Too soon??

[Messymessmess]

H and I separated in November, and we are still in the same house. He is being very generous and is continuing to pay for everything and is looking to buy himself a house near by. It is also pretty amicable.

Our relationship has been over for a while and we have not had any intimacy for 4 years, so I suppose in my head I have moved on even though the separation is recent.

Anyway, I have been on Match and been liasing by text with a lovely guy. We met last week and had such a lovely time and I am going to dinner with him at some point soon.

But, is it too soon?? I feel awful moving on so quickly, and I don't want to upset H but at the same time, we are separated.

Thoughts? Please be gentle with me. I am not a cow. Just looking for something that has been missing for so long.

Unfortunately as another poster said up thread before you went on the date, this had potential problem written all over it. Yes, you are separated but you are still living in the same house. Amicable splits are great but if you are still in the same house and one starts dating, it rarely stays amicable as it just brings the fact that it really is all over home - especially if the other partner thinks the other has moved on very quickly.

While you may have been over a while, the decision was 'only' in November, and if, as you say, he thought you might get back together in his heart of hearts, of course he's going to be upset. If you suspected he felt like this, I actually think you should have stayed clear of this new chap until one or other of you had moved out. Purely to make life as easy as possible for yourself and to avoid any of this nonsense.

Messy, you've done nothing wrong. The relationship has been dead for a while, you've ended it and moved on. Why should there be a 'period of mourning'?

Regarding the talk, be calm and clear, work through what is important, get a babysitter if needs be (although he is being manipulative if you have to do this) and detach/distance yourself from your STBX.

What you decide to do is no longer his concern, as long as you are happy and your children are okay he is not entitled to have his views considered and you have absolutely no reason to be 'guilty'.

I see no reason for him not to continue being amicable irrespective of whether you are seeing someone or not.

Hope it works out with new guy, you lucky woman x

I know it would have been sensible to have waited, but I am where I am :(

I am so bloody impatient. I didn't expect to find someone so quickly - I only went on Match to see what was out there, and just hit it off with this guy v quickly. And he is just wonderful. He is so thoughtful. I am home today with a poorly dd, and he texted to say if I was stuck he could pick some stuff up from the shops for me (he lives half an hour away)!

However, coming back to the point, I will see how the land lies when stbx comes back this evening. He is angry. I get that.

I will remain calm, even though I feel sick to the stomach.

I will speak to B later.

Need to go - dd got a GP appointment.

Thanks for all your comments.

I don't think you've done anything wrong at all. However, I'm going to go against the grain and say I think it's too soon for you.

I appreciate your relationship has been over for some time before it officially ended and that you'd done a large part of your emotional detachment and recovery already. However, while you share living space with someone (even a flatmate) you simply cannot help but have a relationship with them of sorts. In your case, because of the history, this means you haven't yet made that final break IMO.

While you may be over the emotional connection, you haven't yet had the chance to be fully on your own and build a new life that focuses on your own needs, wants and desires free of another adult's influence. IMO that's vital if the next relationship is to stand a good chance of success, because I believe the key to a good couple's relationship is a strong sense of individual identity and self awareness. Only when you truly know what you want and what you can and cannot live with in others can you assess if that potential partners are able to meet those needs.

In your shoes I would leave dating for a while until the house situation is resolved. It simply removes a lot of stress and potential additional hurt.

But life isn't a computer program and sometimes timing isn't perfect. I'm not judging you at all since you can't help how you feel, who you've met or your financial circumstances. I just want to offer a different perspective.

I would definitely have waited until xh had moved out, I think your very nieve to think that this would not go tits up.
I would tell both your xh and np that everythings on hold until xh moves out.

I'm another one who thinks it's too soon. sorry.
You only separated ( yet live together still) in November- barely 8 weeks ago. Without knowing why your marriage broke down, it's hard to say a lot more, but even though you had no intimacy for years you have still shared a life and a home with your DH/ Ex DH .

Emotionally you may feel you have moved on but the reality is that until you are living alone and finding out how that feels, you are in danger of jumping into something because you can't be 'without a man' in your life.

