Is my ex-gf a b*tch, or is this normal?
 

I know this is long...but I have been tearing myself apart over this and I just want to know that it is OK to really feel hurt and not want anything to do with her. If you can read it and give me feedback I would be DEEPLY grateful.

Unable to cope with a job she was unhappy with, my ex-gf (through a suggestion by me, one I regret) temporarily relocated 600 miles to live with me, get a decent job, and get on top of her debts. The problem is, she left her 5 year old son (now 6) at home to live with the father (she was never married, he asked, she said no although they remain friendly). Living with me, she remained depressed although she was making slow progress paying off her bills. She does call her son every night and visits him every 3 weeks. We lived together, I paid about 60% of our expenses, brought her and her son into my family, had my mom watch her son whenever he visited.

She begins to sense that I am starting to doubt our compatibility due to her constant depression and unwillingness to do anything other than sit at home on weekend nights and watch movies. She's 22, I'm 29. I like to go out and I know she used to like to go out. We talk, lay out plans to spend less time together and become more independent in hopes of reigniting the relationship.

About a week later she doesn't come home from work despite the fact we had specific plans to eat dinner since I wouldn't be able to see her for the next 3 days. She gets off at 6, didn't come home until 3am and did not call me to let me know what was going on (you can imagine how panicked I was something had happened to her). She apparently was out drinking with a few male friends from work.

She apologizes, but continues to go out 1-2 times a week with these same guys, at least letting me know in advance she is going out. I start to suspect she is interested in one of the guys, she denies it, even swearing on her own son's life that she loves me and doesn't like any other guy.

Next week she announces she is moving out and getting her own apartment. She wants to break up and see if we can work out a relationship without living together. Friends for now, probably getting back together in the near future. I get very depressed and cry openly, begging her to rethink this plan. After thinking calmly, I plan on winning her back. She asks for my help in moving to the new apartment, even asking me to use my credit card to help buy her a new TV. I agree, provided she pays me back. She still hugs me and we even kiss (not open mouth) every once in a while.

Two days later, worried about the escalating frequency of her nights out on the town, I ask her if she really doesn't like this guy she hangs out with. This time she confirms that she is interested in the guy. She said she was sorry, but she and I fought too much and were far too different whereas this fellow was more like her.

I'm crushed, unable to continue working that day, and go home.

Now she wants to be friends. She has moved out, sleeping on this guy's couch, has her stuff still in my apartment in boxes in a corner. She doesn't feel comfortable living with me (we have seperate bedrooms) any longer so I had to pay the entire rent myself this month so she could use her portion of the rent for the security deposit on the new apartment.

Suicidal for short periods of time, I finally pulled out of my depression long enough to realize I made a huge mistake suggesting she move here to get her life back in gear in order to be a better mother for her son. It has been 9 months since she moved, she indicates she is moving back to her home town in 3 more months. I begged her to move home to be with her son, he needs her. I told her I would even help financially since I felt guilty for helping her to move away from him in the first place. She became furious with me and told me that she was going home soon (3 months is soon?), but she had to stay with her job here to pay off her debts and get back on her feet. She repeated that she could not find a good job at home, and made enough here to make headway on her bills. Her argument is that if she goes home now she will be miserable, and therefore a bad parent. My argument was that she had to think about him first and she had to rise above the occasion and tough it out at home for a few months until she found a job that paid her well enough to live on her own. She insists she has to stay here to get into a better financial situation. I don't know how getting a new apartment (even if there is no lease), buying all the stuff for it (she owns nothing but kitchenware, clothing, and a coffee table), will negate any benefit of staying here 3 months to pay bills. I'm seriously doubting she will even go home in 3 months, at this point.

She gets into arguments with people all the time. Everybody in my family, who gave her many, many chances, essentially thinks she is no good for leaving her son and just don't really like her (she comes off cold to most people). When she is with her son she is a good mother to him, the problem is she is never around him.

I don't think I want to have a life or have kids with a woman like this. I just want the pain to stop...I still care about her, and it hurts me to type these things about her...but this is the sober truth. Does she sound no good to you?

no good for you.

plain and simple.

as far as the rest, i'm sure someone else can elaborate/advise better than i.

good luck :)

hearing it from your perspective, yes...

it sounds trite, but you deserve to be with someone who wants to be with you as much as you want to be with them... also, from your comments, this girl seems to be on a different maturity level than you.

good luck and keep your head up. whether or not you have to move on you have got to keep a confident vibe - chix can smell it - even this one.

c_b

She's beyond no good. Break it off and have no further contact.

