Over the past couple of months, men from the dating site, Lavalife, have started asking me the above question. The question comes in various renditions, from a simple “STILL on here, eh?” to “I can’t believe you still haven’t been snatched up!”

Time and time again though, my reaction has been the same: to roll my eyes. I mean, do they think I don’t know that I’ve been on there for over a year?

Half-amused, half-irritated, I imagine shocking them with a reply like:

1) The reason I’m still on here is because most of you men my age are fat, ugly, and balding.

2) I tend to date younger men cause they’re hot and fun in bed. But we don’t have much else in common so I lose interest quickly.  (Read more…)

Other Articles: Internet Dating: 10 Expert Tips to Get You Started,  Should I Pursue Casual Sex More Regularly?,  

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I admit it. Valentine’s Day makes me roll my eyes. I don’t want to say it aloud to all my happily married and in-love friends. But all the dreamy romanticism of this holiday makes me want to …well…spew.

I know it’s cause I’m not ready for a relationship. I know it’s cause true love to me right now is defined by my relationships with me, my kids and my friends. And I also know it’s cause I’d rather have a man stare into my eyes as he’s tying me up, rather than as he whispers sweet I love you’s.

On that note, if you’re wanted to celebrate YOU - the passionate NEW you emerging, that is - at www.adivorcedwoman.com we’re doing a Victoria Secret giveaway; a great way to inspire some self-love (and self-loving) and give the underwear drawer an overhaul.

I can’t help but laugh at my attitude towards Valentine’s Day. It really doesn’t bother me. It’s all Parr for the divorce course I think. Past Valentine’s Days have been all over the map for me - some fabulous, some dreamy, some heartbreaking, and some alone. At the end of the day, it’s really just a day, and we all know that.

I just wish that advertisers would expand their commercial messaging and paraphernalia around Valentine’s Day. Since millions of us are divorced, can they not talk about love more broadly? I mean, ENOUGH with the smooching couples in a heart. ENOUGH with love-sick faces that glow from Cupid’s Golden arrows. Show me a picture of Cupid dipping his arrow in arsenic and doing a bull’s eye in my ex’s forehead, and then maybe I’ll actually want to buy something.

Yeah - I’m a Valentine’s Day grump *grin.

Other Articles: 30 Year Ago Would You have had the Courage to Divorce?, Cheating Spouse:REVENGE!, Angered By His Flaccid Penis

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“Hang tough Delaine - things are going to better.   You really are better without him…”

Many, many times I heard these words from girlfriends when I found out my ex was cheating.  I knew they were right, that at some point things HAD to get better.  But while in the throes of my grief, those words felt empty - nothing but sterile, void sylables.  For I felt like a shell of a woman…numb and shattered on all levels of my being.

I’d been betrayed before by men - in high school and university.  But the pain of marital infidelity was beyond compare.  We’d built a life together, had children, and I’d trusted him with ever ounce of my heart and soul.  How COULD he?  How COULD he jeopardize all we’d created together, stuff that was so meaningful and important, just to get his rocks off?

I couldn’t comprehend it.  It was a full-blown mind-body-heart attack that bludgeoned and shocked me to the core.  In my mind’s eye I could actually see my heart in two pieces.  My chest ached, the rest of my body felt entirely numb, as if all blood flow had been cut off.    I looked at the world around me through the eyes of a lost soul within flesh, cut off from my body’s sensations, imprisoned by my skin.   I couldn’t eat, weight poured off me, and I couldn’t sleep.   God…nighttime, how I hated it.  No matter how exhausted I was, my brain would ruminate incessantly, trying to problem-solve, so anxious to help me find my True North.  I just wanted to turn it all off; to curl up in my darkness of Rock Bottom and disappear.

But I kept going - I existed, and ‘did time.’  At the back of my mind a little voice kept saying, “Just - keep - going.”  I had no idea where I was headed and quite frankly, I didn’t even care - all I felt was numbness.  In my mind’s eye, I could see myself trudging, chin down, through a dark, hostile Wilderness, arms dangling, with the burden of my sorrow on my back.  But strangely, sometimes, from above the treetops, I’d catch a glimpse of my Higher Self;  She was still with me, I hadn’t been abandoned, and it was She who was pushing me forward.  And I wondered: had some part of me CHOSEN to arrive in this  hellish Wilderness?    There HAD to be a bigger reason for it all, didn’t there?

I still don’t know the exact  nature of that reason.  In fact, I’m still not even sure where I’m going.  But I know that time continues to be a saving grace and reveal things to me when I’m ready.  And looking over my shoulder, I have a new yardstick as to far I’ve come and how strong a woman I really am.  And I wouldn’t have learned these things had my world not completely shattered and forced me to reconstruct from scratch.

So with my body as my guide, and a smile that I can now feel, I continue onwards.  Through the ups and downs.  Over the hurdles and unexpected obstacles. This year of my life has been like a school of hard knocks, one of tough self-love.  And the one thing I know for sure is that I’ll never settle for a life of mediocrity again.

