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Dating a divorced man: Matchmaker case study
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Through out my career as a matchmaker I have come across many examples of the Power Shift dynamic. One client in particular, had been married for many years and was trying to date for the first time since his divorce. He had no idea how to date and needed my coaching. He was good looking but wore his heart on his sleeve and talked about his past marriage on dates. The women weren't having any of it, expecially in a city like San Francisco where single women are professional daters. Like many men who are freshly divorced, Roger had no filter or social skills that would help him get a second date with a great woman. The women he met were chewing him up and spitting him out. They would exclaim, "Next!" at the first faux pas Roger made, and he made a lot.
Roger was a great guy. He was deep, sensitive and emotionally available. His financial success, and tall, dark, handsome looks only added to his appeal and charm. The only problem was, he had no experience dating. He had been married most of this life and didn’t know the rules and subtleties needed. In dating, it easy to dismiss each other the first time one does something wrong. And it can take several dates to see the real guy behind the gaffs. I knew that Roger was a diamond in the rough and would need a lot of coaching if I were going to find a successful match for him.
Roger wanted a woman who was youthful, fun, and exciting. He wanted a woman who valued him and appreciated his power, but also wanted a woman who was powerful herself. He wanted a woman who was grounded and intelligent and with whom he could communicate as a friend. In short, Roger wanted an emotionally mature woman who looked and acted like a younger woman. He wanted someone that all men in their 40s and 50s want. He wanted a perfect “10”. He wanted Grace Kelly.
I presented Melissa to Roger for a prospective match. She was beautiful, optimistic, open minded, fun and adventurous. She was career driven but also had a creative and artistic side. They were both raised with alternative, hippie parents who allowed them to express themselves freely but were ambitious and success minded. She was a perfect fit for Roger but they had a problem: Melissa was too old. Even though Roger was 47 he set his mind on a woman between, 28 and 33. Melissa was 39. He also didn’t want a woman with kids, or pets and he liked blue-eyed, blonds and wanted someone who was at least 5’8”. Superficially, Melissa was nowhere near being Roger’s dream-girl. She was 5’ 5”, slim-hipped, brown-eyed, and a brunette. She had a teenager, two cats, and a dog. On the surface, it didn’t look good, but I knew that if I could just guide these two through the initial stages of the relationship they would make a perfect couple.
The attraction was instant the first time Roger met Melissa. Sparks flew. The chemistry was definitely there for both of them and they were excited about the prospect of their relationship. However, women are emotional creatures and can fall in love fast and hard whereas for many men, true love happens at a slow burn. Roger was especially slow. The first three months of their relationship were a struggle for Melissa because she was ready for a commitment long before he was. Although Roger really liked Melissa he wanted the freedom to date other women. He didn’t feel he was quite ready to jump back into a relationship after such a long marriage and declared he and Melissa’s as an open relationship.
During those first three months of courtship, Melissa was his favorite girl, but he loved his newfound power in the dating scene. He was taking all those coaching tips I’d given him and exercising his power with waitresses, hostesses, store clerks, and any cute young thing that bat her eyelashes at him. It was tough to sit back and let him wander around knowing how much Melissa liked him but I didn’t say a word. I knew that it was in her best interest to be cool and to let him play out his freedom. It would buy her time. Roger needed to fall in love with her at a man’s pace, and by pressuring him too soon, it would kill the seedlings of their developing relationship.
Besides, she was busy too. She had lots of things going on. Or at least that is how I instructed her to act. From personal and professional experience I know that men want women who are ever so slightly unavailable. A woman has to create a slight chase for a man to be interested. She has to project a mysterious edge that keeps him guessing. Melissa may have suffered with jealousy but he never heard a peep from her.
Delayed Monogamy
Many women feel a relationship should become monogamous the second they become intimate with someone. This is unrealistic. If the guy has been single for quite some time he will most likely have several irons in the fire. He will not immediately pull them all out. The longer he’s been single, the more accustomed to “hunting mode” he will be and the longer it will take him to get out of it. He will be so used to looking at every woman as an option that it will be hard to stop suddenly, even if he finds his dream girl. A woman should give him three months of intimacy before requesting monogamy, and give him a year of intimacy before expecting him to lose his “hunting mode” altogether. I instructed Melissa to lie in the grass and keep her cool for three months until she was certain that Roger was sufficiently hooked on her, and then she put her foot down.
