Divorcees don’t fall head-over-heels in love
A young couple, hand-in-hand and dewy-faced in love, stood in line at Peet’s before Sara and me the other morning.
“You know, that’s one of the things that sucks about divorce,” she said, gesturing with her head to them.
“I’m not sure what you mean. Divorcees still hold hands.”
“No, I mean love.”
“Divorcees still love! I do, anyway.”
“I mean that kind of love, that can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other, love-stuck, obsessive, eye-gazing, falling head-over-heels kind of love, like when we were younger.”
“We still fall in love like that. Plus, I absolutely cannot keep my hands off of Sean,” I sniffed.
“No we don’t.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because its true, that’s why. We know too
much now, and there’s too much at stake
because we’re moms.” 
“Well, yeah, but we still fall head-over-heels in love.”
“Have you, now?”
Hmm, well, I had to think about that. I’ve fallen head-over-heels in lust — no question about that. Lots of times. But love? Not really.
Is Sara right?
Maybe.
We all learn from breakups, and most of us
have a fair share of them before we get married. But a divorce is the Big B, Breakup with a capital B. No way you can go through a divorce and not have it shape the way you feel about men, love, the idea of “happily-ever-after,” life itself and ourselves. It’s easy to turn bitter and that flavors every new relationships; or we get bitter — and frustrated — after we start dating again, and if you’ve been married a long time, dating again at midlife is always a shocker.
It’s like waking up on an alien planet without a Transporter to beam you back home.
Sometimes, we can’t keep the past out of the present; we compare whomever we’re with who our ex, either fearing ways in which they’re similar or looking for ways in which they don’t quite measure up.
And let’s not forget fear — we’re afraid we’ll get hurt again and have to go through all that all over again, when we’re older and exhausted just by the idea of trying to meet someone! So we keep a little of ourselves back, tucked safe behind a slightly hardened heart; each time we “fail” at a new relationship (it feels like failure, even if we shouldn’t think of it that way), a little more gets hardened and a little more gets hidden.
Divorcees don’t delve head first and fall fully madly, wonderfully foolishly into love.
Especially if we have kids. They add all sorts of complications into the mix, the major one being that we don’t want to drag them through another breakup. So we are really, really, really cautious — and we should be.
Anyone we fall in love with has to not only be someone we love and who loves us back, but someone who’ll be nice to our kids, even if they don’t love each other (but we’d do anything we can to make that happen!)
So, is Sara right — can we ever fall in love like we did when we were younger if we’ve gone through a divorce?
Photo © david brown – Fotolia.com
The boyfriend-teen smackdown
We were near the end of a family-like dinner, The Kid, Sean and me, when Trent said something rude to me.
I let it slide — Sean was our guest and was a bit embarrassed — although inside I was pissed.
“Why are you letting him get away with that?” Sean asked me later, as I washed the dishes and he dried.
“Well, I know he’s really upset because he bombed his history test.”
“And what does that have to do with anything?”
“He’s not really upset at me.” 
“That doesn’t mean he should be rude, which he’s been a number of times. Stop excusing him! Do you want me to say something?”
“No, let it be.”
Sean sighed deeply and started drying a little more vigorously; I thought for sure he was going to take the glaze off my plates. Now, I had a rude kid, a pissed-off mom and a frustrated boyfriend on my hands.
Nice!
Sean was right; Trent has dissed me from time to time. I’ve tended to shrug it off as a teenage thing — I pick my battles carefully, opting for the biggies like drugs and booze. Still, I don’t like rudeness from anyone, and I certainly don’t want to indulge it in my own kid — but I wrestle with how much of that Sean should be part of.
How much parenting should a boyfriend do?
I asked the experts — my friends — and like most experts, they were all over the map.
“You’ve been seeing each other long enough. It’s absolutely his right to say something,” Sara said when she, Mia and I met for coffee the next morning.
“I don’t think so,” Mia said, shaking her head. “He’s not his stepdad and you guys aren’t married or even living together. You could split tomorrow, and Trent knows that. Sean doesn’t have full creds. If anything, you should tell Rob about the rudeness so he could say something. You may be divorced, but you’re still the mom and he’s still the dad.”
