Relationship Advice from A Divorced Man

You read it right.  I am a divorced man.  I’m about to be twice divorced.  So, what kind of relationship advice could I possibly give? 

In my experiences of failed relationship, I hope to provide some tips that will help you to either start a real relationship, or to improve the one you have.  After all, if we don’t learn from our mistakes, or the mistakes of others in this case, then we are doomed to repeat them.

1.     Make God the center of your life before you even think to start a relationship.  This is really quite simple but so many people miss this.  If you do not have a relationship with God, then you cannot have a relationship with someone else and expect God to be at the center of it.  A relationship is about making sacrifices and having faith in someone other than yourself.  That should start with God. 

2.     You are not a savior.  The concept of if you date someone you will be rescuing them is what has put most people in the worst type of relationships.  It put me in a bad relationship with someone in Missouri, and because my second wife thought I needed saving she pursued me.  People do not need to be saved through a relationship.  You are not Jesus Christ.  Only Jesus can save.  You cannot.  Stop it.  DO NOT pursue someone who is incapable of saving themselves, or at the very least initiate their own rescue.  DO NOT try to save someone from a domestic abuse situation unless they come to you for help.  When they come to you for help, help does not mean starting a relationship with them and fighting their abusive spouse.  DO NOT go to someone who is hurting from a failed relationship and think you can help them by trying to start a relationship with them.  You are not a savior.  In fact, repeat this phrase at least ten times with me:

I AM NOT A SAVIOR.
I AM NOT A SAVIOR.
I AM NOT A SAVIOR.
I AM NOT A SAVIOR.
I AM NOT A SAVIOR.
I AM NOT A SAVIOR.
I AM NOT A SAVIOR.
I AM NOT A SAVIOR.
I AM NOT A SAVIOR.
I AM NOT A SAVIOR.

3.     Get to know someone before you start the dating process.  We are in a day and age of social media where most social interaction is completed by sitting behind a computer screen or a smart phone device and sending messages out into the cyber-sphere.  My second failed marriage started because my soon-to-be-ex-wife saw my posts on Facebook lamenting the failure of a relationship I had just gotten out of and felt the need to violate Rule #2.  We went on one date before we became intimate thus violating the rule after this one (keep reading).  We didn’t start getting to know each other until long after a sexual relationship had been going on.  All the baggage we both had was slowly unpacked in a chaotic fashion as we both never dealt with it beforehand, nor gave one another leeway to deal with it. 

Best advice is to break this vicious cycle.  I am not knocking online dating sites but before you start a relationship with them, learn how to become their friends first.  Take a few dates, or a few multiple dates to get to know that person.  Because everything about social media is fake.  I try to be as authentic as possible on Facebook but it is a clever disguise for the real me.  Until you meet someone face to face, and continue to socialize with them face to face, you will never know the real person by the posts they put on Facebook.

4.     Sex should not be the reason a relationship starts.  This is a major issue in today’s sex-whenever-you-want-it society.  One night stands, walk of shame, pushing your boobs against someone.  We think sex is the priority.  My second marriage started out with sex and it failed because after that is achieved before marriage vows, what is left to achieve?  After my first marriage ended, I went wild.  I thought the greatest comfort would be found in a woman’s bosom, any bosom.  What I found out after the act had been done and the woman left, and what I can look back on now, is that I felt more alone.  Sex is personal.  It’s a revealing of our insecurities and vulnerabilities.  There is a connection established when two bodies meet and it can’t be broken even if you never see that person again.  Sex should never be the foundation of a relationship. Sex is merely the shingles on the roof.  That is all.  I dare say sex should not even be the main reason for a marriage to last.  Sex in marriage should be a continued expression of a married couple’s love for one another.

Notice I keep saying married couple in regards to sex.  Sex should never be done unless you are married.  A man should not be hunting for sex nor should a woman just be ready to give it up at the drop of a hat.  Have more self-respect and self-control than that.  If you can’t control your hormones, then what else will you be unable to control.

5.     There is no competition in a relationship, and neither are you the prize.  There should no competition held in starting a relationship.  You should not have to feel like you are competing against multiple contestants for the affection of someone.  Real dating life is not that stupid show called The Bachelor in which idiotic women compete for the affections of one person.  It is quite simple.  Either that person is attracted to you or they are not.  So, stop wasting your time if it is clear there is no mutual attraction.

Don’t regard someone as a prize.  Don’t relegate someone to a position that’s relevant to a prize you win at those rigged carnival games.  That’s a person you’re talking about with real feelings, a real heart, and real emotions.  They don’t want to be treated like a trophy.  They want respect, or at least a real person does. 

6.     Don’t pursue someone who has just ended a relationship or suffered a break-up.  I have been separated from my wife now for almost six months.  We have barely started the legal process for divorce.  I am in no way ready to start another relationship, nor to be toyed around by some people who think I should understand their affections toward me.  Let me make this clear, and this is usually the feelings of every SANE person who is just now going through their own break up, we DO NOT understand nor DO we care.  I am too busy dealing with my hurt, trying to readjust to my new single life, and trying to be a single-father of three to worry or even notice if someone is attracted to me.  Stop pursuing us.  We are too busy right now.  Especially stop pursuing us if several hints and statements have been made.  I have posted on Facebook within the last six months that I am in no way interested in dating again for the foreseeable future.  Yet some cannot get that through their heads.  And my ex-wife says I’m unreasonable yet several clear statements have been made.

