Chapter 1: What personal experiences with loneliness are shared in this episode?
Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week episode of Father Knows Something. Any life updates? Oh, it's been nonstop. So let's see, what are the life updates? My house is getting ready for guests. Spring cleaning. Okay. So I think that goes on for everybody, spring cleaning. It's clean up our souls, clean up our negative stuff, make it all positive.
Let's all get ready for spring with the flowers and this beautiful summer coming up. And if you are down in like, you know, Aussie land, get ready for the fall and winter. Did you know there's a blizzard in Minnesota right now? I did. I talked to my son, your brother-in-law. He was driving in it yesterday and it was quite scary. Hard to get ready for spring in that situation.
You know, I remember when I was there that, you know, I would always leave the first weekend of May to go down, to fly down to Louisville for the Derby years ago. And when I opened the hangar and pulled the plane out, it was shitty, snowy, crappy. And then I would fly, you know, about, oh, 45 minutes south and I'd be near Hayward, Wisconsin.
And I started seeing, you know, brown patches everywhere. And then I'd get closer to, you know, like, you know, the Chicago, you know, the Indiana, Illinois border, or not the Indiana, the Wisconsin, Illinois border. And it would be definitely starting to come up a little bit with, you know, moss green. Signs of life. Yeah.
And then you'd get further South, you hit Indiana and it was really looking good. And you fly right into Louisville and all of a sudden roses and flowers everywhere. So it was really about a three hour trip, but you could see how things were just Yeah, you almost time traveled to spring. It was really great. And then you had to go home. And the opposite happened.
Well, actually, no, because I would hang out there for about a week or two. And so it was that week or two in May that by the time you get back, that was really the last storm for Minnesota, always the last weekend of April. And you were fine in May. It would be melting off, but- And Duluth was unique where Minneapolis was already baseball weather.
I mean, when Taylor was playing ball, we would go down and... have spring training for his high school when he was playing high school ball. And it was great down in Rochester, but up in Duluth, you know, you couldn't get on the baseball field. Yeah. Okay. There you go. What do you got? Well, tonight we're diving into loneliness. Loneliness.
Being disconnected from a friend, a partner, a family member. It's very common. You ever been lonely? I have, I have. So that's kind of, have you ever, uh, have you ever, you know, wondered what's going on the, on the other side when people are lonely and they've lost somebody and they say, gee, I wish I can communicate with that person. You ever had that kind of a feeling?
Well, we've heard about a lot in the show. I think that we should, uh, reach out there. If anybody, uh, anybody that's special or if you are a person that kind of crosses over and you can hear from the other side and you're in the los angeles area right into us okay okay let's go for it let's do it so This episode of Father Knows Something is presented by Walmart.
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Chapter 2: How can one navigate feelings of loneliness after a breakup?
Currently, I'm working part-time, going to school, and juggling all the trials and tribulations of a grown adult for the first time. This past year, and if I'm being honest, for many years, I've been feeling really disconnected from my friends. I know with work, relationships, and family, it gets hard to make time for each other.
I usually bottle up all my emotions and try to be the strong and independent one, but I had an honest conversation with my friend about how I've been feeling. I requested to have monthly FaceTimes and told them how lonely I've been. It seems like I'm the one who's always running around, trying to figure out a time of when to do these monthly calls,
And when I reach out via text, I sometimes don't get responses for days and or weeks at a time. I feel like I try really hard to stay connected and it hurts and is disheartening when it feels like I don't get that in return. I did something so hard for me to do, which is to be vulnerable about how I'm feeling. It's hard for me to do that since I don't want to come off as a burden.
I know I can try and make new connections, but that has been hard for me. I'm not very social. I love my friends, but I don't know how I can get past these feelings of loneliness. What do I do? Well, if you're having problems dealing with a lot of this, maybe you should get counseling.
You know, somebody that can step in that's objective, but not a friend, but a professional that can tell you really how to sort some of these feelings out. I mean, we are not, I'm not a professional psychologist.
You know, I mean, but if one of my kids came to me and said, I have some issues going on and I can't process it and I'm finding I'm getting withdrawn and I don't want to be, and I see it, my answer would be, maybe we should go, you know, you should get some counseling. If it's something with me, maybe I should go and, you know, talk to you with them if I'm part of the issue.
If I'm not part of the issue and it's not a daughter-dad thing or a son-dad thing, then do it on your own. And if you need me for anything, I'm here. And I think that might be the best plan. You know, we've talked a lot about how friendships evolve and sometimes you evolve away from one another and that could very well be happening. Life does that.
Life takes you apart and certain friendships can survive that. Other friendships kind of need that constant tending to. The one thing on my mind is in here you said that you've done one of the hardest things you've ever done, which is be vulnerable and tell your feelings to someone.
why not stay on that train and do another one of the hardest things you've ever done and try to make new connections? I know you say, I know I can try and make new connections, but it's been hard for me. You've already done something that's really hard for you. I think this could be really good. And we should always be trying to make new connections because- There's growth.
