When you have spent the last decade of your life in a relationship with one person, you become fairly secure. You stop having the necessary armor and skills set required for life in the single lane. So when you suddenly find yourself checking the single-type boxes on the forms (single, divorced, separated, etc.), it is a very difficult transition.
And what, I asked my previously-divorced friends, is the hardest part about the transition? The rebound relationship was high on the list of answers. Luckily, I have now made those two monster mistakes and have moved on. Let me tell you a little about my gigantic stupidity…
The first was a fireman in a neighboring district that I had actually known for years through my soon-to-be-ex-husband. A man significantly older than me with two almost-adult children, a bitter divorce, a drinking problem, and who bears a curious resemblance to Shrek. And, oh yeah, did I mention that he was ALSO having an affair with my husband’s mistress? Yep, you read that right. He had been sharing the mistress with my husband for at least a year and was royally ticked that she seemed to have chosen my husband as the victor. So, his reaction was to start calling me, telling me that only we could understand the betrayal and that we should be together. He would call and text me constantly and, dumb me, I believed the son of a bitch! I thought he was sincere, I thought that he truly knew what I was going through. Needless to say, he was simply using me to irritate the mistress – and it worked. He did kindly offer to juggle me into his schedule when she wasn’t around but I didn’t think that seemed like a good idea. So, score a 10 on the Stupid Scale for me!
My second rebound was, I’m sorry to report, an even dumber idea than the first! He was a very recent widower and we clung to each other like drowning people to life jackets. We believed the “I love yous” and in the happily ever after fairy tale – we were both so desperate to put our pasts behind us and start again. On the surface, it was actually quite a perfect match – we were both fairly quiet, family-oriented, loving people with mutual interests in history, country life, and the fire department. I think we both deluded ourselves into thinking that true love could happen just that quick. Until, as he tells it, he started having dreams about his late wife. Literally overnight, I was out on my butt in the cold – Thursday night he wants to fool around and to talk about our wedding (in that order) and Friday he is cutting ties totally. And, being me, I assumed it was something I had done wrong and did the requisite insecure girl thing and cried and begged. Yep, I admit it, it wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t classy. But he was done with me – refusing to see me, speak to me on the phone, or even respond to text messages, saying he needed time alone to think. Oho, the good old “it’s not you, it’s me” phrase even came out of him – why do men do that?? Do they have any idea how thoroughly irritating that is?? At any rate, two weeks later I received a text telling me has a new 20-year girlfriend and they expect to be very happy and, by the way, don’t contact him anymore. If I thought my husband’s departure left me spinning, this last ending cut me in half. I find myself still turning in circles wondering how in the HELL I had ended up here?
So 2010 was NOT a good year for me in terms of relationships. I saw my marriage end, my Shrek-loving days come screeching to a close, and my merry widower has moved on to a girl who can’t even legally drink. But I have high hopes for 2011! Things have GOT to get better, right? So stay tuned….
Nice post
We can trust our judgment to take life as it comes
We are imperfect and will make mistakes
We only can make the decisions in the present based on the info we have at the time, which is usually none. So we take a risk and move in a direction that will bring us happiness and if we were wrong then we will simply make another choice. We still took a risk and did something hard which is what it means to be successful
[…] In the fall, after my marriage had gone the way of dead roses and angry words, I began to date some other men. Needless to say, they were NOT good choices and, in fact, were downright disastrous. But one […]