Pay Me A Compliment

By Diane Winter

This short book is a mixture of anecdotes, observations, information and suggestions about online dating for women over fifty who suddenly find themselves reluctantly single. It is discursive and light-hearted, offering humorous stories, understanding, food for thought and strategies for dealing with the post-marriage world. It doesn't pretend to have all the answers, or even any answers, but it might help you ask the right questions. It is approximately 30,000 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DR Winter
• Release date: Jan 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798201754075

Diane Winter

The author is a typical suburban housewife who works as a high school teacher. She has four fabulous adult children, five gorgeous grandchildren and has been 36 years of age for the past two decades!

Book preview

A Quick Word

This little book began as a series of journal entries where I charted the course of the demise of my marriage and subsequent forays into the online dating world. It was meant to be cathartic and a way to make sense of what had become a chaotic and surreal existence. Essentially, it was word vomit, and I shared it only with my nearest and dearest.

However, as I gradually came to terms with my new status, I decided to re-read what I had written. It occurred to me that maybe there were other women out there, confused and frightened, like me, who might appreciate a glimpse into these experiences. So, I polished it up, removed all the rude bits, changed a few names and details, and voila! Pay Me A Compliment was born.

My little series of adventures is not for everyone – it is aimed squarely at my own generation and social milieu of middle-aged and middle-class, long-term wedded and reluctantly divorced, pretty conservative, and a tad naïve about life outside the safety and complacency of marriage.

I don't pretend that it is great literature or even mediocre literature. Still, it might entertain you, perhaps comfort you, and ultimately inspire you to see that things are not as bleak as you may have once believed. If a self-confessed introverted pessimist like me can emerge from such a seismic shift in her life with hope still intact, then you can too!

Happy reading. 😊

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE

––––––––

Introduction  3

Chapter 1  6

Chapter 2  10

Chapter 3  14

Chapter 4  18

Chapter 5  23

Chapter 6  28

Chapter 7  33

Chapter 8  37

Chapter 9  43

Chapter 10   48

Chapter 11   52

Conclusion   56

Afterword  59

Introduction

The golden age is before us not behind us (William Shakespeare)

What do you do when your husband of thirty-plus years suddenly announces that he is not happy, has not been happy for several years, wants to leave home and be alone? Oh, and then that same husband admits that, in fact, there is someone else that he has been seeing – younger, blonder, thinner, etc. We all know the cliché. That same husband then confesses that this is not the first time he has slept with other women. However, this time he has found a suitable replacement for you.

I will tell you what you do – you disintegrate into a million tiny fragments. You shatter into shards of glass that spray around you like transparent weapons, impaling everyone within their vicinity. You collapse into the proverbial heap and cry enough tears to extinguish all the bushfires that rampaged up and down the east coast of NSW and Queensland during the summer of 2019.

You then begin to deconstruct the marriage that you had thought was ok. Not perfect, but as happy as anyone else’s. After all, you still had Saturday night ‘dates’. You planned and went on holidays with each other, including the big overseas trips. You revelled in the exciting new experiences of the weddings of progeny and the subsequent births of grandchildren. You shared the ups and downs of child-rearing. You made long-term financial commitments to ensure your future comfort as a retired couple.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Not everyone will have experienced such infidelity and betrayal of trust, although it is surprisingly common. For some, it will be a gradual and inevitable drifting away. For others, something else again. As Tolstoy wrote, "Every happy family is the same; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

This book is for all the older women out there who spent most of their lives as devoted wives and mothers. It is for those who navigated the highs and lows of marriages that they knew were not perfect but which they had believed were forever. It is for women whose identity was inextricably linked to 'till death do us part' and who would have done anything, ANYTHING, to keep their marriages intact. It is for those of us approaching the sixth decade of our lives when we thought we would be settled. We would be financially secure, kids off our hands, winding down at work, spending quality time with grandchildren, and planning those long put-off hobbies and travel plans. It is for the women like me who have been blindsided, confused, and devastated by the horrifying discovery that we were no longer loved, valued, or desired by the very person who had promised to cherish us forever.

