# Successful relationship after divorce



## NoMoreTears4me (Oct 21, 2015)

Ok I promised to not go away and I am still here. Although not as much as I used to be.

I have moved on from my ex. Read my story and you will see how bad I was.

I have started something new with a woman I have grown to care a lot about. 

I do not plan on getting married again anytime soon before anyone asks. However..... I do want a meaningful relationship.

I know that relationships after divorce are hard to maintain and here are a few things I know I have to overcome

* My anger towards ex. I have to control this
* Dealing with new partners issues with her ex. This is now a new dynamic I have to get used to. Not only do I have a giant pain in the A&&. She does too.
* Kids. At my age the likelihood that I meet someone without kids would be low. Besides I have my own kids who am I to judge. I like kids but it is another dynamic to consider.
* What is my definition of normal family now? I have to redefine what family means to me and try to understand it will never be like it was.

I think about all this stuff cause I do not want to fail again in my next relationship. I want to beat the odds and do things right this time. My marriage was for 22 years. I want the next one to last a lifetime!

Anyway. I would love to hear suggestions on overcoming these new issues.

Thanks


----------



## Ynot (Aug 26, 2014)

I really can't offer you any suggestions. But I would like to say I understand where you are coming from. After my 24 year marriage came to a screeching halt, I found myself wandering in the desert with no clue of which way to go, what I wanted or how I was going to get there. I still struggle with these issues on a daily basis as well. Good luck in your journey, those who have been on it before us swear it really does get better. That is all we can go on.


----------



## Relationship Teacher (Jan 3, 2016)

Do what I did. Throw away everything you know about yourself and find your authenticity. Be who you want to be and consistently be that person. I strongly recommend getting over the pain of your story 100%, not only for yourself, but to also not hold it against future partners.

Best of luck.


----------



## Wolf1974 (Feb 19, 2014)

What I did was move away from the notion or fantasy of a normal family. Doesn't exist and if it did I couldn't have it anymore. Like youI have kids and so does my GF ......it is an interesting dynamic. Neither of us have X issues at the moment but potential is always there. We are both focused on raising our kids but not together. She does her thing and I do mine, this was a product of her choice mind you.

I also reinvented myself. I was once all about the woman in my life and marriage... Not my driving force anymore Because that can end one sided. Instead I focus on what I want in life and hope someone will come along for the ride. 5 years out from divorce and I have found no shortage of those interested in sharing life's adventures.

I live with a woman, I raise my kids, I have refocused on a healthy me and my future with or without someone. I am happier now than I was before. All this will fall in line for you it just takes time. I would only caution you to put focus on relationships with another person, other than your kids, first. A great love may be hard to impossible to find. Be happy with you 

Congrats on the next phase of your life.


----------



## Holland (Aug 20, 2012)

NoMoreTears4me said:


> .........................
> I know that relationships after divorce are hard to maintain and here are a few things I know I have to overcome
> 
> * My anger towards ex. I have to control this
> ...


Wishing you all the best for the next part of your journey


----------



## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

Way too soon, IMO.

You need to take some time away from relationships -- period -- in order to more fully heal.


----------



## Marc878 (Aug 26, 2015)

Let the now normal life temper you a bit before jumping the gun. You have no rush here.

Slow and easy


----------



## stillhoping (Aug 27, 2012)

I think about it like this, it's my new normal, why try to go back and look for some,thing that is just like what you had. Anger is for me to manage, no one else. I learned no one else makes me angry, I get to decide how I act, no one else. Sometimes I feel angry, but most of the time I am angry because I thought I needed something from someone else, but the thing I wanted, I could give myself. Get to a place where you are in control of all of those feelings before you look to have someone else be in your life


----------



## TeddieG (Sep 9, 2015)

Hey, NMT. I don't have any advice, but I'm pulling for you. I ran across this thread yesterday and printed off Relationship Teacher's post and taped it to my computer. It came at a great time, because I've been conflicted a little bit lately about the same thing you raise. At a favorite watering hole of mine that I visit once a week, there is a nice guy who had been watching me for a few weeks and built up his courage to chat with me. For the past several weeks we've sat together and chatted and gotten to know a little bit about each other. Interestingly I fond I like him, he likes me. Usually one or the other of us leaves first and says goodnight to our pals and the gang behind the bar. But Sunday night our watering hole closed at 10 so we went somewhere else for a couple of drinks and we talked a lot more. I didn't get home until 12:30 am (although it felt earlier, DST and all that). 

So as we wound up the visit we gave each other a kiss, and that's when I knew that while he was being careful and going slow, I'd crossed a line I wasn't ready to. I'm all for sitting at a bar and chatting, but not ready for dating or kissing or whatever. He has two grown daughters. His wife left to return to her home town and live with her mother many years ago (and sometimes I think there is more to the story) when the girls were little, and he raised the girls on his own. My assumption is that he lived for them, and I have it on good advice from the bartender that now that the girls have fled the nest, this nice guy is lonely. But he has talked about some of the losers he dated, including a woman with two kids, both addicts, and she sounds like the woman my h left me for. It struck me that I have to be really ready to deal with people with pasts like mine. This really nice guy had the good sense to dump this woman and her kids, and all the story did was raise my respect level for him but also raise questions for me about why my h couldn't have done the same. @Holland said it in the post above: "This is a really hard one for me, even after almost 5 years with my partner I still struggle with us not being the primary family unit but a blended family. We have a wonderful life but even still I can't shake the feeling of it not being as natural as the primary family." 

