Hopefully I qualify as old enough to post here.

I’m recently divorced, and was in my previous relationship for nearly all my adult life (17 years). My ex and I enjoyed the early years of our relationship, but that took a massive hit immediately after we became engaged. We had a scare, and she decided that wasn’t a risk she was willing to take for fear of how her family would see her, so all activity and affection besides holding hands stopped until we married… 1.5 years later. In my opinion, that era of our relationship initiated our demise.

We learned to be together without being together. Then once we married, affection was not a priority for either of us. We became complacent to the roommate stage even before we lived together and that complacency carried over into our marriage. We were active from time to time, but it was never what it had previously been. And then we had our first kid… that nearly killed anything we had left. Then we had our rare night of affection a couple other times and had a couple more kids.

Side step - Please don’t get me wrong, I love and adore my kids and am with them as much I possibly can be. I want and try to be as good as a father as I can be -

Her and I were best friends without the benefits for years. And eventually her parents lived with us for nearly 7 months, and that ended up being the final straw for us. I didn’t agree with her parents all the time, but I respected them and we always enjoyed time together. They sold their house on a whim, and had no place to go, so I offered for them to stay with us since we had the room. Her dad said “thanks! It will only be for a few weeks until we can find other accommodations.” 7 months later they moved out and my ex hated me for it. It was a rough start, but we had some heart-to-heart conversations and I thought everything was good between her parents and I, but every now and then her mom and her would make low-blow jabs at me if I happened to come home from work and not be in the best mood and start helping around the house with chores instead of having a social fest with them. I’d be polite and say things like “hi, how was your day?” And listen and respond… then get to work… then play with my kids… then eat… then relax after the kids were in bed. My ex was working one day a week, my mother-in-law was there all the time, and my father-in-law was gone a lot for work.

Anyway, despite me trying to appease my ex and her mom and pleading with my ex in-laws to stay until they found their new accommodations, they still moved out and I was hated by my ex. That led to a lot of pent up aggression she had towards me being let out. I went on doing all the things I knew to do as a husband, father, and homeowner, but everything I did was ridiculed. And slowly, I was beaten to a pulp and had to leave. Of course, my ex saw it as me giving up and walking away from my family. So our divorce is my fault. Sure ex. Sure.

So that’s part of why I’m here. The other part is that I came to realize how important having a genuine, affectionate, and interested connection with someone is. So that’s what I’m looking for. Someone to connect with and chat and see where things go. I’m 6’2”, athletic build, brown hair, hazel eyes, love coffee, the Bengals, Harry Potter, the Office, playing card games, playing golf and softball, and laughing.

So if you’re interested… please send me a message. Thanks for your time.