Hi
I would really appreciate some help with getting out of the awful mindset that I am in.
Basically and to cut a long story short, I was with my exh for 22 years, and that marriage ended in a horrible divorce due to his long silent treatments of me (up to 8 weeks each time), the fact that I walked on eggshells around him and could not discuss anything of any importance without him getting angry, and the fact that he refused to consider me an equal partner in financial terms – all assets in his name only etc…
The second half of the marriage was lonely, very lonely, with things becoming progressively more and more toxic between us. There was no physical affection, and very little sex (always instigated by me when it did happen, which was soul destroying). Ex moved out almost two years ago now, but we were in the same house but estranged a year and a half prior to that.
Over the past year I have joined a few dating sites and then always un-joined as they are so depressing. Until December of last year I had never been on a date. However I did meet someone online whose profile I really liked, and did start messaging him and we then met at the end of December. In total we went on 7 dates, and I really enjoyed them as he is funny, interesting etc… There is so much which I liked about him. I wasn’t sure where we were headed or if we should be headed anywhere, but I definitely would have given things longer as I think OLD moves too fast and creates artificial pressure. I knew I found him attractive and wanted to get closer, but slowly. I think he interpreted my shyness as lack of interest, but I told him that no I did find him attractive and he said the same to me. However, he felt constrained by what I had been through in the past and the fact that this was essentially my first date ever (!) apart from my exh, and didn’t really make a move, and I felt incredibly shy and constrained by the fact that he didn’t make a move, so neither of us really made a move and maybe that wasn’t supposed to happen. But, I cannot stress how much I liked him.
After date 7 he messaged me to say that he was sorry, he felt that he had messed me around, but he felt that he wasn’t ready to date (following his most recent break up a year ago) and that another ex had also unexpectedly contacted him. All this may or may not have been true, that’s not really the point, he said that he didn’t feel right about dating me basically. He said lots of nice things about me and I to him and we mutually agreed that we would be friends instead.
Cue two and a half weeks of feeling bereaved and wondering why the fuck I had put myself in this position – dating was supposed to be a nice thing (in theory), not lead to feeling shit. One good thing about not seeing him anymore is that I stopped being so anxious between dates (would there be another one etc…). That anxiety was really debilitating – days spent feeling sick.
Then I made a mistake – I messaged him on Friday to say that I had met a therapist he had recommended to me (someone he had seen in the past) – it was to say thank you for the recommendation, and in some ways I was thinking that this is totally something I would tell a friend, especially the friend who had recommended them to me in the first place. It was a breezy hope things are going well and thank you for the recommendation type of message.
Shouldn’t have sent it as though he responded politely and kindly, the tone was different and much more detached. As far as I am concerned I have remained the same because in any case we were only ever friends so why would I need to change the way I communicate?
Second mistake, I should have just briefly said thank you to his message, but I expanded a bit, still very general kind of stuff. Eventually he replied with reference to part of that message (which he always used to do anyway, his messages were always brief), and I then countered that with a yes you’re right type of message which did not need an answer. Okay so end of story and I certainly wasn’t going to message him anything else, but I am upset by two things – the changed tone (though polite and kind), and the fact that my last message to him was never “read”. Well I am sure he did read it when it came up on his screen or by pulling down the notification bar, but the two ticks never went blue (I actually hate WhatsApp for how it makes you feel and am considering getting rid of it all together except that there are other people on there that I don’t want to lose touch with). I think he must have cleared the chat without opening that last message (which doesn’t matter as it did not need an answer). So I have archived the whole chat at my end as I cannot bear to look at these grey ticks, really symbolic of not being important anymore. I should clear the whole chat myself, but I don’t want to do that as so much of it was so nice – sending each other photos, links to things, chatting etc… And some of the really nice things he said to me. It feels as if this will be the one and only time that this kind of thing happens to me.
