My friend Melissa recently stopped dating a guy because he’s divorced. In her mind, divorced men are damaged goods. She wants her guy pure – no festering resentments, no messy attachments to another woman, no failed model of marriage to replicate or rebel against.
For a while, I agreed. My own divorce was a liberation leaving me with a minimal set of emotional baggage to carry onto my next romantic flight. I wanted a man whose heart was as unsullied by the muck of botched love as mine and who had no links to unsavory situations or people. Why would I want a bitter victim of divorce when there are so many fresh-faced bachelors with whom to build a life from scratch?
But I’m beginning to think divorced men are the way to go.
Young bachelors are cute. Eager to grab life by the tail. You introduce them to music, books or political ideas they’ve never heard of, and their eyes twinkle like lightning bug butts. Too often though, you’re stuck watching these guys try to fit themselves into their grown-up skins.
The relationship issues that come up with bachelors, and probably bachelorettes, pale in comparison to the challenges of matrimony. Once you’ve endured marriage’s endless struggle to maintain a household with someone who’s at times a best friend, and other times a stranger, it’s hard to seriously discuss what would happen to a dude’s beer can collection once you move in together.
Marriage is maturing, more character-building than a war zone. Marriage pries you out of the infinite autonomy of singlehood to pull you through the somewhat tedious but ultimately meaningful process of building a solid foundation for existence. In marriage, the joys and burdens of life are split in half like a popsicle – you may get less but you also have less to stomach.
But unfortunately, in this monumental effort to pour oneself into romantic collaboration, lots of married folk completely abandon the person they were before slipping on the gold band.
Take my friend Daryl. The life of any party, Daryl had a brazen, often raunchy sense of humor, a killer CD collection and a legion of adoring friends. Then he got hitched. Not only did his pals hardly ever see him (his wife didn’t like him having lady friends), but lots of the activities and personality quirks that made Daryl unique went MIA. He let them go to keep the Missus happy. It was time to be “tamed.”
Daryl rearranged his identity and life to be what his partner wanted and to “make the relationship work.” His friends barely recognized him. He barely recognized himself. Once in the thick of things, his options were to continue inhabiting this disfigured version of his former self or turn to his spouse and say, “I want to be me again and I want you to be you.”
Or call it quits.
Daryl divorced then spent time rediscovering all the things he dug about the world and what he wanted out of life when he wasn’t sharing it. He became a more authentic person and wanted an equally actualized individual as a companion. Considering he’d already made a go at building a successful marriage, he was better prepared the second time around.
Having been through her own divorce, Daryl’s new woman is keen on Daryl Version 2.0, a more effective model because all the bugs have been worked out. The two are comfortable enough in their own skins to let the other be free in theirs.
The Daryl Situation didn’t encourage Melissa. Unlike Daryl, she says, her divorced guy was too “set in his ways.” So maybe Melissa’s man didn’t heal as well. Maybe he was greedy with boundaries because too many were crossed in his marriage. If so, then her withdrawal makes sense.
But I wonder if Mr. Divorce’s fixedness was only a result of his rock-solid selfhood and if Melissa just wanted someone more moldable. At least he wasn’t a whiner using divorce as an excuse not to couple up again. Then again, if I had a nickel for every commitment-shy bachelor I met, I’d finally be able to make a down payment on that beachfront property in Cabo.
Of course, some lucky dogs find the person they can be themselves with until death do them part. For those of us who don’t, thank God for starter marriages. If we’re lucky, we come out of them more complete individuals who know better how to create a partnership of equals.
Funny, eh? The one person who best prepares a man for a healthy, new relationship…just may be his wife.
Hmmmm.
Not sure I would look for someone divorced, as opposed to never married before.
The scars from a divorce can be deep, and that can make future relationships more difficult… (thus damaged goods?)…
But there is something to say for having been thru the storm before, so you know what to possibly expect.
Unfortunately, we can’t control who we fall for!
It sorta just happens…
This is the myth we live with! What’ver happened to accepting the person for he/ she is?? If we carry on this way, no wonder we’re ALL DISAPPOINTED!
