how do I move forward?

[DCF1952]

We are separating with a plan to get divorced "as soon as possible" I have started to wonder how will I know how to function in a normal relationship in the future?

I am starting to date a little bit and discovering that I can't answer questions about my opinions on things. Or answer questions about my preferences, things that I like. I am finding it impossible to be direct. I feel like I've lost myself.

I don't know what to tell these people about my marriage. I had sort of come to the decision that if I end up in a relationship with someone, over time, they will inevitably hear stories and put the pieces together.

There's also this part of me that wants to tell them right away how wounded I am.

[losingmyself]

Please consider time to yourself, without dating for a while. At least one year. These questions you're asking yourself are things you have to figure out on your own, without regard to another love interest.
Educate yourself by reading, listening to podcasts, talking with the wonderful people here, anything that really speaks to you and your situation.
Figure out your opinions on things, your true north, and when you meet someone, you'll stick with that, and never compromise yourself again.
You're worth it!!

[escapingman]

Please consider time to yourself, without dating for a while. At least one year. These questions you're asking yourself are things you have to figure out on your own, without regard to another love interest.
Educate yourself by reading, listening to podcasts, talking with the wonderful people here, anything that really speaks to you and your situation.
Figure out your opinions on things, your true north, and when you meet someone, you'll stick with that, and never compromise yourself again.
You're worth it!!

 

I am about 3 years out since starting the divorce and it's not until now I can start thinking about the future and what I really like. You must heal your wounds and find yourself before jumping in to another relationship.

[DCF1952]

You are both right that I should wait. My therapist also said that.

I guess once I realized that this relationship was going to finally end, I have been eager to experience safe love again.

I have been listening to "Waking up to Narcissism" in many ways, most of what I hear just sounds like I am hearing the last 12 years of my life reflected back to me. It was initially quite validating, but I have yet to find anything that seems to address how to be a normal f*cking person again.

[MaxedOut]

Interesting that you feel the drive to date again. I understand the... craving/desire for healthier love. But my internal reaction is like "Ack - nope." If you've every seen 28 Days with Sandra Bullock (good movie) there is a point where one character played by Alan Tudyk is leaving a residential rehab and asks about relationships on the outside. I feel like my internal instict, is Cornell:

Gerhardt : Once we all leave, we have needs that are going to need to be filled by people, physically, at times. How and when can we do that? Not how, just when?

Cornell : Yeah, I know, I know. People in recovery want to know when's a good time to start dating. And my rule of thumb is, when you get home, get yourself a plant. I like spider plants, but whatever turns you on. Then, in about a year, get a pet. And then, if, in say two years, the plant and the pet are still alive, then you can start to think about having a relationship.


Now that is a bit extreme! But I feel like I need to more fully regain my sense of self, be able to answer the sorts of questions you mention, deal with trauma, further figure out my stuff (including what led to me being committed in the relationship and sustained dynamics), have a clear sense of who/what I want in relationship and what maybe has attracted me in the past in a bad way. And not "be wounded."

But, that love and support and closeness! Yes, it is key. I am actively cultivating and re-growing that in friendships and family relationships that suffered a good bit of distancing when I was with my PD. And continuing to practice better communication, boundaries, and discernment. Like, the thing I do NOT want happening is entering another relationship with someone who turns out to have PD traits or start something up with someone who is a healthy partner and mess it up because I haven't gotten my healing progressed enough. We often have patterns that were not great in prior relationships that were leverage points for PD stuff. I want to be healed *and* able to address those longer patterns (e.g., setting healthy boundaries, communicating needs) better than I have before/ever.

[MaxedOut]

DCF1952 - to add, most of what I wrote was personal musings. I don't claim to know the answers and am very early into the post-breakup period and in the midst of divorce proceedings. But also together for many years and grappling with much of what you mention. I know currently that what I share with others at this point is variable and pretty messy (ranging from not saying much at all to oversharing to random stuff that probably lacks context). And it is very much about stuff I experienced/stuff she did/what got me there/etc. because I am in the thick of processing things, having shelved memories pop back up, creating my own understanding and ways to "scaffold" things, etc.

I can control my words to say something more crafted and me oriented but it doesn't *feel* that way yet, it is somewhere between faking and aspirational. Ultimately it is about me going forward. About what I defined as what I need in relationships and what I decided to do, and about stregth and authenticity of knowing that. Not about what happened, what I don't want, what things are terrible.

[notrightinthehead]

DCF1952, if I read your post correctly, you are not yet fully out of your relationship and have started dating again. In my experience this almost ensures that one ends up in another difficult relationship again.

I hope you agree that in order to be in a mature, mutually beneficial and supportive, respectful relationship, both partners have to know who they are and what they want and are willing to tolerate. I agree with the other posters, it is a good idea to take care of your own healing first. You know that you have healed enough when it will be easy for you to answer the questions you asked in your post.

[MaxedOut]

 

[MaxedOut]

I haven't felt significant trouble expressing opinions and preferences outside my primary relationship, but I know I often stopped checking in with myself on that and have always been overly agreeable (hrmmm...). Part of my rebuilding is looking for little ways to do that.

There are lots of opportunities when you start to think about that and seek them out. Recent examples from me include saying two restaurants I'd enjoy and one place I didn't want dinner from in a family convo about where to get takeout (and pausing to get past knowing there was something I would order at any of them), being in tune with and open about plans/what I want to do with friends including cancelling with honesty on reasons, being honest with myself and more in tune (especially about planned "shoulds" like, ok, I planned to go to the gym. I don't want to. Moving will feel good. What might I want to do for that? Or am I really just needing rest?).

