Life After Divorce Support Group
This community is dedicated to starting over after a divorce. With the marriage over, how do individuals begin a new chapter in their lives and what hurdles do they face? Divorce is often one of the most traumatic periods in a person's life. Studies show it is the second-most stressful event in life, after the death of a spouse.
So... My back story first. Nov 2014 ex wife leaves me for another man she met only 2 weeks before after spending a year prior to that telling me we were ok and that she loved me. No communication on how unhappy she was. Of course there were signs, but I never knew for a moment that she was that unhappy.
Anyway, fast forward almost 2 years and I'm in a relatively good place mentally, emotionally and financially.
Now I find myself kind of feeling lonely on a pretty regular basis, I miss being part of a couple and I definitely miss her.
I've dated a few women, but the results always end up the same, they're not interested and I'm really starting to feel like there's something wrong with me. The last woman I dated lasted 4 months, and her hesitation was that I have kids and she doesn't have kids and wasn't sure she was ready to date a man with children. Fair enough, I can understand that.
I don't feel like it would be difficult to find dates. Online dating has made it easier than ever to meet new people, it's great. Right now though I feel afraid. I'm afraid of being rejected yet AGAIN. I open up the dating apps, I match some people and even have some women saying hi to me first. Then I don't respond.
I think it's because I've become really disillusioned about love. I don't really see a point in trying to find something that no one seems to be willing to work on. Now I have nothing against women, but 70% of all divorces are initiated by women (the interesting thing is that in non married relationships the breakups are equal). And I have read so many pro-divorce articles often written by women. Too many articles where the initiator has openly said that there wasn't anything overtly wrong, but they just had to find "themselves" or they were "unhappy".
I guess I find it hard to believe that I could trust anyone again with these thoughts, actions and ideas being the driving force behind many divorces. The whole Eat, Pray, Love thing! (Which by the way her and her husband of 15 years, who she met on her Eat, Pray, Love adventure are now splitting). I find it almost pointless to even try or to even bother.
See I'm not basing this off just those things alone. I gave my heart to my ex 100%. There was no out for me. We made a family and in that commitment (abuse is always an out) I would have worked on what would have been needed to make sure we got over the bad times. I really trusted her. I understand that we had some issues, and I clearly see what mine were after the fact. My point is though, is that she based her decision off of how she was feeling over a short amount of time. A feeling that is fleeting and changes. Her unhappiness, as though it was my fault that she was unhappy. Never mind all the great times. It just seems people (men included) are often so willing to throw it all away, only to discover that how they feel may not be any different down the road and that the real work needs to start with them.
Our throw away culture saddens me. It saddens me that people aren't willing to take the time to reconnect. They're all too eager to shed what they think is their cause of strife, for something new and shiny.
Seems really pointless if you ask me... Love just seems like a losing game, and that no matter what, someone will ALWAYS get hurt, ALWAYS! I know that this is a sad way of being, and I also know that at some point I will probably fall madly in love again and forget that I ever felt this way. For now I'm trying to embrace my single life and do some personal growth and enjoy just being me without the expectations of another. For now I sign off... The Late Brew!
I can understand everything you said. My ex did not cheat, but she was unhappy. I've not started to date yet and I'm not really sure when I will. I'm just content being single at this point. Not sure I could take any more rejection right now. Hang in there and things are bound to improve for both of us.
See, I have an ex husband who 'doesn't understand why we broke up'. And also I have been the 100% committed lover with someone who was about 5% committed back. So I know there are two ways to look at this.
Your wife was definitely not 100% committed. That's a given. If she had been she'd still be there and you two would have worked out your issues.
But then again, why was she not 100% committed? If she's not committed, it's because she doesn't feel ready to lock you in. She's wondering if something better will come along.
So her leaving you wasn't based on 2 weeks. Oh no. Her leaving you has been years in the making. Not telling you has been another thing. Why? I don't know. Were you receptive to her telling you things? Were you interested? How did you actually feel about her?
