Finding Love After Divorce
Post-divorce dating can be a rough ride, we struggle to at first find ourselves, then find anyone we even wish to go on more than one date with. In the world of endless dating options, Romeos, Lotharios, cheats, stalkers and light on truth tellers, it is a miracle we can sort through any of these to find a new life time partner.
I like many other people, after my divorced vowed never to wed again. I was fully accepting of a life of single-dom. Happy to deal with my own house repairs, go to my family functions solo suffering the endless questions of why I'm "still" single. I long ago had and still believe a happy single life is far, far more enjoyable than a lonely or unhappy married life. One look around any restaurant, at the couples bickering or engrossed in their phones on a date night, makes you value your single status.
I had internally made a never to date again vow- when I met my now fiancé, the effort exerted seemed to far outweigh the rewards on the 400 bad dates, a had endured. I was totally happy focusing on my business, and my three very lovely, yet time consuming children. Maybe in hindsight the key to finding the one- is to stop looking. Perhaps the very fact that I was totally 100% happy alone attracted to me another whole person.
I'm convinced second marriages have such high divorce rates (67%) because people firstly haven't worked on or achieved being happy alone. They will almost settle for anyone just to not be alone. Secondly, I find people often haven't taken the time to analyze and then work on any aspects of the first marriage's demise that they attributed to. This will often attract the same type of person and the same dynamic which as in the first marriage result in divorce.
I knew my fiancé was the right person for me, not by giant gestures, or earth quaking signs. I knew from the first day we met, we were a perfect match. Even before meeting him in person, he had shown in a million little ways his consistent kindness, and care towards me. Flowers, poems, words like “be safe” simple things. The difference was the ease in which we just figured everything out, hour by hour, in a compromising caring way. He instantly made me feel like his priority, the most important thing in his world. There was no doubt, no red flags, no wondering, confusion, or awkwardness.
The most shocking thing he proved is that love isn't that much work. Until my relationship with him I hadn't experienced this. This is very common when you have been in contentious marriages for years or decades, divorcees start to feel that marriage and relationships are all drama, or work, or feeling like everything isn’t quite right, it is a very common thing I hear from other divorcees, we wonder if happy relationships even exist, or if they are more like an elusive yeti, heard of yet never found.
When you find a partner right for you, you realize instantly that, love isn't huge things, it's the daily kindness shown to each other in the forms of making coffee, or walking the dog, while the other person is on a call. Love is the calm you feel when you know 100% the other person, won't lie or cheat. Love is compromising on the AC temp, when one of you is always hot and the other always freezing. Love is admitting you are occasionally wrong and communicating through it. Love is the acceptance in second marriages that you both are going to have some residual baggage, frustrating kids and annoying exes, and never allowing that to taint the blessing of each other you have now. Love is also in my case dancing in your 90’s “hammer time” pants across the bathroom floor and having your partner think this is adorable and funny.
I really urge everyone after a divorce to learn to fully love themselves as a single person. Then I recommend you date or don't date but that you live your life in a positive and loving way. So that if you ever are as ridiculously lucky as I am, to have found this kind of once in a life time love, you will be ready to accept it and appreciate it.
Love honestly can be so much better the 2nd or 3rd time around, because if you put in the self-work, you stay true to yourself and never accept less than you are worth. You can over time find the perfect person for you, not settle for anyone. I like to think divorce is the ultimate reset life button, if you never get another chance to redo things, divorce can be it. You can reset your self-worth, you can learn to expect more, you can wait for the kind of relationship, person of character and love we all deserve. I promise you, love is out there, as you navigate the dating minefields and let people show you their true colors, you can very easily see who is a fit and who isn't for you. So, thank the liars, the cheats, the bad fits, and even our many crazy exes, as they were most certainly a part of the broken road that will lead you, like they did for me, to my perfect person, and lifetime keeper of my heart.
For more on my story- My Dreams Recycled