Another - Blended Not Shaken
The Power Of Solitude...
Divorce is a death without a body to bury…
And anyone who doesn’t get that is in danger of ‘skipping’ some important emotional housekeeping – so essential to internal recovery. A recovery that can serve, to assist, in making your re-marriage an emotionally healthier experience.
After divorce learning to enjoy our own company – along with spending much needed bonus time with our children [who are also adjusting] is a significant benefit that works wonders in unseen ways. Time with yourself and time with your children creates an opportunity for renewal with significantly less soul-scarring.
To be quite blunt, initially this personal search time can be about as much fun as spraying for moths. However, though it may feel as tedious as the weekly laundry at first – that effort actually means you’re doing it right.
‘Bite-down,’ on that willow branch of introspection because we’re spending less and less time with ourselves today than ever – to our detriment. And you may discover what you thought was important about your life - was just, plain, ‘junk’.
As a species we tend to haul around much more emotional luggage than is necessary. Too many of us actively seek to avoid any internal molting – like we avoid regular visits to a dentist. But reflection is as important as all other modifications we consider in life such as finding a shorter route to work, learning a second language, asking for a raise, or changing jobs…
· Scrounge a minimum of 15 minutes each day to be alone. If work/volunteer obligations pull at you, and the kids activities make your day chronically hectic that 15 minutes could be getting up a little earlier, or some favorite music with a single chapter of a good book just before bed.
· Work beyond any bitterness. Identify what you learned or accomplished because of your first marriage. Don’t harbor a mindset that it was ‘all’ a waste.
· Cease blaming your ex-spouse for everything. Assigning blame to someone else traps us in the mode of ‘victim’ allowing other people perpetual influence.
· Accept half of the responsibility for what didn’t work in your marriage. That’s right 50% regardless of any drug, alcohol or even abuse factors. Accepting our own role in the dysfunctional elements of our previous marriage is empowerment that allows us to regain control over new choices going forward.
· Embrace all of the challenges for your new future. Deal with one known issue at a time then choose to be excited about unknown possibilities. Stretching beyond our usual comfort-zone can be enriching.
· Eventually expand your ‘alone-time’ to a minimum of two hours each week. Adding another five minutes to your ‘scrounged’ 15 minutes is do-able. If you have young children then buddy-up with another single parent [sibling, friend, co-worker] so you can take turns caring for each other’s children.
By the time Keith and I met – I had been single-again for several years and so had he. Neither of us had dropped-from-sight socially. However, we waited those years because quite frankly neither one of us had a clear understanding initially of all the negative contributions we made to the failure of our first trip to the altar.
Keith’s first marriage was 11 years and mine was 15. And – for both of us there were unresolved issues that still clung to the memories of our previous marriages like dried moss. So, we had remained single, reluctant to roll our emotions again like Atlantic City dice – until we had finished our own personal sorting.
We also had children to consider – no longer making decisions for ourselves as we had before we married the first time. The last experience we wanted to face was a romantic mistake that vacuumed our children through the trauma of a repeat tour through the maze of a second divorce.
Therefore, pay close attention to any red flags when dating this time. Those unique, additional stresses of a blended-family - will shatter personality weaknesses like a high-pitched sound wave through fine crystal.
Before contemplating pairing up again, we need to be:
· Very aware of our strengths;
· Very aware of our flaws;
· Very clear about who we are;
· Very clear about what we need;
· Very clear about the qualities that must be present in any future partner.
Forget soul-mate. Here on Earth, we need a team-mate.
Remarrying too soon after a divorce can cause another quick separation. A second divorce a year, three years, five years later can re-damage your offspring’s emotional development. Damage, to a greater degree the second time because an emotional attachment grew that was just as strong toward the new stepparent as to the non-custodial biological parent.
Most young children bond as easily as glue. Should you continue a pattern of intense dating then a rushed marriage followed by another divorce, your offspring’s entire bonding-system may shutdown in self-defense. Or, just as destructive your offspring begins to seek attention and approval from a series of unhealthy sources.
