I have been around for years reading the posts on these boards and I am almost sure I have never seen anyone else reveal an experience like mine.

If there is interest I might be willing to discuss later the relationship in more detail but for now will be as brief as possible.

I was in a loving relationship with a woman who was a provider for more than 3 years.  I did not profit form what she did, she was working to provide for her whole family and to help pay for their medical needs which were beyond any normal income to cope with.  She also for the most part enjoyed herself, was very high end and my nature is such that I was only concerned for her safety I was not possessive or jealous.  In fact it was nice to know I was the guy she came home to and who she loved.  We had, other than what she was doing to make extra money, a very normal life.

But she was killed over a year ago and I have lost my life partner, lover and very best friend.

This is obviously a complex issue but the real problem for me is that I have lived the provider side of this 'hobby' and can not imagine becoming a client, nor do I want to because the fantasy would not work for me if you can understand.

I am used to being completly honest in a relationship and I am just now ready to try to see if I can be close to someone again... but I can not imagine any woman who is a 'civilian' every accepting who my past love was.  I am thinking that the only kind of woman who could relate to my life is someone in the hobby now.  So how to even put it out there that there is at least one man (I suspect there must be others) who would never be offended by dating a woman who does or did work as a provider and who understands all the reality of this um, 'hobby'.

So I guess this post is a question to LG on her thoughts on my situation.  I hope I am being somewhat clear.  I have been wanting to talk about this and this seems to be the only forum for such a opening however slight of myself.

I want everyone to know that it is possible to have a very rewarding life with someone who works in the business.. though our hopes and dreams were for her time in it to be as short as possible once her family emergencies were taken care of. (she was in the biz when I met her btw and that is another story.

I wonder if there are any providers out there who are lonely too and wish there was a way to meet someone who they can be totally open with and, as in all relationships, if the chemistry is right, find a friend and lover to share life with.

Would very much appreciate any serous thoughts and questions.

You sound like a sensitive loving man dear.  I'm so sorry for your loss, having been though it twice in the past myself.

Why do you feel that a "civilian" would not accept your previous relationship.  I see no reason for any woman, provider or otherwise to not love you because of who your past partner was.  Unless YOU let it get in the way.  

I don't mean to be insensitive and as someone who is in a relationship with another provider myself I can appreciate your comments and agree that it's the person, not the job.  But you might ask yourself if your interest in providers is something else or if you are limiting yourself to provider for a reason.  Perhaps a subliminal fetish of your lover being with others?

I lost my first soul mate in 1990.  I'll never forget or stop loving my first real lover (a girl) and I never imaginged I'd fall in love again - though I looked and looked for 15 years and went through hundereds of men and more than a few women.

Then one day when I was looking the other direction, I discovered Jessica in my life and learned it's possible to have more than one soul mate in a lifetime.

You WILL find someone else.  But it's not something you can rush and it may happen when you aren't expecting it.  It sounds like you are ready to begin dating again.  But you should not limit yourself to providers only any more than you might limit yourself to only dating left handers.

Just go have fun and what happens will happen.

Hugs,
TS Jamie

Hey,  thanks for your thoughts... first you are not insensitive and your points are well taken.

It is a very fair question to ask if I have a 'fetish' for providers. No, I don't it is a tough life, of course I am in the entertainment biz and it is very tough, lots of rejection and stress... and in itself a form of selling one's self and soul for money unless you are George Lucas and make your own rules.

I admit I may be looking for an initially easier path to bonding with someone else because of the commonality of experience.  Thant being said, I have friends for instance int he polyamourus community but they are far away and odd as it may sound I am not really interested in the poly life.

This thread was prompted by 1) yes my being open to seeing people again and 2) by a friend pointing out an escort who has on her own site expressed the frustration of 'normal' dating and wondering if anyone considering to be her client would instead want to date. When you express your open and honest sexuality.. even if you are a guy on the standard internet dating sites and even the adult ones it gets you a lot of scam responses and also people who are totally focused on SEX as being the reason to get together.

My experience with mainstream people is that there is a lot of hypocrisy and self denial dealing with these folks and I guess the thing I miss most about my love is that we were SO honest and the sex thing was never a problem with us.  Our disagreements were always calm and respectful if intense...

I am not saying I am not open to meeting people outside of this life... I guess it would be more fair to say that I would have a 'comfort level' with someone in this life over someone with no experience in it.

I basically wanted to reveal that after reading so many tales of sad tales of how hard it was to be a lover to someone who is a provider that my experience was that we had a wonderful love. I figured there is no harm in asking if there are others out there that want to meet someone but are frustrate with the 'alternate dating sites'.

