Confessions of a Dating Widow

By Marie Roy

Romance Author Marie Roy shares her experiences in dating after a certain age. A must read for anyone who enters the dating pool after a divorce or becoming widowed. Roy researched this subject as well and provides an extensive bibliography/reading that is well worth the cost of the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Royal Publishing
• Release date: Aug 6, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452393568

Marie Roy

My name is Marie Roy. I write both fiction and nonfiction. In fiction I write contemporary romances. You can find out more about those at my newsletter/blog: http://www.newsletterofmarieroy.blogspot.com In nonfiction you can find my book here at Smashwords: Dating Hell, Relationship Heaven - A Journey for Baby Boomers after Becoming Divorced or Widowed. A Kindle version of this book is available also at Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002KHNXVE

Book preview

CONFESSIONS

OF A

DATING WIDOW

M. A. ROY

Published by Marie A. Roy at Smashwords

Copyright July 2010 Marie A. Roy

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author who became widowed at an early age. This book was written to help make the journey for other widowed and divorced person's a little bit easier especially when they decide to enter the dating pool.

The author hopes to make enough money to make her own journey a little easier as well.

INTRODUCTION: I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS JOURNEY

Why did I decide to write a book on dating and relationships?

Ralph Keyes stated in his book The Courage to Write, Any writing worth doing is a trek into the unknown. Writers never know where their pen or keyboard will take them.

Well, if that isn't the truth?

...You know one thing. You know you will not be the same person when this voyage is over.

I've always believed that any voyage worth taking changes us in indiscernible ways that might at first go unnoticed.

I know writing this book on dating after a certain age has changed me in ways I've yet to figure out.

I feel others who read what I've learned and what I have to say on the subject may change their attitude toward dating as well. As the title of one book tells it, Dating Sucks!

I may have had more fun writing the book as oppose to the actual dating, which for the most part had turned into painful episodes of self-doubt and self-evaluation.

At times I found myself that indeed...dating did suck. Although what I write here originates from my own experiences, and those experiences may mimic what others in my shoes have gone through, as well as those who enter the dating arena will go through when they start to date.

For that reason by sharing my own encounters, passing along some of what others shared, I might alleviate some painful self-discovery and self-doubt that may creep up when the dating goes awry.

After a period of time after I had entered widowhood, and finally accepted the fact I was single, dating became an option.

To date!

Or not to date!

Looking back in hindsight, I dated I think to numb myself, or distract myself from the necessary pain and healing that needs to happen after losing a significant other.

Dating after a long relationship can put us newly widowed or divorced into a vulnerable state of mind, where we haven't yet built up a thick enough skin, and where we might be too trusting, expecting it all to go according these romantic fantasies that usually do not occur in the real world.

As we make this voyage we discover subtleties within ourselves that may warn us...misgivings that arise that should not be ignored.

Through dating we may want to put ourselves back into a state of certainty, normalcy, a state of feeling connected to another, especially those who have been connected for a long time to a significant other.

We do not take into consideration that those we date may not have this same objective in mind. Instead, some may see us who are recent arrivals into the dating pool, as fish to be reeled in. Through their charming ways they may use this dating ploy as fish bait to lure the unaware into what can result in disastrous episodes that can have us not only become filled with self-doubt, but wondering what the hell is happening?

We are caught up in this infatuation-- blinded by the fact that we might have become mere instruments to alleviate boredom.

For some couples it works mainly because they are on the same page.

We widows and widowers can enter into what I call a 'societal limbo,' where after a time we are seemingly forgotten by others who we once knew as a couple.

Widowhood relegates men and women to a part of society where it can be difficult for others who are still connected to a spouse to fully relate to our status. We unconsciously might be ignored by former friends, and relatives who knew 'us' as part of that couple. Widows make an entrance not only into widowhood but also into a form of obscurity where we have lost that identity and we may even take on another persona.

I write this book on dating aimed toward a specific age group, fifty and over—Baby Boomers. When it comes to dating at this time in our lives some will say they have entered into what might be called dating hell.

