Divorced With a Kid: Can She Really Find Love?

Hello Terry,

I met a guy online two weeks ago.

We went out on our first meeting and hit off really well. We had a lot to drink, and we were hammered. We ended up lying in bed; we didn't have sex the first night.

He has been messaging every morning, lunch, dinner time and before he goes to bed. We've met each other for dinner about three times since our first meeting two weeks ago, and we communicate via IMs throughout the day.

He has even suggested coinciding his work travel schedule with mine, so that we can be in the same city for a few days.

He is an incredibly eligible single bachelor with a great job, while I have high flying career and by most standards a very attractive woman. I am recently divorced with a 4 year old daughter.

I am skeptical that a guy like him could possibly fall for someone like me, with a scarred life and baggage.

The chemistry feels right, and I have not felt so terribly happy since my separation with my ex-husband and the many unstable relationships over the years.

Somehow I feel this is too good to be happening to a girl like me. I question if he is genuinely interested in me or could I be an easy target since I am divorced and perhaps lonely.

I want to know what he thinks, but I feel that it is too soon to ask or even talk about a relationship. It might really scare him off.

How can I really know? Are there subtle ways to find out?

-Wondering

Dear Wondering,

While I happen to enjoy a good beer (or several), getting hammered on a first date raises a yellow flag. Do you have to drink to have a good time? Does he? Do all your dates involve alcohol?

If so, it could signal a problem.

This comment of yours also concerns me:

"Somehow I feel this is too good to be happening to a girl like me. I question if he is genuinely interested in me or could I be an easy target since I am divorced and perhaps lonely."

Now, why is inconceivable that a good thing could happen to a girl like you? So, you're divorced with a kid. So are a lot of people. You're attractive and have a great job. A lot of people aren't and don't, and they still manage to attract men who will stand on their heads to be with them.

The guy seems to want to spend time with you. That's great! Okay, there's no shortage of jerks who will use women for their own purposes, but there's also no shortage of great guys who want to fall in love and spend their life with one special woman.

How do you figure out which category this new man falls into?

You take your time. You continue to focus on your job and your child and your friends and the books you like to read. You do not allow this new relationship to drag you out to sea. You make yourself available to get to know this man better, but you don't break plans with other people or let go of other responsibilities to do so.

You maintain a wait-and-see attitude. You tell yourself, "Maybe this is the right guy for me, and maybe he isn't." You let him show you. You listen to him when he speaks. You watch his eyes. You make sure that his words match up with his actions.

You're always kind, considerate, and charming, but at no point do you ask yourself, "What do I do to prove to this guy that I'm the right woman for him?"

Above all, always keep in mind that you are an attractive woman with plenty to offer. Make a list of your very best qualities and remind yourself that a man would be lucky to have you.

If you happen to possess any qualities that cause you to devalue yourself, today is the day to decide to replace them with better ones. Again, use a pen and paper and put your lesser qualities on paper. How can you turn them around?

In the meantime, if you find all the IMing distracting, limit it to once or twice a day. It's flattering to be contacted constantly by an attractive man, but it's not going to help you keep things in perspective.

This guy may turn out to be the man of your dreams, or he may not. Either way, know that you're an attractive, sought-after woman. The fact that you're divorced and have a child doesn't change that. Be open to the possibility that a man can and will love you just as you are.

You deserve that much.

The Biggest Mistake of Her Life

Doesn't it kill you when you see someone flouncing into a bad situation with a smile on her face, and nobody can stop her?

A young, smart, ambitious, attractive undergrad we know has gotten engaged to a guy her age. In the plus column, he's good-looking and has a trust fund. In the minus column, he's prone to violence (and loves to brag that if "another guy even looks at my girlfriend, I'll rearrange his face!"). He doesn't go to school, doesn't have a job, and he usually sleeps until 2PM.

Did I mention he's good-looking and has a trust fund?

