I'm 29, father of two, and divorced from their Mom. To say that dating has been a success would be uh, a lie? I have had plenty of fun, and a few semi serious girl friends. Both semi serious have been train wrecks when it comes to communication and seeing eye to eye on feelings. Anyone else go through this?
Yup. That's fine though - the first one was spotty with communication due to crazy working hours (same here, so whatever), then when the health orders started hitting she turned into a pumpkin. Cool, saved me a lot of time. Every other one was someone looking to be a stay at home mom with no goals of doing anything else in life, conversation never deeper than the weather, etc., so....nah, see ya and best of luck.
It's nothing to rush into, but also not something to run away from. Just take it for what it is, ditch the expectation of having a relationship to be happy, focus on you, and the right one will come around when the time is right.
I’ve gone through the later in life dating scene from two different perspectives - the first when I lost my wife of many years, and again a few years later with a divorce. Know what you want and don’t let yourself be distracted from that goal. And realize that once you reach a certain age the dating pool is almost universally going to have some damage.
Ken
BBI: ...”you better not forget the safe word because shit's about to get weird”...
revchuck38: ...”mo' ammo is mo' betta' unless you're swimming or on fire.”
I tried a couple of those connect-up web sites after my divorce, but nothing really came of it. I found out that it was important to understand what women wanted out of the "date". It varied. I did invest time in a few; but learned that interest has to be a two-way thing; it's weird, you think things are going great, but they're just not into you.
Anyway.
What finally "clicked" for me was going on www.match.com, and trying to represent myself accurately (which, I found, is a bit unusual lol). After a few genuine encounters, in which I had multiple date(s) that didn't really end up going anywhere meaningful, I got an email with my "match".
This match was unusual; there are something like 18 (?) categories you put yourself in (dog vs. cat, smoker vs. non-smoker, tattoos or no, etc.) and this was a match for almost all. Which, I thought, was kinda cool. So the conversation started online and I was pleasantly surprised that all the words were spelled correctly (another LOL maybe but it was important to me.) We ended up meeting at a Panera Bread in Altamonte Springs FL. I think we stayed talking for about 3 hours. After a few more online conversations, we finally went on a date to St Augustine for the day.
For some reason during the tour of the "Oldest house Museum"(construction dates to 1723) I leaned over and whispered huh wouldn't it be funny if you met your future husband here. To this day I still don't know why I said it. Musta not scared her off because we got married the next year. Been happily hitched up ever since, and we plan to renew our vows at the same church in Winter Park were were married in next Spring, for our 10 year anniversary.
I guess the bottom line is to keep at it, be real, and you'll know when the right person comes along.
Last edited by RJ; 10-21-2020 at 09:18 AM.
Sorry to hear about the divorce. Things will get better from here.Originally Posted by breakingtime91
I went through it when I was in my 40s and early 50s. It was brutal, and I developed a few rules of thumb to minimize wear and tear on all concerned.
- Maintain sanity. Your kids come first. You come next. Get the range time, hunting trips, physical activity, and quiet time that you need before you look at how to bring another person into the equation. If you don't do this, then you'll end up being a shitty partner over the long haul. Of course you'll have to compromise at times when you meet a truly viable candidate but don't let things get lopsided right out of the gate.
- Speaking of things getting lopsided, learn to trust your gut on red flags. It takes a while to realize what they are but trust them once you do.
- It’s a numbers game. To meet that one in a million, you may have to pick through 999,999. Develop criteria to identify undesirables and weed them out with icy precision. Some will get testy about it, but you're actually doing them a favor and minimizing their heartache. Online dating is a very good way to do this.
- Master birth control. At 29, you’ve got 20 more years of dating women who want kids so badly that they’ll do some seriously underhanded things to get them. Experience raising kids makes you a prime candidate.
- Hold out for what you deserve. Most of us have a list of things we want in a partner, which is focused on the other person. Making a list of what you deserve forces you to consider whether you also offer those things. If you don’t, then, well, you know what you need to do.
- Learn to think and speak honestly about why your marriage failed. The mental part of this exercise is particularly tough since it forces you to examine your own behavior, identify sub-par performance, and take corrective action. The verbal part helps you tell the story of that evolution rather than just saying, "Bitches be crazy" whenever the topic comes up. The whole exercise helps you spot people who are doing this on the fly or who are being deceptive, both of which are red flags.
- Don't waste people's time. End things as cleanly and quickly as you can when it's time to go. You do not have to negotiate.
- Be kind every chance you get, which will be often. None of this is easy for anyone and karma is a bitch.
Not to put too much importance on the value of PF but if you've stuck around for eight years, then you're probably squared away on the basics of life and committed to self-improvement across the board. You'd be amazed at how rare that is in the world, especially among people your age. ALL people are attracted to that, especially if they can't do those things themselves. Hold that line and make others rise to meet your level.
