Not sure if you’re looking for us to just let you vent or if you’re asking a question so I’m just going to ramble about my own life in response, as usual.

Okay, first: The two men in my response were both narcissists and very unhealthy for me and I know that is not your experience. So I’m going to focus on similarities and not differences. So bear with me.

My ex-husband and I were together for 10 years, married for 8. We have two children who, at the time we split, 7 and 3 years old. The way our marriage ended was abrupt and particularly cruel

Four years after we split, I entered into a long-distance relationship with an old high school boyfriend I hadn’t seen in over 20 years. I was in the same physical vicinity as him for a total of 12 days over the course of 5 months or so. After 5 months, it abruptly ended as well.

SO, ANYWAY…

The recovery from relationship #2 was absolutely the worst thing I’ve ever lived through. It was way, way more painful and for far longer than recovering from my divorce.

Understandably, I spent lots of energy trying to figure out why that was, because I was really confused about how that was even possible. What I finally decided was that even though the marriage ended suddenly, we had been working up to that for a long time. I just hadn’t seen it clearly. But I had subconsciously been distancing myself from my husband little by little, to the point that when it happened, I’d already done a lot of my grieving over the marriage.

But number two came out of nowhere. I thought we were fine. I was head over heels and he said he was, as well. And then POOF! He was just gone.

I wasn’t ready, because I didn’t realize I had anything to get ready for.

Anyway, I think that is what happened for me.

Maybe that will help a little bit. Or it won’t.

:)

Oh, also, the first few dates after number 2 (since you were on the pot, i figured I would refer to my men as various toilet outcomes) were straight up disasters. A couple I actually really liked, and I REALLY wanted to move forward. But I was not okay yet, and they could see that. One of those men is now one of my goodest good friends, because I told him about what had happened (he was the last of my string of bad dates,and I was pretty sure by then I wasn’t ready, and he asked why) and he said, “It sounds like you just need a friend. A male friend who won’t try to fuck you and won’t cut and run when you’re having a crazy day.”

He was totally right. And he’s never tried to fuck me. And he’s never cut and run. He’s madly in love with a wonderful woman now, and we are still dear friends and nothing ever had to change because it’s how we started out.

I love that story. :)