Living in the Present, only Looking Forward

[Coconut]

My history of dating is that I go all in too fast, something that I will be trying to temper in any future relationships, and wanted to post something I read while going through an old thread so I can refer back to it in the future.

I'm not going to quote it so it will be complete, it was written by tl2:



Some thoughts on post-D dating:

So I've been dating a very nice person for 7 months now. We occasionally get together with her friends and mine who are either divorced or never married. Interestingly, we seem to listen to them complain a good bit of the time about their dating pitfalls.

Having had several of these conversations now with various people in the 40s, I've made a few observations:

-- everyone who invested too much before really getting to know someone ended up with a difficult breakup

-- everyone who didn't maintain discipline regarding their personal space and balancing dating with the rest of their lives ended up in a difficult situation they're trying to resolve now, or in a difficult breakup.

-- people who dating clearly incompatible people got burned; a friend of mine who is not religious at all and who was married/divorced in his early 20s (he's 49 now) without kids dated a woman 14 years younger for two years who was very religious and wanted kids.

-- people dating where either or both had wildly inflated expectations early on ended up sorely disappointed; the 2 I talked to the most both communicated the same old magical, fairy tale thinking that I don't think ever works. I've even heard from people who had been through painful divorces and marital counseling that was fairly consistent with db principles.

Since my gf and I always seem happy and have fun with no drama, etc., I was asked "how I knew she was the 'right' woman for me". Haha. My responses:

-- I don't know that at all. That's not even a question I care about answering. My goal is to hang out and have fun with someone nice who I enjoy being with. End of story.

-- It makes no sense to start talking about a future with each other until you really start getting to know each other. I don't care what anyone says, that takes a good amount of time. Not something you can know about someone else in 3 months. So why worry about it? If one or both are looking to lock the other down quickly, that's probably a bad sign. Of neediness, control issues, or more.

-- Things move 'fast' because we choose to move fast and that seems to generally be driven by unhealthy thinking (again, IMO). They don't have to. We're grown ups and should act like it. The faster people move, and the earlier they do it, the more that seems to take on a snowball effect, so we develop attachments and a false sense of intimacy too damn soon...then after 6 months or so start getting a sense of what it's like to really be with this other person and how they make decisions.

What has been working for me (and, again, everyone's different and everyone's mileage may vary):

- GF and I see each other almost every weekend for a day or two. While we occasionally have a date during the week, or on a special occasion, we largely keep the work week for work and kids and friends.

- We talk a couple times during the week and occasionally text, especially if one of us has a challenge with something with kids or work that we want to talk about (that's usually her). For the most part, we save convos for when we see each other.

- We both agreed that our focus was going to be on hanging out and having fun, and thereby get to know each other. There has been no kind of "if you're not going to pursue a long-term serious relationship then we don't need to date" by either of us. Frankly, if I heard that from someone I hadn't known for a year or so, I'd be showing myself the door.

- We've taken 2 or 3 weekend trips together. Again...fun!

So it's been great. However, nothing's perfect and there have been some challenges:

1. She's been divorced a lot longer than I have and is a bit more ready to 'settle down' again should the right opportunity arise. I've made it very clear that while I'm not opposed to that, I'm also not interested in getting too serious in the short-term. It's not a huge issue at the moment, but she's made it clear that she is leaning toward being 'all-in' even though she respects my line on that.

2. I disagree with how she handles her kids on some things. Mine are grown and out of the house so are not as much of an issue. Sometimes when she's here my kids come over and we hang out a little; same when I am at her place. She has one in college and one in high school, and the differences in how we approach dealing with kids' issues highlight our differences in personality and decision-making on some things. It's unclear how best to negotiate that with each other...yet another good reason for taking it slow.

3. Both for my work and for myself, I need a lot of quiet, alone time. I enjoy social interaction but don't need it daily like she does. After a day alone with nothing going on, she gets stir crazy and because of my nature, I often need the opposite at the same time. As a result, I've encouraged her to continue spending more time with friends and family for the time being and, naturally, being a bit more emotional than me she sometimes feels slighted. So I reassure her at times and sometimes make an unexpected mid-week date, or agree to one if she asks; other times, she respects my need for more space. Again, whether this ends up being a deal-breaker or not, who knows.

So we talk things out the best we can and the communication is good even though we don't always see eye to eye. We continue to enjoy our time to together and, so far, neither of us is interested in ending that. While we have had some discussions that have been difficult because of our different natures, the dynamic is good with no drama or serious fighting.

Having not dated for so long because I was married (yes, some of us don't date while we're married...shocking I know), it's been interesting. I've worked very hard to not only try and grow past some of the bad habits and unfruitful behaviors I developed during the latter years of my marriage, but to apply some of those new ways of thinking to this new, wacky dating life.

At times I've been tempted by various negative thoughts or unfruitful ones that often cause us to lose focus/balance and seek to solve problems by covering them or soothing ourselves with a relationship: fear of being alone forever; the almost Pavlovian response many of us experience for the gratification you get when someone throws plenty of positive attention at you...especially after years of having little or none; to be dishonest with yourself or with someone else in order to make things simpler, allow the other to believe something incorrect, etc.; and to put pressure on someone else to conform to our expectations, soothe our insecurities, or generally start relying on someone else to make us 'happy'.

I'm not saying I'm doing it right or have all the answers. Just sharing my post-D dating experience and happily reporting that overall it's been positive by continuing to apply the basic principles of individual strength and independence I learned initially from reading the DB literature. Avoiding unhealthy attachments; having a life; balancing dating and such with other priorities and, etc., really do work, and aren't all that difficult to apply.

The difficulties always seem to involve our not being honest with ourselves or willing to identify and change unhealthy behaviors. That requires constant vigilance. But again...who knew life could be so enjoyable after all those bad years!