And JUST LIKE THAT, True Love Might Enter Your Life
Shannon’s day had been typical and ordinary; she’d had no ’signs’ or reasons to think it might be anything but.
At 5 o’clock, having finishing her nursing shift at the hospital, she decided to stop in at a trendy bistro for a drink; having a drink alone was no big deal to her whatsoever. She stomped out her cigarette just as she reached the entrance doors and headed inside with nothing but a cold margarita on her mind.
Movement to her left caught her eye – she glanced back over her shoulder. And there, in the corner, with his chair backed against the wall was a man – a long-legged man wearing glasses and smile. Had he just gestured her over? she wondered. Or had she imagined it?
Too late. She’d already started walking over to him. “Were you just smoking?” he asked. Nice opening question. Nice deep voice too…
“Yes I was,” she said.
“Ah….that’s too bad.”
“Haha. Actually, me and my boyfriend are both planning to quit next week,” she replied.
“Ah. That’s too bad too – the boyfriend part I mean,” he grinned. He waved his hand to the open chair in front of him. “Well then – she who has a boyfriend and will only smoke for one more week, would you care to join me for a drink?”
And with the wave of his hand, so Shannon’s life was swept onto a new page as well. That casual drink two months ago was followed by many more drinks, dinners and dates…. A long story short – Shannon broke up with her boyfriend within a week and she and this guy have been together ever since. She is happier and more at peace with herself than I’ve ever seen her her whole life; she knows she has met The One.
So… what’s the point in my sharing this story with YOU? Perhaps you’re thinking, “Good for her Delaine, but I don’t even know this person…”
I’m sharing it for a few different reasons:
1) The story is simple.
2) It’s powerful (seems Divinely orchestrated to me!)
3) And it can make us feel good.
And when it comes to divorce - no matter WHAT stage we’re at – we ALL sometimes need to hear some ‘good news’; you know, a ‘happy story’ where everything works out. We ALL sometimes need a little hope, a little lightness, and a little faith in both the universe and our futures.
Me, personally, I am savoring my friend’s story as if it were my own. Her story reminded me that there is a time and season for everything, including discovering new love; that when two people fall in love it can happen EASILY and with a sense of CONFIDENCE; and that in the blink of an eye, on any given day, our lives can majorly change – not just in a downward motion like we all know because of divorce…but upwards, and for the better.
I know that day is coming for me too. I may not be out there looking hard for love…but I know it’s out there looking for me.
18 comments
WOW, That is some good stuff. I’m glad to here a story like that. This gives some help and maybe a little hope.
This couldn’t have come at a better time for me. Lately, I have been overly (although not admitting even to myself) consumed with the idea of finding a partner…
I realized today, I need to stop. Love will find me, I need to get it off my mind…sometimes the harder we lookf for something, the easier it is to miss.
I haven’t had one single butterfly moment…and I know, for me, that’s what I want. I don’t really wnt to just settle for something, just because I wnat to be with someone.
This story does give me hope…something I believe deep in my soul. It will come…it WILL come…
I hate to spoil the party but is it that easy? This story would be beautiful except for the facts as they are presented.
Shannon was just inocently going out to a bar? Really. I guess thats ok, or is it. She has a boyfriend who I can only suppose is faithful yet she’s going out to a bar inocently?
So she walks up and even tells Mr. Long Legs she has a botfriend and then proceeds to drink with him and this dip doesn’t seem to care and proceeds as though her boyfriend didn’t exsist.
Is it that easy? Are the two of them that cold. She has a boyfriend and they planned to quit smoking ” together”.
So she is seeing Long Legs while her boyfriend is oblivious that she most likely banging another man and celebrating that she is in love.
Is this how it goes? Is this how easy my hospital worker wife was swayed also ? Some guy with a new line of shit found her trigger and then after time baby stepped his way into her pants and your life together is dismissed.
Shannon you cheated on your boyfriend, your soulmate, and replaced him without so much as any hours break between relationships.
And Mr. Long Shaft, Your scum of the earth, You knew she hsd a boyfriend yet you pursued her anyway regardless of what the boyfriend may have felt for this woman.
Shannon, I hope you never have to feel the distruction and terror a cheated on mate has to endure. It is an unending nightmare. I wonder if your deceived boyfriend is smoking 3 packs a day? But I’ve seen the reaction that a cheater displays. You don’t care, your not the one deceived where you? The pain is the most horific thing a person will ever endure in their life.
