I hope someone can relate to this - i am baffled - please help

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

I see a T.  I pray constantly.  I feel lost... .8 months out... .and I feel lost.  I was straight before we got together.  We are in our early 50's, professional women who grew up together.  Blindly, I fell into her web of love bombing, taking the risk to change my life for her in her high functioning yet waifish state.  My shame in not recognizing the red flags.   I was her 3rd straight woman in a row.  The other two went back to heterosexual love.  She dumped me after 1.5 years, abruptly after months of brutal emotional abuse, leaving me a raw nerve laying along side the road until she kicked me in the after saying she wanted to be alone but involved very soon with a replacement.   Now what?  I finally started seeing a man after 7 months and was kissed for the first time this past weekend, 8 months out.  Coincidently, she and her partner were in my city this oast week so I had my first sighting.  I am sad... .uncertain... .and confused.  My questions are multiple: does the r/s with straight women sound familiar? Were you scared to move on? Was an actual sighting painful?  I am so sad... .i come here for comfort because my pals can't figure out why I am just not over this.  Still raw... .please share thoughts of encouragement.  Thank you

[Hawk Ridge]

I see a T.  I pray constantly.  I feel lost... .8 months out... .and I feel lost.  I was straight before we got together.  We are in our early 50's, professional women who grew up together.  Blindly, I fell into her web of love bombing, taking the risk to change my life for her in her high functioning yet waifish state.  My shame in not recognizing the red flags.   I was her 3rd straight woman in a row.  The other two went back to heterosexual love.  She dumped me after 1.5 years, abruptly after months of brutal emotional abuse, leaving me a raw nerve laying along side the road until she kicked me in the after saying she wanted to be alone but involved very soon with a replacement.   Now what?  I finally started seeing a man after 7 months and was kissed for the first time this past weekend, 8 months out.  Coincidently, she and her partner were in my city this oast week so I had my first sighting.  I am sad... .uncertain... .and confused.  My questions are multiple: does the r/s with straight women sound familiar? Were you scared to move on? Was an actual sighting painful?  I am so sad... .i come here for comfort because my pals can't figure out why I am just not over this.  Still raw... .please share thoughts of encouragement.  Thank you

[enlighten me]

To answer what I can.

Yes it hurts when you see them with someone else. Its only natural as you had feelings for them.

Yes it is hard to move on. We invested so much in our relationships only to find out we had been conned. We fear being hurt again. We also fear being made to look stupid by beingconned again.

As for the straight woman thing ive never heard of it before but it sounds like a power trip. "Im so desirable even straight women want me". Or maybe she just has greater succes with straight women.

[Hawk Ridge]

Thank you - now that I think about it, she did profess to be a "straight chick magnet" and bragged about her sexual prowess even though she was not very sexual and not at all after the first three months and and for the first three months after the recycle.  I have had a lot of shame that I didn't figure this out.  She frequently bragged about her earning potential, showing me her earnings soon after we got together and then using my nonmaterialistic ways (which previously charmed her) during the discard.   I have supported families whose loved ones are mentally ill for years and now I do a better job.  Nothing like being in the field of pain to establish more understanding and empathy.  Thank you for helping me.  You help others :-)

[enlighten me]

Hi hawkridge im glad that I have been of some help.

one thing I noticed with my exs is they have very grandiose ideas about themselves. My exgf had to be the best at everything.Even painting the house. She wasnt very good at it but bragged about how good she was and how bad I am at it. She was a runner at school and apparently was very good and i constantly heard her tales about this. She had a very limited repartee. Music, exs and sport. Im into similar music to my ex but every time I said something I was shot down as if I knew nothing.

I suppose straight woman is your exs bragging right. The thing you can't compete with her with.

[pieceofme]

i can't address everything you wrote, but i am experiencing the same anxiety about moving on. i am still really, really sad, too, and my friends don't understand why i'm not "over it" already. i wonder if i will ever be over it... .?

for the first time since i've been NC, someone new has piqued my interest. but i'm anxious, fearful, even avoidant of interaction with him. this whole BPD experience has made me very gun shy. i don't know how to begin to move on... .while this whole time my ex has had a new gf. it makes me sick.

[Mercury2Pluto]

Thank you for sharing your story.  My situation is so similar.  She was my first female r/s.  I had only been with men before.  It was a whirlwind relationship with marriage after just a few months.  Ouch.  Recently divorced, I am turned off by every human now, regardless of gender, but I am especially afraid of women.  I feel sad that my worst relationship by far, incomparably, was the one with a woman. 

We were close friends for several years before dating and got along so well.  She was the nicest person ever and I actually thought the words: "This is too good to be true".  Of course, it was.  I never would have rushed into marriage with a man at this stage in life.  I had too much experience for that.  But I thought, Oh this is different.  Farewell to past experience and cognitive capacity, it was exactly like being a teenager again.  Complete regression to thinking "I adore this person, we are so perfect together." So cheesy.  The whole experience felt very adolescent.  The drama, the intensity, the immature behavior.

I have not seen her in person as luckily we now live 1000 miles apart.  She has sent photos of her new r/s which did not affect me.  What did hurt was when she sent photos of herself at my sister's house.  I live across the country from my family and she moved near to where they live.  She said she moved there deliberately, so she could spend time with them.  She had only met them one time while we were together.  I guess now she sees them more often than I do.

Did the newness of a female r/s affect your discretion?  It certainly did for me.

[Hawk Ridge]

Thanks.  It was so damaging and, I think due to the change for me, very damaging.  I was very discreet at first but, when I thought she left me the first time because I wasn't out about us, I started to talk.  It's been a complicated grieving process but I think it is mostly because people can't understand why we nons got hurt so bad and take so long to recover.  I have started to date but I am by no means comfortable. I never realized it could hurt so much and now I don't even know who I am. Did I change my sexuality because of nature or her manipulation and now what?  I was her third straight woman. Was I a conquest?  Ouch