It will only be nice if you are healed and healthy. Do that first. Then a couple years from now you’ll make healthier choices if you do want a man.
I have a friend who attends SLAA meetings (12 step meetings for sex and love addiction). Her problem isn’t with the sex side of it, but the love side. She’s slow to get involved but once she’s attached to someone she has a terrible time with fantasizing about them, and if the relationship breaks up, it takes her forever to let go.
She would keep repeating patterns from her childhood. Her mother died when she was 6 or 7 and her father promptly married a much younger woman. She had been the apple of her father’s eye, the focus of his sole attention, then suddenly he was in this enmeshed relationship and the kids were pretty emotionally neglected.
As an adult, she has re-enacted that drama twice by falling in love with men who were married. The first was supposedly in an “open” marriage (in retrospect she realizes his wife was just trying to keep him by accommodating him) and eventually he left his wife and married my friend. On a primitive level it was like she “won” her dad back from the stepmom. Years later, when her husband was in a nursing home with early onset dementia from a brain injury (he died there eventually) she started a fling with a semi-famous guy she knew. He minimized his relationship with another woman - only later did she realize that girlfriend was a 20-year serious relationship that was a marriage in everything but name. It stirred up her same childhood triangle issues but this time she was more aware and eventually broke it off. But it took her about a year and a half to stop fantasizing about him and continual effort to not contact him.
Maybe it’s a group that could be helpful to you. Everybody has online meetings these days.
I have said to you before that everyone has to work through things on their own timeline but again I see kml is giving SPOT ON advice. G did as well. You say you aren’t interested in men right now and I totally get it. When I was going through D and even after it was final, George Strait himself could’ve shown up at my door in those yummy tight starched Wranglers and that perfectly shaped cowboy hat and I would not have let him in. I just had NO desire to have anything whatsoever to do with men. I used that time to work on myself. I went to counseling, spent more time with friends, found my love for reading again (I had set it aside because hubs was jealous when I would get lost in a book), worked on all sorts of craft projects and cooked a lot and would then take what I cooked to work to share with everyone since I lived alone and didn’t want to eat it all myself.
Then, one day, nearly a year later (11 months to be exact, almost to the day), it was like a switch flipped inside me and I felt ready to date, have sex, etc. If King George had shown up that day he’d most certainly have gotten quite the go.
You are on your own timeline but I tell you all that to say that you have to heal yourself, learn to love yourself, and be happy with yourself before you can stand strong in a new relationship. There is nothing wrong with taking the time to work on yourself, focus on your kids, and just act like men don’t exist for awhile, outside of family, co-workers, and friends.
Me 52, H53 Bomb drop 9/29/2014 Divorce from XH final 12/17/2014 Marriage #2 12/31/2019 5 adult (step)daughters (3 from XH's first marriage, 2 from current H's previous relationships) 6 grandkids
I have a friend who attends SLAA meetings (12 step meetings for sex and love addiction). Her problem isn’t with the sex side of it, but the love side. She’s slow to get involved but once she’s attached to someone she has a terrible time with fantasizing about them, and if the relationship breaks up, it takes her forever to let go.
This is relatable although I moved fast.
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She would keep repeating patterns from her childhood.
Same.
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Maybe it’s a group that could be helpful to you. Everybody has online meetings these days.
I signed up for one this week actually. I'll see how it goes.
You say you aren’t interested in men right now and I totally get it.
This isn't entirely true. I've fantasized about a few men I've met through work but it's just old patterns trying to reemerge. I see it. I'm still seeking someone to take care of me to make me feel better about myself. There was this one man who I swear felt the same way about me but or it may have been wishful thinking on my part thankfully he retired. Met another married attorney who was very flirty with me. People at work teased me about it said "he seems like a kas kind of man". True. I made a conscious effort to avoid him after that.
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You are on your own timeline but I tell you all that to say that you have to heal yourself, learn to love yourself, and be happy with yourself before you can stand strong in a new relationship. There is nothing wrong with taking the time to work on yourself, focus on your kids, and just act like men don’t exist for awhile, outside of family, co-workers, and friends.
I need to be alone to heal. I get it. I don't like it but I get it.
PSA if you're looking for a binge worthy tv show I recommend the Outer Banks, a netflix original. It's a nice distraction from my life. I say this because if anyone has any other suggestions I'd appreciate them. No overt sex scenes but I can fast forward if there aren't too many (You or Greys Anatomy). No romances but I'm okay with things like New Girl or Friends where it's just casual. I kinda enjoyed Tiger Kings and Don't eff with cats was amazing. I have Netflix, Amazon prime and Starz.
I'm in a small house, on lockdown, forced to work part time and D17 likes tv too. Oh and I stay up entirely too late.
I have a bunch of books, online blogs and boards like this. I try to cook and bake but my energy levels just aren't there yet. I love documentaries too, Ted talks, podcasts, but here's the thing I need to avoid being triggered. I've gotten afraid. I started watching this one movie that got great reviews and seemed positive but in the end she got the guy. Ugh. Watched another happiness ted talk and he says people who are married/in relationships are happier than those that aren't. Really?? This one documentary was called Happiness or something like that. I've watched it 3 times already.
