When I was married, I had an amazing amount of physical intimacy of all sorts with my XH and we were extremely loving to one another. He grew up in a family quite like mine--just a sort of coldness or awkwardness about ever showing affection or love--and he and I wanted desperately to have that which we did not.
So the way this works into "now" for me, is that initially I was desperate for affection from XH, but now that I'm not in love with him anymore, I feel this terrible void, and I have these fears that I will "end up like my family" and have no physical or emotional intimacy from a partner in my life. I have talked about the lack of that stuff to my family members individually and they all shrug their shoulders and say "who cares, it's no big deal." I disagree completely.
And for many people, this stuff is easy to "get", if they are comfortable dating or having sexual intimacy on some level with a person to whom they are not committed. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. But it's just not for me.
So that's where I'm stuck. I want something that I can't make myself go and "get."
That's what I miss a great deal, the physical intimacy my wife and I had. Even though I'm 56 and she's 46 we were always massaging one another's shoulders, touching, hugging, spooning and had regular relations at least twice a week right up until the last month or so. That void is like the grand canyon to me, but I'm trying really hard to avoid the "rebound" stuff because I know it's this physical lack of contact I'm so used to pushes me so much. In some ways now I wish things had been cooler, it might be easier to take.