I had a husband who ignored my desperate attempts to communicate for 17 years and then acts all surprised when I leave him. Which I did because I was suicidal: it was leave or die, that's what it had come to for me. But he wasn't receptive for 17 yrs. So I know it's a possibility.
I've had a few years now without a relationship. I feel very burned myself. I feel that people all have flaws. We all do. We will all have strengths and weaknesses and the trick is to enjoy and value the strengths, and leave the weaknesses out of it. Discuss things that go wrong, figure them out. But if discussion won't work, leave the issue for a while, let time do some work... if you're in the long haul everything doesn't have to be solved overnight.
One thing is for sure though. There is no such thing as leaving you for another man. No. She hitched her wagon to a new horse because she wanted to unhitch from you. She latched onto the nearest horse. And you may never figure out why.
Often a woman has been saying what's wrong, for years, and not being heard. They reach a point where they no longer know how to verbalize their feelings because past history has shown them that the husband has never really listened before, or has never gotten it before, so he isn't going to listen or get it now.
Behind all of that is a problem with a lot of marriages, that one person is fine with the status quo, while the other is not. The one who is not, leaves to find something more to life.
My husband and I were not well matched in the first place, but we got married. I felt that I was in love with him and he felt that I'd make a good wife for him. He turned out to be a very difficult person to be married to and while he knew that, he felt that was irrelevant because a wife is supposed to let the man be the boss and she should stay in the marriage til death do us part. In other words, he did not feel that change on his part was necessary, while change on my part was very necessary for the success of the marriage.
After years of strife, the status quo for him became good enough. Meaning, we could just go on the way we were 'til one of us died, so what, that was his comfort zone, it was better than upsetting his apple cart by complicating life with a divorce.
That was not my comfort zone. I was 49 and he was 47 and I felt there had to be 'life out there' somewhere. I had truly lost myself, in trying to please him. I had little idea of who I was anymore or what I believed or why I was on this planet. My life had no purpose. It was that simple.
I began to fear dying without ever making a stab at happiness, more than I feared the consequences of leaving.
He was the opposite, he had an old person attitude and when I told him I was leaving he actually told me that he knew he had "driven" me away, but that he didn't understand why I would leave 'now, this late'. He felt we were 'old' and why not just live out our lives the way we were instead of disrupting our lives now with a divorce.
I did not want to end up like that, doing the same things over and over and over, and being a very separate person from my spouse, for the rest of my life. I feel that he was wrong to think that should be good enough for me, for him, or for anyone at all.
I'd been unhappy for a very long time, and since day one I had talked to him about my concerns and needs, only to either be completely be ignored, or given a sort of verbal pat on the back and a 'there, there', I'm listening', only to have him, within a few hours, exactly as he always had. I stayed so long that I went from being in love with him, to loving him but not liking him much, to loathing him. That is not good. It is best to leave before that happens, but a lot of women hang in there too long. It's better for both people to just get it over with earlier, than later.
As for dating, it caused me a lot of stress both pre-divorce (our separation was long, over 4 years, so I started dating when we'd been separated for 2 years) and post divorce. I am on a nice, long break from dating and I have learned a lot both about myself and about others, that I can now use going into dating again someday.
You are right to step aside and do some soul searching. Far too many people just start dating after a divorce, or even before, and then they have all this relationship angst to deal with while they are also trying to figure out who they are after years of marriage. Who needs that?
Loneliness is not a disease, it's just loneliness and we can learn a lot about ourselves from our loneliness, if we listen. You are still learning about yourself. The things you learn about who you are, without the stress of dating, will put you in a much better place when you decide it's time to try it again. It's the people who won't stop looking, dating, who just keep making the same mistakes. Instead, focus on what you learned, what you want, and who you are as a man. Experience life without dating. If you can do that, I really believe you will be happier in your future dating life.