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Divorce – It’s more than just a breakup

Date: November 29, 2011
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, New York City, Relationships, Uncategorized
Comments: 7 Replies
Divorce Cakes a_006

Divorce Cakes a_006 (Photo credit: DrJohnBullas)

One of the most annoying things that I heard repeatedly after I left my husband was the following.

“I just broke up with my boyfriend, I know exactly how you feel”

I know that my friends who told me that were trying to make me feel better.  They were trying to show empathy and a shared experience with mine.  But a relationship even a long-term one with cohabitation is not the same as a marriage.  If it was then same-sex couples wouldn’t be fighting for the right to marry all over this country.  For starters there is the ceremony.  When you start dating someone you don’t throw a “Hey look we just started dating party” you might have a housewarming if you move in together but with a marriage there are usually one or more bridal showers, an engagement party, a bachelorette party and finally the big obnoxious wedding.    I remember mine as if it was yesterday and when I stood there in the dress facing both sides of our collective families turning to watch me walk down that aisle I thought to myself.

So this is why we have weddings, to guilt us into staying together.

All of these parties, rituals and ceremonies add to the sense of permanence to the union.   Your families become legally linked to one another, everything becomes part of the public record.   And although getting married is easy enough, getting out of it can be a quagmire.

For instance I always wanted to say to the person who just broke up with their non-spouse partner.

  • Did you have to go to a lawyer to break up?
  • Do you have any stocks or mutual funds in both of your names?
  • Do you have property with this person?
  • Do you have children?
  • Did you just have to go do your taxes with your ex?
  • Do you live in fear that your ex will financially ruin you before the divorce is final?
  • Do you have to pay alimony to your ex-partner?
  • Is your partner hiding marital assets or income earned during the marriage?
  • Is your ex contesting the split or slowing the process down?

As difficult as a breakup is, even a long-term live-in partner is not the same as a husband or wife.  With some long-term relationships shared assets or children might be an issue but in most cases they are not.  With a boyfriend or girlfriend you can usually just walk away.  You don’t have to go to court, you don’t have to file for legal separation, you don’t have to protect your assets.  The only real legal benefit to being non-married is that if you have your own health insurance you don’t have to worry about losing it when you get divorced.  Because of all of the legal ramifications, especially with those involving children divorces in some states can drag on for years before they are resolved.

I had a non-contested divorce with few assets and my ex and I spent over $2,000 on the divorce and I had to go to court about five times before it was over.  Since I was the one who filed, I was the one who had to appear to drive the paperwork through the system.  I remember waiting in line trying to hold back tears to get my certified copy of my divorce.  I had to get this document to split in half some of our assets and to legally declare to the universe that we were no longer husband and wife.  Our divorce was easy, it only took eight months in NY state, but some of my friends with children are still battling with their exes years later.  Eight months, thousands of dollars and multiple court appearances isn’t exactly the same as moving my stuff out of a boyfriend’s apartment.

But putting all of the legal and financial ramifications aside, there is still a sense of permanence of forever that exists in marriage that doesn’t exist in the same way as it would in a non-legally binding relationship.  There is something about that big day and the hopes and dreams of both of your extended families that makes it feel like it won’t end.  It is why we have big rituals surrounding marriage, it is supposed to be something higher, something larger than just two people living together.  And it is exactly why the fall is much harder.  Of my divorced friends I honestly don’t know anyone who didn’t go through some level of hell.  For some the day of reckoning took a while to show up, and for others it was immediate, but they all went through some major trauma even if they wanted desperately out of the marriage.  Divorce is not just a breakup, so the next time someone tries to tell you that, just nod and smile, they know not what they say.

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Dating after Divorce – The Fairy Tale is Over

Date: July 30, 2011
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating, Dating - NYC, Dating After 35, Dating After Divorce, Uncategorized
Comments: 11 Replies

I tell my mother almost every time we speak.

“Mom, dating is just a different game when you are divorced and over 35″

I left my husband because after a total of nine years together, seven of which were as a married couple, he came out as a homosexual.  I really had no choice but to end the marriage, and one of the worst things since leaving him has been what feels like a life sentence of being alone.  Again, I know that sounds bleak, but dating in New York is difficult, dating in New York after being divorced and over the prime years of your life is next to impossible.

The real differences that I see are in my friends that are about a decade or so younger than myself.  Many of which are now getting engaged, married or moving in together.  They have that youthful giddiness and excitement that is rare in people past a certain age.  Not to say that being 38 is old, because it is not, but it isn’t the same as being 28.  My friends who are approaching marriage all believe that they will beat the odds.  They look at their partners with that look of pure love and adoration in which all of their problems will be solved through this perfect mate.  Both men and women get like this and it is a sweet thing to see.   But the same quality is rare in those of us who have lived a little bit longer, and had what we thought was the relationship to last forever, crumble before our eyes.

Even though I don’t look my age, I openly admit that I am 38 to anyone who cares to know.  I know as a performer I should try to keep this secret, but since my career consists mainly of performing in bars, I don’t really worry about the public knowing the year of my birth.  It’s not like I am losing jobs because of my age, as I am not getting much of anything offered to me to begin with.  And I look at it this way; I have lived a life, I am not a young kid and I don’t hide it.

My problem with dating, is that at first I had the expectation that it would be just like when I was in my twenties.  Men would be more excited and enthusiastic about wanting to date me, they would have higher expectations about the relationship and once committed it might last at least a few months.  But what I have found is men that are too wrapped up in their own divorce dramas, too busy raising children from a previous marriage, too involved in their jobs, or just too jaded to feel vulnerable enough to commit to another person.   I can only speak of my own experience, but I hear the same thing from men about divorced single mothers, or divorced women.

