Divorced by 2016

[adinva]

My H's decision to leave me after 18 years of marriage prompted me to explore for the first time why I was like that, and how to do better for myself in life.

any answers to this?

YES - short version is that in formative years apparently my feelings/needs didn't matter so no point acknowledging them; my job was to make everyone else happy and OK. I pushed away anything that got too close to what hurt. Someone really loving me in a very sincere way, maybe made me feel aware of something painful that I didn't understand, so I was very uncomfortable with it. I worked on that a lot in IC, but knowing and doing are very different things.

let this guy halfway in 25 years ago

The new guy, not XH. We never dated, but he was in our friend group when I was exclusively dating XH. The first two years of marriage my H worked TDY in another state, and this friend spent many evenings visiting at my house to watch TV and keep me from being lonely. I had no intention of cheating on H, but I think I allowed this to go on because it was nice to feel desired (certainly H didn't provide much of that).

There were several points along the way that I know I really should have broken up with H, but this friend isn't someone I would have sought out in that case. I don't know about now, but there were qualities I found exciting that I didn't/don't yet see in him. Maybe there would be other qualities I end up liking better, but I haven't dated enough to have much comparison.

I wish I could just have fun and not make everything so serious.

So can you say Why you cannot do ^^this (at least for now),

I never have been able to get away with flirting or getting close to guys in a casual way - it ends up I have to let someone down if I wasn't interested really, or else I really meant it and am headed into a longterm relationship. I see other girls that can be that way, married or not, and it's understood that they're just being fun and casual. So I'm not sure why I can't, but I don't know how to be that way.