Let’s be less judgemental and enjoy each other for who we are – battle-scars and all. Life is not about happily-ever-after. It’s about making the best of your situation. I lived thru life looking for the perfect mate. Guess what? He didn’t show. Until I learn to be my own best friend and appreciate the person for who he or she is.
Pure or damaged goods, we all go thru phases like that. It depends at what point you found the other person. If you met him when he was in his early 20s, perhaps he was “pure” but not ready to settle. If he stayed “pure” (not married) for the next 20 years, then we ask what’s his problem? Can anyone win here?
I married late, in my 40s and my husband, in his 40s as well, also married for the first time. We went thru many relationships before settling down with each other. Something clicked. Children-phobic at first, we decided to try for a baby after we married. We should NEVER had been together if not for maturing and learning to accept people for who they are. Our life would NEVER be perfect but it will not be boring. Constantly investing in our relationship is the key… not asking the other person to change or trying the fix the other person.
Interesting perspectives.
When my marriage started to crumble, I presumed I would only be viewed as damaged goods. Washed up at mid-30-something. Unapproachable. No woman would want to date a “divorced” guy. I had too much baggage. For all intents and purposes, I had figured I had a rap sheet now.
Every asset I had, character, financial, or otherwise, faded to worthless in light of my pending status as a divorced guy.
Before long though, I began to discover that this was not the case. In fact, I believe us divorceds are now the majority.
A fabulous and trusted friend told me a few years ago when I was in the heat of the battle with depression and just starting my journey of recovery from active alcoholism, “Many of the things that you feel are the worst things ever to happen to you…. will eventually prove to be the best things to ever happen to you”.
He shared this with me based on his own experience with betrayal, divorce, alcoholism, and depression. He is now retired, financially secure, sober and happlily re-married for over 20 years.
I didnt believe him at the time, but now, fast forward a few years, his words have proven abundantly true. Life is amazing. Re-marriage is amazing. And I owe much of who I am today to the ugly painful mess of a divorce.
It is my observation that there are really only 2 ways that people come out of a divorce. One way is to blame the other person, or life in general for the failure of the marriage then go out and repeat the same mistakes.
The other way is to dig deep, own up to what your part in it was, ask a lot of tough questions, seek a lot of meaningful input, learn, grow, change, and offer a new and improved version to your new spouse.
Another good friend of mine who is also now sober many years and on marriage #3 that has lasted over 20 years shares continually with others that “even if the other person were to be 98% wrong and you were 2% wrong, if you don’t take responsibility for your 2% and just focus on their 98%, you will be no farther ahead”.
Now the proportions are of course exaggerated for how most of life’s circumstances divide up. But the point is made.
Today, I am actually grateful in certain respects that I was prone to alcoholism and addiction (and depression). Why? Because they allowed me to be in a postion to have to make a decision… recover or die. Grow or die. Grow up or die.
For reasons many of which are still unknown to me, I chose not to die. Which meant that I had to recover, grow, and grow up.
It hasnt been easy, it hasnt been pain-free, it hasnt been inexpensive, and the process sure isnt over… in fact it may just be starting…. but it sure has been worth it.
I am glad to offer my wife Chaz version 2.0 as you put it. I am also glad to offer my kids Dad 2.0. And I am getting way further ahead in my career by marketing the new and improved Chaz to my employers.
Similarly, I married a woman who was divorced and didnt blame it all on her ex. She knew she had growing to do and knew she contributed to the demise of her first marriage. She isnt the same person who got married the first time around either.
Frankly, I am not convinced that in todays complex world with ever-increasingly complex relationship dynamics that we don’t need to have a mis-fire marriage to work out the bugs in our characters before being healthy and mature enough to have a good marriage.
I themed a post about this very topic…
http://yuppieaddict.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/the-starter-marriage/
So any notion of divorced people having burdensome baggage may be out of date. At least I do not believe it applies universally.
Ciao.
Chaz