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Whatever "too long" means to you. What eventually helped to lessen the pain?

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[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

My marriage. In all my past relationships, it usually takes me about as long as the relationship lasted to get my feet back under me, but in this case, that time would be 10 years, so I really hope it won't take that long. I'm on year 4 now. I read somewhere that men take longer to get over romantic relationships, because usually their romantic partner is also their best friend, and mine was no exception. We broke up because we shouldn't have gotten married in the first place. I was in active alcoholism, and despite us both knowing that I wanted children, and she absolutely did not, we plowed ahead regardless. It seems stupid, but we truly loved each other. Heck, I guess we still love each other, we just have acknowledged that we're not compatible in a way that severely limits our long term goals. It sucks. Logically, I should be able to just get right back on with dating, but it hasn't been so easy.

There's been multiple things standing in the way. First and foremost, some childhood trauma that had been trying to resurface for as long as I was an active alcoholic. Add that into a severely dysfunctional family dynamic, and you get a big ol' mess that I'm only now starting to emerge from. I'm back to browsing tinder, and even though I do fine with matches, I just haven't the energy to message anybody. Like, I just assume that they're going to waste my time, and so I just sit by myself instead. I'm trying to become the person that would attract my ideal partner, so I've been putting extra time in at the gym, and have refocused on some hobbies of mine, like writing, and performing stand-up comedy. But even those seem like a chore sometimes.