“There will be no other women,” she said.
“Okay.”
Roger agreed without so much as a question because he was ready by then. He had the opportunity to explore his options while simultaneously dating Melissa and so he was able to compare her to others and appreciate what he had in her. He was also able to phase out the other women in his Rolodex slowly. When he and Melissa first started dating he was already midstream with other women and expecting him to cut all past ties the minute he started dating her would have been unrealistic.
Gum on a July Sidewalk
In so many ways, just as hard as it is to get a relationship to stick, it is also hard to peel one away. Roger was still in mourning over the loss of his twenty-year marriage and the break-up of his family that included kids. I knew from experience that Roger was going to have a hard time cutting the ties to the ex wife that had been his life for 20 years. Trying to break up is like pulling gum off a hot July sidewalk. It takes time and can be very frustrating for those trying to date him. His ex may haunt the new relationship and he may act cold and ambivalent when he misses her. Roger’s relationship to his ex-wife was long, involved, and complex. Since the divorce was still fresh, he often got swept up in the sadness every time he went to see his kids. In this situation it was important for Melissa to be patient. Time heals wounds, and people move on. To have unrealistic expectations that a great guy will have no past is self-sabotaging. Over time however, the threads of the “gum” become thinner and thinner until eventually, the strands snap. Melissa would have to understand this and not put undue pressure on him to cut ties to his past relationship if she wanted to keep him. Love is a process, not an event. And successful love requires compromise.
Compromise
Like a lot of young men, Roger had been powerless when he was in his early 20’s. He was a pimply-face, lanky teenager who was delayed in his sexual maturity and couldn’t get a date. Cheerleaders rolled their eyes at him as he beckoned to their will hoping for a glance or a smile. He met his wife in college, the first beautiful woman to pay attention to him, and he married her thinking it would be his last. Although he was married for twenty years he was still immature when it came to dating. When I first met Roger he was enamored with Howard Stern humor and acted in many ways, like an adolescent when it came to women.
Melissa, on the other hand, had been a hottie in high school and had guys clamoring for her attention. In her 20s, she could virtually get any guy she wanted. Like most attractive women in their 20s, she had all the power. By the time she turned 39, she had plenty of dating experience and was mature in her understanding of men and sex and relationships. She had three long-term relationships during her 20s and 30s while Roger had just had one.
Because Roger and Melissa were at different stages when it came to dating savvy it would take compromise, patience and understanding if they were going to get through the initial stages of their relationship. Roger and Melissa came from two completely different frames of reference. To expect their paths to be identical would have been unrealistic. It would have been easy for Melissa to dismiss him the first time he said something stupid, but I coached her to be open-minded and let their relationship develop slowly. Compromise means meeting half way. People do change over time. If a good man does a bad thing at the beginning, it doesn’t mean he can’t learn from his mistake and become Mr. Right in the future. When men are in love they will go the distance to adjust and accommodate to her wishes.
Melissa didn’t run for the hills like so many women did in Roger’s early post-marriage dates. She could have dismissed him unjustly and said, “Next!” just like the other women did. But she had some insider information from me. I assured her that Roger genuinely didn’t know any better. He was clueless, but he was a great guy who was just as confused as she was in starting a new relationship. Roger and Melissa have progressed from dating, to love, to marriage. Roger is a good man, and he is worth keeping. He is honorable, sensitive, sincere, and a genuinely kind person. Melissa had to jump through a few hoops to reel him in but she understood that in order to get a good man and keep him, she would have to understand the Power Shift phenomenon. She would have to understand that she is not the only prize in the relationship. Roger is a prize too. And if she wanted to keep him, she had to make sure that he felt like a prize every day.
For more information contact Melinda Maximova, matchmaker with Perfect Search melinda@theperfectsearch.com
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