One of those wonderful people I asked for help from was my friend Jodi. She is a beautiful person inside and out, and she heard my pain. Her husband is a financial planner, and she sent him over to meet me at 7am the next morning.

Just talking to Ruben about what I do and how I got here was amazing. He reminded me that my dilemma is not uncommon, and that I'm really in much better shape than many.

I have relatively little debt. I make over 100k a year, but only owe about 6k on credit cards. I have only my one car loan, but a pretty sizeable student loan from when I went back to school.

I've bought my children 2 cars, and I pay for all their gas and insurance, and expenses. I live in a very nice house ( I rent) in a nice neighborhood so my children can go to the best schools in the area, I have paid for my daughter's first year in college on my own, and just helped my son's dream come true, by sending him to Israel for 8 weeks to complete his junior semester at AMHSI. (For this he got over 7k in scholarships, but I paid 1k and his spending $$)

I don't have a lot of nice clothes, I don't shop indiscriminately, I just love to give and do for my kids. They know I love them, so it's time to stop the need to show them by spending $$ on them. It's time to still teach them that we show ourselves love by being good to ourselves, and making good choices.

I am committed to making good choices. That is exactly where I stop - and where I start.