After a bit of advice…
I was always very nervous around guys when I was younger (teens mainly) and dint have the experience of dating that most girls have. I’m not sure why I was like this but I just felt I wasn’t ready. The sheer mention of sex or a guy looking at me used to send shivers down my spine. My mum and dad divorced when I was 8 and I didn’t see my dad passed the age of 11. I used to visit him at weekends but it fizzled out as he’d spend most of it in the local pub!! My mum was a volatile woman at times and difficult to live with (she had a serious obsession with doctors and would go to the GP regularly over nothing).
I wanted a career. I didn’t want to live on social security payouts like my mother did. I became even more determined to do well after being seriously ill with meningitis at 14. This also spurred me on to a career in the NHS, where I did wellI in my career and am now a senior manager.
I didn’t spend time dating. I should’ve done but just didn’t like anyone.
I met my husband when I was at university. I stayed at home with my mum and commutes in each day so met my husband in my home town. We got on ok, even though there was an age gap of 10 years. He was living at home with his parents at the time and had only had one girlfriend and had failed his degree. He took me on days out etc. that I enjoyed (my mum hadn’t taken me anywhere apart from an annual bus trip to Scarborough). I never really fancied him though. Not like that feeling you should get! Looking back, I was a fool for accepting his proposal as I knew it just wasn’t there. It was more of a friendship. I had been used by an older man previously who had taken my well protected virginity whilst forgetting to tell me he had a heavily pregnant girlfriend at home. I was besotted with him at 19 - raging hormones etc. I suppose, in a way, I saw my husband as safe and I knew we liked the same things in life and had the same morals. Something was missing though and I had to learn to accept it. He was absolutely rubbish sexually and I just gave up with it all many years ago. No intimacy or anything existed between us, mainly because I knew - deep down - that I wasn’t attracted to him and because he was just a wet blanket in that department! I’d go as far as saying that I think he was gay or had a low testosterone level. We did, however, have 2 children - my yearning to be a mother was strong.
We didn’t have any support from family raising the children and I continued to work FT and pay childminders/nurseries. My husband had a lower paying job and we just needed the money and I didn’t want to lose the career that I had built up.
Years went by and we drifted into a sexless marriage, of many years. I just switched off in that area and accepted that was the way my life was.
Roll on to my mid-40’s and hormones started raging again. I believe that I went through the sex surge of menopause. Something happened which made me realise that my marriage wasn’t what I thought it was. Let’s just say, I got involved with someone else. Someone who woke me up and made me realise there were real feelings there inside me. The someone else, sadly, is married. You get the picture. Similar story to mine but he won’t do anything about it. We remain friends (at a distance of 250 miles) although platonic now. We clicked from day 1 after chatting online. I won’t go into the full story but it has totally messed me up. I ended my marriage over it all after suddenly realising that I was with someone who was no more than a friend. As a result, there has been major fallout.
I have realised that I have missed out. I am a very passionate woman but, my problem is, if that feeling of attraction isn’t there - that chemistry/connection - I just can’t date a man. This is why I’m getting nowhere with OLD and I have tried to get this OM out of my head. I have allowed myself to live in a 25 year marriage which was nothing more than a friendship. He was quite happy to live like that.
My mother died before this all kicked off. We had also lost both parents on my husband’s side. I’d spent a lot of years looking after elderly people and children as well as holding down a demanding career. I suppose, you could say, there had been nothing for me.
My siblings have both died in the last 2 years (one to suicide). With no family around me, apart from my two teens (one who leaves for university in a couple of weeks) I am lonely. I’m also desperate to have some love and attention iykwim especially now I have been awakened from the sexually dead graveyard! My eyes have been opened.
My current job is causing me a lot of grief as it’s a different role to my background. I’m desperate to leave. My divorce is still ongoing - over 3 years now. Stbx is totally unaware of why I have ended the relationship.
I feel lost and lonely. Not sure what to do next. I have the teens most of the time but aware both will be living elsewhere in a couple of years (youngest is also planning on university).
I guess I just want some advice!! I’m spending my life miserable and this is not how I’d planned to live my life 😢. I feel like I have sacrificed my life for others but not had anything for me.