Some are lucky enough to find another soul mate and will enter into what can be called relationship heaven.

Not an easy journey.

Yet it is a journey we all make as we live our lives. Then again life is just that, a journey starting at birth ending in death. A journey that takes us to places we had planned to go, or to places we never dreamed we would be, or even asked to be.

Some say such a journey is a call to the soul. This particular journey—the dating journey--after widowhood or divorce—may put us into places where we explore our soul; its intention, meaning, and most of all purpose.

John Schuster tells us in his book Answering Your Call ...your soul prescribes, not the ones your ego wanted. We can get philosophical here. We can ask ourselves is this why I need to lose my spouse, to get in touch with my soul's purpose?

We can end up going in circles and find ourselves wondering sometimes incessantly, and after awhile we stop wondering, we accept what is.

And then we might find ourselves struggling to stay on this given path where a future at times looks promising. But for some who get thrown off the prescribed path, we end up twisted and bent stumbling our way through these treacherous blind alleys that will have us searching desperately for a way back to ourselves.

A frightening prospect, by the same token exhilarating as well because it is part of life's journey—our prescribed life’s journey.

So let's begin the journey.

CHAPTER ONE: SUDDENLY I AM SINGLE!

The first time you go to the grocery store and you find yourself shopping for one person, that's when it can hit. Or when you want to go to the movies, but realize you need to call up someone because your partner is no longer there. Or you no longer have to stock up the refrigerator with certain foods that he or she likes. Foods that you could have cared less about were on the shelves. Or now you have the entire bed to sleep in, yet you find yourself sticking to that one side of the bed—your side.

Accepting the oneness takes a while, depending on how long you were with that person.

Dating someone before a transition has had a chance to take place can create an environment where we might become more vulnerable. If we haven't fully transitioned from the loneliness to aloneness, we might be all too in a hurry to get into another relationship. This is the time we may begin to look for a substitute.

We must take a deep breath, and see where we truly are emotionally. If we don't, we may find ourselves making a few stupid choices.

I confess. I did, not willing to take that extra deep breath, and sit back, and allow myself time to fully heal.

Maybe the pain was too great, and maybe I saved myself some anguish of living fully with the horrible truth of what happened to me

For example I remember the when sitting outside a tennis court watching as an instructor shows my granddaughter how to hit a tennis ball, I realized it had taken me six years to do that without experiencing the emotional pain that would come after my husband's death.

Time essentially healed me enough so that I could watch and not feel the deep sadness that comes when a loss is recent

Six years creates a large enough buffer that is required to enable the bereaved time to heal what I call heart wounds, enough so that we can live our lives as best as possible.

Time allowed me the ability to hear an instructor tell my granddaughter what she needed to do and not keep wishing it was my husband (also once a tennis coach) telling his granddaughter what she needed to do.

Some have asked why I started dating early after becoming a widow, only five months after my late husband's untimely death.

I can only explain through the words of Victor Frankl expressed in his book Man's Search for Meaning (a must read.) He tells us because of his own experience in Nazi Germany inside one of the most brutal concentration camps, An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.

And so I consider stepping my foot into the dating pool simply that--an abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation.

For me it was the normal thing to do as it distracted me from my pain. Of course later, years later I realize no distraction especially lessens the pain. It remains, tucked inside like some dormant virus, waiting for the right moment to wreak havoc.

Why now I’d advise no dating, no selling the house, no major decision made too soon after such a loss. Grieving requires time and without distraction, time to allow the heart to accept what happened. Distraction only postpones the inevitable.

In bereavement groups some of the attendees after a similar period after a love one's departure essentially made the same journey. Some believed the connection was good, except I would see these same people some months later at single functions...alone, and still searching.

It takes time to accept we will never have what we once had. It took me at least six years to know that I cannot re-establish the life I once had by connecting with another.

And I did try.

And looking back I now see the person I was, running from the truth, running from that horrific day. Although I would also have to say through the process of doing all that I may have saved my