Part of me is upset because some of the things he said during the dates were really his setting up some kind of relationship between us. He talked as if we would be getting together. Also, after years of being lonely, I now feel much lonelier than I did before I met him – it was this brief taste of what it might feel like to be liked and found attractive, and now it is totally gone, leaving me feeling much more bereft that I did before. Additionally, even though it is categorically not the same (I know this rationally), I feel like I did when my ex was ostracising me. I am also upset that several times he (my online date) said about being friends, but I am wondering if he meant this or what his version of being friends might be?? Then there is the feeling that I won’t meet anyone with the attributes of his that I really liked. That he is the only person in the world who has them, and somehow I blew it. Yes because there is also going over what I may have said and/or done to put him off. I get embarrassed thinking of how I might have come across on different occasions, and that then becomes kind of obsessive because I cringe away internally. I can’t get rid of the feeling that maybe he now hates me, but I will never be able to check if that’s true or not.
Even more irrational is the fact that I didn’t like everything everything about him – I liked loads, but not everything. I certainly liked enough to want to be firm friends but I guess not everyone is looking for or has the time for more friends, and my version of friendship is probably different to his. And I feel somehow disposable. I guess he was used to doing a lot more dating than I was, and had also been in many more relationships, so it will have meant much less to him. He has quickly consigned me to the past, yet I am hanging on to our messages as proof that someone likes/liked me. I also really liked the way he expressed himself. In my lonely existence I guess it felt like drops of water when you are parched dry. Except now I am back to being parched dry, but having tasted what a brief drink felt like.
Basically I was not strong enough to do any dating, but when and how will I be strong enough, I don’t have all this time?? There was also the issue of my lack of experience – exh is my one and only partner, and I know that the guy I dated found this strange and difficult to handle just as a general idea. Told me a few times that he had had dozens of girlfriends, and was then kicking himself for having said that. That did kind of ring alarm bells for me because I figured that even if we had got together, it might have been quite short lived, and I definitely would not have been able to cope with a break up.
Have felt down (as if there is no point to anything and the only people who would miss me are my kids, that otherwise I may as well not be here) especially at the weekend, and none of this is helped by the fact that I am between jobs. I guess it was something to do with being seen by someone, and I am now back to being invisible. I have had years of not mattering to exh and being cut off from him while we lived together. Now since we are divorced we are of course still cut off so I just permanently outcast, like some kind of pariah, even though I know that there are nice things about me and I have stuff to offer in a potential relationship. And what do I do about the chat between me and my online date - with the grey ticks that I have archived but still think about? It is sitting in there, tormenting me. Proof of now meaning nothing.
I guess that the relationship between exh and I really did me a lot of damage – years of being subjected to the silent treatment two or three times a year (which, when the silent treatments go on for 6 to 8 weeks, is a significant proportion of time). It feels as if I have been lonely and unloved forever. And I don't know if you ever get over the breakdown of your family unit. I wanted to get divorced because I did not want our dc to think that this was a model of a loving relationship, but even so, I don't think that breakdown is an injury which you ever get over?
With the online person, I feel that we spent so much time together and could now easily be friends as we did have a lot in common, and can’t wrap my head around the fact that people can be so detached and kind of deliberate in their choices. I know that really I should not be talking about him in the same breath as my exh, whom for many years (before it went pear-shaped) I loved a lot, and had an actual relationship with.
I don’t even know what I am asking – I guess all the reasons why I shouldn’t be upset that the dates with this person stopped?? Or how to stop feeling so bloody lonely and how to stop cringing about things I may have said or done that put him off, and how to stop feeling so bloody bereft and kind of cut off.
Can’t really do OLD again I don’t think, as I don’t see how you go on that many dates without getting attached to an extent. I guess that IRL, you might meet someone as a friend and get to know them without the pressure of wondering about other stuff and it being a race against time to prove that there is a spark….
I met up with a friend who is 20 years younger than me at the weekend, and her take on part of it was that in my time (!), if you dated someone you generally got together with them. (Not sure if this is actually true, but it’s true that exh and I met and then spent 22 years together. And though the divorce was horrible and I felt really bereaved for ages, I have always known why we had to separate.) It’s true that online dating has done something not very nice to potential relationships IMO – people seem so disposable, and there also seems to be the pressure to jump into bed with people before feelings have really built up – a kind of litmus test to see if a relationship has legs, rather than sex coming out of mutual affection and attraction that might take longer to grow. She was telling me that you get used to it – the sex on a casual basis, but I am sure that I never would. It seems like a frightening jungle out there, in which everyone has more experience than I do.
Anyway, if you have read this far, congratulations and thank you 
!!!