Dating a divorced man: Matchmaker case study

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Through out my career as a matchmaker with Perfect Search I have come across many examples of the Power Shift dynamic and how it affects dating divorced men.  Many women I have matched let some really great guys slip through the cracks because they expected men to cut all ties to their past relationship immediately and expected monogamy too soon. Pulling out of a long-term relationship is often painfully slow and takes time and patience. Understanding this process and not expecting monogamy too soon with a divorced man will help to create a smoother transition from his past relationship to his current one.

Roger, a recently divorced client, had been married for many years and was trying to date for the first time. After a long, 20-year marriage, he had no idea how to do it and needed coaching. He was good looking and girls liked him, but he talked about his past relationship and his divorce on all of his first dates. The women I set him up with weren’t having any of it, especially women in his age group, mid to late 30s, who had been serial dating for decades. They were chewing him up and spitting him out, exclaiming, “Next!” at the first faux pas Roger made, and he made a lot of them. Like many men who are freshly divorced, Roger had no filter or social skills that would help him get a second date. A great guy, deep down he was a sensitive and emotionally available man with financial success, but his problem was his lack of experience in the dating department. Having been married most of his life, he didn’t know the rules and subtleties that dating required. In dating, it’s easy to dismiss each other the first time someone does something wrong, not knowing that it can take several dates to see the real guy behind the gaffes. I knew that Roger was actually a diamond in the rough but would need a lot of coaching if I was going to find a successful match for him.

I presented one of my candidates to Roger. Melissa was a beautiful, optimistic, open-minded, fun and adventurous woman who was career driven, but she also had a creative and artistic side. They were both raised with alternative parents who allowed them to express themselves freely, and they were both ambitious and success minded. She was a perfect fit for Roger, except…he had a problem: Melissa was too old. Even though Roger was 47, he had set his mind on a woman who was between 28 and 33. Melissa was 39. He also didn’t want a woman with kids or pets and liked blue-eyed blondes and wanted someone who was at least 5’8”. Superficially, Melissa was nowhere near Roger’s match. She was a 5’ 5”, slim-hipped, brown-eyed, brunette with a teenager, a cat, and two dogs! 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 could potentially be a happy couple.

The physical attraction was instant the first time Roger and Melissa met. Sparks flew and the chemistry was definitely there for both of them. They were excited about the prospect of future dates; however, whereas women are emotional creatures and can fall in love fast and hard, for many men, true love happens at a slow burn. Roger was especially slow. Melissa was ready for a commitment long before Roger, and although Roger really liked Melissa, he wanted the freedom to date other women simultaneously. He didn’t feel he was quite ready to jump back into a relationship after such a long marriage and declared that he and Melissa’s relationship was “open” for the first three months.

During those three months of courtship, Melissa was his favorite girl, but Roger loved his newfound power in the dating scene and was taking all those coaching tips I’d given him and exercising that power with waitresses, hostesses, store clerks, and any cute young thing that bat her eyelashes at him. It was tough knowing how much Melissa liked him, but I didn’t say a word. I knew that it would be in her best interest to stay cool and let him play out his freedom. Roger needed to fall in love with her at a man’s pace—pressuring him too soon would have killed the seedlings of their developing new relationship.
Besides, she was busy, as well. She had lots of things going on, or at least that’s how she acted. Men want women who are ever so slightly unavailable, so women have to create a slight chase to keep men interested. She has to project a mysterious edge that keeps him intrigued. Melissa may have suffered jealousy toward the other women he was seeing, but he never heard a peep about it from her.

Delayed Monogamy

Many women feel that a relationship should become monogamous the minute they become intimate. Unfortunately, this is unrealistic. If a guy has been single for any length of time, it’s likely that he’ll have several irons in the fire and won’t feel the urge to pull them all out immediately. 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 a potential option that, even if he does find his dream girl, it will be hard for him to suddenly stop. A woman should give a man at least three months before requesting monogamy and a year before expecting him to lose his “hunting mode” altogether. I coached 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. He had the opportunity to explore hisoptions while simultaneously dating Melissa and was able to compare her to the other women who had been midstream when he and Melissa first started dating. By allowing Roger the time to phase out the other women in his Rolodex, slowly Melissa allowed Roger to fall for her on his own terms.

Gum on a July Sidewalk

Roger was still mourning the loss of his twenty-year marriage and the break-up of his family, which included children. As a result, he was going to have a hard time cutting the ties to an ex-wife who had been the focus of his life for the past twenty years. As hard as it is to get a relationship to stick, it can be just as hard to peel one away. Trying to break up a long relationship is like pulling gum off a hot July sidewalk. The more you pull however, the thinner the strands become and eventually they will snap altogether. The worst thing a new girlfriend can do is to put unreasonable pressure on a divorced man to cut all ties to his ex-wife immediately.

Roger’s relationship to his ex-wife was long, involved, and complex. Since the divorce was still fresh, he would get swept up in sadness every time he visited his kids. In this situation, it was important for Melissa to be patient. According to Avalanche, LLC, who conducted a survey on how people deal with break ups, a surprising 85% of men admitted to falling into depression after a break up, compared to only 8% of women.  An ex-wife may haunt a new relationship, causing a divorced man to act cold and ambivalent at times, but ultimately, over time, the sadness will eventually fade. It is important for the new woman to acknowledge this dynamic and allow her divorced man time to be sad when remembering his previous life. Melissa had to understand this if she wanted to keep him and not put undue pressure on Roger to cut ties to his past relationship. Time heals wounds and, on average, five years after their divorce, the majority of men report being happier with their post-divorce lives.  Love is a process, not an event. And successful love requires compromise.

Compromise

Like a lot of young men, when Roger was in his early 20’s, he was powerless over women. He was an awkward, lanky teenager and delayed in his sexual maturity. 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, and, since she was the first beautiful woman to pay attention to him, 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 childish 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 when she was in her 20s, guys were clamoring for her attention. She could get virtually 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. In addition, she had three previous long-term relationships in her past, while Roger had just one.

Because Roger and Melissa were at different stages in their 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 had come from two completely different frames of reference and 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 she remained open-minded and let their relationship develop slowly. Compromise means meeting halfway and understanding that people do change over time. If a good man does a bad thing at the beginning of a relationship, it doesn’t mean that he can’t learn from his mistakes and become Mr. Right in the future. When men are in love, they will go the distance to adjust and accommodate to a woman’s wishes.

Melissa didn’t run for the hills like so many of the other women in Roger’s early post-marriage dates. She could have dismissed him unjustly and said, “Next!” just like those women, but she had the wisdom to understand that Roger genuinely didn’t know any better. He was clueless in the dating department and just as confused as she was in the beginning of a new relationship. Roger and Melissa have progressed slowly, and after four years of a slow courtship, were happily married on their five year anniversary. Roger was honorable, sensitive, sincere, and genuinely a kind person, and Melissa understood this. She had to jump through a few hoops to reel him in, but in order to get a good man and keep him, she knew that women need to adhere to the Power Shift and understand that they are not the only prize in the relationship—men like Roger are a prize, too.

For more information contact Melinda Maximova, matchmaker with Perfect Search melinda@theperfectsearch.com

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