Moving on after separation or divorce

After my marriage ended last year, I of course found myself single and wondering if I’d ever get it “right” where my choice of partner is concerned.

Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t regret marrying either of my two (!) ex husbands because both marriages taught me a LOT, I have grown from those lessons, and of course I have my two beautiful daughters that would not be here today if I had not married their fathers.

Now that’s not to say that I wish I’d done things differently in my life, but hindsight gets you nowhere unless you learn from it.  There really is no point dwelling on the past.

So I knew I had to move forward, and that’s when I found myself involved with a guy who was quite different to anybody I’d ever met…. and it was probably one of the most stressful situations I’ve experienced in a LONG time!

I just couldn’t read him!  For the first time ever, I found myself feeling very uncertain about the future, where I stood with him, and where things were going with him.  It was doing my head in, but for the life of me I couldn’t walk away from him either.

I know I’m carrying a bit of baggage from both of my marriages – you’d have to be a pretty amazing person to be able to completely disregard any of the garbage you endured with your previous partners – and this guy has really helped me to see that – and other things that I’m doing and have always done in the past.

It seems that my “need” to control things is a big turnoff for the masculine types of guys I like.  Trying to control a situation, trying to manipulate him (yep I did it unconsciously, but I was definitely doing it) to get your way, and not being able to just “be”, was what was causing a lot of my frustration.

So here’s what I’m doing now.  It’s not always easy and sometimes I’ve got to give myself a bit of a lecture, but I am getting there:

• I’m learning to relax and go with the flow more.  I don’t HAVE to control everything.  I don’t have to plan each and every event to the finest detail, and I’m letting him plan things and just going along with it most of the time, and I’m actually liking it!
• I’m no longer focused on wondering where our “relationship” is going.  I’m trying to focus more on enjoying the moment, and I find I am much more relaxed about things when I do that.
• I find time for me.  I do stuff for myself more.  I meet girlfriends for lunch, I go out with friends on a Friday or Saturday night, I get myself a pedicure… I look after me first.
• I KNOW I am a desirable person and I KNOW that any man should feel grateful to have a girl like me.  The more I believe this, the more attractive I seem to be to my man!  😉
• I don’t deny my feelings or push them down anymore.  If I’m feeling upset about something I tell him – in a non-accusing way.  If I’m upset, then that’s my stuff.  He can’t MAKE me upset, only I can let myself become upset.  But if I can explain that I am upset about something in a non-accusing way, he won’t feel the need to defend himself and is more likely to want to comfort me.

This post could go on forever, but these are just a few of the little things I’m starting to do to improve my relationship and so far it’s working!  🙂

So improving your relationship could just be as simple as deciding to “let go” a little and let your guy take over.  Give it a go and see what happens!