I also believe that until you've resolved ALL issues from your past relationships, you are not free to involve yourself with someone new. It's not fair to them.
How would one even know that one has resolved all issues from past relationships? That sounds awfully absolute! Often the way that we see that we have issues is by having them triggered in new relationships. I am not convinced that we can be fully aware of our issues in a vaccuum. It's in relationship that we become more deeply aware of ourselves.
Of course I'm not advocating jumping into relationships without making a serious effort to work on oneself and resolve one's issues, but I don't think there's an easy benchmark (not time or anything else) for knowing whether one is ready other than one's gut.
In my case I "shouldn't" be ready for a relationship given my timeline, but my IRL friends and counselor seem to feel that I am ready as long as I proceed cautiously. And my "boyfriend" is in the same place as I am: rebounding from a difficult marriage with a huge desire to give and receive all the love and affection that was missing.
me: 42 | STBXH: 41 | T: 18 | M: 10 | separation: Jan 3, 2010 | they deserve better: S7 & D4 current thread: http://tinyurl.com/3y8sxcp .: first breathe, then heal, then start LIVING :.
