Ideas

You know, it's as though I've gone through so many little divorces as I try to acclimate myself as a single woman again. The HL lasted for two years, TCMT lasted for maybe three months, and the guy from internet dating lasted just one date, but hey, I'm getting over the fear of being left, when you thnk about it, and it's all actually been quite productive; each time, I better understand and get further over the fear involved in finding someone again. I was reluctant to pursue dating for real any guy from the interent until I was confident enough to have a grasp of the whole concept and was comfortable with it. I didn't realize it would present quite the challenge it did, but it did, and maybe I kind of got dramatic at the time as I had a meltdown after my first date, but ultimately, that's okay... that's healing. Of course, my pattern of freaking out first and settling down second is not necessarily okay, especially when I involve innocent men in my relationship arc or beleager my ever-patient friends with the same story yet one more time, but it is a recognizable and familiar pattern. I need to learn from it and manage it, not cater to it.

I've met two guys from the interent which has allowed me to create a frame of reference, and the fear is receding. Apparently, my pattern is to struggle through the feelings and emotions first before I can master them and then manage them. Now that I've met more than one man from online, even though I met one entirely platonically, I can meet additional ones, having avoided the pattern of settling on the first one whom I meet.

I told my friend B that A and P are supporting me in finding a counselor, and she gave me a funny look. "You don't need counseling," she said starkly. "You're fine. You're just older, wiser, aware of what you can lose, and very good at seeing the wrong guy." There's a point to that... the guy from the internet whom I wanted to smack was the wrong guy, and I knew that continuing to date him would go the route of TCMT. Maybe I wasn't freaking out without good reason, therefore. Besides, there is no value in dating a guy I don't much care to see again. Doing it just to prove I can date again seems not only unwise but mean.

Today is my ex-husband's birthday, so I bought cupcakes for my yearbook class, and we renamed the day after me. Though I don't discuss my personal life with them generally, they know most of the story in the way people learn such things in large organizations. At first they didn't understand why I'd want to celebrate my ex-husband's birthday, and I said, "Well, just because he's not around, why should I deprive myself of a party?" They're kids, and that made sense to them. So we polished off a dozen cupcakes and an apple coffee cake, shot the breeze, and turned the day into an altogether great one for different reasons.

Seventy

This is my seventieth post since I began this blog roughly 27 months ago. I hoped, when I began it, that I'd be able to keep myself honest in given moments as to what I was thinking or believing as well as to chart my own growth through divorce recovery. I think it's done both things. I do wish I'd be more recovered than I am at this point, but perhaps I'm where I need to be, and there's no "more" recovered. It's all a process.

I am watching Adam Chandler on my soap opera, curled into a fetal position because he's realized his wife cheated on him. I felt like that in the beginning, and I remember when each moment was a struggle and a burden after my husband left. Sleeping was a burden. Eating was a burden. Existing was a burden. It's not like that anymore, and it hasn't been for a long time. That's recovery.

I have entered into one longish and one shortish relationship since my divorce, and that's recovery.

I've conquered my life in many ways, if not all. And I see where there is work yet for me to do in becoming the person I want to be. That will take courage and patience (everything depends on being ready!), but I recognize the hurdles and mean to shore up my courage to face my fears. That's strength. That's recovery.

Courage isn't an absence of fear; have I said that here before? Courage is acting in spite of fear, because action is necessary.

There are so many games I play in my head about the divorce that nobody knows about. "Am I wearing any clothes my ex ever saw?" "If I log onto the messenger program, will the HL leave me a message (that I won't return, of course?)" When I play those games, it clarifies exactly how different life is now, despite of living in the same house and going to the same job, caring for the same cats and seeing some of the same friends. I forget that I have new furniture, new and marvelous friends, new clothes, new students, and even a new position at work in coming months. I have a new degree. I've taught new subjects, welcomed new family members, begun a new gym regime, and grown three years older. Everything changes. I forgot that. I forget that. I fear finding love again for fear of what might change, but I forget, it all changes anyway. Whether I change it or the world does it for me, everything changes. Choosing to move forward means action, not reaction. Deciding what I want and behaving accordingly, not living below the radar and hoping nothing happens to hurt me. More strength. More recovery.

It's all going to be okay. You know? It is. I'm so scared sometimes, but it's really going to be okay. I've learned so much more than I never knew I didn't know.

Defining Barriers

I was reading an article that describes the alleged-three stages of dating after divorce; I found it on a website I most closely resemble stage one, which I suppose shouldn't surprise me as much as it does, considering my traumatic attempts to undertake dating again recently. However, the article got me thinking, why exactly is this whole dating thing so difficult this time? Non-divorced types (abbreviated hereafter as NDT's) seem to embrace, vicariously, my opportunity to find someone now as an older, wiser, seasoned, established woman, a "real" woman with real power to do things right. A. claims she sees how much I have to offer, and she yearns for me to find happiness with someone, as she seems to feel I am meant to do. Other NDT's seem almost envious of the chance to find real love, as though their intact marriages are somehow letdowns. As though my "opportunity" is one for which they themselves are ripe. Or as though my marriage was "sham love."

Understanding... still, I am searching for real understanding.

So, what are the barriers to finding happiness this time around? Can I establish understanding for myself, and then for the rampant NDT's?

