My turn

As promised, this blog will come from 2 different perspectives. You have met Mark and know how his side of the story brought us together.. now, it's my turn. My name is Jen.. an over 50, divorced mother of 3 grown children. Just freshly divorced, I started dating sporatically. During the course of my dating .. I had met a few men but found it unfulfilling. I was somewhat happy having my freedom after 25 years of marriage but, still missed the physical part of a relationship with a man.

Going back a bit...In my marriage, I allowed myself to be very controlled and grew to be so unhappy that, I considered life to be more of a sentence then a blessing. Eventually, seeking validation and sex.. I found Ashley Madison. Met a great man who made me feel like I was deserving of so much more than I had. He helped me find the sexual woman I had underneath that sad little girl I had become. But, although that relationship ended due to location issues.. it gave me strength and power to leave my misery and begin life anew.

Sometime later,after the divorce.. I met a sweet guy (we will call him D).. he made me laugh and didn't seem to ask much of my time.. at least in the beginnng. After we were dating for a couple months.. he got very ill and ended up in the hospital. D needed me. I took care of him.. and he grew to depend on me. He had lots of problems and my relationship became one of compassion rather than caring. D was a great guy. but.. I felt stuck.. and I just couldn't walk away because I knew he needed me. Our physical relationship went from seldom to none. I was torn.. it wasn't great to start with but not having any? I was frustrated. What do I do? ahhhh yes, Ashley. Always men there who were looking for a lady to have a physical relationship with.. and no strings. SO.. I created my profile. After a few months and many emails and a couple subsequent meetings that resulted in not feeling the "chemistry".. I decided to quit looking for the summer and concentrate my frustrations on my tennis and bike riding. I still cared for D, and although I didn't love him, I knew I could get through the summer without sex and focus on other activities with D.

I didn't remove my AM profile.. but, when I would get emails.. I would just respond with "sorry, I met someone and seeing where it goes". It saved a lot of questions and allowed me to keep the profile up. One day.. I got an email that caught my attention. Not the usual.. "hey you seem like just what I'm looking for.. wanna meet" email.. but an actual letter .. funny, interesting and intriguing.It ended with
"I'd enjoy hearing more from you. And I'd be more than happy to provide you a pic after an email or two, just till I can convince myself you're not a) my neighbor, b) my wife -- UGH!!! or c) the woman that works in the office next to me. Yeah, maybe I'm a little paranoid, but you never know with these things!!!

Hope you're having a good day, and I hope to hear more from you."


I responded, but not with my usual "sorry" story.. I was interested and responded by telling him I was sort of planning on staying off the market for the summer but, he had touched something in me that wanted to know more...so, we started to email and that my friends, is how Mark and I found each other..

But as he says.. that is just the beginning of our "once upon a time..." fairy tale.