Part One - Be Very Careful About Jumping Back Into the Game
I have a rather recently divorced friend who posted a picture on Facebook yesterday with the caption, "It's better to have nobody than to have someone who is half there, or doesn't want to be there." I happen to agree completely with this sentiment. However, my friend posted "Actually NOT...Half there is great because then I could still have me time..."
Argh! Did she not learn a THING from her awful marriage? (apparently no) Does she really want a man so desperately? (actually, yes, she does) Having been in an extremely lonely marriage because of Hubby's "mistress" the bottle (I have not had sex since January 2007 and Hubby died in June 2012...get the picture?) I cannot imagine a relationship with someone who is only "half there". I had that...and then brain damage made it gradually even less and less.
I can certainly understand wanting to have sex. Good heavens, along with chocolate and a nice glass of red wine, it is essential to life and I often feel the deprivation of such a necessary thing. But my friend has rushed into some dreadful romantic situations due to her hastiness. Being a martial artist who regularly teaches self-defense I actually worry a great deal about her safety as well and have urged her to attend one of my workshops.
I guess in many ways I am a fuddy-duddy. I have two teenage sons; I really cannot be catting around bringing home strangers who swiped RIGHT on Tinder. I tried signing up for eHarmony only to be utterly humiliated by their screening process and then I was REJECTED! (apparently it was because I don't want to be married) I scrolled through Match and POF and just felt like some sort of voyeur looking at men to buy....Ugh! Ok - so I am too old-fashioned to do that whole thing. (I admire women who can and actually another friend of mine has found a lovely gentleman through POF)
I suppose what I am trying to say in this post is - if you have survived the alcoholic marriage you probably have a great deal of healing to do. If you have children, they probably have a great deal of healing to do. And you have suffered...my God, how you have suffered... In short, you deserve the best the NEXT time 'round (if you even want a next time 'round). Hold out for a good partner now. Make a list. Have some absolutes: I absolutely MUST have this and I absolutely MUST NOT have that. You don't need to be going from the frying pan into the fire....
In many ways having been the wife of an alcoholic I have the kind of experience that lets me sense potential issues from far off. For example, I gotta say that my martial arts instructor is pretty hot stuff. Hoooo-boy is he hot stuff. But I can see the issues from MILES AWAY. There are definitely multiple reasons why this guy was only married once and it was for 18 months. I shall take a pass, thank you very much!
Someday if some guy just wants to come along, take me to fun places (and no, he doesn't have to pay all the time!), be nice to me and my family and come with a good supply of sex, wine and chocolate (hmmm...this seems to be a recurring theme!) I will be happy to play along and have a "boyfriend". And maybe that will never happen because I am too picky. But better to never have what I deserve than to settle for someone I don't deserve again....
"And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned."
--Dorothy Parker
