Loving His Potential & Liking His Instagram Posts

Here I sit ‘liking’ yet another post on my ex-boyfriend’s Instagram page. I have been on Instagram for years yet he has never so much as mentioned my IG page, let alone followed me or even liked one picture I have posted. He has not even liked a picture of my stupid cat that he loves. But I continue to support his artwork by liking his posts. Why do we, as women, give so much to men who do not reciprocate? It is easy…. Women fall in love with a man’s potential, in spite of their actual behaviors and actions. It is in our DNA, it is what we do.

For every man I have ever loved or been in a relationship with,  I can say without a doubt that I was more in love with his potential than I was with his actions. He may have never told me I am beautiful, or rarely mentioned the future; he may not have been able to pay for a good date night, but dammit I was giving him love. I was giving him gifts, giving him my full attention… hell, even giving him blowies… ‘cause I just knew he loved me. I knew if I just kept giving him more and more he would come around and want to commit to a future with me. He may have had only a couple of positive traits but I was convinced he could be a great long-term lover. I believed in him. I believed in his potential.

Believing in someone does little to change their deeply seated desires. If a man doesn’t go into a relationship mentioning forever, or at least mention it by the six month mark, give it up! And, it can’t just be talking about forever, they have to demonstrate they mean it. They cannot be talking about living together but when you mention bringing your beloved China cabinet say things like, “But you wanted to be a minimalist, remember?” This is a red flag that they really don’t want to give up their 273 t-shirts or the half-dozen different sporting equipment collections they have and NEVER use but feel the need to display around the house. Clearly they are trying to prove something to someone (“I play sports… dahhhhhhh….”) all the while they can’t prove to you that they are really thinking of a forever commitment with you by simply moving some shit six feet so you can bring in the cabinet of precious keepsakes you have from your dead grandma and late-friends.

Yet, there I was sticking with a man who talked the talk, but couldn’t walk the walk. And it was the third go-around in that relationship. I was simply in love with his potential to be my forever mate. I mean, we got along wonderfully 99% of the time. We loved a lot of the same things, enjoyed being together and he was even good with my teenage daughter. You know, the one I had spent 16 years raising to have the potential to be a good adult. I had already raised one before her that proved (mostly, except for that dropping out of college thing) that all my hard work paid off… that she has potential to still be a successful human being in this crazy-ass world. Yep! I was a good mother. I didn’t give up on my kids’ potential.

Women (now I know there are men in the same boat) are tasked with raising kids to have good morals, values, work ethics, and to become loving parents to their own kids. We look at each of our kids and foster their talents and skills to give them the best potential. We display their artwork on the fridge. We work harder where they may fall short on skills. We nurture them to be the best humans they can be and we are never supposed to give up on them and their potential. NEVER! They are our children. So, how far fetched is it that we do the same thing with the men in our lives? We see their potential, we try to foster it and wait and wait for them to buck up and blossom into the wonderful mates we feel they can be. Problem is, they are 45 and so set in their ways they most likely will never change.

A man may be in love with a woman, he may really strive to be with her forever, but when it comes right down to it he really enjoys his bachelor lifestyle where his whole house is his man cave. He can have an entire hallway wall painted in chalkboard paint and three skateboards leaning against the walls of the dining room. He can spend his money on electric bikes or life-size butler dolls and he definitely doesn't need a woman to use common sense about how putting siding on the house and replacing the windows will be good investments.  He can stay up late, do whatever he pleases without having to entertain a woman. He really doesn’t want to have to report to anyone. And heaven forbid if he has to actually pretend to listen or care about your life for longer than a few hours at a time.

