Victo wrote:

How do those who are recovering from being married to GID narcissists ever recover enough to date again? ......... How does a survivor of a GID narcissist partner ever develop a healthy hetero relationship? 

 

Victo.....For myself....as I'm not interested in trusting a man again anything 'romantic' would have to catch me unawares....lol
In saying that I think there's work to be done on ourselves before we even think about involvement with another. If a r'ship is what you ultimately want your inner self must surely have the demons we endure ...banished...from the forefront of our minds

Elle
 

I appreciate these responses.  Thank you.

I understand that there are those who feel that they never want to go down this path again, and I honor you all for that feeling.  I get it.  I do not blame anyone who has gone through this who feels that they are just done with relationships.  I truly understand.

However, I do want to make something clear:  I definitely WANT to try again.  I feel like my story differs from many stories I read here. There are a lot of people who seemed somewhat happy in their marriages before TGT came along and shattered their lives.

Not me.

My marriage was so profoundly unsatisfying to me and for so long that I feel like I now have the opportunity to come out as heterosexual.  I was so deep in her closet - so sensitive to her needs and for so long - that I feel like it is now finally my turn to experience all that I did not experience in my marriage.  This is how I feel that I want to heal in the grand scheme.  It is finally my turn, dammit.

I have read plenty of stories on here that end with a kind of surprised relief that real hetero relationships are fulfilling.  There are people who DO get to have the love they were denied the first go around.  That is what I want to experience.  How do I get to experience that? 

I certainly feel cheated by the decades of lies and manipulations that my GID narcissist ex had aimed at me.  But I also finally got sick of it and finally stopped putting energy into the marriage BEFORE the AHA moment that finally came.  I was not betrayed by the discovery of her lesbianism.  I was relieved.  It meant I was not crazy or a bad person for feeling profoundly unsatisfied by what she was putting in.  I was not crazy or a bad person for finally just falling apart.  Her admission of her relationship with a woman was, for me, a validation.  She had, in fact, been gaslighting me, emotionally abusing me, and lying to everyone in our lives.  I was not crazy or a bad person after all.  Nor was I wrong to finally stop investing in trying to 'make it work'.  I was so done and so ready to be out long before she ever came out.  It was simply my sense of duty that kept me there so long.  It was the feeling that I was supposed to accept structural flaws in the marriage.  This is just what marriage is - a profoundly unsatisfying lie constructed to please outsiders.  It was duty.  But even that sense of duty had long failed me.  I was so completely done with her bullshit.  I was sooooo not attracted to her.  She wasn't feminine.  She was a lying, abusive, drunken, shitty, sexless blob.

So...  it is not a matter of dipping my toes into the shallow end.  I was already ready to splash in the deep end BEFORE the pandemic hit.  THIS is how I want to heal.  I want to finally  swim like I am capable of swimming now that her absurd tether has finally been removed.

However, the pandemic itself is a new barrier to my healing.  It isn't the relationship part.  It is the fact that relationships are off the table due to huge external limitations on intimacy.  The longer this goes on, the less I feel that I will get the opportunity I am seeking and deeply want.

For those of you who DID find actual hetero love AFTER your miserable experience married to GID narcissists, what advice do you have?

Deleted.

Last edited by Lynne (October 3, 2020 5:38 pm)

I'm pretty sure slow but not glacial is somewhere between 0-100. I'm not entirely sure what advice you're looking for here so just giving you my perspective. Take or leave it as it suits you. Maybe you'd find one of the older threads helpful. I think Phoenix's might still be found or some of the posts in the my stories section have been from people who managed to find new partners. I don't know many that explicitly address dating though. Unfortunately, you've got some limitations they didn't. Unless you're willing to expose yourself and your family to higher risk of Covid you'll probably have to get creative or focus on something else. I still think shared friends might be a good option. They know you, you can keep groups small while still having small get togethers, and low pressure for you and the other person. As for my advice? Who you are isn't always the impression you give is all I was trying to say. The other person and how quickly they want to go is always going to be part of the equation. It wasn't meant as an indictment of your character. Really, best of luck. No offense was meant.

Victo,

I hear you...this pandemic has put a damper on social interaction. We can all feel it. Meetup the site/app , a popular way to meet people, might not be doing so well now.  I

For me as I went through my divorce and after I found myself lingering and talking to everyone just a bit longer.  This was because everyone was so much nicer and more normal than my GX. In time i went on a dating site because i concluded i deserved to talk to people..there was nothing wrong with me.

During the pandemic.. I would recommend joining a dating site  and  chatting with or getting to know someone online. As you chat with them..can they hold a conversation?  Do they just answer in one word? Do they reply with some opinion or statement giving no information about themselves? Do they expect immediate replies?
While not human in person interaction its still social and you can get to know someone quite a bit talking to them this way.

For myself the decision was not as hard as i thought..i had trust issues like everyone here sure.  But my GX was uniquely broken/hurtful..i realized even if i dated someone and they turned out to be gay and dumped me...they could not possibly hurt me as much as my GX did. She was not normal.

Good luck. Know that there are a lot of straight, normal,people out there..they are worth getting to know.  We are also.