I've posted a few times over the years under different names.
The bottom line is this.
My relationship history is utterly appalling. I had 3 or 4 boyfriends lasting between a 6 weeks and 6 months and half a dozen or so one night stands between being around 18 and 21 when I met my son's father.
He was abusive and tried pushing me down stairs when i was pregnant. He also tried to punch me in the face whilst I was standing against a wall. I moved, he missed and damaged his hand and dislocated his shoulder when he hit the wall instead - so it was with some force. We split before my son was born. They've never met/had contact. My son is now 22.
When my son was 18 months old, I got together with my best friend from school. We didn't love or fancy each other but he wanted to rescue me and i needed to be rescued. It was an awful relationship - loveless, sexless and became abusive due to our obvious incompatabilities and frustration at these. We split up 12 years later. The 'relationship' was probably dead after around 3 or 4 months but he didn't want to be the bad guy who dumped me and I was too scared to be alone. So we muddled along until he met someone he fell in love with 8 years ago.
In the past 8 years, I've been on a few dates and had 4 'relationships'. These have all lasted between 4 and 10 months when I realised they were never going to work.
My most recent relationship ended around 3 months ago. I ended it because I realised he was never going to love me. We were together for 10 months.
We have since become good friends. We spend a lot of time together, we laugh a lot, we get on well. And, ridiculously, around Christmas we spent a beautifully romantic evening together. Except that we're not together.
I don't 'date'. I don't do online dating (tried it a few times and it's just dreadful) and I met my last boyfriend through friends.
I feel really sad that the only romantic evening I've ever spent was with an ex boyfriend. I feel really sad that I've never experienced love in a relationship. I feel despair that so many of the men I've met/dated are just awful in so many ways.
I've had a number of close male friends over the years who've filled the 'boyfriend' gap - ostensibly going on dates, doing hobbies together, providing company, comfort and intimacy (non sexual) at times. In essence, providing all the things I've wanted from a relationship without us ever having been in a relationship and now I feel I've ridiculously found myself in another one of these friendships with my ex boyfriend. There's part of me that wonders if he would like to try again but the reality is, I'm pretty confident he doesn't.
I need to put it to rest now. I need to accept that I'm not going to have the relationship or the experience of love that i want. I have such a heavy weight in my heart at the realisation this is it for me now. I'm going to stay single. Cultivate my friendships (when I can); concentrate on work and my children. I've spent so much of my life single that I have lots of things in comfortable doing alone - I see bands and go to festivals alone; i go out for dinner on my own; I have hobbies; I'm sociable; i have friends; I'm liked.
But I'm just so sad. The weight in my heart is so great. I can't breathe from it sometimes. My greatest fear in life has always been that i would due without ever having experienced a loving and supportive relationship. And now I'm facing the very real possibility that my fear is my reality.
How do I lighten it. I feel I'm suffocating from it.