Divorce is major trauma. It is especially so for the one who has been 'left'. This book is for the women whose self-esteem has been totally eroded by being abandoned at the most vulnerable time of their lives – when their appearance is starting to fade, when their health issues are increasing and when employment prospects have grown dim. I am wholly sympathetic towards women who have been widowed, but a husband who dies has not discarded you. He has not halved your assets, carved chasms into your self-esteem, and shown by his actions that even his own financial loss is more palatable than staying with you. There are books for widows out there. There is information and inspiration for women who have voluntarily left dysfunctional relationships. This is not what I am writing about.

Thousands, if not millions of self-help books, articles, relationship gurus, YouTube experts, and expensive courses exist to help hapless singles navigate the monumental devastation of divorce. They all profess to have the answers to how one can survive the damage inflicted upon every single aspect of one’s life, and eventually, how to recover and move forward. They also suggest that, at some point, preposterous as it may seem at the beginning, that we will want to go out into the world and find ourselves a new partner.

––––––––

Then we are bombarded with advice about the minefield of breakups, new relationships, dating in both the real and virtual worlds, and self-esteem recovery. Ted Talks, podcasts, online presentations and Google articles abound about meeting new people and finding love. We are lectured about limerence and fidelity, polyamory and swinging, and 'getting' a person to love you/connect with you/obsess over you. Tricks to attract a man, keep a man, deeply understand a man, texts to send, texts to avoid, how to chase, how not to chase – there is an endless supply of advice. When in doubt, you can always fall back on 'The Law of Attraction’. If you just want it all badly enough, apparently, the universe will listen and reward you!

The problem, when you look at all this closely (and believe me, I did nothing but read, watch and listen to endless information), is that only a couple of recurring ideas stand out which actually make sense. The rest seems either contradictory or, quite frankly, manipulative and even ridiculous.

Why should I add to the collection? I have a degree that enables me to teach adolescents, and I'm studying for a diploma that says I can counsel people who have problems worse than my own. Neither of these makes me an expert in middle-aged dating.

So, to be clear, this is NOT a self-help book. It isn’t even a ‘how-to’ book.

This book is not about the bitterness of marital separation, the disintegration of family life, the angst of lonely singlehood, and the final triumph over adversity by finding love in the happily ever after land of fairy tales.

No.

It is a snapshot of one person’s perspective (mine) of what it feels like to be unexpectedly ‘dating’ in the final third of my life.

It is a book for those of us who have had to re-negotiate every single belief we ever had about ourselves, our lives, our relationships, and our future when there are more years behind us than ahead. It is for women who had been comfortable and, yes, even happy, as a wife, then told, in no uncertain terms, that their services were no longer required.

It reflects the challenges of being a woman hovering around the sixth decade of life, who suddenly finds herself sans husband in a brave new alien world with rules and values she had never imagined.

If you are in, or have ever been, in my position, as you read, you may find yourself nodding sagely in recognition of what I tell you. Perhaps you can even add to the tales. And if you haven’t experienced some of these things, well, you are forewarned, and forewarned is forearmed.

I’m not here to offer a happy-ever-after scenario. There is no panacea for your pain, and there is no solution or step-by-step guide to getting back everything you have lost or think you need. I’m offering a recount of a personal journey that I believe will resonate with those of you who have also undertaken it. I hope to provide some insight, humour, and food for thought for those who have yet to experience it. I also hope I can show you that there is no need for dark despair, that there is still so much on offer for us, and life can be rewarding and fun in a whole new way.

If you: -

are on the cusp of 60 or beyond, finding yourself alone suddenly in a world of couples

have been thrown into the abyss of singlehood after the sheltered haven of a long-term marriage

are frightened by a life of which you never expected to need any knowledge

find yourself questioning your worth as a woman because ONE man decided you were not good enough