Guest Author - Stephanie L Watson
After going through all the various stages of Divorce: Dissatisfaction, making the choice to divorce, acting on this choice, accepting the consequences you finally come to starting over. In order to start over you must reclaim your life and find your true self.
In order to reclaim your life you must learn the lessons that your past taught you, the difference between love and need, in addition to learning about yourself again in order to determine who you are and what your goals are.
Lessons From Your Former Marriage
During your marriage certainly both parties made mistakes. Whether through marrying for the wrong reasons, or simply trying to be or force someone else to be something that they are not, there is a lesson or two (or three) to learn from your former marriage. If you consciously examine the relationship hindsight will enable you to see what the relationship was with all its faults and its goodness.
Write down what was bad about your marriage and write down what was good about your marriage. The good is what you want to keep in your mind as you go forward, however, use the list of bad things to determine if there were signs previous to the marriage of these issues. More than likely they were, some of these bad items might have even been on your good list previous to your marriage and divorce. Be very honest with yourself about your faults and your strengths within the marriage. This is not about placing blame but about looking honestly at the relationship in a scientific, non emotional manner. You want to learn to see signs and red flags so that when you begin dating again you can identify these red flags and heed them.
Love Vs. Need
There is a vast difference from being in love with someone and needing them. Examine your relationships and determine which ones are based on a genuine love for each other, and ones based on need. There is nothing wrong with needing someone, but when it comes to marriage it is better that you simply love one another, rely on one another, but do not only need each other for finances or sex. If it is a relationship based only on need it is bound to fail because eventually without true love the relationship will fail. When you need someone for sex, or for financial reasons you are more likely to act in ways that are not authentic to your true self.
Who Are you?
In order to truly fall in love with another person who is compatible with you, you must know who you are to begin with. What qualities do you want in a life partner, what qualities do you offer a life partner. Do not try to be someone that you are not, and demand that others be who they are too. It's perfectly okay to date many people and find that you are not compatible, do not force compatibility. You either are, or you're not, and the only way to determine this is if both people know who they are, and behave appropriately.
An example: If you are a messy person, be a messy person. If you are a neat freak, be a neat freak, if the person really loves you, they will accept you the way you are, and vice versa.
Another example: You are very religious and he is not. He is not going to change and neither are you, and you shouldn't. Seek people out who value the same ideals that you do. The idea that opposites attract is probably why the divorce rate is so high.
Make a list of the qualities you desire in a mate including deal breakers. If the people you date fall outside of your list, or into the deal breaker category, move on.
Where to go from here
Now that you've determined the good and bad of your former marriage, quantified the differences between love and need, figured out who you are, it is time to move forward into forming your new life by being the person you are, warts and all.
Take your new found self and get out into the world, try speed dating, try Internet dating, ask friends to hook you up with someone. During these first few dates, do not make finding a life mate your main goal, make being yourself the main goal. If in being yourself and not trying to impress anyone, you find someone that you could love, continue on that path of being who you are and the next love you find just might be the real thing.
