If you’ve been following along, you might have picked up on the fact that my marriage was a bit of a shitshow, and that I am currently wading through the wreckage, unpacking the aftermath, and wanting to find love again.
I’ve had my share of struggles in the dating world. Struggles that landed me in my therapist’s chair lamenting my hopeful heart and how it keeps drawing me back out into that cesspool that is the dating pool even though I know I run the risk of being hurt again every time. I have this idealized vision of finding The One. Someone at the same place in their lives, on a similar path of healing self discovery. Someone who wants real commitment, and a long-lasting relationship. Maybe someone who wants to marry again. But I have jumped in each time with a heart still wounded from the last heartbreak and without a plan for what I want. Just winging it and hoping something healthy comes along. Spoiler alert – this is a recipe for disaster.
If I could go back to March 2020, here are some things I wish I had known about dating after divorce.
Take the Time To Process the Marriage/Divorce
In the wake of a separation, the ending of something you thought was going to be forever, of the ending of a spiritual and legal agreement to be together, the validation of a new relationship is going to feel really good. But in that wake, there are more questions than answers.
– Who am I without my spouse?
– Who do I want to be?
– What do I want me life too look like?
– How has this impacted my child and what example am I setting for him?
– What are ways my unhealed parts contributed to the end of this relationship?
– What do I need to feel safe?
– How do I show love to others and what does that say about my attachment style and preferences?
– What are ways I have abandoned myself to make others comfortable?
– What has traumatized me that I want to avoid in the future?
– What are my boundaries and values in a relationship and how am I going to enforce them?
A few months after ending a 16 year marriage is not long enough to have processed through all these things. Some need at least a year, some need many years. I just assumed that I wasn’t the one with the addiction, and, having a strong sense of self, I was healthy enough to jump back in. But I hadn’t done the work, and I have brought all of my wounds insecurities, people pleasing tendances, and false assumptions about love into every relationship I have had since then. I needed time to be alone after all that. I needed time to help my son adjust. I needed time to regain my sense of self. I had no business jumping into another relationship without doing this work, but I did it because the validation, being desired again, feeling butterflies again, that felt good.
Feeling good and being good for you are not the same thing. There are A LOT of people jumping back into dating before they are ready. They have no idea they aren’t ready until they are breaking things off with a really good person. They have no idea until things start to get serious and the fear of losing themselves in another relationship kicks in and they sabotage the connection. Or they run from person to person seeking validation and leave behind them a trail of broken hearts and broken trust. If I could go back, I would have done therapy immediately and stayed far away from any romantic entanglements. I wish I could go back and change that, but it is never too late to start doin the work now. My future self will thank me for the pause I am taking, regardless when I decided to take it.
The Dating World Has Changed Drastically Since the Last Time I was In It
Back in 2002 – 2003, the internet was brand new. Most homes still operated on landlines. Online dating was a new phenomenon. People still met potential partners at bars, clubs, and in university classes. The world was smaller, more intimate, and in-person.
In the 2020’s, everyone is online. Swipe culture pervades. Hookup culture and situationships dominate. Dating for marriage isn’t as common online. In fact, online dating encourages multiple partners and shallow relationships. Add to that the multitude of us elder Millennials in our 40s who have been battered by toxic, abusive marriages, who are scarred and cynical, and many of us are just looking for quick validation but are also bracing to exit at the first sign of trouble. We hesitate to repeat the same patterns that caused the ends of our marriages. We are processing our parents’ examples. We have kids, mortgages, careers, stress, and responsibilities that we didn’t have in our early 20’s, which creates complexity during the getting to know you phase.
So not only is the method for meeting new people drastically changed, the kinds of people we are meeting are much more nuanced and complex than a carefree, child free, less jaded 20-something. And I underestimated how that would impact the lense through which people were viewing me, and how I viewed potential partners.
Online dating has created the false impression that humans are just options in an all-you-can-eat buffet. That there are endless options available if this one doesn’t work out, which means its ok to not put any effort into this one. There is this idea that moving on to the next person is better than going just a tiny bit deeper with this current person to see if you can navigate a real relationship. You can see this in the language we use these days – if they wanted to they would. The Ick. Girl, if he doesn’t put you on a pedestal and anticipate all of your needs, leave him! We throw around attachment styles and psychological diagnoses like we all have doctorates in psychology. Not everyone is a narcissist, dismissive avoidant, emotionally abusive person. Some people are just hurting, flawed, dating too soon to have done any real healing, and doing a lot of damage.