………
Meg grew up in a small town in Michigan. But Meg’s mother was in alcohol rehabilitation from the time Meg was five until her death when Meg was in high school.
Living with their father - Meg, her younger brother and sister grew up with a succession of ‘dad’s girlfriends’ who moved in with marriage on their agenda. Since Meg’s father never legally divorced their mother when she was alive, he ‘could not’ marry any of his romantic partners. After a year or two the girlfriends would get frustrated and then move out.
In Meg’s last year of high school, a handsome new English teacher moved to town with his wife and infant twin daughters. Writing had always been one of Meg’s interests and she set out to impress the new teacher, ten years her senior.
Attractive herself and sexually active already, too soon, their relationship progressed well beyond that of teacher and student.
One month before her high school graduation Meg discovered she was pregnant. She then informed her lover she had missed her last two periods. On the pretext of a research fieldtrip for the school newspaper, teacher and student drove to the nearest large city to a clinic for a pregnancy test.
When it was confirmed, the unnerved teacher asked Meg for some time to think through their next move. In mid-July they met in another town where the teacher handed Meg an envelope with two thousand dollars in cash [he had borrowed from his folks for ‘house and car’ repairs]. He instructed Meg to go to Chicago and establish herself there and he would join her as soon as he could.
Thrilled at the prospect of a home and family of her own, she took a Greyhound bus to Chicago. She found a small walk-up apartment and using her soon to be ‘new’ married name got a job as a receptionist at a Chicago newspaper then enrolled in night classes in journalism.
At first her lover wrote faithfully, and she wrote back exchanging letters via a post box the teacher opened in a neighboring town.
By the New Year all Meg had was a long list of excuses and a new baby daughter [Laura]. She hadn’t returned to her father’s house for Christmas so no one except the people she worked with – who still had not met her ‘husband’ – knew about the baby.
In the spring Meg quietly hinted to her landlady and a few coworkers that she and her husband were ‘divorcing’. Another two years went by, she became the City Editor’s secretary, and finished her junior college course. With the support of her boss, she persuaded the paper’s Lifestyle Editor to give her a chance.
One of her first assignments was to interview a prominent furniture store family. Their youngest son Tim had just graduated from Princeton and was joining the family business. Meg set her sights on Tim.
Tim was attracted to Meg, but for all the wrong reasons. That didn’t matter to Meg. Eighteen months later she announced to him she was pregnant. His family wasn’t pleased, but in 1982 most young men ‘did-the-right-thing’.
After the honeymoon the couple, with Meg’s three-and-a-half-year-old daughter moved into the large family home, so they could get established.
Meg continued to write for the newspaper until the baby arrived, enjoying a nanny for Laura instead of daycare.
With the birth of Tim and Meg’s son Joel in the summer of 1983 and for two years after that Meg was able to stay home and enjoy her family. But it soon became clear it had been Tim’s family wealth and status that had motivated Meg when her spending became a public embarrassment.
Tim’s family encouraged him to file for a divorce. His family offered to ‘relocate’ Meg and her daughter with a generous two-year allowance – to go quickly, go quietly, but to go leaving Joel with Tim.
Meg chose Seattle. She moved her new furniture, her new small fortune, her daughter and herself to the west coast. Two years later Meg had become pregnant then married a local building contractor. Three years and a second daughter later they were divorced.
By this time Laura was nearly ten, sullen and almost reclusive.
As a result of how Meg grew up, she had ‘run’ after affection. However, Meg’s daughter Laura had retreated.
STRENGTHS & FLAWS…
· Our strengths are the good-stuff. We can recognize them because they produce spontaneous and repeated compliments from other people like acquaintances, employees, friends and family. Our strengths also produce a satisfying feeling of accomplishment within us after completing a task that involved using our abilities.
· Our flaws are recognizable in just the opposite way, because they tend to trigger reverse reactions from people. Employers and competitive coworkers tend to be far more candid in pointing out [or actually documenting] our shortcomings. Friends and family members may just ‘hint in an attempt to be kinder or avoid us and say nothing at all – hoping that eventually we’ll figure-it-out on our own. That method rarely works – we’re dense.
