Not really piecing and trying not to jinx it, but

[Freckle6]

Your posts in your thread about not seeing yourself attracted to anyone else and about being angry over the shared parenting hit home with me. I tried to date two summers ago. We had been separated 3 years by then and a very nice guy that works with my mom was interested in me. We "met up" at a picnic their employer and hung out a bit and he came over for dinner once, but I freaked out and he hadn't even so much as tried to touch me! After the picnic thing I sobbed and sobbed all the way home and I hadn't cried over my H in a long time. I had thought I was ready or close to it, but I wasn't. It brought all those old feelings out and really threw me back into it for a while again.

I decided that while I wasn't ready for any sort of relationship, I was actually pretty happy and content with my life the way it was with myself and my son and that was all I needed at this point. I also accepted that I probably always would love my H in some way--he had been a major part of my life from the time we were 12---and I mourned for the man he was and in no way resembled anymore.
I never did get over the anger at the change in raising kids though. Anger at making me miss out of half of important events (like Christmas stuff with my in-laws, etc.) of my son's childhood. Anger at having my son not sleeping under my roof every night. In a way that got worse over time because my son was so little in the beginning, he didn't know any different, but the last couple of years he gets sad and says he misses his daddy and all that and it really p!ssed me off in that mother bear way. And lots of anger at him leaving me to do this all on my own while he gets to be fun dad who spends the weekend at the park.

I've envied people that seem to be able to move on fairly quickly. That certainly wasn't me. It's hard enough for me to let down the wall enough to let my H back in, I don't know if another man exists that would ever be able to break through that. It's hard, for sure.

Don't let all what I just said though get you down. I was actually happy the last few years and not just going through the motions of life anymore. Mad about what happened still, but happy with the lemonade I made out of those lemons, KWIM? So, no matter what happens in your M, you will be happy again. Once you're down there at the bottom, you have to eventually go up, right? It may turn out to be a bittersweet happiness in some ways, but you learn to appreciate what you do have (your kids, your health, etc.) in a way you might not have pre bomb.