My family with h and his boys was 20 years long. What I realized for me is that I need to stay away from the watering hole. It's fun to be paid attention to and to know that someone is interested in me, but my divorce was only final in December. Three months before that my mother died of cancer after a year of illness, and then two months since the divorce I abandoned my graduate studies in one department, because my advisor gave me really bad advice whenever I asked to switch topics or raised alarms about problems with the project. I was being who I authentically was and doing it consistently, as RT says, by being honest and saying to the heads of the department, my advisor won't believe me but there are problems with this project and the only way for you to pass me is to violate your standards. I've already switched to a different program, but I lost a lot of time.

I've had so much loss that I think I just need to keep peeling back, like layers of an onion, some of the hide that's already whipped and flayed, and see if I can get back to, or the bottom of, who and what I thought was me. Since h went nuts, I spent a lot of time trying to decide if he was the guy I thought he was or if he was always really the azzhat he turned into but just did a good con job. Now I'm deciding it is more important to know who I am and what I want and how responding to and adapting to a) being married to my h; b) still trying to preserve some of my dreams and achieve them; and c) holding on to a job have turned me into someone who survived, by the skin of my teeth, but more importantly how confined and narrow and constricted I became as I juggled and compartmentalized all that stuff. Our modern life would applaud me for doing all that, but it was insane. I was wife, I was step-mommy (with a good job and a thick wallet), I was everybody's go-to person at work, and I was this and I was that, but it was all stuff that tended toward quantification. The only thing I'm going to quantify from here on out is the 8 hours a day I work, and after/beyond that, I'm going for quality, in terms of the way I spend my time, and in terms of the way I view myself, and in terms of quality, I want to find out what I value. I want to be like @Wolf1974 and know that I have, if not reinvented myself, rediscovered myself, and if someone comes along for the ride, that would be great. You're an amazing person and if you honor yourself as such, I think you can work through any challenges you face, since you will face challenges, even with the right partner. And I suspect you'll know pretty quickly if someone is not, after all you've experienced, and the wisdom you've acquired. 

Best wishes, my friend.


----------



## NoMoreTears4me (Oct 21, 2015)

TeddieG said:


> Hey, beans. I don't have any advice, but I'm pulling for you. . .
> 
> Best wishes, my friend.


That's a lot to take in..  I am struggling with what I want from my life. Its easy I guess if you have some kind of clue where you want to go. I do not. I lived for my family. I worked for them and the idea of what I thought a family is. Well that is gone now.

Part of the reason I posted this was now I have to figure out what I want. I cant have what I had before. So here is what I do know...

I do not want to be alone.
I do not want to be a swinging party animal singles club person.
I want to be happy both at home and at work. 

I want to find a job where I am not working for my family alone but for myself. Im afraid it might be too late for this.

I want a relationship with a person that likes me for who I am. Wants to be with me and respects me. 

I don't care about a high paying job anymore. Money did not make me happy. I would rather live in a single wide mobile home eating rice krispies for dinner and be happy than live in a 4000 square foot house, eating filet mignon and be miserable. 

I will not live to work I will continue to work to live.

I want to have fun and be funny again. I'm getting closer to that every day.

I do not want to worry about what other people think of my anymore. Where were these people when I was hurting so bad?

Anyway. I really love this new person in my life. She is great and I am taking things slow. But part of me does not and will not end up where I was again. It will be hard but if she turns out to be something I don't want I will walk away. 

I am working on myself. Starting with my anger. From their I will take the next step.


----------



## joannacroc (Dec 17, 2014)

Your concerns are valid. I've read so many posters talk about their marriages soon after divorce (as in, under 2 years) and some are happy, but some definitely feel they got married too soon. It sounds like you have an awareness that that's not something you want, even though you're figuring out what your new "family" looks like. 

In my case, my "family" was me and my son almost entirely when I was married, as my husband was never there. So it wasn't a huge transition. Things like changing lightbulbs and loading the car for a trip are really the only things he contributed. But I do get what you're talking about. Building a new home in your head and heart for you and your kids as a family unit is tough. Moving on is tough. You're not alone. A lot of us are still struggling with redefining what family means to us. My son is getting old enough now to start processing that a lot of stories have a mother, father and kid or kids. They live together. But his Daddy doesn't live with us since we're divorced. He doesn't talk about it, but I can see the wheels turning when we talk about stories and books. 