When men do this they often dump their first few rebound girlfriends, once their egos are boosted, so I think the same would apply here.

You need to process why your marriage failed, and what you learn from that before embarking on anything else.

Maybe you should try making friends and meeting men doing things you enjoy - clubs and hobbies etc- rather than going so quickly onto a dating site?

I am not getting in to a new relationship. I am just going out to dinner with this guy.

Why does everything need to be analysed. Me and h lost the connection. There is nothing to analyse. I have no idea why it failed. It just did. We grew apart. Maybe we shouldn't have got together in the first place.

I am not desperate for a man to be involved in my life either. And I don't need to work out what I want in my next partner (as my Dad has suggested) I have no check lists. If it works it works.

OP YOU asked US if it was too soon. The majority felt it was, although I think most of agreed there was nothing wrong in doing so, merely that it could create problems. Which you obviously thought was likely, hence asking the question.

You're not just going out to dinner with this guy. You've kissed, you exchange umpteen texts a day, you hardly know each other but he's offering to get things for you because your DD is sick, you already think he's wonderful.

May not be a relationship yet but seems a very very quick connection if all you want is someone to go out to dinner with.

Why does everything need to be analysed? Maybe it doesn't. But you're the one asking the questions, feeling sick, wondering if it's too soon and have the name of Messymessmess. It's no wonder people have said what they have.

Don't have a go at people who have merely offered advice and suggestions based on your original question and subsequent responses.

Sorry. Just very very stressed, and not just with this mess.

I really do appreciate everything everyone has said on here.

Please keep it coming, and sorry :(

Firstly, it's not babysitting when it's his own children.

If you talk about it tonight, is he saying you're never allowed to be on a date when the children are with him, or only while you're all living together. Because come July presumably they'll sometimes be at his new house. And presumably he'd like you to stay home those evenings?

July is a long time away, even if that does go to plan. I think I'd be best for everyone if you were living apart now. This halfway split probably isn't good for any of you, including the children.

I think you really need to tell your new guy that you are still living with your ex - I would have wanted to know that initially so that i could make a decision to get involved with someone who still had a 'relationship' with their ex.

Your ex's response indicates that there is still a very strong emotional connection between you, which could get even messier adn tbh, I would want to make a decision based on knowing this in the very early stages. Maybe its just me and i hope your guy is fine about it, but i would feel very wary of getting involved with someone with ongoing baggage.

Some responses imo totally ott, you went out with a guy, if it was a female it would be fine so what's the problem, you are no longer in a relationship with husband and what guy is gonna wait 6 months when you've just met him .

I bet if your husband met someone he'd have had no hesitation, he's throwing his toys out the pram cos you've met someone before he has.

As for babysitting, what, his own children? Play him at his own game, get a babysitter and go enjoy yourself.

Alarm bells rang for me in your first post you said looking for something that has been missing for so long
Now you tell us that's dinner.

Be honest with yourself.

Whether it's the sex or love that you are missing you are not just looking for dinner.

You have also made some pretty quick assumptions about the man- saying how wonderful he is when you barely know him. That again rings alarm bells. He may be doing all the right, nice things now- but wearing my cynical hat - I ask if that is so he can get into your knickers.

The fact you are stressed so much by everything shows you are not in the right place emotionally to start anything with anyone, other than the occasional drink or dinner and very low key.

You do your marriage a great disservice to say you drifted apart. If you have a child together then why did you not make a huge effort to drift back together instead of divorcing?

I'm not judging you- don't think that- what I am trying to get you to think about is that if you chose the wrong man in your DH and the marriage drifted apart, what can you learn from that? Was it because you jumped in too fast, one of you stopped making any effort, or what?

You need to understand why your marriage failed so you don't carry that with you into a new relationship ( and hurt someone) - dismissing the whole thing as just 'drifting apart' doesn't wash. You do need to analyse this or who's to say you won't be in the same boat again with the next relationship?

You can't 'babysit' your own children. It doesn't work like that.

I think you're being a bit insensitive starting something when your still live your ex.

You must tell this other fella, otherwise you are being very unfair on him.

OP- having re-read your last post I'd say you are in real need of some analysis- maybe via Relate- into why your marriage failed.