Even simple stuff like what to watch. Even when it's not trying to decide between things, like just asking myself why I want to watch something specific in the evening or read a certain book. Why does it interest me? How do I feel watching/reading it? And this is my thinking, not my ex's views, right? Similarly, being a little free unplanned. I used to mostly go do stuff out of the house (errands, get outdoors, etc.) because it was "my responsibilty" or to get a break or time to myself. And it usually had a time constraint to avoid upsetting my STBXW. Now I try to be freer, maybe I left to do one errand, then decided to take a drive, go hike a bit, swing by the carwash, etc. Same, within boundaries of politeness, when it comes to leaving visits with friends (that's included leaving earlier than I anticipated and later). They are all small things but I really need to meet myself again - and who I am now and what I want/need in this period of transition. In writing this I realize I have also been doing a thing with collections of visual things to reassert my self. They could be almost anything (natural landscape, internet search results, clothing store display window, two NFL teams I don't follow, a deli case, cars parked near me at a light) and are things I normally would not pay attention to as comparative. I make quick judgements about them (I love the shape of that boulder, the fabric color is OK but hate the feel of turtlenecks, that package design is solid branding, gross, etc.). It's sort of silly but helping get me break out of the enmeshment and supression.

DCF, have you paid attention opinions and preferences with just yourself? I know even being clear internally, especially after many years is difficult. When I was in the relationship, but towards the end, I think I just thought about what would be different in relation to stuff I actively missed/wanted to do but didn't. And to a degree assumed I would sort of live like before the relationship. I realized pretty soon after seperating: (1) I am not who I was was 13 years of cohabitation ago (laugh/cry); (2) I have a nervous system that works pretty differently now and view people differently; and (3) The world is also pretty different.

I had a moment of clarity one evening, which I will strip of details (and swear words), but roughly: I did not rescue myself just to keep doing the same damn thing I did each evening when I was in an isolating and overwhelming relationship. Knowing how hard it was to leave, how much bravery it took, and what it meant to stand up for myself and to choose me... it put things in perpsective (this applies regardless of who ended things - we have done a big thing).

But then the question was, OK, then what do you want to do? I am still figuring that one out but lots of the responses that bubbled up were western cultural Self Imporovement Indutstry type junk or stuff that was more related to what others perceive. I am trying to figure out what are the "dance like no one is watching" things are that I just want to do, experience, learn about, prioritize... It has helped my feel some curiousity and excitement about stuff. Turns out I am sort of seeing someone new even if not dating! This helps balance out the times when the heaviness of it all weighs down like 50 blankets or my thinking goes a bit dark about "how damaged" I may be (Dr. Ramani's podcasts are good about pushing back on language like this, we were harmed, we are healing). 

You have a good array of respondents here in terms of the journey. Pig and I are also freshly out so navigating early seperation too. EscapingMan and losingmyself are past the divorce process and notright is a few year past that. I think insight and understanding about a specific transition or time period unfolds gradually and hopefully it is valuable to hear from those in the messy present, so to speak, and those with the clarity of hindsight.

[StartingHealing]

DCF1952,

Lots of good intel here in this thread from other members.  Here's my take on it.  From the date I went NC with the former spouse till now, June 2025 will be 3 years.  I know that I'm not ready to date.  I'm not. There is a part of me that the former spouse weaponized against me for her own nefarious ends and I'm working on getting that corralled and healed up.  Some times the fear of "OMG I don't have anyone" rears it's head and that is all BS as well.

W/O the self improvement stuff.. 

I've found that getting into a hobby, even if it's a short term try-out thing is a good thing overall. I picked up 35mm film photography as a hobby. yeah can still get film and a professionally restored camera and lenses cost less than a set of tires for my car. I send the negatives to a lab for processing.  Something that I'm interested in, that isn't expensive and at the end I have cool stuff I can put on my wall.  I also picked up, believe it or not, fountain pens and found a pen pal group that does snail mail letters using fountain pens.  Really cool.  Have pen pals overseas, some in country, it's a awesome thing to me to receive a physical letter that was hand written.  Kinda helps with the idea that I'm valuable just as I am. Some I exchange pictures with as well as letters, some it's just letters.  Yeah I have a filing cabinet set up, when I get to be feeling a certain type of way I can open the drawer and see the hanging folders with all those letters. Not to mention it's kind of like Xmas eve when a letter comes in.  Some of them I count as close friends and we've never had a voice conversation, DM'd or anything.   

Doing things that result in something tangible is really powerful for me.  Is a retraining of self that got used to the ever shifting sands of the former spouse's PD emotional malfeasance. 

Go try something.  See what you, yourself, thinks / feels about it.  If it's not for you then it's not for you.  As ghost hunters say "On to the next".

 For me is also a way to rediscover myself.  What do I like? From these options what do I prefer?  Honestly, I've got a lot of territory I have to explore because was buried for multiple decades. You have to consider how much of yourself was held back, disregarded, or the other attempted to beat it out of you because it didn't fit "their" narrative?  Please take the time to get it all back, get to a point where you are the absolute best friend to yourself that you could ever be and then, once you know you 100%, Know your likes, dislikes, what is negotiable and what ain't, I'm certain that a relationship will come along for you without you having to hunt it down.  Weird things humans are.  When you confident in yourself, don't need anything from other humans, here they come.  Don't know why it works that way but it does.

Wishing you all the best. Hang in there, it gets better and better as you go along.