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Don’t expect to be friends with your ex.  Not at the start anyways.  This is what I wish someone, or many people, had told me.

I’m not saying you should expect to be enemies; no, not at all.  I’m saying you should aim for something in the middle - like a ‘professional working relationship.’  It should be polite, somewhat distant, but functional.  No more, but no less.

“But why Delaine?”  You ask.  “Isn’t it in our best interest to be friends?  Isn’t it in the kids best interest?”

Because I’ve seen the same negative cycle repeat itself over and over again with me and my ex, AND other divorcing girlfriends:  We start getting along well with the exes, it feels good…we may go the ‘extra mile’ for them in some way like drive the kids somewhere far away to meet them, or invite them in for dinner…and then IT happens:  a mini-bomb, some kind of comment or event that hurts us, angers us, and leaves us spiralling for days, if not weeks. We all thought we were ‘moving forward’, that things were going so well, that we were ‘big enough’ to move beyond the enormity of the divorce crisis…

But we are human.  And we are grieving amidst a huge life transformation - ALL of us are, exes included. And even though it feels good to connect with our exes, even though it seems comfortable in some ways (though in some ways it’s also strange), the bottom line is our sensitivity levels are high, and people grieve in different ways.  Each person needs the time, space and consideration to grieve in his/her own way and if that isn’t offered, if time isn’t allotted to the recovery process, it’s a countdown till explosion.

I really wanted my ex and I to be friends at the beginning for the kids’ sake.  I wanted to ease the transition into their lives, as any good parent wants, of course.  But two things I MUST point out: first, it is very confusing for the kids to have dad at the dinner table one night, only to then have mom in tears for days and ignoring him the next time he comes by for ‘pick-up.’  It’s no good for the kids to have an unhappy mom, period.  And even though we do our best to hide our sadness and anger from them, little ears pick up on our phone conversations with girlfriends.  Little eyes see when we’re vacantly staring out the window with swollen eyes…. You get my point, I’m sure.

Secondly, in my opinion, young kids (which is what I and my friends all have) are less resistant to change than we give them credit for.  Many of the fears I had around the effects of divorce on my kids were just that: mine.  Yes, I had to work hard to ease the change, yes, I had to ’get in the know,’ read books, and always monitor their speech and action for signs of emotional damage.  But children respond to how WE ( us and our exes) are handling the crisis.  If tension, criticism, and anger abound, they feel it, even if they don’t see or hear it.  On the other hand, if they see mom and dad smiling at each other, talking politely, and acting ‘professionally,’ their world seems safer cause mom and dad are showing kindness and setting a good example of how life change can and should be handled.

So this is the #1 thing I wish someone had told me about the divorce process.  Am I a professional divorce coach or counsellor?  No.  Do you have to take my advice?  Not at all.  But I do believe women (and to some degree, men) learn from each other’s stories.   And if I were sitting having coffee with you, what you just read is what I’d have said to you as a friend; one warrior woman to another.

Other Articles:  Fairytale endings: Movies Are Programming My Daughter,  Cheating Spouse: REVENGE!,  I’m a Single Parent…A feeling I’ve always known

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“My ex-husband took the kids for the first time this weekend. And my heart is so heavy.”

This message awaited me from a newly-divorcing friend on Facebook this morning.  She was floundering, her free time only reminding her how empty and confused she felt. 

I read her message with a tight chest:  I remember…

Just over a year ago, my own divorce journey began and my-ex started taking our three kids for sleepovers.  I remember the surrealness of the First Time: carefully packing their clothes, writing out a list of activities and reminders, reassuring my kids with the biggest, fake smile ever:  “You’re going to have SO much fun with daddy.”

And then ‘he’ was at the door, lurking in the foyer, not invited in, but here to do ‘pick up.’   Me explaining a few things from the list, my voice too cheery, him not looking at me, while little feet scrambled around to put on shoes and jackets,  The tearful hugs goodbye, again more reassurances, that over-happy voice I used calling out “Bye!  I love you!”  Standing in the doorway, watching my kids walk away, waving and smiling as if they were going out for ice cream.

Then, stepping back into the house – into silence.  A silence so eerie I felt I’d landed on a different planet.  I put away dishes and paced around. I noticed every toy, every belonging of my children.  Here it was – the free time I never had as a single mom.  But it felt empty – ominous. Oh my God, this is really happening.  And I buckled to the floor in tears.    

I’d naively thought that making the final decision to divorce would be the hardest part of the journey – it had taken me three years to swallow that choice.  But of course, divorce is not a decision but a process, one full of many ‘firsts’ that eat you up inside:  like the ex taking the kids for the first sleepover.  Those first times are first steps, followed by second steps and thirds.  And oftentimes, without warning, you take two steps backwards…back into pain, back into the heartache from which there seems no escape or cure.

I sat down at my computer in a frenzied state of purpose: my girlfriend, my fellow warrior, had fallen on her path in the Wilderness of divorce.  And even though I knew that she, and only she, could navigate her way out of that hellhole, I knew she needed me – someone a bit further along the path - to help her regain her footing.   

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