We try to disregard our flaws, but instead of a feeling of accomplishment there is space. Attempting to fill that space our flaws rise to the surface of our behavior in the form of other activities that give us away. We fill the space with all manner of rubbish like alcohol, compulsive shopping, food, a knock-down busy schedule, blaming others... The list is impressive.
And we’ll do almost anything to avoid dealing with the weeds growing in our space. Having had some experience with a few dozen weeds of my own I can assure you: no I did not like it – yes, I slacked off several times – no they did not go away when I tried to ignore then – and yes, I still have more.
I’m not attempting to make a silk-purse from a sow’s ear when I define flaw as: an emotional closet that needs to be emptied, cleaned then reorganized. Flaws actually represent ‘a promise of progress’. Those glorious flaws are aspects of our life, relationships and character we have an opportunity to remedy!
WHO WE ARE…
Now don’t scoff, but we actually spend more time maintaining our vehicles than we do ourselves.
Most people have no idea who they are and make a concerted effort to actually run from or ignore the very concept. And for the most part, our methods toward ‘self-discovery’ run from the obscure to the bizarre as we flail around going through wasted motions before we often simply ‘dropout’.
Not knowing who we are spills over to dampen all aspects of our lives affecting jobs as well as relationships. We’re then in danger of living unfulfilled dreams, desires and plans. And then we’re in grave danger of diluting or even shelving our own potential.
The straightforward act of taking personal inventory is so basic it’s often missed as a tool to finding answers to our life questions.
Who we are is more often than not reflected in what we do with our spare or leisure time than it is our working hours. And far too many people are not doing what they ‘love’ for a living. Because of that our work is merely a job that provides an income to support our daily needs when what we wish we could do with our time we call – a hobby.
I knew what I wanted for a career after high school. I had gravitated to our high school’s newspaper, spending all three of my years writing, first as a reporter, then assistant editor, then editor in my senior year.
But there were no female reporters on staff with our small city newspaper, and the bigger city newspaper I approached just wanted to know if I knew how to type.
Because my science marks were strong, through a family friend I was offered a job with Chevron as a T.A. [Technical Assistant] to three geologists working on a special research project. Because the ‘project’ was short staffed the work the geologists gave me was demanding, fascinating and ever changing and I got hooked.
Within a few months, I began taking geology classes while working. Then one of my professors offered to pay for some computer classes for me if I would help him with a research project.
So – more by accident than design [on my part] I ended up with a major in geology and a minor in computer science.
The pace of my days in the oil industry was challenging, hectic and I was well paid. During the years I was home with my kids fulltime I began writing again, publishing freelance columns and features for several newspapers and later some magazines.
After my divorce I was able to merge my geology with a growing writing portfolio, as Exploration Editor for OILWEEK Magazine then a feature columnist for DRILLSITE Magazine.
But eventually I had to admit that I wasn’t a scientist I was writer. In my heart of hearts, I can truly do nothing else that matters to me as much as write…
Do what fills your heart with joy… Use the disappointment of a divorce as metaphoric stepping-stones to move you across from one side of the stream of your life to the other. But well before you consider tackling the incredible, special load that is a blended family be able to claim who you are.
Admit what fills your heart with joy and look to rebuild some basic foundations that might have been missing from your life previously and therefore missing from your first matrimonial attempt. Take a large gulp of air and ask yourself:
· What are my spare time choices?
· Do I dread returning to work after a day or extended time away?
· What type of clothing would I wear if I ran my own business?
· If I inherited/won two million dollars what would my first five decisions be?
· Who are my friends?
· What colors and patterns do I like?
· Am I emotionally close to, and do I like my family members?
· Do I laugh easily?
· What are my choices in books, music, movies, theater, art, sports or other entertainment?
· Is it easy for me to share with others?
· Do I like to keep learning?
I left –do I like to keep learning– to the last because fear of change too often holds us back.
