Emotions

As a man, I have been told, repeatedly, that I am not to be emotional. All emotions are bad!!

This has come to me directly from my father. My father has about as much emotion as R2D2 from Star Wars. (Yes, I realize that I dated myself with that reference.) My father has always been able to deflect any emotion and move forward by taking care of some mundane task with all of the veracity of a grizzly bear. Therefore, as I have been led to believe, all emotion should be disregarded and is considered useless.

This has caused me to become very stoic. In fact, I have even joked about my "stone heart".

However, with my divorce, I have turned into another person. I seemed to turn into a menstruating woman!! I will cry at the drop of a hat or a song on the radio. I have taken my kids to the movies, all of them child oriented, and cried. I seemed to have opened Pandora's box of emotions and all of them seem to come at me at once.

For example, if you are feeling a little down, I do not recommend listening to anything written by Gordon Lightfoot. I nearly drove into a bridge embankment after listening to his "Greatest Hits" album. I couldn't see from the tears!!

All of my emotional outbursts have not been bad. In fact, my ex has stated that I have become a much more caring person. I seemed to have found empathy.

All that being said, I am an emotional wreck!! I am riding a roller coaster of emotions every hour of every day. I feel like a manic depressive!!

I am trying to keep my emotions in check but I am not sure that is what I want to do. Even now, I am torn as to how I feel about how I feel.

The lesson that I would like to impart is that you need to communicate your feelings. This was, in my opinion, the reason for my divorce. I was never able to tell my ex about how I felt, what I was feeling or why I was feeling it.

Men, let your father's words fall on deaf ears. Get in touch with your emotional selves and discuss them with women. They are always willing to listen and offer some sort of feedback.

I found out too late and will never be the same.

Some people say that this would be a good thing!