It is un-real how this happens and yet the cheater is a romantic?
This is bullshit.
I spoke to two people who recognized what I was going through only because they had been where I am at. Their wives work at the same hospital as my wife, both of their wives cheated and between the two of them they new of 12 nurses cheating on their husbands.
It is unbeleivable how a woman can do such a thing and look at herself.
It’s unbeleivable how someone can be thrown to the trash heep so easily.
Sleep well Long Shaft, You’ve displayed youself for who you really are. And Shannon, well I don’t feel you are capable of understanding anything, its all about “you” from the information provided.
Joe, yesterday this article gave you hope. Today it is representative of cheating, dastardly people? What will you feel about it tomorrow?
Shannon is a SINGLE woman Joe. She has the right to date anyone she pleases. She met someone new…happens every day. When she met someone new she broke up with her boyfriend. Dating does not a commitment make Joe. Dating is not a guarantee that you will not meet someone you like better.
In the dating world, that is how it goes. You date several people until you find the one you want to commit to…if you are lucky enough to find that one.
You are projecting your own situation off onto Shannon. An unhealthy thing to so and a sign that you have a lot of healing left to do.
Here is the reality of the situation. Your wife cheated on you. You got the shaft by the woman you were married to, not the woman you were dating. You have a choice…spend the rest of your life angry as hell or learn from what has happened to you and get on with your life.
It is that simple. Loads of pain to deal with but really quite simple. In a nutshell, you need to get the hell over what she did to you and start focusing on what you are going to do for yourself. She can only do as much as you allow her to do.
Joe, my gf was single, and she did not intentionally or maliciously hurt anyone. She and her boyfriend were not living together, they were already having serious problems, and she broke up with him after seeing this new man two times (and no, they hadn’t had sex).
I know you’re reeling from your wife’s betrayal Joe; that’s what this is really about. And it’s hard not to see the whole world from your hurt and angry perspective right now. I did the same; it seemed I suddenly woke up and could see all these lies and deceptions and affiars all around me and society at large; man, had I been living in a cave or what?
Your lens will change though…with time. Somtimes our internal pendulums have to swing hard the other way before they find a new home/perspective on life.
It’s OK to share your feelings Joe, even if they’re all over. They are totolly healthy and normal. And if you need to have a blow at ‘Shannon’ here to make you feel better, that’s OK…but I hope a part of you also sees what Cathy and I have said. One day at a time, k?
First: I am truly sorry Shannon,
Second: Cathy and Delainem, You are both a credit for your insite. I get your point, clearly… This is a rocky road and I am all over the place, up, down,left then right. I feel like a butthead. I am messed up over this, I could go on but its better that I eat crow and put a sock in my mouth. This is the path I must have created. I wish I could take it back. My wife means so much yet I have lost her.
The story stopped me at “having a drink alone was no big deal to her whatsoever.” Am I the only one who saw red flags with the boyfriend? She was obviously unhappy in her relationship or drinking alone wouldn’t have been commonplace for Shannon. Good for her that she found someone who wouldn’t make her feel that being alone was no big deal.
Another day, I feel quilty for what I said about shannon, ashamed for saying anything bad about anybody including my wife.
She did what she felt she had to do because of my inadiquicy. Will this feeling ever end, I don’t know.
My being so effected yet reveals just another character flaw. Life is what we make of it, so they say. But for some reason I have chosen hurt. Maybe this is my destony. Being a good husband and father is more than what I was capable of it seems. My wife, I failed her haven’t I.
I can blame no other. I thought I was a good person, husband and father. Is this how it happens, Is this how divorse happens. You can’t control others feelings.
My wife is beautiful,I am just someone. Even writing this shows weekness doesn’t it. In the end the strong survive and flurish, the week fade away, a memory,a joke.
…woe is me…those who venture too close to my swirling pool of murky self doubt and misery will be sucked away, never to be heard from again…buck up man…I’ve always heard that spellers get the really cool chicks.
…sorry…this was supposed to be about Shannon’s slow fade to new boy friend…good for her..but those nurses, jeeze, you gotta watch’em, all helpful and supportive like that, you never really know who they’ll be helping out next..I’m joking folks..was this not a piece about unexpected love? And it’s happy ending? Love is there, but if there’s self made walls of poor self esteem or other feelings of inadequacy, anger, whatever, love’ll never find you because love can’t penetrate such negative things and people tend to step around the wounded…..