Change is a fear we may not even recognize as such. You can recognize an unidentified fear when you hear yourself or someone else habitually make excuses for not finishing or starting something. “I don’t like my job, but it pays well.” “I like my house just the way it is.” “Who’d want to move to ‘X’ the winter’s there are: too wet, too cold, too snowy, too dry, too…” You’ve made or heard those excuses.
Then there is my all-time favorite – “I’m too old to change now.” Translation – can’t be bothered. Too-old-to-change is a classic excuse and a poor one.
WHAT WE NEED…
“CRISIS EQUALS OPPORTUNITY” is part ancient wisdom. Those words were engraved on a plaque that sat on the desk of Jim Gray, one of the two founders of Canadian Hunter – the last oil company for which I worked.
Let the words “Crisis Equals Opportunity” settle in…Divorce as with any traumatic event can also be an occasion to slow down and then reflect and tweak or modify - us!
To understand ‘we have no control over anyone or anything except ourselves’ may seem overly obvious while at the same time appearing futile, but it’s not. In truth, altering how we approach and/or respond to other people or any given event actually can change how others must respond in return, thus the outcome of a situation.
Sometimes approaching an issue like a game of pool [billiards] it’s easier to understand what I mean by us making a ‘change’.
………
Guy had discovered his wife cheating on him with other men twice before over the ten years they had been married. Guy had forgiven his wife on each of the two previous occasions, thinking he needed to do more, or be more – basically blaming himself. When he caught her the third time however, he took a deep breath, filed for divorce then went for counseling.
There were no more lectures, no more anger, no more recriminations, or tolerated excuses. Guy learned that adultery was ‘her’ problem and he was no longer going to allow it to be his.
QUALITIES IN THAT NEW PARTNER…
Our basic needs certainly change with time and our age, but that is circumstance dictating a form of need as much as anything. There is another form of need we have that does not change with age, time or condition. And oddly enough far too many of us understand our life-needs, about as well as we know who we are.
Because we’re not tuning into our life-needs too many people continue with toxic-relationships and/or suffocating-jobs.
We sacrifice ourselves often for others who wouldn’t do the same for us in return. We remain attached to unhealthy and unbalanced situations – like the store manager [who wanted to be a nurse]. She married then supported her high school sweetheart while he kept attending university changing majors.
Or – we allow our career pursuits to be spiritually limiting like the oil company accountant who lived for the time he spent in his workshop on the weekends making furniture.
Opposites may attract in romance novels, but in a karmic or a scientific world ‘birds-of-a-feather’ is generally the rule. In all the years watching nature specials on television and reading National Geographic I’ve never seen any documented cases of an osprey courting a turkey – or a hippo head-over-heels over a zebra.
My point is that crossing cultural and ethnic lines is so much easier that crossing those deep ego-personality rivers. Like trying to cross Madison Avenue against the light, at noon without getting honked at or cursed.
If your sensitive personality thrives on classical music, theater and French cuisine with a distinctive leaning toward quiet evenings reading a good book or sharing wine and conversation with a few friends… Just how well [long term] would you expect to fair in a relationship with an expressive personality who likes jazz, monster truck rallies, fast food, with a strong leaning toward pub-crawling and parties with dozens of people at barbeques?
Granted, my example is a deliberate exaggeration and we do tend to gravitate to those who with characteristics we seem to lack. [Generally, a subconscious pull.]
However, basic similar fundamental elements still need to fit. If the differences are too far apart on the ego-personality scale - over time what began as a cute idiosyncrasy, or ‘crutch’ for one or both partners - eventually weathers away their collective nerves to a relationship of discontent.
So – let’s really avoid that pothole the second time.
We all know couples where one partner is more outgoing and chatty while the other partner is quieter. But the chatty one still needs to have the ability to embrace quiet time and the more reserved one still needs to be able to speak up. Eliminating those exaggerated opposites is what dating in our twenties was designed to help us work through.
We can certainly team-up with someone who is more imaginative, more adventuresome, more humorous, or more anything than we are – outwardly. However, we must already have some of those qualities, or possess a comfort level that allows us the capacity to be open to merging our dominant personality traits with our minor characteristics.
