Hi Everyone

I haven't been back on this site for awhile, as I've been trying to work through the 'Lack of' Emotional feelings & absoltely No Sexual feelings.

I'm stuck.

Whilst trying to find out 'Why', it seems that this might have been my state of mind for a very long time - during my marriage and now after we have seperated and are proceeding with the divorce.

I've been to a Councellor and this is how it was identified.

Welcome back, DragonFire.

You have multiple sclerosis. That must have played a large role in the feelings that you describe, but also, I doubt your H was meeting your emotional needs. He chose to neglect you needs and have an affair. I do hope you counsellor isn't encouraging you to blame yourself for his affair.

Has STBX'x attitude towards you changed at all? Has he ever shown signs of wanting to reconsider the divorce?

How is your health most days? I hope you manage to keep stable and relatively well.

How is your son?

Hi Sugarcane


oh there's so much to tell you!

Money was always a Red Flag in our relationship, so I knew we would never be able to come to an amicable agreement. I applied for a Rule 43 Maintenance Ruling (This is how they allocate Alimony here). You are only allowed to submit 1 Affidavit each and the Advocates meet with the Judge, who then makes an immediate ruling.
I had an MS attack just before the Court Hearing, which was quite a big 1 & ended back in hospital on Cortisone. Around the same time I looked at my STBX's bank statements & saw that he had lied about his income. My Attorney said we should ask to submit an Urgent '2nd' Affidavit on the day of the hearing.
The Judge allowed it, but there was a 2 week delay, whilst the STBX Attorney looked over it.
It won't be any surprise, but there were more lies in this 1.
The Judge was not amused, & ruled in my favour.
I just know that this would have made STBX insane with rage!

The legal costs have been Huge, so for a month I'm going to take a breather & then see if we can proceed through a divorce mediator.

That's just a brief update. But, through the councelling I've done I can now see that for as long as I can remember I've been 'emotionally dead'. I think this was brought on by the lack of caring & nuturing in our marriage.

My problem is - how do I fix this?

I've met a few men over the last few months, but they may as well be business associates, I just feel Nothing! There is no attraction either emotionally or physically

Both my sons are doing relly well, they seem to have coped with everything really well.

I hope you can give me some advice

DF, I don't quite understand your point about fixing this. Are you hoping to fix this and turn your marriage around, or are you talking about fixing it for the next relationship?

I don't think that this probably will necessarily arise in your next relationship, because a relationship won't get off the ground unless you are caring and nurturing in the early days. The issue then will be how to maintain that caring, and the answer will be to use the MB programme - but that is for some time in the future.

I do think that it is a bad idea that you are dating now, before you are divorced. I don't see how you can be emotionally ready for a new relationship before the old one is officially dead. You are still caught up in a lot of drama with STBX, and this must be affecting you emotionally. You may be "emotionally dead" to new partners because you have not disengaged from the marriage yet. I don't think that it is fair on either you or prospective partners for you to be dating just now.

When you are emotionally ready to be attracted to a new man, then this will happen, unless your illness is responsible for a specific problem.

I forgot that you had 2 sons; I browsed your last few posts, where the younger one was mentioned. I am glad to hear that they are both doing well.

The financial stuff sounds horrendous. Is there any chance that the legal costs wasted by his lies will be awarded against your STBX?

After reading your reply, you have put so much in perspective.
And you're right it's not fair on either me or someone else.

I know this might sound a bit pathetic, but after being left for another woman, I needed to know if I could still 'relate' to other men.

The only issue my MS might present is, if a man has a problem with me walking with the aid of a crutch, as well as the obvious 'normal' day to day management of the disease. But I'm coping well with all of that & it doesn't impact people around me all that much.

I definetly don't want to try & re-establish any form of relationship with my STBX. Since we have seperated I can look back at our marriage without any rose tinted glasses, & I can admit that it was disfunctional.
Because there was very little caring & nuturing from my STBX, I 'shut down' & our relationship slowly broke down to almost 'room mates'. In hindsight I think this is what made him a bully & the emotional abuse started. As you would guess, I probably closed him out further.
I can see all this now & with all the hurt & deceipt I can't even consider any form of reconciliation.
On his side, the fact that the Judge has awarded in my favour makes him see me as a money grabber & as I said earlier - Money is a Very Important part of his life. He doesn't see this as a fair Order, & is once again being narcosistic & only thinking of how this impacts on him.

Although I'm coming to terms with a lot of what's happened, I still have too much time on my hands to dig myself out of this.
Since I stopped working, the days can be very long.

After running my own successful business for 20 years, I now find I don't have the same drive & in fact I'm almost at a stand still . Every morning I get up & give myself a pep talk of what I should be doing & I end up just 'plodding' through the day.

Is this also part of the healing, or is this a hole I've dug for myself?