And while the young woman's mother is desperately trying to jam the breaks on this wedding locomotive, the guy's mother is hitting the gas. We suspect she figures that a goal-oriented wife (who's working toward a doctorate) will derail her son from the track he's riding to loserdom.

She has offered to buy the couple a house. She wants to pay for the wedding. She has taken the poor lamb she intends to sacrifice to her son to look for not one but two wedding dresses (the trend, she insists, is to buy one dress for the wedding and another to wear to the reception).

Red flags are flying all over the place.

But the impressionable young woman doesn't see them. I asked her worried mother why she's so eager to get married before she's had a chance to achieve her dreams. "She wants to be a grown-up. She's also caught up the fairy tale of being a princess for a day."

Unfortunately, the fairy tale doesn't even last a whole day. It really lasts about six hours. After that, this poor kid will be legally bound to an anger-prone sluggard whose mother has bought and sold her.

If she tries to keep things interesting by introducing a child into the equation, things will just get worse. If she can't get the guy out of bed to find a job, she's not going to get him to change diapers. The responsibilities of parenthood may squash her plans to earn a doctorate.

I wish women would stop buying into wedding industry propaganda and keep their eyes on bigger prizes:

1) Careers that pay handsomely and make use of their talents

2) Men who love them and take pride in their successes.

Women need to remember that realizing their ambitions is crucial to their physical, emotional, and mental health. Marrying the wrong man for the wrong reasons is the surest route to a lifetime of being depressed and powerless.

Does Father Trouble Always Lead to Man Trouble?

Dear Terry,

While reading the post about the Catholic priest who offered dating advice, I thought of my ex husband, my father, and my now boyfriend, and then I thought about myself. Then I wished that someone would have had this talk with me when I was in high school. It has very good points.

1.My ex-husband was a fibber, secretive and a control freak.

2.My father is an abusive man. This may be the very reason why I live in California and my family stays in Michigan. He has fits of rage, is a control freak, envious, hurtful male chauvinist. I am a computer analyst, and he still thinks I am unable of understand the mechanics of society.

3.My boyfriend is a kind, patient, sometimes forgetful, but always sweet man.

I am a survivor of my father abuse, and even though I would have to say that I will be respectful of him as my father.

Does this limit my chances of having a normal married life?

I failed once before, but in my defense I was in the military and we were very young and wanted to stay together. His father warned me about his bad ways and I choose to ignore them. Just a horrible situation.

I know my parents were very questionable as parents. Luckily for them, I was a hearty and headstrong child or otherwise because of poor parenting I might've ended up dead. Like left to survive in the aisles of Kmart. I also know that even that my dad was never dad of the year he had tried the best he was capable of and his opinion about my success has no effect of who I really I am.

So what if you had shite parents? But you ended up a good person and pretty normal? And if you had made a mistake in the past, but now have figured out what went wrong and you are trying to make your life better? Does this mean that you will be capable of having a loving and meaningful marriage or are you instantly ex'ed out because of abuse?

Love your blog.

~M.

Hi, M.-

Thanks for writing and for the kind comments.

I truly believe that you can enjoy a healthy marriage, even if you did have "shite parents," as you say. (Love that!) The fact that you seem happy with your current boyfriend indicates you're definitely making progress toward better circumstances.

As you know, I'm no psychologist, but it stands to reason that if the people who brought you into the world, the people God entrusted to love, guide, and encourage you failed on some front, you could go through life attracting similarly disappointing relationships.

Until you make a conscious effort to do otherwise.

You realize your father's limitations, and you still respect him because he's your father, and that says a lot about you. You're willing to move on and forgive. Another person would be grousing about how life sucks, and then you die, and how all men are the same. But not you.

The fact that you know exactly what you don't like about your father and some of the other men in your life means you can figure out what you do like in men and attract it. It helps to write a list and mentally put yourself in that relationship. If you visualize and conjure the feeling of being beloved and keep it with you, you will be amazed how it will eventually take shape in your real life.