If someone is coming out of a relationship, then I must ask why would you pursue that person?  It cannot be for your heart because those whose hearts have just been broken are not ready to care for your heart.  My only conclusion is that is not someone’s heart you are pursuing but rather their anatomical feature.  Please read #2 again before proceeding.

7.     Don’t use a person’s baggage against them.  Your spouse may have come from a broken childhood.  They maybe suffered abuse from their previous relationship.  They might be distrustful, have anger issues, and don’t want to share their feelings because the people whom they once trusted already betrayed them long before you came into the picture.  During the courting process, you start getting them to open their feelings and they spill everything to you.  They are starting to trust you so for the love of God DO NOT use it against them later.  I told my second wife everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING about my childhood.  Stuff I didn’t even tell my first wife I told my second one.  What happened?  During our arguments, she used it all against me.  Threw them at me like daggers.  Even called me by my mother’s name to incite my anger.  No man will ever trust a woman again after going through that, and no woman would either.  See #4 in this case and understand why we cannot trust anyone again from our hearts.  Anyone who even thinks to pursue a relationship with me will not only have to contend and be trusted with my baggage from my childhood, but now must deal with the baggage from my second marriage.  So why pursue people like me?  Refer to #2 if that is the reason, then see #4, and then come back to #5.

8.   Communicate!!!  Learn how to communicate.  Learn how to listen.  If you can’t talk without yelling or suppressing the other person, then DO NOT bother pursuing a relationship.  If you cannot listen to someone, and I mean true active listening then do not pursue a relationship.  Talking to one another will be like having a conversation with a brick wall except that conversation would be increasingly productive.

      Understand that in an argument no one is right.  You are both wrong because the issue being disagreed upon was not dealt with before it became an issue.  So, swallow your pride, suppress your arguments, and allow one another to explain why they did what they did.  If you want to be always right, then you should not be in a relationship because you never will be always right.  In fact, you probably should not be alive because you are never right in this lifetime.

9.     Encourage one another.  You are in a relationship to build one another up and support one another.  Do not tear down one another.  Provide each other with kind and loving words.  Don’t blow smoke up your partner’s fifth point of contact.  Instead be sincere with one another.  Support their dreams, and if you must be realistic about the pursuit of each other’s dreams, be tactful about it.  I love sarcasm but sarcasm should not be the main method of communication.  Sarcasm is like a loaded weapon: you need to know when to use it and when not to use it.

10.  Have friends.  Just because you are married to or in a relationship with your best friend does not mean you forsake all your friends who came before the relationship.  Do not prevent one another from still hanging out with those friends unless said friends are trying to come in between you two.  Do not isolate one another from your friends.  Do not hog all your partner’s time.  Having interactions with one another’s friends can save your relationship, and even make it flourish.  Find friends you can hang out with as a married couple, but also have those friends you can spend alone time with.

One warning on this friend deal.  If married then a husband should not be spending alone time with a female friend, nor should a wife be spending time alone with a male friend.  I don’t care if said male or female friends are married to other people.  DO NOT DO IT!  Never plant a seed of doubt in your partner’s heart and mind about your loyalties.  Also, limit the time you spend with your single friends.  They are living a single life.  It will conflict with your relational life.  If they can’t do things with you that would not jeopardize your relationship, then limit your time with them.

Speaking of having friends, do not pursue a relationship with someone you consider a good friend unless you think it will truly be worth it.  The loss of a friendship that could occur if the relationship turns sour may not be worth it.  I know it would not be for me.  There is a woman whom I do have a crush on.  She went to high school with me.  She has been a true friend during this difficult stage of my life.  She is beautiful, funny, and passionate.  However, losing her friendship would not be worth it to pursue a relationship.  What if went wrong?  What if it turned ugly like my second marriage did?  I would lose not only a relational partner, but a long-time friend.  You should weight that.

There are my ten suggestions for you.  Put God first, don’t be a savior, get to know someone in real-life, don’t have sex with someone right away (in fact wait until marriage), stop competing for someone’s non-existent affections, don’t pursue someone if they are healing from a recently ended relationship, don’t use a person’s past against them, communicate, encourage one another, and have a social life outside of the relationship.  Take it from someone who has had two failed marriages.  There is a reason I share these things because they have been mistakes I have made or they have been made towards me.

What about me?  Another relationship in the future?  Perhaps not.  I know for myself a relationship with another woman is out of the books for the foreseeable future.  It will require a “Jesus on the Road to Damascus” moment for me to change that.  There are maybe three women I would even consider dating but my friendship with them is more important (see Rule #10, third paragraph).  Relationships are only worth it if both parties can give more than just their bodies.  Right now, I am not able to give anything to anyone except for my fatherhood to my children.