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Chapter 3: What advice is given for maintaining friendships during challenging times?
I have to stress that my child's father and I have absolutely no romantic feelings for each other, and when I see him, it's never alone and always at his mother's house. Prior to my current relationship, I would go to my ex-in-laws for dinner, we would go on family vacations, I would still be invited to the weddings in the family, and we would do holidays together.
The dynamic has made our daughter's life so much easier because there's no guilt or pressure put on her to choose which parent she wants to spend time with. I do need to add that there was abuse and infidelity that led to me leaving and filing for the divorce. And we have both worked very hard to get past all of that to have a good co-parenting relationship for our daughter. On to the problem.
Anytime I would need to see my ex at a family gathering, I could tell that my current significant other would not be happy about it. He wouldn't say anything unless I asked and his response would be that he's trying to get used to being in a relationship with someone who still has to be in contact with an ex. I understood that as he's never been in a relationship with anyone that has children.
The issue is that now, almost a year later, it's still a problem. But he's becoming more passive aggressive when he gets upset. When we talked about it last time, it finally came out that he's worried I'm going to cheat on him with my ex.
I've told him every time that I have no feelings for him and that even though I can put the past behind us to have a good relationship with him for our daughter, that does not mean that I have any romantic feelings for him because I have not forgotten how he treated me. But that doesn't seem to help.
When he told me that he gets upset because he feels like I could cheat on him, I didn't react well. I got very upset because I haven't done anything to make him feel that way, and he even admitted that it was his own insecurity. I don't know what to do to try to make things better.
I cut down on my time with the people that I consider family to try to help, but it only seems to make it worse for my significant other. I'm not willing to give up the chosen family, but in doing so, I feel like I'm giving up on a future that I never thought I would have. Can you offer any advice to help me? You know, trying to find a way to get someone secure is a tough one.
I mean, either he's smart enough to realize that if you wanted to be with him, you would be with him. I mean, you're not with him. It's clear you have no interest. And insecurity is the beginning of the failed relationship. Maybe you go with him to get him going on getting some help on learning how to be secure. It's not your job to get him secure. It's his job to get himself secured.
You can certainly share with him what it's doing to the relationship and that he's taking an issue that's not an issue and he's turning it into an issue. And we can do two things. One, you can get some assistance with it because there's nothing I can do to help you because I'm not doing anything and you're already going through this stuff.
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Chapter 4: How can chronic health issues impact social connections?
But the reality is he can get there or there's someone else out there who will understand the dynamic and will fit right in like a perfect puzzle piece. It can be him. He has an opportunity to do so, but it does not involve you changing anything about your chosen family and your relationships. Agreed. Okay. Okay, move on. Okay, here we go, number five. Number five.
I, 21 female, have struggled with chronic health issues for most of my life. Some I was born with, others I developed over time, probably due to the misdiagnosis or being undiagnosed for 20 years. This has made it hard for me to make and keep friendships and relationships from eventually fading out.
My conditions are not visible to most of the population, so people don't always realize what they're getting themselves into when they meet me. It's not something I'm ashamed to talk about. I'm a fairly open person when it comes to every aspect of my life. But it's not something I talk about all the time, since I know it's quite a bummer.
So it sort of turned into a cycle of me making new friends or meeting someone new. We get close. I start to open up to them more about my life and health struggles, thinking that I can confide in them. They are supportive at first, and eventually things fizzle out once they realize that my chronic issues are actually chronic.
And I also want to point out the fact that I am as self-sufficient as I possibly can be, and I struggle asking for help. So I am by no means relying on them or making them feel pressured to take care of me in any way. It's been difficult, especially throughout college, to maintain any sort of relationship.
I'm currently on a medical leave from school, which was unplanned and very abrupt, and none of my classmates, we're all fairly close with each other, have checked in on me, and it's been months now since I've heard from any of them. I've reached out a few times and we had short surface level conversations, but nothing very meaningful or consistent.
I get that they are busy with their own lives, as am I, and they have no responsibility or duty to reach out, but it definitely still hurts. I guess what I'm looking for are ways that I can try and put myself back out there to make new connections, platonic and romantic,
Due to my limitations, I have only ever dated people who have the same hobbies as me or that I'm already friends or familiar with, but I'd really like to meet new people. Are there ways I can address this up front? Do you have any tips for dating as a chronically ill disabled person in their 20s? Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Dealing with chronic illnesses is lifestyle.
the person that's going to be your person is going to be able to share with you and work with you through these lifestyle regimens that you have to do. And sometimes it's going to be difficult. Sometimes you may have to get more assistance, go to doctors, but the person that you're with is your partner. And they, they, they become part of your solution, not part of the problem.
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