Bob

she's a loser. plain and simple. stay away. you will get over it in a few weeks.

cheers to you mate. ill have a beer to you tonight in hopes today will be the day u can put this horrible wretch out of mind and bring you some peace.

It won't do me any service if I just gave you my side of the story.

Her side of the story:

I love my son, but I cannot be a good mother for him when I am financially hurting, depressed, and unhappy. Moving to (blank city) allows me to get on top of my bills and get my head set right so I can return home in 3 months and be the best mom I can be. I fought a lot with my boyfriend, we're just too different.

My response: We did fight quite a bit, but it became less of a problem towards the end when we allowed ourselves more space. Speaking to the father of her son, a guy who has known her for 10 years, he has told me that she has always known to put herself first and while normally a good mother, has never made him her #1 priority. Even when financially secure, she was often unhappy. So getting on top of her debts has little promise in making her a better mother for her child.

ahhh the hubris of the defeated. not to sound like a prick, but you spent WAY too much time trying to keep her around already. the first night she stood me up for dinner without calling to go get wasted until 3am with some doods...her ass would have been curbed. relationships are about mutal respect and trust. for the most part. i heard a rumor that love was involved somewhere along the line. anyway, she doesnt respect you and you dont trust her, so take what dignity you have left and leave that cunt in the dust. NOW!!!

my confidence is rising every day. the more I think about the stuff she put me through, the more I realize I don't need it.

I'm not ready to meet new girls, but I'm ready to forget this one. I just want to make sure it is OK for me not to be friends with her based on what I've said here. I won't be bitter, but I won't be friendly.

Sounds sensible to me.

Allright, being a child of similar situations at some point I can say that it may not be good for her to return to her child untill she gets her life back together. People have problems, and the closest easy target is always available. As for you, the last thing you need is something to bring your mood down any more, your best bet would be to simply keep contact with her as sparse as possible, and start going out with friends more, meet new people.


Good luck.

I realize she has problems, and I don't blame her for not beating them. But I do blame her for not trying to beat them rather than run away from them. Just being "away from it all" isn't going to heal her.

When she is there, she is a good mother. Her son is happy when she is there, but she isn't happy so it is not a question of her being an able mother, its a question of her being a willing mother.

but you're ultimately right...she isn't the one for me.

Run like hell man.

1. Sounds like instead of getting out of debt, she needs to hold a steady job for 3+ months, get health insurance, and get her depression taken care of.

2. See #1. The depression is the issue, not the debt. Tons of people that are in debt are good parents.

3. She left her son to focus on herself. She used you during that time to help get by. You fought a little. She found some other guy and lied to you about it. Then she moved in with him. See a pattern yet? Lose her and run. Drink, go to a bar, whatever but stay away.

If you do have further contact with her, it should consist of helping her get help for her depression. Once she sees a professional about that, he can help her fix that, and find and solve other problems she has that prevent her from being able to live with her son normally.

Sorry to hear you are going through this, you seem like a great guy ( the great guys are always getting shit upon)! I think this woman is a dead end for you.......as painful as it is, its time to move on.

Sorry man

thanks everybody for your help.

I just called her and tried to get a confession out of her for treating me badly, I said that any future friendship we had was contigent upon her trying to understand what she has done to me and what she has done to her son is wrong. I told her I didn't expect immediate realization, but an attempt to at least play with the ideas. She refused, insisting she did nothing wrong to me: never cheated, never lied (she did), and had sincere love for me. I believe that she never cheated, but her love couldn't have been strong if she went from telling me that if I proposed marriage she would accept to kissing another guy within the space of 3.5 WEEKS.

Well, it got into a huge argument...she thinking I was calling her to attack her insecurity (that she has a poor relationship with her son), I regret calling her, I should have just let it go...but I wanted to try to help her one last time. Big mistake. Now I'm feeling worthless again.

You're a giver, she's a taker.
And there's no vice versa, which would balance it out.

Some people are ONLY concerned with their own whims.
The words don't count, they are illusion.

Don't give to her anymore, period.
Clean up the mess.
Let it go, do what you need, and move on.

thanks rogue, I will try to follow your advice.

