Thanks, LUVS!
Yes, the B.O.B. would not give me ANY anxiety!!!
Initally, I think I was viewing the possession of the guitar as a link to eventual contact. Now, it is becoming a non-issue.
I think you have a valid point about confusing my sexual response for love. I had isolated myself in solitude and celibacy for three years, and never thought I could have such a response ever again! He probably diagnosed my vulnerability in that area early on !
ARI

Hi, Chatty, You are right.
I spent part of my afternoon looking at Bestfriends.org! It was so therapeutic to be thinking about something besides the Ph.D. in Disastrous Relationships.
I am thinking a good thing for me to do right now is to volunteer at our local animal shelter!
Love,
ARI

Hi Ariadne, you are indeed mentally well! You have reached out for help here, and you are receiving it with all the love and light intended toward you. Someone not as mentally healthy would not have reached out, and would not have accepted the objectivity of friends. Plus, your inner self is propelling you to wellness, evidenced by revelations coming to you in the middle of the night! Thank God you were not sucked further into the pond scum of the car loving, guitar strumming, class taking, unemployed loser! Yeah! You are the winner! LLL

Hello, again...All of your posts are my lifeline to sanity right now. I just spent a half hour re-reading all of them because I was feeling weak and vulnerable, and even considering emailing or calling this man.
I couldn't sleep last night, and kept looking at the clock, until around 5 a.m. I finally fell asleep for a couple of hours. But during that time of trying to drift off, a revelation came to me. My first sexual relationship, at age 21, while in college, was with a man who behaved very much like this Ph.D. fella. Because it was my first experience with sexual intimacy, in which I held on much much longer that I should have till I was imagining stabbing myself in the chest with knives!, and accepting the emotional abuse from this man, I was traumatized by it. In the years since, thru a 20 year marriage, and several attempts at relationships since my divorce, I have realized what I SHOULD have done in that first painful experience...WALK AWAY...early on, rather than continue to be the doormat.
Waking from attempted sleep with this realization in the middle of last night, I recognized that this recent experience with the Ph.D., with the eery similarities to that first sexual experience, can be a closure for me...IF I turn my back on it now...PERIOD! I have visualized over the many years how I SHOULD have behaved with that first emotional/sexual abuser. Now is my chance to finally, at age 54, do so.
I recognize that I am not well yet, but I also have past relationships which took lots of energy to recover from, and for those men I feel NOTHING!!!, so I know that in time, it will be the same with this one.
Thanks so much to all of you who responded so caringly to my plight. I am going to do as Chatty has suggested, and try to give feedback to other discussions on this site, moving away from obsessing about myself.
ARI

Hang in there Ari. Good things are worth waiting for.

Hi Ari, I was shocked when I read what you wrote: "till I was imagining stabbing myself in the chest with knives!" because I write that almost word for word in my book. In other words, I can relate to the feeling. We are trying to get at the pain, only the pain was inflicted upon us by these awful men! You are well enought to recognize these patterns in regards to abusive men. That's a good thing. A revelation woke you up which is great for your personal growth. Yes, hang in there! This is a growth experience, and you are dong great! Love and Light, Lynn

Yes, Lynn, I read that passage in your book, and recognized it was what I too was feeling/visualizing. Feeling such emotional pain and visualizing stabbing yourself in the heart should be ENOUGH for any sane person to realize that the man causing it is TOXIC for her!!!
I am looking so forward to the day when, HEY, I don't feel anything for this man, or think of him at all. I know this will happen; it just takes so damn long!
I also think as we get older, our emotional scars take longer to heal, just as with the physical wounds which heal much quicker when we are young. Being older, also, and haveing a firm foundation of values, I take things much more seriously, expect people to behave as I am behaving, treating them with respect and kindness.... Doesn't seem to work that way, HUH!
ARI

You had a huge revelation! I was going to suggest that maybe you should go back into your past and compare this loser with some other man. I did this...with my father. Hmmm. It's amazing because trying to work through an old bad relationship with another person brings on the obsessive thinking and thoughts. I did it too so I understand and it isn't all that easy to get over but I do know that you can with effort and time and girl, it looks to me like you're trying very hard so here's a big hug for you!

Thank you, Dianne.
I noticed this morning while half waking before the alarm clock went off, that the image of this man, the Ph.D., is becoming somewhat blurry, not so vivid and painful....

That's a good sign that my hard work is paying off, PLUS, time alone away from him or hearing from him in any way adds to the blessed blurriness.

Lynn or Dianne asked me to consider what lesson I might learn from all of this....Well, Dotsie or Chatty suggested not becoming sexually involved so soon if I should meet someone new. I certainly will NOT! become sexual for a substantial amount of time in the future.

In my last communication with the Ph.D., last Saturday, I told him I would not feel comfortable now being intimate with him because of his lack of feelings for me .... Haven't heard from since...
Thanks all of you!
ARI

Hello, Smile, and thank you for reminding me it is never good to wallow in sadness and bitterness.
Thank you for the very wise and hopeful words.
ARI