Letting people live their lives and GALing...

[AntoniaB]

A few updates: my friend I talked about above is still not really talking to me much. Even though the info about her EA was only a small part of our conversation, it's like she's shut down entirely and is only replying to posts on the alt and not really responding much to emails. Oh well. I know that I did the right thing and she's going to have to live with her own decisions. I cannot fix her. She doesn't want solutions.

Update 2, the guy that I talked about way back in Dec. that I met at an art gallery that I went to at the last minute for a show is now dating me...long story but we got to know one another a bit as friends first and decided as of Friday that we are officially "dating" though not ready to define it as "in a relationship." But we're also not dating other people...anyway the biggest issue for me is trying to get a handle on how ecstatic I am. I know it's the dopamine and I know I'm deeply infatuated and a lot of this is biochemical. Just trying to take it slow and not get carried away as much as I want to, but also trying to embrace living in the moment. It's a tough line to walk.

I will say that I am so glad I waited till XH was pretty well out of my system before something like this. I worried a lot about thinking I'd feel I was betraying XH if I started something with someone and I don't feel that at all, honestly. I feel like I'm in the right place at the right time in my life and I was supposed to meet this guy and have "something" with him.

I don't know anything about XH other than that his posts on the alt show a drastically different person than he ever was and he's still in this weirdly defiant bragging about OW phase and it's nearly 2 years that he's with her and he's still doing it. There are also many indicators that suggest he is not as "masculine" as he used to be. I told a friend I'm predicting a change in his sexual preference in 5 years. I just think this is more evidence of his identity confusion and I simultaneously feel sorry for him and feel I am so much better off without him in my life.

So I'm hoping things go well with new guy. I told him that if someone had really been able to make me believe that 650-odd days after the bomb that I'd be dating someone so wonderful, I'd have been a whole lot less distraught ;-)

Oh yeah: the plus with the new guy is that he is divorced 3 years and seems to have been married to a female version of my XH...we are very open about the past and very committed to keeping the changes we both made in ourselves in any future relationships.

So life is really good and even if new guy doesn't end up being someone long-term, I do know that there are fantastic men out there and that I can be in another relationship, which is HUGE for me to come to that realization :-)