I met this guy after a ten yr abusive bad relationship. I never thought id meet someone that was the total opposite. I was so happy. We never made anything officail but just being together all the time everyday I fell in love and obviously the feelings were not mutual. The situation was diff he had no kids I had one I'm more mature and stable than he was. I felt like I intimidated him or he wasn't ready, but the chemistry was so there. It ended having something to do with his first love and its been months I did the nc thing I did everything to move on no call no text no thing I haven't talked to him in months but for some reason I'm sad sometimes when I think about it. I mean he would never be the man I wanted I didn't see us with any future its just that I was happy for the first time in my life and now I can't seem to get it right with men now. Like anything just turns me away. I cry sometime because of both my first relationship because I endured so much and because of him . And I refuse to be unhappy and dogged and play the back and forth. I let it go. Now I'm just scorned. I mean just because I get sad and think about them the pain doesn't mean I have to be in love or want that person deos it? Normally I am a one woman kind of woman and have a friend that's the kind of man every woman wants but not emotionally/physically atrracted and if he in my life or not it wouldn't matter to me one way or another. Like what's happening to me?

Please don't type in caps, It's hard to read and is considered "yelling."

What does this mean? -- "NORMALLY I AM A ONE WOMAN KINDA WOMAN"

Meant to say I'm a one man kind of woman

Stay away from men and relationships, and get your act together. Get to know yourself and enjoy doing stuff with people -- volunteer at an animal shelter or library or hospital, join a cooking club or book discussion group, take a class at a community college or nature preserve, learn how to hook rugs or do macramé, take horseback riding lessons, etc.

Being in a long term relationship, where there has been abuse, is more likely than not the cause of your confusion. If all you have known about yourself has been what someone else wanted you to be, you have a lot of healing, and learning about yourself in order to put the past in the past.

Having a short term relationship with a decent man, is the total opposite end of the spectrum, and you have had a taste of what that is like, which is also territory you are not used to.

Both experiences have left you, as you said, sad, and as you implied, confused. I think that is totally understandable.

The effects of abuse over such a long period with the first guy, don't go away easily. Until you work all that through and truly put it in your past, you aren't free to judge and make decisions about any new relationships that come along without having that as a sort of benchmark. How can you judge a man, if a decade of your recent life has been dominated by another.

Think of it as having been in jail for 10 years. Suddenly you are free, but the whole world has changed. People on the outside are not the same as the ones on the inside. Your judgment about even living a free life is still a learning process. Where do you set the bar for new relationships, when all you've lived for 10 years has been in an isolated, controlled world.

My advice to you is to realize that your thinking isn't based on yet being free. Any relationship, good or bad, takes a lot of time and reflection to overcome and truly move on. If you can realize how much your past affects your future, and find a way, maybe through counselling, to understand what happened and why, you will gain the confidence and independence you need, to move on to a new and better life for yourself.

You are still in the middle of a healing process and have yet to learn to let go and make adjustments when things change. There is nothing wrong with you, you are learning so don't be discouraged because things didn't work out.

Just get back up and keep growing stronger and more experienced, and be good to yourself, and be happy just because you love yourself.

It's a process that takes time, and you just can't rush it. Now go be good to yourself and be happy to be free to explore your world. It does get better.