PM me if you have questions.
Okie John
“The reliability of the 30-06 on most of the world’s non-dangerous game is so well established as to be beyond intelligent dispute.” Finn Aagaard
"Don't fuck with it" seems to prevent the vast majority of reported issues." BehindBlueI's
I used online dating to meet my fiancee. I don't have experience with divorce, but I do have a ton of experience with picking the wrong women. Comparing my fiancee to the previous women in my life is like comparing apples to hand grenades. It just clicked when we met and it's been a great ride all the way through. Just easy button easy
So my advice is what I decided to do when I got serious about looking for the right one. And it seemed to work for me.
Know the important things you're looking for. And then don't settle. Be honest and genuine with every woman you meet. You'll say no a lot, you'll go on a lot of dates that go nowhere or are just downright bad, and you'll probably get ghosted a ton. Keep the faith though.
You'll find the right one.
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I've been there. I don't have kids, but on all the rest of it... boy howdy have I been there.
Start by building yourself up emotionally by doing what you enjoy and doing all you can to enrich your life and enjoy your life as a single Dad for the time being. Hobbies are good, exercise is good, setting goals and meeting them, starting projects and finishing them, etc all good too. This doesn't just help you but it helps you build a happy life with and without your kids that the future mrs breakingtime would want to be a part of.
With 'plenty of fun' out of the way, as the others have said it's time to be exactly honest about what you want. Don't hold yourself to some societal standard arbitrarily, if you don't want to get married again that's perfectly OK. If you want to focus more on yourself and your kids that's also perfectly OK. But don't let that social 'keeping up with the Jones's' mental game take root - be honest about what *YOU* want in your life and your future.
I personally found a lot of solace and clarity in avoiding things like calling your divorce or previous relationships as 'failed' - it was much healthier and honest for me to say those relationships ended, or didn't pan out, or that we grew apart and it was time to go our separate ways.
That let me take pride in the effort I'd put into those relationships, and let me be 'OK' with the lessons learned both good and bad, and especially the lessons learned about myself.
Once that settled in, it felt like I got rid of a really negative emotional anchor and that helped me be 'open' in all the right ways emotionally and socially without bringing awkward baggage into it.
Having seen a lot of failed relationships with young kids in your age group (it is the Army) a few other thoughts:
-Never speak poorly of their mother to your kids or in front of your kids. I've watched divorced parents talk insane amounts of crap about the other parent to their kids and it does very real and very lasting damage to how kids view dating/courting/dealing with breakups/etc once they get older. Speaking ill of the other parent is to speak ill of half of the kid, and kids absolutely take it that way whether they pretend to understand or not.
So when they're young, back up their mother as best you can abide, and put the effort into co-parenting as friends even if her decisions aggravate the hell out of you sometimes. So long as the kids are taken care of and safe, suck it up until those kids are old enough to think about dating, then have those hard conversations with your kids.
-Dating from this moment forward includes your kids. The last thing you want is to get serious with a woman that has little or no interest in being an effective stepparent. This is why some of the better options dating-wise will be with single Moms, as they will be already engaged in parenting. On the off chance you meet a woman that can't have kids but deeply wants them - be sure that you build a real relationship between the two of you, too.
-Dating sites; if it takes you less than an hour to properly set up a profile (like Match.com for example) then don't bother looking for wife/LTR material there. Tinder is a dumpster fire, "Plenty Of Fish" may as well be "Plenty of STD's", you get the idea.
Trying to force serendipity's hand is wasted effort - if you're destined to bump into 'the one' randomly, it'll happen randomly.
Last but not least:
-Don't continue a dating relationship that you're kinda 'meh' about just because it's working OK at a 'meh' level. There's always going to be small or big stuff to fix. But if those big things to fix are a tapdance around landmines trying to avoid them or pretend those problems don't exist, instead of conversations and working through it, that's a big fat red flag. Fix those things and make it work early in the relationship before the kids are deeply involved too. If it's not getting fixed and stuff she does is still problematic, listen to your gut. When your gut has been consistently telling you for a few weeks that it's not working and it's time to break it off, *listen* to that.
Apologies if this is kind of erratic to read, I had to come back and forth to this all morning.
Try to think of a first date as having one purpose: to find out if you want a second date. If you walk away from a first date thinking "nope", that was a successful date.
Be wary when you find yourself thinking "she seemed nice, but...." There are lots of nice people who might be fine partners for someone else who are wrong for you.
I haven't gone through what you are, but didn't you JUST get divorced?
A "few" semi-serious girlfriends in this amount of time sounds like entirely too many girlfriends.
Take a break and play the field for fun only. Stop trying to "date".
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
Year ago, semi serious mainly means they stuck around past a few fun weeks in the sack. But you are right, I really need to stop trying as hard as I have been.
Last edited by breakingtime91; 10-21-2020 at 11:02 AM.
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