keep thinking of "my fantasy girl." I died when I seperated myself from her, and I have not lived since, and when have I ever lived? I try to recall living, and I can't really do it outside of neurosis and fantasy. I keep thinking my life doesn't exist apart from her, even though I know my life doesn't exist with her. I know this isn't life.

Life has become a matter of survival; everything hurts, and nothing seems worth hurting for. I don't want to die, and I don't want to live. I don't want to exist, and I don't want to not be. I don't want to be, and I don't want to not be. I don't want to live in the past, and I don't want to experience the present. I don't know why I met her, and I don't know why I still want her; much like alcohol.

She brings me pleasure followed by pain, and I seem to thrive on this to my own destruction. I don't know where to turn. Therapy seems to offer false hope. Christianity seems to offer hope I have trouble waiting for. I just hate feeling love for someone who doesn't know I exist, and if she does, she doesn't let me know about it. I just don't understand why she entered my life. There has to be some reason, and I know she has shaped who I am, but is she someone I should forget about, or someone that I will meet in the end? Why has she shaped who I am, and yet she represents the "dog in me chasing its tail?" My lust I can't shake. Why is my agenda dead, and yet still alive? Why am I alive, and yet dead? why do I continue to breathe her through my corrupt nostrils.

((((CM))))

You seem to be a man of strong faith and I know many women that would like to meet a man like you.

You said something about sins of your past haunting you still. Just remember that Jesus came to relieve that burden of sin. I think we block our own forgiveness a lot. To me you seem so real and deep and complete in the Lord...

If I was God I would get you and MG together but, I guess it's a good thing I am not....