Dating

I have been so caught up in getting my career up and running and chasing after my work dreams that I haven't put much thought into my romantic life!

Until this week.

I'm ready to start "dating". I've never been good at it, I like spending time with a full range of people, but am really baffled most of the time when it come to singledom and the dating world. I always have been.

Between marriages, there was a span of 13 years where I dated, hung out, and entertained the thought of getting serious with a few fantastic guys, but always stopped short. When I met the last one, I thought I would no longer be forced to "mix and mingle" with the "singles". But alas, life has a way of putting the stuff you have to deal with right in your path so you can't ignore it any longer.

I chose someone who had never been able to commit. I kept asking him about his previous long-term relationships but he would always say that it was in the past. I chose someone that felt it necessary to keep close all of his female "friends with benefits", even when we had become serious, just in case. Of course I sensed they were a bit jealous so asked if he had ever been intimate with these "friends" and he flatly denied it. Sadly, it all came out that there were very few female friends he had that he hadn't slept with.

I am who I am. I just do not feel the need to keep men hanging around that I have been intimate with but do not have any deep feelings for, at least not once I date someone "special". This should have been a deal breaker, but wasn't.

I asked him many times, was he sure he wanted to commit, because I did not NEED him, I CHOSE to be with him. If he wanted to carry on with a few women at a time, carry on, but it would be without me. He insisted he was ready.

He had issues with intimacy and sex. Apparently he could not carry on an intimate relationship WITH a healthy sex life. He was afraid. I felt humiliated. I had to beg and it wasn't pleasant. Near the end I was so frustrated, he had gone for help and still never wanted to touch me. I tried to be understanding, but the truth is, I should have sensed the lack of closeness. It was my fault too. I got angry that he couldn't explain to me why he didn't "want" me anymore. I would yell, cry, I was SO hurt. I had put aside my own needs for so long that when he came home from the therapist's and told me we had to split, I was dumbfounded. Absolutely blindsided. Sure, we had had our challenges but we had never gone to see someone together to try and work it out. He said it wouldn't do any good, his mind was made up. It was done.

I have been afraid to date because of the anger I felt. I didn't want to put that onto anyone nor did I want to "rebound" into something that wasn't healthy for me. I needed time to sort it out, sort myself out, feel good about myself again.

I want to set him free and in doing so, set myself free. I no longer want him to "pay" for the pain he caused me, my friends and my family. It's done. Over. A page in the history books. I release him to live his life and for me to live mine.

I don't think I'm ready to be friends with him, likely never will be. It's hard for me to understand how someone could do what he did with no real explanation.

He said he loved me. I think he did in the best way he knew how. But it wasn't REAL love. The kind that grows stronger with every tough obstacle, every family celebration... and tragedy, and every year of good times and bad.

It's still out there. My job is to believe it is possible. To believe someone that can love in that way can love ME, and that I DESERVE that love and everything that comes with it. That I am open to that kind of man, in every way and not afraid.

I am ready.