Wondering if I should leave the forum...

since I don't really want to get married again and am even thinking about the benefits of just living on my own permanently and having uncommitted sex when I feel like it. I'd rather be happy than right. Who made up all these rules about relationships and stuff anyway? Legal impositions on humans and bonds made in present regardless and innocent of the future seems ridiculous. Like I made a promise to my husband and even after he treated me the way he did, I ended up hanging on a lot longer than was good to me because I didn't want to be the kind of person who goes back on a bond. I can see having obligation and bond to one's children, this occurs naturally (well, for most.) But to an equal? Someone who is not even the father of your children? It seems unnatural. Also because of how people live with travel and jobs and obligations to themselves and their friends and things they need to do to take care of themselves, it doesn't seem to make much sense to subjugate oneself and ones dreams and aspirations to another person. It seems to me that given that I'm in an entirely single state, I should respect that and not get involved with anyone seriously in a committed kind of way. I mean, it would be great to be able to take advantage of opportunities for togetherness as they occur, and not try to create some kind of contrived future together that ends up with much less than two wholes as a result. I don't mean that I'm giving up hope entirely, just that I am letting it go. It would take a rare couple who can together create a symbiosis that is greater than their sums. That kind of energy is very difficult to find. So in the meantime, and maybe forever, I'd rather be happy and free to enjoy people as I find them, if so inclined and they were inclined too. By people I mean men. I wonder if this is wrong in some way? I was like this when I was younger and in college. I wasn't thinking about marriage at all. I just enjoyed being with my dates. I had a plan to go to officer training school and then on to whatever. I never had a plan for marriage. Probably why I ended up married to a guy who then ended up being an alcoholic and a jerk the first time, and then when I did have a plan for marriage, why I got taken in and taken advantage of because of that mindset. But if I have a plan not to get married, then that's a plan I can live with, and be happy with, and is more in line with reality and where I am now. In all other things with my life, including my career, I've been an opportunist and I've always been happy. I don't decide that I want a certain job...I notice an interest and I give it my time of day, and if it works out between the work and my brain, then a match is made, and it continues on, sometimes the match has continued on for many years. Sometimes a project ends because it's just not as enthusiastic as promised. Or the work and I are unsuitable for each other, like it's too technical and not creative enough. Or someone wants an application for an end-user rather than research programming, so there was a misunderstanding about what was being sought and what was being offered. Then I think about my children. I enjoy my relationships with my children, but when they aren't with me and I'm not responsible for them, I don't really think about them, except maybe I should vacuum their room. I don't choose their activities or control what subjects they need to excel in at school. In some respects my kids are easy because they're intelligent and respectful of the environment and are very 'natural' children. Not into video games and stuff but really curious about the world. So I try not to interfere with that. But when it comes to adult intimate relationship, for some reason there are all these expectations. The more I think about it, the more I think that adult relationships should be more free and less judgmental and demanding, like the relationships I have with my kids. That is, they are respectful and recognized that we are all unique and although we are connected, we are not bound. For instance today I told my kids I was going to a conference in San Diego and gave them the dates and said that their dad would watch them most of the time and they would also have an overnight sitter or their brother and his girlfriend the other nights. Instead of being concerned about me going away, they were excited for me and immediately went to their wall map and asked where the pushpins were and put a pin in there. I will have to check to see if they also put a pin in UlaanBaatar which I am going to for a month this summer, I didn't have to ask anyone permission to go or discuss it with anyone. If I find someone there I want to make love with or whatever, I can do that without worrying about someone back home. No guilt, no should have would have could have. I am getting on in years and finding that all these rules people have set up for marriage and relationships are PREVENTING real relationships from happening in real time. I guess I am ready for a paradigm shift. I had a dream last night that I was enjoying eating some shredded cheese from a bag and the cheese was great (you know, like blue cheese can be, pungent,...although this was of course vegan cheese) but when I realized that the cheese was moldy by looking at it, even though the bag was nearly empty and I'd already eaten a great deal of it, I was thoroughly disgusted. I mean, I slept with a guy 4 times and enjoyed it and only got disgusted when I realized he wasn't committed. Now if I'd gone into that relationship as non-committed I would have had a great time in real time and in memory. In fact, I'm not even really sure if maybe the only thing that did make it disgusting was his sloppy attitude towards using a condom. I'm not stupid, I think I must have known, subconsciously, that he wasn't committed, but because at that time commitment was part of my paradigm for avoiding thinking of myself as some kind of low-mannered person, I o nly paid attention to things he said and did that let me pass myself off to myself as believing "good enough" that I'd done diligence in