My very first post explained that I had to suppress who I was sexually in order to stay in my marriage.  As you have read, in the process, I lost a big part of myself.  But now I was divorced, I was free to do whatever I wanted, especially sexually.  Initially, there was a lot of fear.  I wondered how I would ever deal with sex again – someone else seeing me naked, someone else inside of me, intimacy with another human being.  At this point, I considered myself to be a born-again virgin because sex surely felt like virgin territory.  I completely forgot what it felt like to be desired, to be wanted.

As a new divorcee, I was in no place mentally to make a commitment to anyone else.  I was still processing my divorce and my life felt like it was still in shambles.  I could only take things day by day.  It had been well over a year since I had sex when I had my first encounter with Goldilocks.  What I felt with him was chemistry, an instant spark.  It was something I hadn’t felt in over 5 years, and from just a simple kiss.  I forgot about the passion, the lust, and the closeness.  I forgot about my libido. I forgot about orgasming.  It was as if I had never experienced any of it before.  It was locked far away.  And suddenly, that kiss sparked a desire for more, which erased many of the fears that I had.  I yearned for more.

There was so much more of myself to rediscover.  I ended up going through a sexual awakening, a bit of a personal sexual revolution in the months that followed.  Sex gave me a high like I hadn’t experienced ever before – sometimes I wouldn’t need to eat, I wouldn’t need to drink, I wouldn’t need to sleep.  I could live off a sex high for hours, sometimes for days!  It allowed me to feel absolutely amazing about myself.  For the first time in a very long time, I felt alive, I felt important, I felt confident, I felt powerful.  And throughout this sexual revolution, I learned a lot about what I wanted, and more importantly, a lot about what I didn’t want.  I began to view relationships differently, specifically that the most important relationship that I will ever have will be with myself.  Sex helped me get my confidence back and helped me to heal.

Furthermore, I realized that most of the sex I had with my ex-husband was never emotionally connected sex – it lacked chemistry and passion.  There were even a few times while married that I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, is this really going to be the sex that I’m stuck with for the rest of my life?”  Our sex life was basic, routine, and boring.  It became a repetitive task of doing what he wanted, the same thing every time.  He even scheduled Sunday’s as the day for sex, and most times it never happened.  If I suggested anything different, then he would shut down and we wouldn’t have sex at all.  It was lame.  My post divorce sexual experiences reinforced that I was better suited without my ex.

In the next series of posts, you will read about my sexual encounters after my divorce (hence the name, http://www.sexafterdivorce.com).  Some are great, some are bad, and some are mediocre.  It’s through these experiences that I got my confidence back.  I learned so much about myself sexually throughout this part of my healing.  The process was incredibly invigorating, it was the time when I began to believe in life again.  The experiences helped me to cut ties with my past and look forward to building a completely new life for myself.  Sex was vital to my recovery.