how my marriage ended

Oh the joys of online dating.
It has been almost a year of online dating as as singleton. I started dating the summer of last year, while I was still married.
We were trying out poly, or to some people, an open marriage. We taked a LOT and agreed to ground rules, that worked for us. We talked about what we, or to be specific, what I wanted. (we had tried poly a few years ago, for my husband, but it didn't work out. His personality was not a bold one, he could only meet women I brought to him, and this got old for me, pretty fast)

Myself, I started out dating only women. wow, talk about a small pond!! You try finding a poly bi woman.. yah.. yet, I put myself out there and did meet women.
I was on OK Cupid and Fet Life. I joined poly groups, read a lot of message boards and blogs.

I met Tracey, who seemed pretty awesome. We met at a Poly Mixer in New West. Through Fet Life. last summer.

As my husband was okay with it,we would go to meet ups together. He was not interested in dating, I suspect because he was worried he would not be able to find women to date. He suffered from low self esteem. But he went and seemed interested in my experiences.

However, after I met Tracey, he decided to give it a go himself. He specifically was interested in Tracey. This went against our rules, as to not dating each others partners. We just were not ready for that, it was a mutual decision. BUT like many rules, one cannot makes rules for the heart, so I excused his lack of respect for our rules. My mistake, though at the time I thought I was just being a good partner and putting his needs first. Like I said, a mistake. TBH, our marriage was a great deal of my putting his needs first, as I would discover later on.

This is all history for me now, as it happened last summer. Over a year ago now.

Tracey also seemed interested in my husband. My husband and I talked, and I agreed I would back off, and let him pursue a relationship with her. However, Tracey did not agree to this. She was rather pissed off, and told him so. I think she hoped to see me, or both of us, but certainly not just him. My husband took it hard, but he decided to actively pursue women after that. He set up an OK Cupid profile for himself.

I won't go into it right now, but I did see a whole new side to him, watching how he dated. WOW. What an eye opener. If it were possible, I would love to see any future partner date, just to see how they treat women. Though, I suspect that what I should do is demand a higher standard of treatment for myself.

More will follow on how HE dated. This is about my dating experiences.

After this I met a lovely woman, R. She was pretty, sweet, and we had a lot in common. She had two boyfriends and more experience in the poly world. We got along great and established right at the start that we were not sleeping with each others partners.

My husband and I went to her place for a kinky poly meet up dinner. It was nice. The crowd was more our ages, and we had a good time. My husband, lets call him C, was impressed with how well R and her partners all got along. C assumed that with two or more men, there would be fighting. He was so impressed he said I could date men, if I so chose to do. Besides he said, it seemed 'so easy for me to see him date other women, it couldn't be that hard.' I did caution that it was actually a bit of work, to see ones partner date, and it did take effort on my part. I had poly friends to talk to, I was very honest with myself, and took emotional inventory often.
He wasn't swayed, he felt we could handle this, more specifically, that he could handle it. easy peasy.

Well, let me tell you, it is WAY easier to meet poly dudes than poly bi women!!!

I started looking for men as well as women. I had a fair amount of interest, and that did depress C as he (being a dude) had less interest. I was usually talking to 2-3 different men at a time, going on dates every weekend. Yet, despite this, no one clicked.
Until J. The date started as awkwardly as any other date, we met for coffee. He was cute enough, a bit shy, and older than I was used to dating, but, we got along well texting...

We had coffee and went for a walk, and really clicked. He turned me on, it was exciting and fun. We had a couple of dates, he met my hubby, and by the third date we were intimate. and by intimate, I mean fucking like bunnies. The sex was AWESOME. He even slept over, in the spare bed, though no sex.

Meanwhile, C is NOT taking this well.. not at all.. In fact, even though he has met someone, Shauna, he is rather upset at my success.. and he is VERY upset I am having sex. He won't give his new GF up, and he won't ask me to give J up, instead, he breaks up with me.

Honestly, at this point it is a relief. He has been moody and mean to me. Making fun of my feminism, and saying other hurtful things. I don't want to go into it now, but I could see things were not going well for us.

Now you might ask, why not call the whole thing off? I suppose if I hadn't seen that side of him, if he was still the man I fell in love with, I would have. But seeing this side of him, well, honestly, I didn't want to be with him. I just didn't have the courage to end it, or maybe I just wanted to keep trying. I am still deciding the answer as to why I stayed, even when he clearly  had so little respect for me.

So, J and I still saw each other. We met mid November, and early December C broke it off with me. By mid December C was packed and by Xmas he was gone. I broke it off with J by Xmas, and was back together with him by the end of December. It was an emotional time for me, and REALLY FUCKING hard.

You can judge me, I can see that it would be easy to. Whatever, we can always judge each other. Easy peasy.

I took a break from dating anyone excepting J. He seemed to be happy to just date me as well. But things changed between us. I doubt he ever had any intention of just dating me. It was different when I had a 'main' relationship. We broke up for good early January. I took a break from dating.

When I did start dating again, I was different. No longer as optimistic, tired, worn out and sad, I was a different person, coming from a different place. I took regular breaks, met a few men and women, but nothing ever happened. In fact, I haven't had sex this year. I suspect I will end the year without having had sex. Yah to a sexless 2015.

J and I have stayed friends. and by stayed friends, I mean that if I don't contact him, he ignores me. I am not sure, but, I feel hung up on him still. I just can't seem to let it go. I have tried to understand why, but, I never fully resolve it for myself. He has been over for dinner... he seems to be completely uninterested in me as a partner, I did ask if he was even interested in FWB as the sex, for a bit, had been really good. Now, I just can't trust him enough to think of having sex with him, yet still, I have to confess, I miss him.

This post is getting long, and I find I am starting to ramble.

Dating, it is fucking hard. I guess this is a prelude, and the next post will go more into that.