Yesterday, I reached out to the Hive Mind that is Facebook, and I asked about the logistics of post-divorce dating. Having been separated and divorced for five years, I’ve had some experience with it. Three years with Rango, the months that turned into whatever with Bounder… plus the dozens of others I entangled myself with to varying degrees.
But having unexpectedly met someone threw me for a loop. I am often hypersensitive to others, and I’m constantly on high alert for warning signs of disappointment (read: abandonment). I am persistently in a state of overthinking everything. Everything.
Ah, the joys of anxious attachment!
I wanted to know about the logistics of dating. I didn’t actually date in my teens and twenties. I married DH at 21. Though I’d been in a four-year relationship prior to him, it was abusive and tumultuous. Dating again five years ago was weird, for sure, and Rango was intended to be the last one.
Best laid plans, man.
So now having unexpectedly met someone, I have been struggling to determine if my feelings of anxiety and agitation are warranted, i.e., did he really pull back, or are those flutters and weird pangs in my chest just my own insecurities in a panic?
With rare exceptions, all of my romantic partnerships during the last five years started intense and immediate. We exchanged lots of messages, dates’ worth of information disclosed over the course of a couple of days via text and chat. Phone conversations were rarer, but it’s hard to talk when you’re both working and managing kids and lives.
Dating after divorce is hard. For everyone, there is the complication of past hurt, of trying to honor your own internal struggles and pain without getting caught in the same loops again. Those best laid plans were decimated, and it’s daunting to consider opening yourself to the possibility of hurt again. The demands of adulthood make finding time to connect even harder. And when one or both of you have kids, the scheduling difficulties and emotional concerns expand exponentially.
But what turned out to be my normal experience with dating again maybe wasn’t very normal at all. That constant connection felt fantastic, because it satisfied my tendency toward anxious attachment. While this new guy and I did have days of constant chatting and a couple of fantastic dates that first week, the communication dropped back. There are lots of logical reasons (see above), but the loosened connection made me agitated, sending me into days of hyper critical thinking.
Is the lack of constant, effusive attention normal, or is he an avoidant who's about to bail?
The thing about anxious and avoidant attachment styles is that they are inherently insecure--that’s why they’re not part of the secure attachment style. But secure attachment requires attachment to something (really someone). Even if I were secure in my own talents and attributes and accepting of who I am (which I’m plainly not), that doesn’t necessarily mean I could be securely attached to another person--though it would certainly improve the chances. An attachment is only formed in connection to an Other.
For me, this has most often manifested as this pathological dance between anxious Me and avoidant Them. We both want intimacy, and we connect immediately. When the feelings and connections become very intense, they run. Right on cue, I chase, trying desperately to maintain the lack of agitation that comes with being connected.
What I have finally learned is that the lack of agitation does not mean the attachment is secure. An absence of fluttery pangs in my chest does not equate to happily-ever-after. Because of the inherent insecurity on both sides, they are likely to bolt when they feel trapped by the intimacy they commanded. I’ve done the dance a dozen times and know the warnings signs, so I am always on high alert.
My rose-colored glasses can make even the whitest of flags look like they’re signalling the riptide that will drown me.
So did the new guy pull back, or is it normal dating behavior?
I don’t know.
I have polled my friends. I sought roundabout advice from the Hive Mind. No one knows, and I sure as hell don’t. The consensus is that I should wait and see, play it cool and just wait.
But I am impossibly impatient. Because I am not throwing everything at him at once, because I’m not demanding answers from him, I am agitated. At times, it feels as though my heart is about to claw its way out of my chest like a lovesick Xenomorph.
I don't know what to do with the agitation. I'm walking again, which helps. I'm down nearly 20 pounds since Rango and I split. I'm writing, though I recognize that almost no one but me sees these words. They are cathartic for me, however, and that has its own importance.
But the writing and therapy have shined a glaring light on my insecurities. I know why they came about, how they were formed, just not what to do to make them better. And not doing things how I always have, not demanding that he give me the weight of answers I may not want to hear, is uncomfortable
What worked before isn't working now, because I'm not letting it.
But this is driving me crazy, and there seems to be no peace to be found. The firefighters are at odds with one another, fighting inside me over how best to help me feel calm. All I can do is plod ahead, hour by hour, and do the things I need to do. I know that’s the managers, though, distracting me with to-do lists and minutiae that feels all too important.
I may feel like I’m coming apart from the inside, but at least my toilets will be clean.
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