And then of course there are those that I have written about before on this blog.  The men and women who are just not the committed relationship partner type, and never will be.   They are in their early forties and have never lived with a partner much less been married or engaged.  For multiple reasons such as, personal preference, demanding jobs, lifestyle habits, personality problems, or simply the love of being single they will never marry or commit to one partner for any length of time.  Then there are all of those age appropriate men that are married or in a committed long-term relationship and aren’t going to be single any time soon, if ever again.

So given this, I have had to readjust my expectations of dating.  It is an extremely difficult adjustment for me but now when trying to date I have come to expect the following

  • Expect to see the person less, than I would like.
  • Expect the relationship to fall apart with very little warning – It seems the older people get, the quicker they will abandon a relationship they don’t think is working.  At least that has been my observation from my own experience and my friends.
  • Realize that a potential partner might be overwhelmed with caring for children, so much so that I don’t get the attention I used to getting in a relationship
  • Have to help the partner deal with their own sense of loss from a divorce
  • Help the partner deal with anger or an ongoing war with their former spouse or girlfriend.
  • Learn not to rely on a partner for as much emotional support as I was used to in my marriage
  • Expect more guarded, and wounded people in the dating pool

With all of these obstacles it just comes down to a position of how much can a person deal with, and what is worth it for the bigger picture.  So a new guy may not call me every day, but is that so horrible?  And I may only get to see him once a week or even less, but as I am a busy person myself, do I need to see them more?  I have to take every man on a case by case basis, what is tolerable and what is unacceptable.

And honestly when I look around at my circle of friends I tend to see this pattern over and over again.  The younger couples have the excitement I remember from my early to mid-twenties.  While the older couples seem more practical and subdued, they also seem to date less.

It is as if as a divorced person we don’t believe in fairy tales anymore because our own fairy tale for whatever reason was destroyed.  So a partner may not consume our lives and hearts and minds as they did when we were younger.  I no longer expect a man to fall “head over heels” in love with me anymore.  And I don’t know if I necessarily want that anyway, because at one point in my life it is how I felt about my husband.  And that enthusiasm is exactly what blinded me to reality that he kept so carefully guarded.

I know there are exceptions, and some people really do get amazing romances the second or third or even forth time around.  I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that it is going to happen for me and I am not expecting it anymore.  But I can’t completely give up hope, at least I am not looking at the situation with rose-colored glasses.   And as I say all the time

“Dating in your late thirties after a divorce is just a different game”

I just have to learn how to play it.

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Dating Online – The man with no photos

Date: April 27, 2011
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating, Dating - NYC, Dating Online, Relationships, Uncategorized
Comments: 52 Replies

This one is as old as online dating itself, the man with no photos on his profile.  I have a firm warning on my profile that I basically don’t take a profile without photos seriously.  Nor should any woman.  The reason?  Well there are many but the main reason is that most men that are on online dating websites that won’t show their face are either married or involved with someone and looking to cheat.   Why wouldn’t they show their face?  It makes little sense.  So many people are on online dating sites now, that if a married man blatantly had a profile seeking another woman, chances are that friends or co-workers  of his wife or girlfriend might stumble upon his profile.  Openly putting yourself out there on a dating website when married is a very dangerous thing to do.  But take the photos off, change a few details about your occupation, change your age,  where you live and bingo, you have no created a new identity.  Maybe a woman who is naive enough to think that some unseen man has nothing to hide will fall for the ruse.   Most men use their occupation as the reason why they can’t show their face.  All of these are specific examples that I have gotten sometimes multiple times…

  • My job is very high-profile, it would be embarrassing for me to be on here –
  • It could potentially hurt my firm’s reputation if I am seen on a dating website – REALLY?  If they only knew how MANY people are on websites like Match.com at this point, there is hardly any shame in it anymore.  Or that somehow a business deal will go south because a potential client saw you on a dating website and decided you were unstable or something?  Well then what are they doing on the site in the first place?
  • I am a psychologist and it could make my relationship with my patients strained. – Do you think your patients are secretly in love with you or something?  What kind of piece of work writes that?

I have been on dates with people who I met online who have VERY high-profile jobs in their fields.  I won’t comment further, to protect others privacy  but the high-profile job excuse is poppycock.

One man tried to send me photos privately.   And I still have no idea what that was supposed to prove?  OK so I see what he looks like, but again he isn’t willing to expose himself on the site itself, so NO DICE!  I sent him a polite, sorry this doesn’t cut it email and he went off on me in an angry tirade full of venom and vitriol.  I know I can come across as too blunt in written form, but I think I dodged a major bullet with that psycho!  Not only was he probably married, but he had some anger issues!

I am sure that there are women doing the exact same thing on dating websites.  Although since men tend to be more visually orientated than women, I wonder how effective the no photo approach would work.  They probably pull the same tactic, of I will send you photos privately.  It is hard to believe that people would fall for that, but loneliness can really pull a person down into despair, after a while any glimmer of hope starts to look promising.

One no-photo man recently contacted me and because I was in a slightly angrier than usual mood, I sent him a blunt reply basically saying that no woman would take him seriously without photos.  He posted photos within the hour of opening my email!  He wasn’t my type, so I didn’t feel like I missed the boat on that one after scolding him for not showing his mug.

And when in doubt, even if you meet someone online with photos and you buy their story about being single or divorced IMMEDIATELY google their full name when you get home, and if they claim they are divorced google their name and the word wife.  You would be surprised how much information is readily available on the internet at no cost whatsoever.  In one case, I googled a man’s name found his ex-wife’s profile on Facebook and found her listed as single.  That made me feel a million times better, but if it had said married, he would have never heard from me again.  You really can never be too careful, the nature of online dating makes it far too easy for men and women who want to cheat.

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