Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers Anyone out there start dating other people yet?

No one has filed for divorce yet. We agreed to wait until I found a higher paying job, so I can keep the house and afford child support payments (avoiding bankruptcy). I am going to start going to a support group next Monday. So that should be interesting.

I agree with you. I just started getting out in public, it was nice hearing good things again. I don't think a relationship is on the horizon. I need too much validation. I've heard of the Rules of the Game. Sounded a little disingenuous. Is it worth reading/effective? Not really interested in acting, just remembering how to put my best foot forward.

20# of muscle in 9 weeks? and your libido isn't non-existant?

Hardcore!

Whats your PCT?

Jeff, here's my take on this...

For men who have had their self-esteem beaten to a pulp by their WAW's then I highly recommend social interaction. There is no better remedy for a man's perception of self than to know that there are women out there who want HIM.

As for as the idea of jumping into a new relationship... HELL NO! You're not healed yet and all you're doing is delaying the healing you need to go through.

I haven't gone out on any "dates" per se... that's just me. Not because I'm pining away for my W. I know I turn eyes on occasion -- I've seen women checking me out. My attitude right now is, "You should be so lucky." I'm just having too much fun at the moment enjoying myself and my freedom and I don't want to get tied down with any kind of relationship.

Just my 2c.

haha 20lbs over the last year. No PCT required, squats and milk. My libido is at an all time high, unfortunately. Been awhile.

I'm starting to agree. No reason to live like a monk. I need to get out and enjoy. Constantly focusing on improvement and the marriage dragged me down big time. I can make mistakes too, its okay. I can have fun

So I lied -- I didn't come right back.

Quick recap: D-bomb 2/1/09. OM +/- 12/08. WAW moved out 7/09. OM dumped her 8/09. WAW made noise about "seeing if" 8/09 (wotta co-inky-dink!). SP did not reciprocate noise in approved way 9/09. New OM 10/1/09. D finalized est 2/1/10.

After doing all the wrong things, I started doing the DB things. Went out on some casual dates as described above after, roughly 4 months. Meh -- first dates. They were what they were.

Started chatting online with a woman I grew up with, haven't seen in 20+ years. She is gong thru D as well. Kindred, misery loves company, what-have-you. Met, did the wild thing; met again, did the wild thing again; now we meet and do the wild thing every 2 months or so.

First things first. Wild thing. It is a very good thing.

Second things second. If you still want to DB your way back into the M, IMO dating of any kind that merits the name (I don't consider sitting at the diner counter with a woman you know from the tennis club to be a "date") is going to render that immensely more complicated. Just as the presence of OP changes the way Walkaway perceives her/his marital environment -- "I could leave and still be okay!" -- it's going to change the way you perceive your DB'ing.

Casual encounters -- chatting by the juice bar after a workout -- are super. They do exactly what others say they do -- let you know that you're not Damaged Goods.

My challenge to what you write here: "I can make mistakes too, its okay" is that there are mistakes and then there are mistakes. You can backslide on your DB'ing and that's a recoverable mistake -- it's an open question, I think, whether WAW will let you recover from another woman mistake. It's not fair, but there it is.

So my vice -- the worst vice being ADvice -- is this: Be certain that you have defined your path. There's enough of a Regret Sandwich in the DB process to consume without adding a side order to it.

If your path, as you have defined it today, is to lead back to the M, I would advise against dating, to not practice what I practiced, because I'm rather certain that my Wild Thinging, as it happens, had a decisive impact on STBXMRSSP's evaluations at the time her OM dumped her. And, if you do bust the divorce, and you're back in counseling, that's just ONE MORE THING to have to work through with the therapist, right? They haven't stopped making women that I've noticed, so the world's not going to run out.

If, on the other hand, you have neither desire nor expectation of "going home," then have at them. The best way to get over a woman is to get on top of another one.

"If, on the other hand, you have neither desire nor expectation of "going home," then have at them. The best way to get over a woman is to get on top of another one"

That's like the worst piece of advice I've heard in awhile. If you don't figure out what went wrong in the M in the first place, you're going to end up repeating it. It's the reason why so many second M don't work.

Sorry it's pretty week.

With all due respect, @stuck808, nowhere in there does it say, "don't figure out what went wrong in the M in the first place."

It says that if your goal is not reconciliation -- and Not Reconcile and Not Figure Out are not synonyms -- then you have no reason not to move on to the next person. One could have all the self-awareness and self-focus and growth and study in the world and still not give a fiddler's fart about the person who left them.

A little background (dates approxomate):
3/09 | W announces she wants D but is willing to wait for MC
5/09 | W starts multiple EA's, mostly over the internet, also tells people we're D already
6/1/09 | W has PA 1 night
7/7/09 | W and I have 3 way (she is into this and brought it on herself) then gets jealous, walks out, returns, starts a physical fight, I drive her to destination for sleeping and cooling off, she has PA and starts EA that lasts 2 or 3 weeks until she finds out she is OW to him
7/19/09 | our anniversary... she tests my loyaly through text message, I figure out it's a test, after earlier infidelity I get angry and respond with a fail on purpose... no happy anniversary is said, she calls me on it, I call her on it, nothing resolved
7/09 | she doesn't come home at night, I drive around town looking for her at 5am more than once, she "loses engagement ring" which ends up in a pawn shop by a "mistake from a friend"
7/29/09 | she gets intro message on myspace wall from new OM
8/1/09 | separation official but agree to date
8/3/09 | W and I sleep together for the last time, she moves in with OM 1 hour away, returns to town with him 1 month later
10/31/09 | W asks help to leave OM - "write me a love letter, he gets pissed when you do that" etc
11/4/09 | W finally broke it off with OM, says to me "we're probably not getting D, I just need to get some help (mental issues)"
11/20/09 | W diagnosed bipolar, put on seroquil, falls into deep depression for a few days and calls OM, gets angry he is taken and convinces him to leave his GF, W denies they are together
12/2/09 | I start dating for the 1st time since the separation
12/12/09 | W finds out about OW, flips out and tells me if I can date she can too, 5 min later she's fine with everything including OW
12/20/09 | my OW is waaay too needy, decide to break it off, she threatens suicide, I cave, she gets appointment to get on meds
1/5/09 | OW's dr appointment, gets on meds
1/12/09 | W throws a "we're still married" fit when trying to rent movies on my video account
1/14/09 | I start DBing for the 1st time and call her on the "we're still married" comment and tell her I am done waiting for the talk we're supposed to have "later"
this coming week | will be officially done with OW (waited on meds to kick in, since they did I have already distanced myself)
after that | will date another OW but use a better screening process

Why date again if I still want W? I am lonely. I miss the company of a woman in every way. I will not have OW move in, spend the night, or meet my kids. It may just be a sick way to cope, but I'm past the point of caring about that. W has no say in the issue. If she's going to be upset with that then that's her problem. After all the above I think I deserve to have company too, and someone who respects me quite a lot more than W does. Part of DBing IS coming to terms with the fact that M might not work out, and seeing someone else in the meantime has seemed to have little effect either way in many of these cases. It sparked some jealousy when W found out about OW and got us talking again, maybe it will the next time around. The current OW's jealousy effect wore off when I told W I was getting rid of her, then back to silence from W again. Is this fair to OW's? Of course not. IMHO it's OW's job as a GF to convince me I have a reason to not go back to W. If I land someone more compatible/attractive/sane than W then why would I worry anyways? I rolled over for W for far too long, and when it comes to relationships for the time being it's me time.