I note that you and your partner appear to be in the biz and I assume and pray you are very happy in it, so you ended up staying in the life and being happy.  

Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful response.  

Alone4now, I am sure that L.G. with her great knowledge, has still yet a better answer to your
question, I hope that you don't mind my sharing
my thoughts.
It is quite clear, that you are comfortable with who you are as a person, non
judgemental, having an eye toward what is really
important in a relationship, acceptance of each
other as individuals, not because of work, or
lifestyle choices.

I can understand your insecurity, in that you feel
as if civie women are not open minded, or non judgemental enough to accept you for who you are,
not because of who you were with.
I think that there are many civie women, who would
not only accept you, but they would also understand and appreciate your past devotion to
your deceased partner. ( Sorry for your loss )

Love has a different meaning to each and everyone
of us, I have loved a civie woman, was married for
19 years, before I woke up and seen the light that
my marriage was bad news for me, with plenty of
emotional abuse present, and a whole lot of incompatiblity issues as well.

So really I guess that what I am attempting to say, is that it appears that you are able to love
a woman, for who she is, not what she does for work. This makes you a human with great emotional
awareness,
There are other women in this world, who are not
providers, or past providers, who have great emotional awareness as well.
The real issue, is for you and I alike to find a
woman who has an equal or great emotional awareness, who will accept us for who we are, not for who we may have loved before.

I know its tough to find a mature woman, who is
honest, and loving, and agreeable with our ideas
of love and devotion.
But I am sure that they are out there, looking for
us as well.
Its just a matter of finding each other.

Trooper! The Left Handed lover of women.

On the contrary, Alone4Now,

I would imagine that the majority of women out there would have a great deal of sympathy for you...and would even want to "rescue" you..maybe even try to give you a "normal" relationship, since the perception may be that you were deprived in the first place.

Right or wrong, I believe that some women would see you as a "victim" of unfortunate circumstances. It seems you did not push your deceased lover to providing, but that she did this of her own, free will.

I don't think it's necessary for your future partner to "understand" the hobby in order to understand you. When you meet a new person, that person can only relate to your past in the way that it is presented to him/her. Hence, your feelings and your final assessment of what was, will help color that person's thoughts and opinions - if any - on your past relationship.

It may be due to fears of meeting "civilian" women, but trying to find another woman on these boards, on the basis of her being a provider and therefore accepting, is not necessarily to be recommended.

Chances are that your wounds are still healing. Your partner was killed over a year ago; that alone is enough to impact your emotions and your psyche in a very deep way. My advice would be to enter some grief counseling so that you can begin on a new emotional keel, slowly but surely.

Please accept our collective condoleances. I hope you will feel more open to meeting a non-provider in the not too distant future.

Let us know how you are doing,
the Love Goddess

Thanks Trooper, I have read your introspective posts and I share your hopes for all of us.

Thanks LG,

I am open to meeting anyone. I am only opening myself to this community to get some thoughts and if anyone is interested in me well, ok.  I would love to share common experience but I have no love  nor fascination with this life I just am adding this to the possibilities in front of me.

You may well be right about women wanting to 'rescue' me... LOL, man the thing is I don't want to be 'rescued' in the sense I will not dishonor her memory by saying either of us needed to be 'rescued'. We had a short term plan and were sticking to it and a monster took it away from us.

I suppose I should open up a bit more and say that before I met my love I was VERY cynical and affected by my past bad relationships (I think Trooper has opened himself very honestly about his issues and I admire him for that).  I had been through a few relationships and a marriage to a woman who eventually told me they did not know how to deal with love and intimacy.. for them it was all about the 'veiner".

So I resolved to be 'distant' and seek basic human needs in exploring the world we all know. I searched for a companion of intelligence and class that I (naively assumed) I could meet, interact with on all levels and then go back to my work with no further attachment.

Yeah well... if I have learned anything it is I am really no good at casual sex, at least I am no good if I do not have an 'anchor' lover.  I really cannot enjoy intimacy unless I at least feel a close friendship with a lover.

In my very cynical stage I explored this 'hobby'.   I did book my lover as a client for a 24 hour time... because I was never a few hours kind of guy.  What happened is, I admit, one of those rare lightning striking events... by the next morning she asked me what plans I had for the rest of the weekend... I was puzzled but she smiled and nodded to the night stand beside me... "look in that envelope" she said, "is it enough to engage your time to spend with me for the next 24 hours?" It was the envelope I had laid out for her the night before... so I said yes and she said "great so now we do what I want to do for the next day and then if we are happy with each other we can spend the next day on equal terms"... so began the romance, that was ended only by the violent jealous act of an obsessed former client on a night I was away from home.  I have years of the trial and it's pain ahead... another blot on any relationship with me. Though, LG, perhaps there are women who would want to 'rescue' me from all this.