The kids issue is tough, I grant you. Dating someone without kids now and they are understanding but haven't experienced how a single parent's financial and emotional priorities revolve around their kids, so it's not something that occurs to them - childcare is costly, and you might be in the same boat as me, where if you want to go out more than once every other week, you have to consider if you can reasonably afford a babysitter and the money of going out, or whether that money is better saved for the shoes/clothes/food/paddling pool they'll likely need in a month. Since you're seeing someone dealing with the same issues, perhaps they understand those things better? 

I have to be honest though, it does sound like you are talking about this woman's kids like an encumbrance. You're balancing the idea that you don't really want someone with kids, but you likely won't find someone without kids, so you're with this woman. Be honest. Do you really care about this woman as you claim? You say it's early stages, but if you continue to view her kids like this - an inconvenience - it's unlikely she'll put up with it.


----------



## TeddieG (Sep 9, 2015)

NoMoreTears4me said:


> That's a lot to take in..  I am struggling with what I want from my life. Its easy I guess if you have some kind of clue where you want to go. I do not. I lived for my family. I worked for them and the idea of what I thought a family is. Well that is gone now.
> 
> Part of the reason I posted this was now I have to figure out what I want. I cant have what I had before. So here is what I do know...
> 
> ...


I think the gist of MY post, after I wrote it and digested myself, is that I am having trouble distinguishing between a trigger and a red flag. ??? And when I realized I was comparing this nice guy, sizing him up and comparing almost each life experience he shared with me with episodes related to my h, I wasn't ready for a relationship. While this man was smart enough to leave a needy woman looking for a wallet to bail out her two addict kids, the first thing that went through my mind was comparing that to what my h is doing, my h is not, so it just didn't seem that I'm ready to take a person as he is and get to know him as he is and start with a clean slate. 

And I think @joannacroc asks some great questions. You want someone to respect and accept you, but I wonder if your bar of what means is lower than you might think, and you might also be willing to accept a LOT in order to get that. On the one hand, we love people the way we want to be loved; on the other hand, accepting things that have a huge impact on a relationship in the hopes that the other partner will recognize that we are doing just that and give us credit for it is something easily drawn into but not easily requited.

Oh, and sorry I called you "beans'! NoMoreTears, NoMoreBeans . . . what's a girl to do???


----------



## NoMoreTears4me (Oct 21, 2015)

TeddieG said:


> I think the gist of MY post, after I wrote it and digested myself, is that I am having trouble distinguishing between a trigger and a red flag. ??? And when I realized I was comparing this nice guy, sizing in him and comparing almost each life experience he shared with h, I wasn't ready for a relationship. While this man was smart enough to leave a needy woman looking for a wallet to bail out her two addict kids,
> 
> And I think @joannacroc asks some great questions. You want someone to respect and accept you, but I wonder if your bar of what means is lower than you might think, and you might also be willing to accept a LOT in order to get that. On the one hand, we love people the way we want to be loved; on the other hand, accepting things that have a huge impact on a relationship in the hopes that the other partner will recognize that we are doing just that and give us credit for it is something easily drawn into but not easily requited.
> 
> Oh, and sorry I called you "beans'! NoMoreTears, NoMoreBeans . . . what's a girl to do???


I get it. I am very aware that I may be letting some stuff slide cause I want a relationship. But I have caught myself and made corrections. For example I realized that I was not getting to know the things she like and she was morphing into doing the things that I liked. I stopped myself and made sure she knew that I want to experience the things she likes as well. She was shocked and was taken back. She stated she loved experiencing the things that I enjoyed. I told her exactly why I want to experience the things she likes. I want to know her and do things with her even if they are things I would never do on my own. 

So being aware of what is going on is helping me grow and be better person. Im not foolish enough to think my divorce was entirely my ex's fault.


----------



## NoMoreTears4me (Oct 21, 2015)

TeddieG said:


> Oh, and sorry I called you "beans'! NoMoreTears, NoMoreBeans . . . what's a girl to do???


Its ok... Call me Al if you want

Get it? Bad joke?


----------



## Corpuswife (Apr 24, 2009)

I so understand what you are going through....I came out of a 25 year marriage. Not looking for anything serious but ended up getting serious within 4 months of my divorce. 

I like the idea of going slow. Really slow. There is no rush and enjoy the time that you have together. You don't have to plan for a future right now. Avoid living together for a good long while. I say this as kids complicate things and blending etc. I am not sure the age of the children but it would be ideal to wait until the graduate. Just an opinion.

Coming from a long term marriage, it's difficult to adjust to being alone. I am newly divorced again (after 3 years of marriage this time) and I made a mistake even though I dated him for 3 years. He was an addict, sober for 10 years and he relapsed more than once during the marriage including adultery/escorts. 

This time I am allowing time for my healing and being alone. Us "long timers" need to watch out that we aren't jumping into something to soon after a divorce. It's good that you are going about it in a slow fashion.


----------



## Hardtohandle (Jan 10, 2013)

Do not put a square peg in a round hole.. 
That is what I was trying do..


----------



## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

forgiveness is vital before you can move on. If you are still angry with your ex then you havent forgiven.


----------