We chose our friends based on common interests, then, why not select a romantic partner using the same criteria. If we have the right friends those relationships are easy. The right relationships should not be work, like weeding rows of radishes in the midday sun.
If we would not choose, or retain friends we could not depend on, who would lie to us, who continually borrowed money, who criticized, or used us for personal gain… It makes even less sense to choose or maintain a romantic association that perpetuates what we would not tolerate on any other social level. Note: if anyone reading this does have social friends [family] who function on a negative level, please seek counseling from a pastor or therapist to help you deal with them too.
Deliberately selecting a life partner for reasons of security, to escape poverty, or to avoid a present unpleasant situation – or for any other selfish motivation, offers a guarantee of failure from the first moment after your “I do”.
When we do not marry for respect, and do not sincerely like the other person the façade with which we entered the relationship, crumbles.
………
Lois grew up in Tucson in a highly dysfunctional home where both parents drank heavily. They moved a great deal and daily life was a crapshoot.
In 1983 at a party the summer of her high school graduation, she met Neil. Neil had grown up in a small farming community where his folks owned and ran the local hardware store with a post office.
Neil had one more year at Arizona State University then was returning to Iowa. Lois saw Neil as her ‘ticket’ out…
When she couldn’t seem to get the firm commitment from him, she had hoped for, she allowed herself to get pregnant. But her scheme backfired.
Instead of marrying someone who would be a college graduate and move her back to Iowa away from her sad childhood memories – Neil had to quit university. When his folks found out he needed to get married they stopped all financial support.
One year from graduating as an engineer, Neil was forced to take a job as an architect’s assistant. The pay was marginal, with no benefits. When their daughter was born, Neil had to borrow money from his boss then repay the loan for hospital bills, with money from a part-time job at nights.
One year later, Neil’s folks figured the two young parents had learned a valuable lesson and asked them if they were interested in working in the hardware store.
Lois expecting the store was a booming business that could resolve their financial woes encouraged Neil to accept – effectively forcing him back to the town and business to which he had no interest.
The couple moved into the small apartment above the store. And the town where everybody knew just about everything soon became too small for Lois. The young parents worked six-day weeks and often opened on a Sunday for a customer who needed a few more nails, or a little more paint or something…
Lois and Neil lasted seven [turbulent] years in Neil’s hometown then separated. Neil moved to Des Moines to finish his engineering degree and Lois returned to Tucson to enroll in nursing.
Their marriage failed not because they weren’t nice people who meant well. Their marriage failed because they came together for the wrong reasons. In a re-marriage the stakes are even higher if pure intent is not present.
Ya got’ta luv irony. People have higher standards for so many other aspects of their lives but let themselves down with romantic relationships. If you won’t settle for poor quality upholstery on your sofa, or appliances in need of constant repair w-h-y would you compromise on a life-partner? Seriously?
By waiting or at least taking dating at a slower pace, divorced parents allow themselves time to avoid a romantic-rebound.
Remember – as a divorced parent you are ‘not’ dating or remarrying alone. Your kids are coming too [and your partner’s kids are also included] so the qualities you’re looking for need to be on a much higher level.
And quality includes your circumstance[s] as well, like:
· The residential location of each biological parent;
· School considerations;
· Extracurricular interests of parents and offspring;
· Health or emergency issues;
· Prior legal arrangements for financial support, visitation, vacations, and other requirements set in place without any third-party considerations.
Family court judges don’t base child support, alimony, property settlements or the welfare of the child[ren] on any future [romantic] possibilities – only the present circumstances involved with the legal dissolving of the one marriage before them.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR…
It was New Years Eve 1989. While sitting before a fire at the Sunshine Village ski lodge in Banff, Alberta that I made a wish.
It was a simply worded wish that made its way to orbit the Universe completely intact. I realized much later my wish had been just a little too simple and that I should have specified a few more parameters.
However – because I had not qualified a few small, but important details – the Universe took me completely at my word providing me with exactly what I had requested.
Fairly swift to respond, two months later on Tuesday evening February 27, 1990, I was introduced to Keith over dinner by a mutual friend and his date.
