Totallygutted, I have also had the thought that if we didn't have the closeness, the loss of intimacy would be easier to take, but I'm sure that years from now we'll be glad we had it overall. I look at my parents and see 2 people who've never had it, and while they don't know what they're missing, I feel badly for them just the same.
I really get the idea that we have to work on ourselves and we have to be good with ourselves before we can be good in a rel. with someone else. And I'm not saying I'm anywhere near perfect, but I feel like I have been very actively working on myself for over a year now, and I really don't know what more I can "do" to work on myself.
I have followed more dreams and banished more anxieties in the past 15 months than in all the 41 years prior to that combined. I won't run down my list here--since I put all my GAL type accomplishments or actions on another post where someone asked for us to make that list--but suffice it to say that I've grown by leaps and bounds professionally, personally, AND spiritually, and I've found a way to make all those parts of me connect so they are constantly reinforcing each other. I mean, sure, I still have goals...I want to become the foremost scholar on the writer I'm writing a book on, but that takes time, time to finish the current book, to get the reviews, to write more pieces on him. I want to become a better meditator and learn more of Buddhist teachings, but again, that takes time (this weekend I'm doing an online retreat that focuses for several hours each day on that path). I'm working on being more compassionate and forgiving, and I find ways consistently to practice these things.
I feel like I'm doing all that I want or need to do to be in a good place myself, and I'm already in a good place, and I just need to follow through with what I set into motion.
I guess what I'm saying is I don't know where else to go from here. I don't see that there is any more to "learn" about myself. I've spent SO LONG delving really deep. I've uncovered it all. When I feel XH's words still stinging, I know precisely WHY they sting. When more time passes they will sting less than they do now. No more introspection is going to change that.
So I think at the heart of why I want to meet someone is that I feel like everything I can do for me I've done/am doing, and I want the chance to try the "new me" with someone else. I feel like I have all these magnificent skills for learning how to be a better person in a relationship and I don't get to use them ;-)
Part of my problem was I though I was already pretty well along my path. I had a home office and did the bulk of the household stuff between my work schedule, laundry, cooking 2 of three meals a day, taking the kids to school, appointments, cleaning around the house. I was very attentive to my wife, made breakfast most mornings because I'm an early riser, talked to her everyday about work, the kids, everything. The only thing we didn't do, mainly because of tight money was go out a lot, I think we lost our connection there.
I made a list of everything I could think off that could use work, most of them seemed pretty minor, but I've worked on them anyway. Most of the standard "Biggies" often dumped on about husbands ( all the housework stuff and child rearing)I had already been doing for 15 years ;~). I didn't drink, do drugs, seldom went anywhere without my wife or kids, so I set my goals on the physical, mental and spiritual.
But as you say at some point you begin to wonder "what's left", and even more important how in h&ll are you going to find someone who's actually up to the "New You" ? From what I read on these forums a lot of us have or are in the process of becoming incredibly "Enlightened" beings. Just where and how are we going to find our counterparts in this screwed up, baggage filled, negative world where most have been married two and three times?
This is becoming my biggest concern, that when I'm ready for a new relationship after all this work on myself, the majority of those I'm going to meet will be carrying substantial baggage. I'll have "To Settle" for someone with "Issues" in order to have any love life at all. Anyone else feel this way?