My first girlfriend who is now a good friend has proved invaluable. She has echoed pretty much everything you guys have told me.

pull out, pull out, pull out. That's all I can say. We tend to get sucked so deep and sometimes we seem to only come back for more pain. This girl totally doesn't appreciate what you've given her. PULL OUT, before it's too late (which it seems mighty close to...)
Best of luck

He said it. Get out now before you let her ruin your credit or fuck your life up more (if any) than she already has. Her maturity level appears to be flat, if not negative. They're her problems, and she's obviously flippant about you. Sorry man, you're too good a guy to be shit on. Move along now, there's nothing more to see here...

After enjoying a good week of thinking I am over her (mostly due to the words you people have spoken in here, it gave me lots of support to know I hadn't done anything wrong) we talked last night. She has been out of town seeing her son, she called me on her way back.

She told me she missed me and she didn't want to hate me (our last conversation was very heated). I cried like a little baby for most of the phone call. I told her it hurt me so much to know she was with another man. She told me she wasn't with another man (if you kiss a guy, doesn't that mean you're "with him"?). She said she loved me. I told her that part of the pain I was experiencing was because so much of my life revolved around her, we weren't just boyfriend/girlfriend, we were buddies. She said that one of the reasons our relationship wasn't working out was because I centered my life around hers. I told her I realized that, and that's why we both were spending less time with each other towards the end of our relationship.

She said she misses me and wants to see me this weekend. I don't know what to think at this point. I think it is pretty evident she isn't the type of girl I should be around but at the same time I miss her dearly and the only thing that gets rid of the pain is to see her or hug her. I haven't eaten in 24 hours and I'm starting to think that I'll never get over her.

Sorry dude, but she's trying to have her cake and to eat it too.
Don't let her use you for the "warm & fuzzies"
Use you for comfort when needed, walk away when not.
You are not a yo-yo.
Words count with you, true interaction counts with you.

This is one time where the lady needs to step up to the plate.
She needs to make a commitment to your relationship, to YOU.
Not marriage, but to YOU and YOUR needs & desires.
This is NOT just about her.

Otherwise, let her go.
It doesn't sound like you are one of those men
who can just be "friends with benefits", at least with THIS lady.
Your feeling are much too significant for her.
Sounds like you need it to be just a bit more.

Just my observation & opinion.

Re: Is my ex-gf a b*tch, or is this normal?
 

Inform her that her stuff will be waiting for her in the hall "tomorrow" if she doesn't pick it up immediately. Make sure she doesn't take anything else if she actually comes back for it. Don't accept anything like "I can't make it today."

Find someone reasonable to take your mind off her.

Worried_one doesn't owe her that much, IMHO: the patient is the one with the disease. This is not his problem, it's hers. He already gave her more than she deserved.

She's still using you, and you're still letting her. Stop that!

Drop her bud and get away. Shes abusive to you and people cant change from others. I know I'm young but if any chick ever tried this I'd haul ass. I hope you just realize how much you got going without her spectre on your head.

If your interested in continuing the relationship you had before( it most likely wont get better) you can meet wth her. I really doubt that time away from each other is gonna help this situation or change your relationship in a good way. The relationship you have described is not very healthy and is definitely focused on her. You CAN do better i promise. Other than that you just gotta decide how much more pain you can bear. If you take this to the friends with privileges level you will most likely destroy any chances of a friendship. I would suggest either stopping all contact or minimizing contact and working on finding a new girl. 29 is still young, find someone who will share your love and bring happiness into your life.

ok, I read through your problem and I have been in this situation before. I had asked a girl to move in with me and to a town that she knew noone in...etc, etc....same story as yours, only no kids involved.

Here is what I will tell you. First things first. You can NOT blame yourself for making her move here. This may have been encouraged by you, but it certainly was not your decision. She made the decision to take a chance and move. This was her decision NOT yours. Stop beating yourself up about it.

Next, it was also her decision to start looking outside of the relationship and blow you off to spend time with "work friends." Now you know the truth about her attraction to the other guy. As bad as it sounds, you need to cut her off. especially financially. These are consequences she should have thought of, before galavanting off to bars with some dude she finds attractive.

Look at it this way. You have been the nice guy. You have looked out for her well being, looked after her son, and turned your own life upside down, but this a 2 way street. You are allowing her to walk all over you.