Keith who lived in Colorado was visiting this mutual friend who also lived in Alberta, Canada as I did. And because Keith and I lived and worked a thousand miles apart, I didn’t place any significance to the introduction.
While Keith was still in town, I was asked to join everyone again and we all went skiing a couple of times and then to dinner a second time.
Okay, remember those parameters I had neglected to specify? Well, it soon became apparent that location should have been one of them.
Five days after we met, Keith returned to Colorado and I said out loud starring at the coffee pot in my kitchen, “I wish we lived in the same city.”
Once again, the Universe heard my request and proceeded to shuffle the deck of life for yet another deal to all the players, setting events in motion for wish number two. I still hadn’t yet understood what had happened as a result of my first wish.
We telephoned back and forth then visited back and forth for several weeks until by the end of June we both realized that all of our years living in a form of limbo were over. Somehow, we had to make what we had found in each other translate into a marriage.
It was about this point I finally realized just how much of a blank-check I had given to fate and the angles. So, I decided I had better be more precise with my third wish. I assumed I had a third wish…Three wishes are the standard right?
Anyway, I got real firm this time. Or at least I thought I had. “Okay, we’ve met - now help us make it work!”
Wow. Universal dust flew then. I was able to transfer from Canadian Hunter in Calgary to American Hunter in Denver, put my townhouse on the market, Keith found a house large enough for all of us, we moved in, and then enrolled all the kids in new schools.
By the end of October 1990, we were all official. Keith had acquired a daughter and fourth son. I had acquired three more sons. And six members of this new family of seven, shoe-horned all of their worldly goods into a house found only three weeks before the moving truck, was set to arrive and unload.
Family, coworkers and longtime friends were astounded by several milestones that shot through the short eight months from meeting to marriage, like bullets.
But friends and family were no more astounded than we were.
Nevertheless, those years spending a great deal of time with ourselves, our kids, friends and family – prepared us. When we were ready to make another commitment, we were able to recognize that we were - ready.
What we gained by remaining ‘single-again’ for a number of years and taking our time was the opportunity to shed a collection of poor communication habits. But not just those habits, but other weak behavior traits, that, would have carried over into rushed dating.
At the risk of sounding like an echo what has happened to our society over 70+ decades of marriage, divorce, remarriage, divorce, remarriage… is a slow erosion of our family base.
· Increase in both parents working outside the home with a decrease in one parent at home… Not only due to the cycle of divorce that creates a high population of single parents, but high student loan balances forced both parents to remain in the general work force.
· Increase in television/technology time with a marked decrease in quality entertainment and family time…“The Flying Nun” and “Gilligan’s Island” may have been out-there but at least families could laugh and watch together. And, sorry, but everyone on their own phones or other electronic devices - while sitting at the same table - is ‘not’ time together.
· There’s an increase in parental [school] interference, but a decrease in active parental [education] involvement… America’s overall education standards have been watered down, with less consequences for the actions of our kids while they’re at school translated into less support for teachers. But teachers didn’t dilute the course work, nor did they abdicate their role as authority in their classrooms. Largely exhausted, overwhelmed parents felt compelled to defend their kids, and overspending legislators routinely cut vital funding for education.
· Increase in job commute time equals decreased relax time… In an attempt to improve our quality of life by living outside of the cities we work in – we have actually accomplished the opposite of our intention.
· Increase in ‘gadget’ technology led to decrease in one-on-one and personal interaction…For anyone seeking ‘quality-time’ with their kids try an old-fashioned board game, go bowling, go for an ice cream cone – make dinner together – just simple stuff. But for parents of young children turn off your damn phone and respond to them when they say, “Mommy,” or “Daddy” wanting your attention to share or ask you something. If you ignore your children as toddlers, by the time they’re a young teen they will certainly be ignoring you.
MY NOTES
· Divorce – forces change, so pay attention to all the ‘signs’ around you;
· Because our ‘aim’ the second time around is for a lasting long-term relationship inner-healing is the tool that will allow us to make a better selection. And we achieve that by creating and savoring healing-time;
· Aim for someone who enhances and compliments the qualities you already have…
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