Cyranoak

...and while I'm still with my AW, I do occasionally think about what would happen if she left me, I left her, or she were to finally be successful in ending her own life. Instead of posting this where I initially wrote it (a pretty uplifting thread about dating actually), I realized that was the wrong place for it so I'm posting it here instead.

My AW fooled me by not drinking until two years into our marriage. Not sure why I'm telling you that-- I guess more as a cautionary tale than a horror story. I'm still with AW, but I have to say as somebody who is afraid of ever having to date again (the poison you know), I admire the bravery of those who can and do (unless you are doing it because you are unable to be, or afraid of being alone which is an entirely different thread).

I'm pretty sure if I am ever single again it will be permanent. While I love women and they are where my "interests" lie, I don't feel any urgency to ever have a significant other in my life again. Unless something radically changes in me, AW is the last. There is nothing I get out of marriage, including sex and "companionship," that is worth the pure misery/living hell of being with an alcoholic or a controlling person. None. NONE.

I can see it now, being on a date with some poor woman who doesn't know that I am literally incapable of trusting the words coming out of a woman's mouth in a dating/romantic situation. Thinking she's hiding something, and then passive aggressively trying to get her to reveal her "true" self by asking questions designed to see what kind of addict she is, what kinds of "isms" she has, how controlling she is, how codependent she is, and what her motivations are in dating. Watching her-- watching her like a hawk to see how she responds or reacts to the traps I lay for her that will reveal the alcoholic/addict/codependent in her even if she's lived her whole life sober (I know it's in there-- it's just hidden like it was in my wife-- I'll find the "****** up in her; I know it's there somewhere. I'll find it. Oh yes, I'll find it. I SPECIALIZE IN FINDING IT. But, if it isn't there, by the time I'm done a seed will have been planted).

All she'll know at the end of the date is that she has a bad taste in her mouth about me, but she's not sure why. All she knows is she wants to go home, take a shower... and drink. And, if after all of that, she calls me for a second date then I know she will be controllable, may need "saving," and lacks self-esteem, exactly the type of woman I'm attracted to, and exactly the type I'll NEVER date again.

So that's the irony of it. To find out if I could date a woman a second time I have to alienate her in order to find out if she's healthy and able to set and enforce boundaries while respecting those of others. Yet, if she's healthy, smart, and date-able she'll refuse a second date (and I won't be attracted to her).

The good news is I'll always be able to say I was only married once. Don't say I can't see the bright side.

Cyranoak