Roger the Raconteur,
I’m wondering, this is the real truth. owe is me… misery,self dought… bla bla bla. Sometimes I feel so foolish.
I’ve been in this stage for so long that its become a pattern. I see it, I know. Maybe this is a stage that some people just need to get through.
I’ve felt and behaved crazy at times yet also evaluated my life also.
I see it, At times I think this is a bunch of bull to have this in ones life. At the same time I wonder if this is a struggle of some form that many face at some point in our life.
I really feel though in the end I’ll be a much better person because until you take a really hard hit you may go through your whole life somewhat oblivious. My eyes have realy been opened. These lady’s in here are gems, they’ve walked the walk and can relate so well.
Recently just discovered this site and that is just the kind of story I needed tonight…Thanks for the reminder that life can change in an instant and somtimes it is a good thing!
Just a quick note for Joe. Let go of it. Find a hobby, even something simple like making a big pile of dirt in your front yard, anything to keep your attention. And exercise every day in the morning and after work, not to look good, just to be healthy. And have some compassion man, first for yourself then for others. It all comes from within Joe. Meet someone new, just do it. Make an approach. Be Mr. Long Shaft.
Thanks Andy; “Let go of it.” Thats the bottom line. It has consumed to much of me. Been sufficating, Letting go is the truth.
All I read throughout this was how each side was really in it for themselves.
For him, once she started well um, “having steak on Tuesdays” he gave up on his efforts… which told me the only reason he did it in the first place was to get her to want to do things for him… hence his actions where out of selfishness and not the good kind.
He didn’t do that for her, he did it for himself (it was for the hope of more later, which he got). Guys rarely rock women’s worlds with only the woman in mind. They do it, so that the woman feels like she needs to return it by showing her love for him.
You want a guy who rocks the woman’s world only for her? He gives her a night, and never once mentions it, never talks about it, never received anything at the end of the night. Never does anything about it. Then you had a guy do it just for you, and for you alone. And then, he will do again later at a random time… and then again… it’s never brought up again. Actions will always speak. Words in this case will only cause confusion and make you feel like there was alterative motives.
And as for her, she did it too. She started serving steak on Tuesday’s and then what did she do? She wanted more from the week day events. She stopped the Tuesday’s because he wasn’t up to the task of making the other nights happen.
This whole situation reeks of selfishness on both parts. She may have started out by wanting to show him how much she desires him, but in the end… she wanted something in return.
And yes, guys can and easily will, take things for granted. Human nature states that we all want the easy way. If we aren’t careful everything we do can lead to laziness and that includes love.
Here is how it should be done. One, never focus on yourself ever. Love and passion from these events is when both sides are 100% focused on each other and not themselves. And then both worlds will rock. Two, if your going to do “the special tuesday” don’t do it in hopes that you will receive anything, do it because you wanted too.
And when guys do the same thing, don’t do it with hopes of receiving anything. In fact, I’ve found that women find it very, very hot, when it’s all about them and you don’t even try to do anything for yourself…
Good issues brought up here.
I could probably count on one hand the number of times a man has wanted to devote a ‘session’ just to me. Funny though, it happened many times conversely. I think I’d feel guilty if it was all about me. Is this a difference between the sexes? Maybe. I think men often feel more entitled to receive whereas women want to be the givers.
AS for false representation, that’s a tricky one. When kids come along, many women’s sex drives plummet and with good reason given all the extra stress, responsibilities, sleeplessness, body changes etc. I don’t think it’s fair for a man to claim she falsely represented herself when she’s not as interested during this time. I think he needs to stop thinking about himself and pitch in more to help out so her well-being and sex drive have a chance to stabilize.
Bringing up stuff like this in the bedroom is very personal and can be extremely difficult to express to a partner. I must say I admire your friend for her courage; maybe something to learn by.
I think it’s good that Barb was able to notice the change and speak up for herself. After all, isn’t that what being in a relationship is about? Sometimes things change when you’re with someone for a while, and not always for the better….but I think that if the other partner doesn’t like those changes, then they do have a certain responsibility to speak up for themselves.
As a man I understand how we can take things for granted. but it does sound as if Barb was trying too hard to make her boyfriend want her more. I am not trying to sound like a male pig but we feel that if a woman is willing to please us and we don’t have to do much then that is how it should always be. So when she pulled back, he probably felt like she had a problem. I understand her side of the story, but he probably doesn’t because she changed, not him. I will end with this… Sometimes it is better to make your man work for nights like that. We definitely appreciate it more.