Okay, so I didn't follow "conventional wisdom," but there were some mitigating factors.
I didn't start "dating," per se, but I met my SO organically. Our first date was a short time after my D was final. We have been together ever since (5.5 years now).
Now, the mitigating factors. My first Dday was in 2009, 4.5 years before D. I knew, without any doubt or reservations, I was going to D Xhole. I was trying to wait until youngest graduated high school before pulling the pin on the M, but asshats are gonna be asshats. Xhole was caught in another A.
Almost immediately following first Dday, I started to emotionally detach. I didn't know that is what I was doing (hadn't found SI yet), but I was. In reality I was trying to disassociate myself emotionally from Xhole while we were still in a pretense of a M. It was the only way I could get through the days. His very touch made my skin crawl.
So over 4.5 years, there was a whole lot of emotional detachment taking place. By the time I kicked him out and filed for D, I hated him and was in a white hot rage at this last humiliation (my oldest DD uncovered both his first and last A and told me). Once the D was final, the black cloud had lifted, my anger dissipated, and I felt incredibly unburdened and free. Like a huge boulder literally being lifted off my shoulders.
When I went out with SO, I had no emotional baggage whatsoever. Sure, I still had moments of dealing with (then) present Xhole asshattery, but that was all.
For the year up to me kicking him out, Xhole had been unemployed (read: plenty of free time). But for the 1-2 years prior to that, Xhole had been working far away (plane flight) and I was only seeing him a handful of times a year (mostly holidays) anyway. I was essentially a single parent already, and I thoroughly enjoyed not having him in the home. That last year he was gone a lot, which I found out later was because he was at last OW's house playing happy second family with their OC.
If you put all those little tidbits together, the fact was that I was in an emotionally healthy place to date someone else. SO just happened to come along at that time.
Any time earlier than that it would not have worked. Not because I was still emotionally attached (that was long gone), but I still needed to work through the rage I was in. THAT would have doomed any chance of a new relationship.
I will say that in the beginning it felt very awkward with SO. Like I was cheating or something. I think it was because I was with Xhole for so long it took some time for that change and the feeling to abate, which it did. Our first act of intimacy was incredibly awkward, too!
But we both acknowledged it and just laughed it off. After that, it was fireworks all the way!
[This message edited by Phoenix1 at 1:45 PM, June 12th (Wednesday)]