Yet, we as women keep convincing ourselves that his words indicate potential, all the while his actions indicate perpetual dating. Nope! Not for me! As hard as it is, we sometimes have to recognize the red flags and put up our own white flag. We have to surrender to the fact that he isn’t going to come around if he hasn’t yet. We have to recognize our own potential to move on with what we want for our future. I love my ex, yet I don’t love that our futures are not aligning. I don’t love that the more I lean in, the more he leans away. I don’t love that I have to choose to move on without him, leaving the man I love because he can’t just be honest with me, let alone with himself. Then again…. I have potential to live the future I want without being held back by someone who can’t live up to the potential I see in them. And, I guess I still support his potential in a small way by liking his art on Instagram, a sort of modernized alternative to hanging it on the refrigerator.

Thirsty for Life: The Importance of Girls Night and Adult Friends

Work, kids, laundry, workouts, dates, housework, yard work, bills, groceries…. Life gets so busy there isn’t much time for “fun”. Things get monotonous with the same, week after week rituals and let’s be honest, “fun” with the kids gets stagnant. After many years in a marriage that was less than healthy, I lost contact with a lot of my friends; and sometimes I need adult conversation with someone other than my two teenage daughters and the men I work with. As a single mother I need a break from the norm to reignite a sense of excitement and belonging.

After my divorce it took several years to come to a place where I felt comfortable living again and owning my womanhood. Honestly, for a long time I thought “living” was dating men that I only hoped would turn into long-term partnership. It wasn’t until I started commiserating with other divorced, single mothers about those ridiculous men that I realized I may not ever want to be tied down again, whether in a marriage or a committed relationship. But that can be lonely. Then, after listening to one single friend that had kids full-time (no father visitations) I decided she needed to have grown-up conversations and to get away from her three boys. That is when I realized that she could get a small respite from the kids by spending one night a week with me at a local restaurant that happened to have a decent bar smack dab in the middle of it. It also allowed me some friend time, away from home. And so it began… one night out for drinks with a friend with whom I shared a lot in common.

This friend is a distant cousin that I had never been close with until we started having our mini-”therapy” sessions. It was good to get to know each other better and the conversations about kids and exes quickly turned into conversations about dating. I had been divorced a bit longer than her and had been dating since then, so I felt like I was giving her what no one had given me: honest experiences and advice to save her from the hell that can be divorced-single-mom life. This included advice on dealing with your ex-hole, handling kids on your own and dating douchebags. Soon we added another friend who is in a similar situation to our group and other women (some married) would join us some nights, as well. This became a weekly Girls Night that has now fallen on Thirsty Thursdays.

Once a week “girls night” allowed us to get out of the house, have adult conversations, develop new relationships, and relax with a drink. These nights always brought great stories, validation, advice and above all LAUGHS. Some nights there would be men hovering around trying to hit on us (we weren’t there for that), new women to share stories with, or old friends who happened to come in for a meal. And from all of these weekly experiences we had things to laugh about a few weeks later while we were all together again.

After a few months of our girls nights I realized I felt like I had purpose again, besides trying to find a male companion and work like a soldier to provide for kids. I felt a sense of belonging and had something to look forward to each week. I was making new memories and feeling alive. I had a group of friends that I could rely on. I wasn’t lonely and relied less on dating to squash my loneliness. I also hear that when our kids see each other at school they make jokes about our Thirsty Thursday nights. I feel a sense of pride that my daughters see me take time for me and put myself first, at least one night a week, because if you learn anything after divorce it is that no one is going to put you first except YOU. Kids need, need, need. Men seem to put you first when it is convenient for them or they want something in return. Family members have their own lives. I am setting an example for my daughters. Self-care is great for mental and emotional health.

Now, over a year later, I have a serious male companion and I am lucky that he understands the sacredness of Thirsty Thursday Girls Night. He knows that my group of girlfriends is important to me and I am not willing to give up my friends again like I did in my marriage. I will always find time to see my girlfriends and tend to my own independence and mental health, just as I encourage him to do. Hell, he even comes out with us on rare nights away from his job. He enjoys the camaraderie as much as we do because he see the value in it. We all see the value in friendships and relaxation, because by Thursday we are all pretty damned Thirsty for a break from the norm and for our Girls Night.