checking for commitment or at least exclusivity. The fact is, I don't think I really gave a sh*t. I just wanted to get it on with him. So this is a new realization for me. I was probably born to break a few hearts and I'm sure I already have in fact that was why I struggled so long to be 'good' and to be a one-person woman. The truth is, when I was with my kids' dad he was probably nice enough but really boring. I needed to travel and I did travel and I am honest when I say I never even thought during that time to get it on with anyone. I just enjoyed being out and with people. I usually had my kids with me. Nothing ever happened, I always thought it would be inappropriate and always behaved properly and always with a group of people to socialize. I was friends with a couple guys in a bed and breakfast but we were buddies not love interests. They were there learning to fly in the bush where it's cheaper and safer. So in a relationship what happens is I TURN OFF my sexuality because it's too demanding for the one person. My most recent husband was 'interesting' because he was an a**hole and he knew how to play me, but then I thought well, I know his game, now I want to have equal rights. But he couldn't handle that. He knew other men were attracted to me and realized that the gig was up. That ultimately if he was going to sleep with others I would too. His women were loathe some to me, the kind that were easily manipulated, he'd been having them for years and years. I guess I was the latest tactic. The woman he married to help out because of her kids who turned out to be a real b*tch and how now he was stuck in a marriage he didn't want, could they feel sorry for him and console him? lol. It was anything but that. I was more than happy to have a relationship with him because the first year he was sexually exciting...then he started needing to dominate, finally it turned to rape. OK, not exciting. Alarming. Line was crossed. He tried his best to subjugate me to the point where I had no self-esteem left. I guess he knew how the deployment would turn out, after I found out about his women and his game (emails and such) which is why he tried to impregnate me. I guess at my age women have periods but are not fertile much at all. Odds are very low. So now I'm thinking. I'd rather be in a relationship when I don't get treated right, I have my own space and no commitment and can be free to just continue on with my life and if someone else has my interest and wants to be in a relationship that's more respectful, I can choose that instead. I suppose when commitment is justified, it will be real obvious. Or maybe not. I just don't see a committed relationship as serving my purpose in life any more. I have some exciting things to do with my life and I'm tired of being held back by men who don't deserve the sacrifices that have to be made in relationships. I guess what I'm saying is that I have some kind of purpose in life and it's not to be in a committed relationship at this time. I'm a Quaker and I practice discernment and honestly I have sat on this concept for a while. I know it sounds cheesy lol but the dream of cheese with respect to me having enjoyed being with this guy and then only repulsed when I realized cheese was moldy (guy was non-committed) is too related to escape my notice. I read a book on relationships written by a Quaker a few months ago and hadn't given it much thought since, because I had read it from a point of view of only seeking a committed relationship (ensuring myself that this guy's viewpoint was WRONG of course....) but now when I think about it the book w as really saying that you should follow your heart, whatever it is that it's telling you. And that is the path. I think I will do much better in relationships overall if I approach them from a non-committed viewpoint. The reason is that I fear encroachment into my world as I know it and love it, and I also fear being asked to give up my own life to be part of someone else's where there are rules and habits and expectations that are completely foreign to me but that the other person takes for granted so much in mainstream life that he doesn't even explain what these rules are. I've noticed that traditional career guys will get to know me and then drop me. Obviously I'm not going to be there at 5:00 with meatloaf and potatoes and sit around drinking a scotch with them before rolling on that bearskin rug that's always in front of their fires in their nice houses. lol. Now I might be in my Uggs out by the firepit saying I got caught up in a writing project and as a result we are roasting tofu pups and having marshmallows for dinner and by the way you can drink that Tequilla right out of the bottle. And hey, look at that, you can see Orion. I might get my sleeping bag and sleep in the hammock tonight! That's more like me, and it drives most men nuts. A woman like that can't be tracked or trusted. And that's the point. I don't want to have to behave in a way that makes someone else feel more secure than they already should be. If someone wants commitment from me, they should feel free to ask, and if I say no (or not at this time) and that's what they want, they should feel free to look elsewhere. I think that guy I was with 4 times and totally into taught me something I needed to know. Not to try to change myself into something I'm not just to make other people comfortable. I mean, am I afraid that my kids won't have friends because of my mindset? The fact is, they have friends and the people I'm worried about do activities and have lifestyles neither me or my kids are interested in. We're not hippies, per se, but we're definitely not nuclear or normal in any way that could be defined. Yet, what we have feels healthy and sustains us and we are happy living the way we live. I think I'm just going to embrace it. But I wonder if because I'm not doggedly interested in marriage or even right now pursuing a committed relationship (which is different than being ultimately open to one) I wonder if this forum isn't really for me any more.

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