By allowing her to walk all over you, you are creating a situation where she is not only allowed to spend time with other guys, but she now has a sucker to help her pick up the tab for it. Let this other guy help her. Again, this is a decision SHE made. This is no longer your problem.

Trust me, by you strapping on some balls and putting an end to the nonesense, she will realize what she has lost and force her to take responsibility for her actions....

You have no obligation to her... You have already made the first realization that you don't want a woman like that in your life, now stick to it.

You can only show a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink...You have done everything, the appreciation is not reciprical, and you need to cut her loose. Give her a deadline, and send her packing....END OF STORY...

DO NOT...I repeat, DO NOT...help her financially anymore. I don't care how much she pleads...DON'T be the sucker!!


My $0.02

Good luck, man...I feel your pain...

I have no been able to eat since Sunday night. I cannot sleep. I wish I could project my pain onto her and make her see what she has done to me.

There won't be any more money or caring or help going her way. THe only way she can salvage a friendship out of this is if she realizes how she treated me was wrong.

I don't recommend giving her that much of an opening. She'll try to play you like a piano.

She probably won't truly realize,
And if anything she just rationalizes.

And even if she says the words, her ACTIONS are different.

Do yourself a favor, take the pain,
And focus it elsewhere.

Take your love & generosity,
And focus it elsewhere.

You deserve to be treated better,
and there is no need to prove your pain.
Just Heal.

want my girlfriend? she is the opposite - she wants to me to center my world around her, and if not, she's not happy. sounds to me like you would be a good guy for her.

seriously, though - we all have issues... i think this ex of yours feels trapped by her debts, by her child, and by everyone in general. being overbearing and emotional is only going to present to her the impression that you're trapping her as well - so instead of seeing the love and respect that is there, she sees another person who may potentially control her life in some way. she is VERY young to be OK with things, and i think that she has a ton of maturing to do.

i also know from experience that even if things turn around, the damage has been more then done to you and your relationship for anything successful to come out of it in the future. you might fool yourself into thinking it could work and maybe drag things out for a year or so, but in the end, it's the same old shit with women like this.

my advice - be a dick. if she crawls back to you, thats one thing. if she doesn't, it will make the break easier for both of you.

-chris

salvage? salvage? are you kidding me? who cares if she ever figures out how you feel man! i mean, that's more than half the problem to begin with isnt it? SHE DOESNT CARE!!!!!! seriously, i am starting to doubt whether you have taken any of the advice in this thread. GET AWAY FROM HER!!! dont talk to her. dont listen to her. dont go near her. CURB HER ASS NOW!!!! okseeyabye!

Listen to bigoldalphamale. He knows.

Absolutely most well-put summation.

Go out and treat yourself to a nice meal at a nice restaurant you enjoy. Bring someone with you if you can. EAT. ACTUALLY EAT. Even if you don't finish, leave room for dessert. Get a nice, rich dessert, something indulgent you enjoy but rarely get.If you keep up this 'no eating' thing, you're going to make yourself sick, and your motivation will get smaller and lag time worsen.

FORCE- not try- FORCE yourself to go see a movie, go buy some new threads, hang out with friends, go to the mall, whatever it is you used to do that made you happy. The busier the activity, the better, the more people involved, the better. Make it a "make myself happy" adventure, and see how many cool things you can do in one day you never have time for.

Your wounds will heal. Only time will do it. Stop thinking of ways to speed it up, there aren't any, and you only prolong the pain by thinking about it. Play some video games if you're into them, or start up a hobby.

Good luck, and keep her as far away from you as possible.

Opposing viewpoint here :)

You had no problem with her mothering abilities when she moved in with you and left the kid behind did you?

As to the rest,I'd imagine that being in a strange new place,trying to get her money act together and dealing with a new,live in relationship might have been more than a little overwhelming.

Also,you say that this woman did make headway on her debts and did make an effort at contributing fiscally to your joint bills.
Painting her as an out and out user deadbeat seems rather unfair.

Relationships are gambles,I'd rather such a person moved out on their own to clear their head rather than simply staying with me because I'd made them feel gulity,like they owed me their life or something.

she is a bitch. run far away

I was in a relationship like yours at one point. I felt exactly the same way you did. I actually cried at work when I read your story - I try not to even think about those times these days.

