I was journaling a bit earlier tonight, thinking about how different my interactions with my new gentleman friend are from my early relationship with STBXAH. Within a month, STBXAH and I had both gotten tattoos (first tattoos for each of us, no less) of each other's names. We were engaged less than five months after we got back in touch, and were married less than five months after that. And all of this happened while we lived 500 miles apart. I got pregnant literally WEEKS after we got married.
I've been spending low-pressure, relaxing time with my new friend for about four months. No new tattoos to show off our never-before-seen-by-the-world love. No engagement (duh). No soulful professions of "you have saved me." In fact, a few weeks ago I told my new friend something along the lines of "I worked very, very hard to save MYSELF. And I like that you did the same thing. And now it's just cool that we are both in generally good places emotionally, because we are able to truly enjoy each other's company without all the manipulative, controlling, co-dependent crap." And he agreed whole-heartedly.
I think that this issue for me goes much deeper than just my experience with STBXAH. Before him, I had a long history of deliberately choosing relationships with people who felt more strongly about me than I did about them. The end result of that was always that I was never exposing myself to having my heart broken, but I was also never truly satisfied in the relationships long-term--the most glaring instance of that was my first marriage. I regret very much that I hurt my XH the way I did, and I don't ever want to treat someone that way again.
So much to think through. And of course, the perfectionist, Type A person in my is very, very uncomfortable with the idea of failing so spectacularly at love again.