1. Personal Commitment. On some level that I fear the NDT's won't support, I think my own sense of loyalty and commitment to my marriage is something of a barrier to finding a new, real relationship. I was supposed to be married forever. I am supposed to be married now. I made that promise, too, and not just to him, but also to myself. Yes, my husband ended the marriage, not I. On a cognitive level I know that there's no remaining obligation to him in any legal or moral sense (our marriage was a civil one, and he wasn't baptized; the religious morality is clear), but at the same time, I myself made a promise. I myself made a commitment. I myself meant to honor my word for the rest of my life. While the law, my religion, and the rest of the world are prepared for me to wipe that slate clean and move on, does doing so compromise my word? On some level, I feel like I'm betraying myself. Just because he opted out, it's hard for me to embrace the idea of finding a new love. He can live as though our marriage was a "thing" and not real, but to me it was, and to me, perhaps it's a bit of an issue.

2. Trust. This is easier for the NDT's to understand. My ex-husband betrayed me. He left without explanation or effort. The person who was supposed to love me forever, whom I trusted with not only my worldly goods but my heart and soul, whom I adored in all his flaws and imperfections, found it possible to get up and walk out of our life together without a backward glance. While I can tell myself that something broken within him had festered too long and too deeply to save our marriage, at the same time, knowing that such a thing can happen is deeply troubling, deeply frightening. I never believed it possible before, and now I know all-too-well how possible it is. How do I learn to trust another person again so fundamentally? My online friend C, a divorced-type, has supported me by saying anyone who's not scared after something like that is looney, not stunted. I appreciated the support. Yet, I want rigorously to believe I live in a world that can support such a love; to find it will be a huge act of courage for me that I accept as necessary and will take... when I am prepared to lose everything.

3. Loss. Those fortunate people like my parents, my aunt and uncle, my friend P and her husband, my brother and sister in law... most of the intact marriages that began in people's twenties... those people all found one another and threw themselves into marriage as relatively young adults. They began together and built their lives together, as my ex-husband and I did, largely. Now, beyond the disillusionment and conflict of promise, I recognize that I already have a life. This time-around, I'm not building so much as merging. I have baggage. I have a history. In all likelihood, so will the man with whom I decide to take a chance. That's uncomfortable... that's somehow frightening, actually. These aren't kids I'm dating like they were before, these are honest-to-God men... some are fathers, most are professionals, almost all are accomplished men in their own right with expectations that I have no idea if I can meet. Maybe I'm still emotionally the younger girl I was when I married in 1998; the men aren't. Frightening. And with a fairly good life of my own, I have something to lose this time... I have more to offer, perhaps, and more to lose. But I guess, so has he. And I'm stronger; I'm not that girl anymore. It's so hard to feel brave, when I feel very small.

Trying Too Hard, Chemistry, and How Things Change

I'm "processing" this week and its misadventures, according to A., and I'm also getting somewhere, in her opinion. I think I still need the benefit of a counselor right now to finally work through the disillusionment, betrayal, and anger from the divorce and find a context for what's happened over the past three years since. But, I think I'm making some discoveries on my own, getting used to what I'm discovering, and fitting it together at least rudimentarily. That's pretty good.

I went on a date Monday, and by Wednesday, I'd told him I couldn't see him again. I've thought so much about this. Yes, I'm outrageously afraid of being vulnerable, and I'm not terribly ready to jump in with both feet. That, I knew, and that's definitely a part of it. I could tell he liked me, and I wasn't quite ready for unequivocal liking so quickly. At the same time, after having had a week to think about it, I don't see that there was much Chemistry there on my half. I wasn't comfortable with him, and as a result, I was forcing myself to Try Too Hard. I thought I should do this, make myself give him a chance. But I didn't feel "it." I need a comfortable person, an attractive man with self-confidence. Comfortable with himself. Relaxed. Calm. Willing to get to know me and "make" me interested in getting to know him. This person was very nice, very gentlemanly -- but also somewhat hyper and frenetic, a big talker who not only produced a volume of words, but at a volume. Reaction? I wanted to shush him. I was exhausted when I went home.

I'm scared, and that's huge... and also, I didn't see this going anywhere.

Would I see him differently if I weren't so scared? That's possible.

But you know, I am starting to give more credence to the viceral reaction to someone. I had an instant visceral reaction to the HL when I met him. I was hysterical about him too, in retrospect, but never enough to shut it down in the early time. I had one with TCMT too, and over time, our incompatibility emerged... but at least, I gave it that time.

So, things are different now. I am different now. I'm not young and idealistic. I am mature with a sense of the potential for relationships, both for good and for ill. I have lost my native innocence, and I have a gun-shyness I didn't have before. The men are different... they are older, more accomplished, and bear their own relationship baggage and/or scars. They've done things. I've done things. Instead of meeting like so many dewy twenty year olds and establishing a life together, the process now is meeting with a sense of who we are and what we're all about and merging lives together. That's something I never tangibly understood before this week. It scares the hell out of me.

But maybe caution isn't all bad, and with my new understanding, perhaps I can begin to manage my fears.

Accomplishments

Okay, okay. The woman here is tied up with much "kaka," as my grandma would call it... realizing that dating at 35 is not the same thing at all as dating in my twenties, which was the last time I in any way dated. I Will Be Scared -- and that's okay. You know, dammit, the right kind of guy, with understanding and a giving heart, will GET that I'm scared, and it won't freak him out. And in turn, I won't freak out either.