Post Divorce Dating

it was hard to get back into the swing of things. I had to re learn how to date, but the scary thought of even learning how to meet people again was even worse for me. I had no idea how to start or even where to go to meet people. I did not want to meet my future love in a bar or social gathering that even offered the sale of alcohol. I realized that alcohol had to be taken out of the equation, because even though those people were fun for a night in the bar, they were not what I wanted for a lifetime.

I was growing up, my mentality and self worth was far beyond what I could find in a bar or a club. It had even gotten to the point to where I didn't even want to step foot into a bar unless it was the local Taphouse on off nights when the place was slow and I knew that random men would not be hitting on me and hoping I'd go home with him at the end of the night. I was done with the "one-night stand" or the mini relationships that had gone absolutely no where. Where do I look then? That was the ultimate question that I constantly asked myself.

I decided to look upon the internet. I joined a dating site and found a potential partner within a week. We met, he took me out on several dates in which we met at as opposed to him picking me up. i decided if I was going to meet someone online, I wanted to protect myself by meeting him there. Even through that, he was a complete gentleman and opened doors, pertained to small talk and always picked up the tab.

We became more serious. A couple of months went by and things were good. Then the day came where he gave me the classic line that I heard before. "You are a good woman, you deserve better than me." Where did I go wrong? I blamed myself for not doing more in the relationship. Was it even me? Did I just happen to settle for the first person that came my way and was he really that naive to think I would believe him when he stated I deserved better. I knew that men said this as a way to get out of a relationship easily to avoid confrontation.

I was heartbroken. I remember sitting on the back porch during a break from the family business and tears would begin to fall uncontrollably. I couldn't stop them. I felt as though it was my fault that every relationship I had been in came crashing down on me.

I had no idea what to expect over the next couple of years. I simply wanted to find a man that loved me. Questions continued to stir within me. Was there true love waiting for me out there, somewhere. What more did I need to do to change myself within in order to be the woman that a man wanted to marry, and stay married to and loyal to long term. I felt that I needed to learn how to be a dutiful girlfriend, and one day a dutiful wife. I decided to stop blaming my ex's for the way things turned out and to start looking inward and figure out what I could have done differently and learn from it.

They say knowledge is power, and it's true. I have learned so much in the past few months about love and what it REALLY takes to make a marriage work, that I have no idea how I survived the dating world for so long without it. I can't even begin to tell you how I was able to get married the first time with how much ignorance I had regarding successful relationships.