I want to tell you something though - four and a half years later, I am happily married to a wonderful woman and may be starting a little family soon. Shake off what she's done for you ASAP. My ex still affects me even though I haven't had contact with her in years.

The psychological scars she left run deep and I thank God every day for my wife who is so patient with me.

You have tough times ahead. Be strong. PM me if you would like to chat with someone who's been through this.

You have to understand- you owe her NOTHING. You have given far more than you owed, or that she needed or deserved, She is taking advantage of you and abusing you emotionally. You are a good person for caring about her son, and of course you want resolution, but it isn't coming. The truth is that she has manipulated you, taken advantage of you and abused you. Take her off the buddylist, get call waiting and don't answer her calls. You don't need her to acknowledge how you feel for it to be "ok", you owe her nothing. Time to move on, and stop letting the bitch hurt and use you. Everyone has their own issues, it is her responsibility for fucking you over. No guilt, no remorse, no hesitation. Just blow her off and forget her. Give her her stuff, and never talk to her again. That said, it might help you to find someone to talk to, if you don't have any close friends where you are, maybe a counselor could give you some emotional support in this. You've been put in a totally unfair situation, that is not in your control to change. Let it go, and best wishes.

Man, I went through the same thing... This topic has gotten deep but I tell you what, when your girl finds guys from work and they go out all the time, forget it....or at least nip it in the bud and figure out what's wrong with the relationship and fix it. Going out with guy friends from work always ends up in a "ok i like my guy friend from work now" scenerio.

Good luck.

Worried_One,
Do yourself a favor and walk away with dignity and self respect. Hun, you are on a fast track to nowhere with this one.

Ask yourself some REAL questions...
Is this the kind of relationship you want for a life partner?
Is this the kind of woman you want to have mother your children? Would you want your own flesh and blood to have to deal with the feelings of abandonment as she has exhibited with her son and with you?

Sit down and be honest with yourself. Look at the whole picture. Think with your logical mind not your emotional mind.

Once the milk has gone sour, it remains sour. It doesn't matter how many times you put it back in the fridge in hopes that it will change and become pure again, every time you pull it out you will find it is still sour.

In spite of how you are feeling right now, I think you know deep down what isn't working. Denial isn't going to help that appetite return and it isn't going to make things all better. For your emotional and physical health, let go and begin the healing process.

Oh, and by the way, No, this is not normal!

And if you ever wanna talk, you can PM me. :)

I'm going to go more along the lines of what uptown wrote, because I feel there are more than enough people poking their head in, skimming the story, and saying kick the bitch to the curb.

It seems to me -- and you'll have to do some soul-searching to decide whether I'm right or not -- that you feel bad and you want people to understand it. You want validation of your pain more than you want a solution. You want her to understand it, and you want us to understand it. Why is it so important? Shouldn't finding a solution be just as important or more important?

You persuaded her to move in with you but you did not force her. No matter what you said or did, it was her decision. You need to realize that the same applies to what she has done to you. The actions that she does are her responsibility, and your response to those actions is your responsibility.

"cried like a baby for most of the phone call"? Your fault.
"haven't eaten in 24 hours"? Your fault.
"cannot sleep"? Your fault.
"Suicidal for short periods of time"? Your fault.

These are things that she CANNOT do to you; you can only do them to yourself. I'm not saying that you should have a heart made of stone and not care about what your friends do to you, but you are putting too much emphasis on this pain and you want to hear us say that it's all her fault. Let's take stock of what her actions were: moved in with you, broke a few engagements, became interested in spending time with people who are more like her, cut it off with you by getting her own apartment and putting distance between you, and started seeing another guy. I'm going to leave the financial situation out of this, because it seems irrelevant. As Rogue49 put it, you're a giver. I don't doubt that she accepted these things because she thought it was 100% okay with you, and I don't doubt that you were 100% okay with it when you agreed to it.

If I sound a little harsh, it's because this situation hits close to home. I see some of myself in your post. I have also been in situations where it got well beyond a point where I should have given up, and the pain became my focus. At those times, I was deliberately making myself feel worse and making that her fault. Looking back, there really is nothing awful that was done to me, but I needed a reason why it didn't work out, and I made that my reason. That I was in pain that SHE had created, and she didn't see it or didn't care, and so she must be an insensitive or hurtful person who I shouldn't have been going after in the first place. And as cracked up as it sounds, I think another big reason that I did it was for pity... that after all else had failed I thought I could get someone to like me out of pity.

