Here’s a few sites to help you stay motivated, organized, and in-charge of your life.  With the year 2008 right around the corner (gulp!) it’s time to take a look in the mirror and decide what the person you want to be is like.  Set your goals, stay focused, keep on pushing even against obstacles and be who you want to be.

Joe’s Goals – An online goal tracking site.  Very useful to track your winning and losing streaks with your goals
Sufficient Thrust – One of my favorite blogs on  staying motivated with lots of good advice.
RememberTheMilk – A bit more advanced goal tracking, to-do list and reminder system.

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Dating after divorce is one of those touchy-feeling subjects that I’ve talked about with several other divorced men.  Some of these men have at least one children and some had no children.  Dating after divorce is a much different animal if you have children or not.  Let’s run down some of the major factors that are involved in dating after divorce.

• Children
  • Age of children
• Length Of Marriage
• Relationship with ex-spouse
• Marital status of your new friend
• Child support payments
• Alimony or spousal-support payments

Children have a big impact on dating.  Child custody and visitation agreements impact those weekend dates own unless you want to get a babysitter, unless you have children old enough stay home alone without supervision.  It’s a 50/50 split between men who get sitters and men who date on the weekends when they do not have their kids.  For two guys who have joint-physical custody (or primary physical custody) it really comes down to having a sitter and trying to keep a healthy balance of time with the kids and time out on the town.  My thoughts:  If you have your kids every other weekend, date on the off weekends and spend time with your children.

Length of your marriage helps dictate if “times have changed.”  Men (and women) who have divorced after long marriages are accustomed to the way things are with their ex-spouse and have a hard time adjusting to dating scene.   This isn’t the same for everyone and some people are really good at adapting.  In the end it’s all the same — meet someone and try to have a good time.  The hip and happening club and bar scene may not work for older men or women who just want to meet a companion.

If going out to the meat markets isn’t your thing try online dating.  Online dating lets you be mostly anonymous and allows you to fine-hone the people you’d try to like to meet.  Sure, it’s a little different if you’re used to going out and find yourself at a point where you don’t feel like trading drinks and dancing for phone numbers.  There are plenty of free dating sites out there to try.  Just remember to keep confidential information to yourself when writing up your biography or when talking to people on the Internet.

Your relationship with your ex-spouse has an impact after you have met and started “dating” someone.  Dating, in this sense, meaning that you’ve entered into a more emotional attachment and are seeing each other often.  If you’re told your new lady-friend you’re divorced, and she’s never been married, she’ll be bound to have numerous questions, one of which sounds something like ‘How often do you see or talk to your ex-wife?”

A simple answer may seem the way to go with this question, and that’s precisely what you need to do.  How often you talk to your ex-wife or see her has a direct impact on how a woman thinks about you, in more than one ways.  By answering in a short, concise way you leave it open for her to ask more.  If you volunteer gobs of information, your average, pack-hunting human female may interpret your chattiness as “he’s hung up on her.”

Explain it in simple ways without embellishment and avoid emotional dependency at all costs.  “I see her every other Friday when I pick up my son.  We don’t talk except for when she picks up the phone when I call him.” Or something similar.

For the never-married female, your previous marriage can haunt her dreams.  Women are extremely competitive with each other.  Your new lady-friend will most likely compare herself to your ex-wife, so plan for more questions.  If she’s been married before this may not be that weird for her as she knows what you’ve gone through.  The woman is a complex being, so either way, you could be up for the inquisition.  Just stay calm and keep it short.  Don’t embellish and DON’T lie.  It’s easier to get caught in a lie then for her to just accept the truth.

Child support and alimony…  This normally can be an issue once you’re more deeply committed in your new relationship.  Why?  Women want to be cared for, they want to be pampered and above all they want security.  Your finances are extremely important to her (unless she happens to be rich and then she will be even MORE aware of your financial payments).  We’re natural creatures and women will want to ensure their new mate can provide for them and their possible children.  If you live in your moms basement and have to take a scooter to work every day, your odds of a long term relationship with a high-quality woman are getting worse and worse.  If you can’t support yourself, how can you support her?

Dating after divorce is also a liberating and self-motivating experience.  You’re free to do what you want, when you want.  Within reason, of course.  It’s time to put yourself back into the world and meet new and exciting people and hear their stories.

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The stages of the Kubler-Ross model of grief:

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

Let’s look at each a little more in-depth.

Denial – This isn’t happening to me!

Denial is the first stage of grief. This is the part where we don’t want to believe or accept (as seen later) the circumstances or situation. Denial doesn’t have to be verbal. As humans we can internalize our thoughts, concerns and fears and delude, or deny to ourselves, the truth. If you catch yourself thinking, “I can’t believe this is happening” you’re still in denial.

Anger – WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON? YOU CAN’T DO THIS!!!

Anger is a secondary emotion to a stimulus of some sort. Anger is a self-defense mechanism that causes a myriad of physiological effects, some of which are not so good. Being angry isn’t necessary bad, it means you’re moving from one stage to another.

Personally, I plateaued in anger for several months. The anger wasn’t directed at anyone in particular and it took me a long time to figure out how to redirect and channel it.

Bargaining – If only I could…

People love to bargain and haggle. We like to be thrifty and show off our bargaining skills to our friends. Sadly, we also bargain when it comes to our relationships and our grief. Bargaining tends to be self-damaging. There’s a tendency to place blame on yourself and fall into depression. If you find that you are creating “If-then” scenarios in your head there’s a good chance you’re in the bargaining stage.

Depression - I don’t think I can handle this…

Depression is a natural response to grieving.  As tough as it may be, depression is a healthy response to a tragic event.  The key is time.  A long term bout of depression can alter your life and have very negative effects on your short and long-term health.  If you think you’re depressed and that you have been depressed for a long time, seek medical advice from a mental health professional, especially if you have entertained thoughts of suicide.

Acceptance – Time to move on…

The last stage of grief is acceptance.  At this stage you’ve begun to accept what has happened as a life-altering experience and that you want to move on from grieving.  Acceptance doesn’t mean you’re totally OK with what has happened, but you’ve accepted it (for lack of a better word) that things are as they will be.  To accept things you don’t have to like the situation or agree with it.

If you’re grieving over your marriage, understand that it is a natural and healthy response to your situation.  Seek friends and counseling to discuss how you are feeling and what you are going through.  A good support network is an important tool to have when going through something as traumatic as divorce.

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 CDC

NationMaster.com

Wikipedia 

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