And internet dating advice is rife with terrible advice that encourages throwing people away at the first sign of trouble. Extremely complex human dynamics that are reduced to 30 second reels curated to generate the largest number of likes and shares. Completely unqualified individuals regurgitating simplistic quotes about real psychological complexities are shared over and over again. And the more an idea is presented to us, the more likely we are to think that everyone feels this way and that’s just how it is. If you have the misfortune to fall into the dating advice algorithm on any social media site, you’re going to learn very quickly how much single people are encouraged to walk away from each other, rather than spend any amount of time working through and negotiating issues together. We miss the nuance between an extremely abusive relationship and a minor inconvenience. All are treated the same online because the nuance can’t be explained or dissected in 30 seconds or less.
You’re Going to Have to Sort Through a Lot of Rotten Apples
I thought it couldn’t get any worse. That being married to an alcoholic was rock bottom in terms of situations I would find myself in. But oh no. Online dating means any psychopath can create a beautiful version of themselves online. A brief description, the best pictures of themselves. And you realize quickly how many of those people are lying to themselves, lying to you. Lying to the world.
There was the guy who was into BDSM, but who was actually extremely manipulative and emotionally abusive. After two dates he was angry with me for not responding right away. I noped out of that so fast. Hard pass. Block. Delete. No thank you.
Then there were the many, many men recently out of long term relationships who talk a big game about wanting a long term relationship, but who really just needed validation. In my experience, the last straw before divorce is usually the dead bedroom. And after a divorce, the ego is wounded and the psyche longs for excitement, desire, passion. I dated a man who, when I said this exact thing turned to me with hard eyes and a serious tone and said, “This isn’t something I want to talk about.” He wasn’t ready to admit it. He hadn’t done the work. He wanted sex and for someone to make him feel wanted, but once he got that, he wasn’t really interested in the fact that I am a whole entire human with my own wants and needs. And he certainly didn’t want me naming the pattern.
Each time I felt let down. Like I had done something wrong. Like there was something wrong with me. The reality is that treating every new person like your potential soulmate too early in the dating stage is going to get you hooked on an idealized version and you’ll overlook their flaws, let them stomp all over your boundaries, until their flaws have them walking out the door.
Slow down. Take your time getting to know them. Not every person is for you, and there is a lot of garbage in the dating pool. Men and women. If you really want to find a partner, it is going to take a long time.
People Pleasing is Going to Have You Overgiving Too Early
I was a wife for 16 years. I was used to doing laundry and making dinner and planning around another person. It was so second nature to me that I immediately started overextending myself in every dating relationship I got into. Responding quickly, moving plans around. Rearranging life with the other person in mind. Making myself available all the time. I thought if I was accommodating, they would see what a great partner I could be. In a marriage, this may become the norm (and I can write a whole other blog about how to abandon yourself in a marriage), but when you’ve only been on one or two dates and are still getting to know the other person, you set yourself up to be used, or to smother the other person.
To be honest, I think I may have scared away a few good men, and maybe allowed some not so good men to use me, because I overextended myself way too early. I didn’t give the relationship room to breathe. To grow. Didn’t give the other person a chance to show me if they could show up for me. I just gave and gave and gave and couldn’t understand why it didn’t work out. I was so busy giving that I didn’t stop to ask if this person was worth giving to. If they were giving anything back. The reality is that not everyone is going to be your forever. Wanting to find your forever can become trying to make them your forever before you’ve really gotten to know them. Had I done the work and stayed single for a while after my divorce, I could have learned this. Instead I showed up with my whole beautiful heart on a platter and force fed it to the other person, and when they said they were full and didn’t want any more right now, I turned it into the end of the world in my head. And that’s too much too soon for anyone. If you over-water a plant, it will die. It doesn’t matter how well-intentioned you were when you were watering it.
The truth is we’re all out here doing the best we can with the patterns, conditioning, and choices we are given. The main thread in all of this is that dating requires patience, intention, and a willingness to let the beautiful things unfold in their own time. Rushing, needing, wanting, desiring, all the lizard-brained, fear-based behaviors we bring with us to a digitized dating world that is compressed into sound bytes is a recipe for investing too much time in all the wrong things. And when we show up without doing our own work, we are going to attract people who haven’t done their work. And we’re going to waste A LOT of time on people who really aren’t right for us.
The greatest thing I have done for myself this year is to take a step back. No matter how hard, or lonely, or bored I may be, I’m in the midst of doing the work. And I owe it to myself and any future partners to heal the parts of me that bring disfunction to dating. If more of us could do that, imagine how much easier it would be to meet the right kind of partner?
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