Your situation is different than mine, of course, but I see certain parts that are definitely very similar. Most notably, "(if you kiss a guy, doesn't that mean you're "with him"?)" struck a chord in me. I'm reminded of how I went into college thinking that (at least on a subconcious level) and that it took a long while for me to shed that kind of nonsense. If you two were already together, I could see making a kiss a big deal. But you weren't. The two of you had broken up. You were trying to put things back together, and she was open to the idea. It is not a crime for her to fall for somebody else. As many people here have said already, it would appear that you two are not right for each other, and if you're going to act on that information you need to be able to do so without making it "all her fault" that it didn't work out. It just didn't work out. These things happen. In any case, I wish you the best of luck.

Worried,

I went through the EXACT situation with the exception of I paid her rent for a year and a half the first time we were together before I found her with my boss. After a couple of years we tried again but this time she moved in with me........BIG MISTAKE!!

I thought I could not live without her, but I truly thank God for moving her in and seeing the real her.

She's gone now and the only thing that hurts more is not being able to see her daughter as much as I used too. That child is the only reason I was truly in love with her.

Be grateful bro and shake it off, I suffered for 2 years after our first breakup and now I am glad she is GONE....but I still miss her daughter more then anything.

Get out more often and DON'T sit around feeling sorry for yourself thinking what you could have done different.....IT WAS MEANT TO BE.

Tell her to get her shit out of your place and don't call her......get on with your LIFE!

I just wanted to interject something here. I went through a situation very very similiar to yours. I acted almost the same way you are acting now. I read your post and some of the things you indicate about not wanting her back, but reconciling the friendship if she does certain things, etc., etc. I used to say these things and the reason I did was simple, I still, after everything she did, wanted her back. I hoped that she would magically see what she was doing, and that the love in her heart would make her change. Then one day, I woke up, and was out-of-love, and for the first time saw her for what she was. The fact of the matter is, you need to realize that she is not going to have a change of heart, because there is no love in her heart. My opinion is if you really love someone, there is no possible way you can do what she did to you. Realize, she used you, she is a horrible person and no matter how much you hope she can change, she is not going to. Take the blinders off and see the real her.

I just wanted to give everybody an update on what has happened:

I've decided to move on with my life. Until last night (more on that later) I hadn't spoken to her in 2 weeks. In that period of time I have gone out on 3 dates with 3 different girls. My sense of self-worth has improved to a degree where I don't worry about not being able to find another woman to love again. No, I am not ready for a relationship, but I am ready to start dating...to get out...to have a little fun.

I still think about her quite a bit, but I was growing stronger and stronger and thinking about her less and less. Thinking about her being with another man no longer upsets me so much.

Well...she called me last night. I told her that I would contact her when I was ready to talk to her and she agreed to not call me to give me healing time. But she broke the agreement. She definitely sounded different on the phone. She told me that she had been very depressed the past few weeks. She told me that her grandmother was going to relieve her of her debt problems and that she saw that her life would hopefully be able to get turned around. She mentioned that she still thought the two of us would never be able to work out, but she missed me a great deal and had a hard time coping with the fact that we invested so much into a relationship that didn't work. She had heard that I was dating other girls now. I confirmed that and told her I was having a good time meeting new people. We talked about her son and how he has asked to talk to me but she doesn't know how to explain to him that we're broken up. Then she asked me if I had kissed any of the girls I had dated. I told her I had not, but had been close to doing so. She mentioned that I "sounded different", more distant. (That was the effect I was going for). She also revealed that a few weeks back, after hearing how I was somewhat suicidal, she stole the bullets out of my gun so I couldn't shoot myself.

This morning I was very sad and made the mistake of calling her. I started to open up my heart a little bit for her, I revealed that I was going to date other girls and get on with my life but that I still loved her and cared for her. It was an awkward conversation, this time I sounded weak and she sounded a bit stronger.

Anyway....I just want to stop talking to her again and focus on dating these girls again. Re-reading this thread has convinced me again that she is young, confused, and not the right girl for me.

Thank you, everybody, so...SO much for your support through this. This thread has been an incredible help for me over the past couple of weeks.