Antonia - I think much of what your naturopath said was interesting and true, but I do wonder about one or two of the things she said [and this could reflect my unwillingness to accept 'reality'].

I absolutely agree about not being identified by the wound. We do gravitate to those with similar situations - although as the divorce rate is around 50% finding non divorced friends is also a challenge! Also some married couples are nervous about being around a divorced person as if it were somehow catching - or is this just me?

Nourishing yourself is extremely important. Curiously enough for me not cooking, but eating delicious food is a form of self love. i cooked meals for a very long time for my family but being men they liked man food, and now I eat girl food when I am on my own. It is a luxury not to cook!

I have more reservations about the other areas, at least for me. I had very little contact with my xh when he was in lalaland, but now he is more normal, I enjoy our email exchanges because he is amusing and well informed and knows me well. He doesn't email to moan or get sympathy, and the discussion we had about our son was about dealing with him not any or our issues. Or maybe I am being defensive. Need to think about that one!

I think a part of any relationship is exactly that - helping each other through tough times as well as sharing the good times. It is when the dependency, rather than the mutual help and support, defines the relationship that it is a problem. Also there are tasks we do not like, and while sometimes neither partner likes them, we shared out the less pleasant tasks. Doing them all isn't fun. Who really likes doing their taxes?

Another part of a good relationship is missing the other person - like I said, I am missing my youngest son at the moment. I would be weird if I didn't, but I do get the point, not to the extent it incapacitates me . . .

The idealizing the relationship is the one I admit I struggle with. I felt at the time I was married as well as subsequently that we were unusually well suited and happy together. I liked the man my xh was very much - didn't idealise him then [although I did for a period post separation], and seldom meet anyone who I find as attractive and who makes me laugh as much, or who is as intelligent.

So it isn't that i don't see myself in a situation romantically, I haven't met anyone I want to be with, and being somewhat older than many here, recognise statistically it might not happen. But I would welcome it, I think, if it did.

The fifth point I think she is right about: we are sad, angry or disappointed when things do not go as we had planned. However, when our reasonable expectation are devastated, it takes a lot of adjustment. Like widowhood, or the death of a child, to take it away from abandonment or divorce. There is genuine loss, and it is part of being human that we suffer this. To simply say - well that didn't go as planned, let's move on is ludicrous - and I don't think for a moment she was saying it like that, but forming attachments, making plans together, emotional imtimacy, strong bonds, are all good things, and the loss of them is devastating. There could be a tendency to trivialise what is deeply felt and deeply held by us as humans. To say suffering is like a temper tantrum that never ends isn't the whole story. It helps to see it that way, but for me it does not say it all.

Having said that, I am going to cut and paste the post as I found it very stimulating and much of it absolutely spot one. Hope you didn't mind the criticisms. Like I said, they are probably as much about my issues as anything. I am still work in progress.
Thanks for sharing