Can't you see that just saying 'it did' is a really bad way to leave it and then think you can move on into another relationship at some point?

What I find really odd is that you can end a marriage without having had any insight into why it went wrong- or what either of you could have done to try to repair it.

And then think you are emotionally ready for something else- perhaps making the same mistakes all over again.

We went to Relate last January for 5 months. We tried date nights. We tried taking up salsa dancing.

We haven't just ended this without thinking about it I can assure you.

And this has been going on for years; this talking about our marriage and working at it. People do drift apart though. People grow up and change. I know lots of people in this situation. Their marriage becomes like a brother/sister relationship, which is what has happened here.

And Jaffa, yes eventually I would like to find love, but I would for now just like to enjoy dinner with him. And I honestly think he is a decent bloke. Maybe I am naïve, but there is no hidden agenda.

I am going to talk to him tonight and let him know the situation.

I will also talk to ex this evening.

You also said ex is still paying for everything house wise!

Maybe that doesn't help matters. I can see why he might be a bit pissed off with that alone if you are living there, contributing nothing financially and then going out with another bloke while he pays all the bills.

I'm sure this doesn't apply to you OP, but if someone I'd had a date with texted me 50 times a day I would run for the hills. Way too intense and pressurising for me......and it wouldn't matter if I fancied him like mad, I'd still steer clear of such a full on personality. But that's me.

Messy, you're doing nothing wrong, your spending some time in the company of a man, that is it, you carry on, don't deprive yourself of anything you feel is going to make you feel good, it sounds like you've had a really shit time and for years, now's the time to enjoy life. Your husband is acting like a spoilt child and as I've said, it's purely cos you have got a date before he has, not cos he can't stand to lose you, you both decided the marriage was over ages ago. He was asking you for dating tips for god's sake, so the no to babysitting his own kids is completely sour grapes on his part.

I'm in a similar situation. Broke up with DP about 8 weeks ago after living together for 4 years, he moved out straight away. New Year's Day I decided - on the advice of a friend - to register for online dating. So I did. And got chatting to a few people, accepted a date with one.

I didn't expect to meet anyone who was actually intelligent, normal, charming, and attractive... let alone for it to go well. But it did. So we went on another one. And have another planned. We enjoy each other's company and fancy each other and it's all rather nice.

It doesn't feel too soon to me. Even though I know it sounds like it. Date asked me outright if I was rebounding. I said I didn't feel like I was - my last relationship was over long before it was 'over' - but that I was happy to answer any questions, or not to mention it at all, whichever was easier. It feels fine to me. But I know how it looks, and I'm aware that if she shoe was on the other foot, it would probably be a dealbreaker.

So, yeah. I'm enjoying my freedom, and it feels like this is part of it.

Well said Mackerel, some folk above saying the OP needs to analyse the breakup etc is just so condescending, it should be enough for the OP to say the relationship is dead and has been for four years, four years is a long time to be lonely.

Glad to hear you had a good outcome from the dating website and I bet your ex and the OPs ex would just at the chance to have a night out with a nice person. Nobody can tell the OP when they think their relationship is over, only the OP can decide on that one.

Maleview, I do absolutely everything in the home. Ex is away on business every week, so whilst I don't bring anything financially at the moment, I pay in other ways iyswim.

I was working until 9 months ago, so it is not like I have contributed nothing.

But, I can appreciate that this is likely to be another reason he is pissed off.

And the texts are not creepy or ott; they are just chatty. So, I am not finding them pressurising at all. I like his company.

Mackerel, good luck to you. I never in a million years expected to find someone that has so many decent qualities. I hoped that when we met in real life, there would be nothing there and we would go our separate ways.

Me too, Messy. I told myself I was only meeting him as a sort of personal milestone, and hopefully I'd have a nice evening out too. I didn't really expect anything else. (And still don't). But it's just nice.

I hope your DH didn't really put babysit in his email... he would actually be looking after his own DC's--not babysitting for you

Yes, he used the word babysit. He is very angry :(

Mackerel, no idea where this will go either but I love his company. He talks. I don't know many men that talk about everything and anything.