I don’t know how to get over the resentment that my ex “stole” so much of my life and now I may be on my one forever

[downwardspiral1]

I was with my ex husband for 22 years and we got divorced about two years ago - he moved out in April 2018 in any case.

I divorced him due to emotional abuse - walking on eggshells around him, being subjected to weeks and weeks of silent treatment, and also feeling out of the loop financially. By the end we were completely unable to talk about anything and I would say that the last 12 / 10 years of the marriage were bad and getting progressively worse.

The divorce was awful and I guess that’s one of the reasons I didn’t do it earlier. That and the fear of being with my kids less.

But I wish I had left a lot earlier as I might have stood a higher chance of meeting someone else and experiencing a functional and loving relationship.

I am 51 now and it feels that my chances of meeting someone are getting less and less and it gets me down. The fact that I am kind of shy in that arena doesn’t help - my ex was my one and only relationship.

For years I lived in an affection-less marriage in which I was never touched (very occasional sex instigated by me - soul destroying).

I don’t know how to stop being resentful and obsessing over this. In many ways I feel too fucked up to be in a relationship, but part of me is so sad that I might now never have that - intimacy, love and affection of that kind. Plus I think I am kind of odd. I went on 7 platonic dates with someone in January and he was freaked out by my relative lack of experience.

I can’t even put into words what I am trying to say. For so many years of my marriage I craved affection and closeness which I didn’t get. It was like a permanent ache and permanently being separate. Now, though I am so happy I am divorced, I am still separate from others and that ache is still kind of there but now it’s a growing realisation that this might be it relationship wise, which makes me so sad .

[I was too freaked out to kiss my 7 date person whom I found attractive - and he told me he fancied me. Freaked out because it is centuries since I had kissed ex, and I just don’t know how to get close to people in that way.]

As OLD is basically blind dating, most of the people I met there were doing the same as me: chatting to and having first or second "dates" with multiple people, then bowing out gracefully, until they found someone they actually liked. So these aren't really dates, but more like interviews to see if you actually do want to date. I had three different such first "interviews" in one week, for instance, but without expecting to get on with or properly date any of them. If this bloke was doing that, he might have found it suprising that you were having more dates with the first person you'd ever contacted.

Whatever his issue, anyway, personally I wouldn't bother any further with someone who made me feel uncomfortable.

Thank you.

I agree he isn’t for me - lovely and I think we did get on and there was an attraction - but also a little flaky and future faky. I have spent over half a year thinking about him one way or another, and enough’s enough! I have no idea whether we actually would have worked if we had tried to get together in any case, and now he has become someone on Instagram and that’s it.

That’s probably all I can cope with in any case - daydreaming about something which isn’t possible or I don’t even know if I want . It’s kind of empty and the opposite of nourishing.