It also helps to list what you disliked about your parents' relationship and about the marriages of other people you know. Then "put yourself" in a relationship with the opposite qualities. The trick here is to feel yourself in that relationship. Bring it to life with your emotions.

It's key to love yourself, as well, and you can do this through the consistent use of affirmations:

"I, M., deeply and completely love and accept myself."

Louise Hay, who has helped thousands of people turn their lives around through the power of self-love, recommends you use a similar affirmation about 25 times a day.

Saying it out loud while looking at yourself in a mirror is especially powerful. It will feel weird, silly, and embarrassing at first, but how many times do you look in the mirror and tell yourself you hate your hair or some feature of your face? Why do we consider that perfectly normal behavior?

Some people will scoff and dismiss visualization and affirmation as hocus-pocus, but they tend to be the same people who've never tried it (or who've tried it once or twice and then forgotten about it).

Let me repeat: I definitely believe that you're capable of enjoying a happy and healthy marriage. What's more, you deserve it.

He Won't Marry Her, and She's Embarrassed

Dear Terry:

Thanks for your recent [email] articles about ultimatums and commitment. I have a special situation. I'm almost 30 and have been with a guy I'm crazy about for 2 1/2 years. We spend most of our free time together, our families like each other, etc.

My problem is, he says he's not ready to get married. He's 32, has a good job, nice apartment, and so on. His refusal to move our relationship to the next level can be embarrassing. We went to his cousin's wedding last year, and one of his other cousins blurted out (while taking a photo), "And there's S (me), still trying to get a ring out of J (my boyfriend)"

I was humiliated beyond belief.

My boyfriend's mother loves me, has shown me jewelry she'll pass on to me one day. She says she knows her boy, and that I should be patient. She knows he'll come around.

But I'm tired of waiting. And next year, we'll be going to three weddings, my cousin's, his friendfrom college, and --worst of all--his younger sister's.

Everytime I think of going to his sister's wedding and being looked over by his relatives, I want to cry. She didn't ask me to be a bridesmaid, so I won't even be in the family photos even though I've been on vacation with the family, and I've spent every Christmas and Easter with them.

Believe it or not, I am intelligent and have a job I love.

Any advice?

-S.

Dear S.-

First off, I can tell that you're intelligent by the way you've described the situation. Second, thank goodness you have a job you love because it's actually going to help you here.

Right now, I imagine you're walking around with a pain in your chest and stomach, especially when you think about your boyfriend's sister's wedding. You might feel that your future-- YOUR LIFE--is in the hands of another person who is unwilling to give you what you want.

You feel bad, so I'm going to ask you: What would make you feel good?

-Feeling in control?
-Feeling at peace?
-Feeling loved by a man who is free and ready to love
you without excuses or limitations?

How would that feel? How would it feel in your chest and in your stomach? Warm? Light? Cheerful?

Please write down the emotions you'd feel if you were in this new situation. Imagine the arms of a man (a generic man, not your current man) you love around your waist. "Feel" yourself dancing with him.

I'm going to ask you to bring this scene to life in your imagination before you get out of bed in the morning and after you put your head on the pillow at night. THIS IS IMPORTANT.

You are employing the law of attraction here, and it's powerful. The goal is to attract a man who loves you, whom you love, and is clear about his desire for a lasting relationship. (Whether this man will turn out to be your current boyfriend remains to be seen.)

Now, as far as your boyfriend's family is concerned, if you've expressed any frustration over the fact that he's not ready to get married, this is the time to stop. If anybody else brings it up, casually change the subject.

It's great that his mother likes you so much, but she says you should "be patient." Here's the truth, though: She's afraid you'll move on and her her son will lose you.

But in the end, whether he gets married is his decision, not hers. And whether you stick around is your decision.

(There's no law that says that because you have developed a relationship with a guy's family that you have to hang around until he's good and ready to put a ring on your finger.)

You do have a job you love, so I strongly suggest that you direct your attention there, to the job itself and to the people you've met through it.

