Sweetie asks, how to take it slow when you're starved of affection?

Sweets,

You just want a reality-check, innit. Buckle up, kiddo ;-)

Firstly, I had no idea you'd moved back in. Why didn't you say, before now? Or did I miss something?

Anyhoo. This is a case of 'staying away from the stables' versus 'getting back on the horse'. However, you've made things very difficult for yourself by agreeing to continue the pretense of a marriage for the sake of the children. I'm not sure that's the best move myself, as the 'children', I suspect, love the situation purely because - in their simplified view they imagine that the next step - recovery of intimacy between mum and dad - is easy-peasy and inevitable from there. (I don't suppose you've filled them in on that non-inevitability yet, have you?)

Personally, I don't subscribe to nor recommend that methodology because - although it's giving in to the children's need for instant surface desire-fulfillment, the unavoidably affectionless climate between you and your 'ex-not-ex-husband' is a far less than ideal mental template to be building into your childrens' minds, when it's a template that will to a large extent dictate their own ideas and expectations as to what their own romantic partnership and marriage should be like. I.e. it doesn't fulfill their longer term NEEDS. This will not take conscious effect, by the way, meaning they will have little control over it once they reach full maturity. I'd also add that, as young teens, this stage looms already which means, with attention becoming attuned to all things romantic they're currently *highly* influenceable (and warpable) on that score.

As to you, you're feeling the detriments already. It's not hard to imagine that having a man around will, irrespective of zero desire for him (putting it mildly), place and keep your mind into a heightened state of expectancy - which is then consistently being unmet... and daily. In other words, you're bound to feel that much *more* lonely and starved of affection than you would were you living alone (with either full- or half-time kid custody).

Different if you and your husband were still affectionate best friends despite wanting only platonicness but, from everything I read from April onwards, I doubt that's the case. This, therefore, is self-sacrifice for your kids too far, to the point of martyrdom. Be aware that this in tandem with ongoing base needs deprivation will eat away slowly but surely at your self-esteem. Avoid that if you possibly can, is my strong recommendation.

And might I remind you that your kids are teenaged? That means another few years and they'll be flying the nest, anyway. So what are you actually achieving?

Instead, therefore, of supplying their short-term gain for long-term pain, I urge you to reconsider.

Onto your love life:

You're conflicted so you're giving out conflicting messages: Want a relationship versus Not in a position to have one.

Rob clearly matched you in that conflict. Yet at the same time, you (woman - faster to recover) naturally need more mental and physical intimacy than he was ready to partake in, despite the fact you yourself don't feel ready for the complications of commitment (or beholdenness) that orthodoxically goes hand-in-hand with that.

What you actually need, if you 'tilt your head' a little, is an "extra marital affair" (in the practical rather than emotional sense) with someone who's in the exact same position as you.

...in which case I highly recommend Matchdotcom :-D.

And let's put this 'independance' factor back into its rightful place, shall we, in view of your individual situation? Needing regular, transgender, human-to-human affection - a highly crucial base need - doesn't mean that you cannot have an independant sense of self. Different if you had zero social life, no job, etc., and thereby relied on any man to give you a life. Needing adult affection, etc., is an instrinsic humanistic need; it should be a given.

YES, there are some who need a period of mourning after a marriage goes splat but - you? You already long did that (you grieved inside the marriage for years before it got to the point of total and irreconcilable deterioration). And let's not forget that the marriage was lacking in respect and affection long before even that point was reached, meaning you've already been YEARS without the means to satisfy what should be a human given. (What are we talking - ten years?) I imagine that base need must be crying out for satisfaction at a deafening volume by now, right?!

In other words, the fact that *following* a period of alienation then protracted solitude (i.e. the separation period) this need is indeed beginning to wail its head off like an unfed newborn, is, note, your very sign that you ARE, in actual fact, ready for a relationship.

To "F":

You don't have to tell him anything. As you already know, the DWD guidelines show you precisely how to keep a man at a much slower pace when he's in too much of a hurry to get cosy. So I wouldn't keep repeating that 'friends' line, if I were you - or he might decide it best to believe that line over all the more subtle signs and communications, and move on in search of someone else. ...Particularly as you wanting to be only friends isn't even true ;-p.

So - keep thy DWD bible in thy top bedside table drawer, my child, and... soon enough you'll be singing "Ahhh-ahhh-aahhhhhhhh..." with the rest of the best little choirsters ;-D

Hope that helped, mush.

xoxo

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Sorry for screwing with the boards ladies. Got a little freaked that googleing my username brang up all my comments. I don't mind sharing personal stuff with you, but I need to remember I am potentially sharing it with a lot of other people.