I can answer this from my POV but remember, I went through this whole DB process, a lot of IC, reading and knowing I had some things that were poisonous inside that had to be removed by the roots.
We started our new R over texting. I think it gave us both some safety because we weren't face-to-face and could respond thoughtfully. We had sex pretty quickly. Our marriage was sex-starved because of me and I knew that needed to change, and he needed to know that it had changed.
The first time we were intimate, the ground rules were from him, no strings attached and I was OK with that. He was gun shy and I knew that. He had reason to be. At that point it was dating, we were starting a new R. He had to get to know the me I am now and I had to see if he was someone I wanted to build a R with.
It was further down the line that we started using the word love.
Our sons didn't know we were dating until we were certain that things were working out. After we told them, H started spending more time here at the house but didn't spend a night here until he moved back.
Altogether it was from Aug to Christmas of last year.
About your family, have you talked with your IC about how to deal with that? Sounds like there are very few boundaries there.
Me 57/H 58 M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13
Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do. I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering. Caroline Myss
