Do you ever wonder if staying in an unhappy marriage for years has made you blind to warning signs as you date again? Are you so accustomed to "dealing with" relationship issues and compromising who you are/what you need, that you continue dating someone who’s already bringing you down?
Take Chuck for example, a man who recently wrote me asking for counsel around a woman he’s been dating for a month now. Although he really likes this woman, to his chagrin, she doesn’t like receiving oral sex. When he tried to talk to her about it, she closed the conversation and laughed: “Hey, consider yourself lucky — I’ll never make you do it so you’re off the hook.”
Then, to make matters worse, he’s noticed that they can be in the same room for hours without her wanting any kind of physical contact — not even as much as a hug. "What do you think of her behavior, Delaine?" he asked. “What can I do to make things better?”
“One less bell to answer. One less egg to fry. One less man to pick up after…and all I do is cry.” You may or may not remember these lyrics from a song recorded by The Fifth Dimension a million years ago, but whether or not you do, they sum up the feeling of being left and alone as well as any I can think of.
Sure it’s sad when your husband exits, stage left. Even though you couldn’t stand another minute of sharing airspace with him, it’s disconcerting to feel disconnected from the man you vowed to love forever. But the thought of not having to pick up after him anymore, fry an extra egg or answer his calls should bring you a modicum of relief right off the bat. And as days turn into weeks and months you will begin to feel good about yourself again. In fact you might even feel so happy, you’ll be ready pronounce yourself a Gay Divorcee and when this happens it will be a red letter day indeed!
Once upon a time in the land of happily-ever-after, I enjoyed a great sex life with the man I promised to have and to hold. What had been a constant in our life ended with a whimper, not a bang, slowly riding off into the sunset until one day I was standing alone in the dark wondering what had happened. By the time I noticed it was gone, any traces of the heat between us had turned cold and I was at a loss as to the whys and wherefores of its disappearance.
“The thrill is gone,” I told my girlfriends, hoping that they might be able to shed some light on the fact that my husband had lost all interest in me. “Maybe it’s just a phase he’s going through like the terrible twos or a penchant for wearing leisure suits,” one of them said. I had to laugh but really, the whole thing was far from funny.
I have such a low tolerance for marriage mates (male or female) who dishonor their vows via infidelity.
I really would describe it as the ultimate betrayal and just pure selfish. Needless to say, with all the talk about Tiger Woods’ apology and his newfound commitment to his mom’s faith, I figured I might as well chime in.
At first, I was going to name this post “Why Tiger Woods Is Better Than Most Christian Cheats” For real! lol
My thought was, heck, at least he’s apologizing to his WORLD of FANS, when it appears most preachers and Christian leaders who get “caught” or caught-up can barely apologize to their families, let alone their church congregations or ministry supporters who they truly owe some sort of apology to.
It’s hard to re-arrange your life when you don’t have a set of blueprints to follow or even some shred of a plan. You just have to feel your way along. You start out as a solo act, adopting various dance partners along the way until one day, bam! You meet the partner you never want to stop dancing with. Eventually, you tie the knot, set up housekeeping and begin the process of finding your way through the day-to-day maze of married life. You become attuned to his inner and outer rhythms, and he to yours. You become a duo — hopefully a dynamic one — and you boogie together through life. That’s how it’s supposed to be, at least that’s the ad campaign I grew up on.
So let me tell you, it was a painful moment for me when my husband lost his grip and began stepping all over my feet.
There were a lot of “B” movies made in the 1950’s that featured a particular type of female character: The Divorcee. She was bruised fruit, used but not owned, who had experiences that a virgin bride did not. A woman with carnal knowledge, worldly in the ways of the boudoir, a kitten with a whip that had moved from the big city to some bedroom community in search of a little peace and quiet.
But in the eyes of everyone in town, her raison d’etre was to lure unsuspecting married men to her lair where she would seduce them to within an inch of their lives, sporting nothing but a flimsy negligee and feather-topped mules. And supposedly, this Pied Piper of the boudoir spent all her free time trolling for sex, heat dripping from her every pore, awaiting the touch of the first man who came her way, while the respectable women in town alternated between scorning her and plotting to set her house on fire.
It’s February 14 and the first Valentine’s Day since my husband moved out. I have repeated the mantra, “I don’t care about this stupid holiday, I don’t care about this stupid holiday, I don’t care about this stupid holiday…” for several weeks, ever since the advertising blitz began in earnest, and I really believed what I was chanting. So why do I feel like crap today?
I have done my best to ignore the whole thing, but still, this holiday has seeped into my conscious brain and made me feel like a total loser. And in my mind’s eye, every Valentine’s I have spent alone parades in front of me, marching to the tune of “One is the Loneliest Number” and kicking up their heels as if to say, “You’ll always be alone like this…”