So hey, yeah, I would like some human comfort... who would not right?  I guess I long for someone to talk to.  My very best friend who is a woman, married, and I love her husband, so no way anything will happen there, told me she suspected that there were very few woman who at one time or another did not contemplate the temptation of being a provider for a bit... for fun, glamor and money.  Of course I know it is not that glamorous.

In any case this is just a new place to talk and see what you guys have to say.

Also I offer myself as someone who has unique understanding of the hobby. So any questions I can answer from my experience I will try to answer.

Thanks again for your kind thoughts.

Alone4now,

Why do you *have* to tell her?
Why *must* a new girlfriend know that your old one was a provider?

Your question to LG contains an implicit assumption: that you are under some kind of moral or ethical or psychological duty to tell a new girlfriend all about your old one.

The assumption is very understandable, and well fits our current American sociological model, that couples must be 'soul mates' and 'share everything with each other'.

But perhaps you want to ask yourself: is such total sharing really necessary or appropriate? Or is it kinda totalitarian?

You, we, all of us are all very different people.  Our expecting to find someone who will totally understand our own unique past experience and outlook just may not be realistic.  Some things are better left unsaid...just like a husband not telling his wife about his hobbying.  Not revealing all may actually be more considerate, as well as more realistic.

That may be particularly true early in any new relationship.  Maybe, if it progresses to the stage of discussing the subject, you might, if you still feel so compelled, decide to have a discussion then.  "Darling, before we proceed to the altar, there's something you need to know about me and my prior love."  But right now, you're a very long way from that point.

I stress - I don't mean to suggest what you should decide do.  But I do think this is a 'serious thought and question' you may want to be asking yourself.

I realize that my raising this question might feel disturbing, but I hope it's, nonetheless, helpful to you in the long run.

BG

As my handle implies I've been around awhile. The loss of a loved one from a violent act is in many ways more devastating than from an accident or disease. Healing from that takes extra time.

I think that your concerns about a "civi" womans reaction are justified. Despite all the generalizations about the warmth and understanding  women that are looking for someone, my experience is that is an initial reaction. People who have been through a failed relationship generally are wary of the baggage that others (and they) carry. To put it simply most divorced people despise their ex-spouse and expect you to as well. Since you are widowed they will understand your feelings  intellectually, but do not be surprised if they feel threatened by them. "Can you really love me if you still love her and her memory?"...

Another aspect of this is that most people man or woman don't understand how someone can love a spouse who is a provider. They tend to doubt that love is/was real. So they have the question, if you call that love is that a love "I" want. I'm not speaking about an intellectual understanding, rather their underlying feelings.

Have you considered that you may be seeking to recreate your past relationship? Hence your focus on finding a provider as your partner. Can you avoid comparing? Are you ready to love someone for herself independent of your feelings for your lost love?

Even if/when you are healed enough, it will take a very special woman to understand and accept the path you've traveled.

These are just random thoughts brought on by your post(s). I wish you luck and admire your courage in opening yourself up to the search for a new love.

You see I lost my spouse to a sudden act of violence with in the last year. I feel where you've been and where you're going.
-J

Well, as odd as it may seem in the world of this 'hobby'... we found that total honesty was refreshing and lowered the stress of the relationship... it allowed all else one deals with in the regular world easier to deal with because the trust was total... it has to be when your lover is sleeping with a lot of people and you are counting on them to keep YOU safe... she did that as I am as clean as can be and the post mortum test showed she was as well.

So I can not imagine a new relationship without total honesty.

Thank you for taking the time and thought to post your thoughts.

Man I can tell you are speaking from experience and I feel for your loss, which sounds trite but I do and I CAN imagine how you feel.

You hit all the points true.  Everyone that saw us together, even old friends, admitted to thinking how fantastic the sex must be and that that was all there was.  So yeah the sex was great, but it was great for all the reasons it should have been, we just were very comfortable with each other and loved each other and the biggest thing is we loved to sleep really sleep with each other.

As to the do I want to recreate the past...  well hell no not like that but be honest you are in the same situation and of course one wants to have at least some semblance of ones happy past.

I am a very sensitive guy and I am well aware that  any new partner will not want to live with my past lover just as I do not wish to love with theirs.. it is a fine line... and only time will tell.

Thank you and all others on this post for your thoughtful replys... it is great to have done thios and not to have been flamed over it.

Peace to all