Both of them made sense, especially since my discipline techniques wouldn’t be anything I’d put on a resume; sometime they work, sometimes not. Like a lot of moms — especially single or divorced moms — I tend to feel guilty. I just wimp out.
But in what way should my partner step into the fray, if he should at all?
It’s not like we’re talking about “go to your room” or “washing your mouth out with soap” disciplining. And Trent’s hardly a baby or a little kid who’ll work the angles, like Single Mom Seeking blogged about. He’s as tall as Sean and he shaves as often (sometimes more, because it’s still new and exciting).
Honestly, though, it would be so nice to have the support of another adult saying, “Don’t talk that way to your mother!” That’s one thing married couples have that single parents don’t. Still, there’s a part of me that thinks divorced or not, parents need to be a united front so the kids know where the boundaries are and, guess what? — the front exists at mom’s house and dad’s house.
- Who disciplines better, you or your spouse/ex-spouse?
- What role should a boyfriend/girlfriend have, if any?
- Are men better at disciplining than women?
Other single parenting dilemmas:
Help! I saw my dad’s girlfriend naked!
photo © j0yce – Fotolia.com
Dating, unplugged
“I envy you guys,” Sara said as she, Mia and I sat in her hot tub last night.
“As you should! We’re such fabulous, gorgeous women with perfect children and perfect lives,” Mia quipped. “But we still like to hang with you, Sara, so that almost, almost, makes you one of us. Be thankful.”
“Don’t be silly, and don’t pay attention to Mia, either,” I said. “But, why in the world do you envy us?”
“You both have found love and I’m beginning to feel like one of those picky single women. I’m stuck in “impress a guy” mode while you both are walking around in your faded jammy pants, cozy Ts, chipped nail polish and no makeup.”
Sara did have a point. When you’ve been seeing someone for a while, you can finally relax and be yourself, although wouldn’t it be better to be yourself from the beginning? Which leads to the bigger question — can you be yourself from the beginning?
I sure thought I was back when I was dating, well, except for the enormous amount of time I spent on beauty maintenance — waxing, hair and facial
fussing, outfit organizing and other assorted
routines. But that’s the superficial stuff. 
The “being you” is showing all your quirks, your good and bad sides, the way you deal with life, work, friends and family — especially your kids.
And that’s one of the things that freaked me out about getting to the point in a relationship when your kid and your sweetie meet (besides not wanting to put The Kid through another breakup); as Art Linkletter said, kids say the darndest things — mostly about you. They also make us act like crazy people sometimes.
I feared my kid was going to burst the bubble I’d created about myself to the guy I was trying to impress.
I’ll be damned if my parenting skills are
going to influence a guy, I thought. After all,
it isn’t fair to begin with: The Kid has a lot of ammo against me for all the times I grounded him, took away his PlayStation or told him, “No!” In fact, he’s got 17 years’ worth!
And yet, few things reveal more of the real you than how you are around others, especially your kid. As Single Mom Seeking says, “something about parenting around and in front of someone you’re dating seems to bring everyone to stark reality.”
Yes, it does.
Impressions can only go so far when you’ve finally invited your guy over to meet your kid and all hell breaks loose. That Mommy of the Year award you were hoping for? Forget about it!
But, maybe not.
I remember Sean telling me about a day I don’t even remember. He’d stopped by the house to fix something and, as he did — quite obliviously to me — was watching Trent and me doing our thing, mom and son interacting like we do every day. No pretense, no “impress” mode — just me (although I’m pretty sure I was waxed, but whatever). That’s the day Sean says he fell in love with me.
So, maybe stark reality is not only nothing to fear, but something essential in an honest relationship.
And who would guess that having kids would help make that happen?
- For how long after you meet someone do you feel that you’re in “impress” mode?
- Can you “be yourself” in the early stages of dating, or do you have to “impress” him/her?
- Does parenting around your date show the “real” you quickly?
Photo © 2roxfox – Fotolia.com
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