Make a promotion your goal. Work a couple of extra hours when you can. Go out with your work friends for dinner or drinks. Make yourself more available for your job and less available your boyfriend.

The key here is not to be spiteful about it. Just go about your business. Be open to new experiences and opportunities.

Your current boyfriend may indeed be the man for you, or he may not. But you do need to stop insisting that he is because it's making you terribly unhappy.

It is certainly not in your best interests.

If you go to the current guy's sister's wedding and somebody makes an ignorant comment about you "trying to get a ring out of" your boyfriend, smile nicely and say, "I'm happy for [the sister and her husband], but neither of us wants to get married yet."

Which would be true. (Because why would you want to marry some guy you have to talk into marrying you?)

Keep visualizing, "feeling" that loving situation with a man who can't help but love you. THAT MAN WILL EVENUTALLY SHOW UP. Again, whether he is the man you're dating now remains to be seen.

Back on Break

Still busy getting things together, although I'm completely out of my depth. Hope to be back in action soon.

At the supermarket checkout today, I saw a couple cover blurbs that really peeved me on the current issue of a so-called women's magazine. No wonder a lot of females are insecure about themselves, their looks, their ability to be loved.

The media program us to be. Then they sell us loads of products to aid us in our desperate attempts to fix ourselves.

Dating a Married Man (From a Woman Who Knows)

Here's a response to last week's post, Loving a Married Man, from a reader who's been there. I think a lot of women get involved with married men to avoid having to deal with a man's less attractive features on a full-time basis, as she mentions in the third paragraph.

Wow...you hit the nail on the head with this article.

I was the other woman for 2.5 yrs. Yes, he told me he loved me like no other, and he had many. I knew about the others as he was proud of the fact that he had cheated many times over the last 25 years to his wife. The convenience woman, and of course HER kids wouldn't love him if he wasn't married to their MOM. He raised them, put them both through college and they were the "perfect" family. He told me that she had cancer and was dying, and she couldn't tell her grown children. It was their secret. He couldn't toss her to the side of the road, just because she was sick. (This woman had a very high paying job and worked more than any 5 people I know. She was no more dying than I am.)

I couldn't tell you really why I stayed. Maybe it was the possibility that he would leave her, maybe it was because I didn't have to listen to the farts at night, wake up with the banshee hair and bad breath. I didn't have to tolerate his bad habits.

Yes, I stayed knowing everything about him. Or what I thought was everything.
I do believe he loved me .. the best he could. It had a pay off for me. I could
con't to believe all the BS my ex had told me for so long that I wasn't worth it.
I wasn't smart. I was nothing.

I am not sorry for being the other woman... every experience helps us to grow.
I told him finally that he had to choose for once and for all. I transferred out of
state and I told him he had to decide. He stayed in Chicago .. I stayed here in CA. He kept in contact with me daily for the first year. Yes, I answered.. I had hope that he would MISS me soooo much and did love me the most.... but at
the end... She won. He had his roots with her and her grown children. He also
loved her money more than me.

He was 12 yrs older than me, 60 and aging quickly. His final excuse was that she was dying of cancer. (despite the fact she worked everyday .. long hours away from him) .. and that I would be sorry if we were together as he aged more.

It took a long time to get over this... It has been over a year since our last ugly conversation. At times, I do think of him... I haven't been able to delete his notes or pictures off my desktop (which I don't use) .. but that will come in time.

He taught me more about myself .. I could love.. I was capable of giving and receiving love from a man. I finally figured out exactly the type of man that I desire in my life and won't settle. Yes, I learned my lesson on the married man. The Universe has tested me again.. and I passed. NOT going back there again.

Thanks for your emails and great suggestions. Keep them coming.

-Diane

P.S. Don't misunderstand me. It wasn't easy to get over him, or that I thought it was okay to be in the relationship. I fooled myself and found all kinds of ways to justify it.

Live and learn ... I learned big time.

Thank you so much for sharing your story, Diane.

How to Date a Member of Another Political Party

This is pretty funny.