What if?

[AntoniaB]

IB this really rings true for me:

" It is those moments of support, care, security that I am missing the most right now. I don't believe I will ever get that feeling back. "

Ok, I just said this almost verbatim to my mom earlier tonight. But truly, honestly, I have felt very tiny moments like that with the guy I have been seeing in the past 2 months. Things are up in the air with him and may be done or not--I don't really know as we are in this sort of break period--but what I can say is that there were a lot of moments with him where I felt a type of support and interest in my life--and that felt nice. And I felt care too...security? Not really. But I'm still fighting with that notion, because there is a part of me that never wants to have to gain my security from a man again. I think I lived far too much in that security and it made me very weak and dependent. I still CRAVE that security but I don't know how healthy it really is.

But suffice it to say that I had moments where I did feel care and support from a guy I had some connection with and we are really fairly casual. So it HAS to come back with someone that we end up being "serious" with, it HAS to, on some level.

I am not recommending anyone go out and try to date before they are "ready"; I was in an "I'm not dating anyone" mode and so was the guy I met. We met as friends and were casual friends for a few months before any dating and the dating just ended up happening eventually. And like I said, we may or may not be over due to compatibility issues. But regardless of that, I can tell you without any hesitation that this experience really made me get past some of the very issues you are musing about.

I was entirely anti-living with anyone ever again (unless XH were to magically be my H again in a great restored marriage), let alone getting married or leaving my home. Now I can honestly say that I can visualize living with someone again eventually after a long commitment. I can also sort of visualize being married. Bigger than anything, I can foresee feeling ok enough to move out of my marital home--which you know, I've made great strides in changing so it doesn't even look like the same place--but I can also see wanting to start a new life in a new home with someone else.

I do struggle nearly every day with that feeling of "loss" in terms of not feeling secure, feeling like every burden falls to me and me alone, and I have no one here to help--ever--no shoulder to cry on, no one to hold me when it's a rough day--no one to really be intimately close to. But I don't feel loss over the XH anymore--it's a general feeling of not having those things and wanting them, but I guarantee it's not wanting HIM to fill that space.

I guess what I'm saying is that in my recent experience, a lot of the feelings you're talking about really lessened greatly for me when I saw that there was at least one other person out there I could relate to who sort of gave me hope again. And as pessimistic as I can get--see my own thread for that, ha ha--I think logically that if there was one person I met who restored some sense of hope, there have to be others I haven't met yet.

Again, not trying to diminish the impact or effects of really long-term relationships at all, but just trying to say that if you're wondering if you will ever get that sense of caring and support back, you probably will, but like AJM said it's probably going to be tempered with a hefty dose of realism that there are never any guarantees anymore about anyone.

I mean, we can look at that negatively and say it really stinks (and many times I do that very thing), or I guess we can try to take that to heart and realize that with no guarantees we really try to live fully in the moments that we do get.

I never thought anything bad would ever happen to me in my marriage or in my life, really. I sometimes wish for those days back, but I also think it was kind of a curse to be so naive. Had XH and I ever been aware enough to ever talk about divorce or infidelity, maybe we'd never have had to go through it.