Hurts Different

Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash

I am 43 years old and still opening my heart to the wrong men. Less than ideal, but it’s a different pain than I felt in my 20s and 30s.

Most recently, I met a man on a dating app who both charmed and intrigued me on our first date. He was handsome in a way that caught my breath a bit; his whole vibe and energy had me buzzing from the moment we started chatting at a bar in my neighborhood with his name.

Halfway through our first date, he had asked when he could see me again and we made plans for that Sunday. Sometime before or after that, he leaned in and started kissing me from our spot at the bar (a red flag perhaps, but the Old Fashioned in my hand convinced me otherwise). At the end of our date, a bit tipsy, he asked me to come home with him. Ignoring that tell-tale sign, I laughed at his request and we parted ways, my head swirling with this man who’d captivated me unexpectedly.

Our second date was brief and hurried, a mere 75 minutes jammed into two busy schedules. The timing was tough on his end; a divorce followed by grief piled on top of grief which was the catalyst for an upcoming move for him and his kids. But I was initially patient when days came and went and my messages were met only with his silence.

A month passed, and then half of another, a forgotten birthday which I forgave as it was so new, followed quickly by an impromptu invite to his family’s lake house for a night. I was nervous during the car ride, curious what music he’d play and what conversation would fill the hours there and back.

In person he was present, though never light – still carrying the weight of what life had handed him over the past three years.

When we were together, along with offering me his attention, was also his affection in private and in public - usually after a drink or two. I found I liked having both. In my gut I knew it was likely temporary as he seemed to disappear between each interaction, but I relished the moments they were mine. After dropping me off, a handful of texts were exchanged before my last text remained unanswered for nearly a week.

This would be the theme of our entire relationship. It feels weird to call it that, since it was atypical on my end, to say the least. I’d never encountered someone who fell silent for days on end, hiding behind the excuse of needing patience or being a bad communicator or not being able to meet expectations of dating.

Each month I would give him an out; suggest it wasn’t working or he wasn’t interested after his lack of effort. Each time he promised to do better. But by the time August rolled around, after four months of sporadic dates mostly at a spot that we frequented enough for the bartender to put my name + his on the bill for our last date, my patience had run out. And in my attempt to end whatever we had been respectfully, I only opened the door for him to dismiss me one last time. For his actions to tell me what I’d known since the silence that followed our second date – while he was on my mind consistently, I was forgettable in his.

Writing this, my initial response was shame and embarrassment. I know my worth. I love who I have become. I’ll own my accomplishments and successes as much as my faults and scars. I am not perfect, but there is so much good in me. And I let a man reduce me to a desperate girl begging; not for a title or a ring or commitment or a new last name – but just to get a timely text response.

In my 20s and even my 30s, getting it wrong often meant grieving more than the relationship itself, but the future I’d begun to imagine – namely one in which I might become a mother. The one small gift of my 40s was that I more frequently began dating men with either no desire to have children, or more common yet, men with vasectomies who didn’t want more. The latter tightly closed any door that led to the possibility of creating a family of my own and offered only becoming part of what they’d already made - if they were willing to make space. While on one hand I hated the decision being made for me, I’d be lying if it didn’t offer a strange relief to not have to dance on a reproductive timeline wondering if this relationship would unlock a dream I’d had since I was a teen.

Never did I imagine in my youth that instead of becoming a mother, I’d find myself single in my 40s still frustrated by the actions a man who couldn’t even apologize for intentionally blowing me off. I know his behavior speaks more to him and his character than anything I did “wrong”, but his lack of compassion lit a rage in me that resulted in texts that started as mature but vulnerable, honest but direct. And ended in a storm of disbelief captured in words that bordered on insults but were rooted in truth.

I’m not even sure what I was even holding on to. A man who made so little space for me that I was constantly dancing on my tippy toes to try not to be too much or need too much or have any emotions outside of fun and happy, so I didn’t scare him away?

Someone who made it seem like a chore to receive a text from me, whose inability to respond stripped me of my light and clever banter and replaced me with an insecure girl I was more familiar with in my youth?

Gone was the woman I’d worked so hard to become, my brain now looping; wondering why he didn’t respond, polling my friends endlessly when the answer was clear: he wasn’t choosing me. Words like patience and grace masked what was clearly a lack of interest or consideration. I communicated exactly what I needed. He engaged just enough to keep me around, but never enough to make me feel seen or valued.

In the time from our first date to our last, I celebrated a birthday and traveled for a bachelorette party, flew for work trips and went overseas for an international wedding without so much as a “have a safe trip!” or “did you make it safely?” text.

And I continued to swoon.

Looking back, I am both satisfied when it ended, and frustrated I hadn’t cut him off months earlier. It’s a delicate balance of remaining hopeful and extending grace; of not being too hard to bend a little or too quick to exit or too jaded to give space and time.

I like to feel my feelings. I like to reflect and ponder and process. In doing so, I know my tears were not over losing him but the fact I confused being patient with letting someone treat me poorly. I also realized when I have been at my cruelest, when I’ve dug my heels in, unable to admit my wrong, it was largely when I was not in a good place – when I was hurting too much myself to acknowledge or consider anyone else’s pain. And I wondered if perhaps that was the season he was in – one where he didn’t have the capacity to do much more than survive another day learning to be a single dad after more than a decade with a woman he had wanted to keep choosing.

He was the first man I’d dated for more than a handful of weeks in nearly three years. It was a four-month period that brought excitement and a rush of energy that was quickly replaced with confusion and frustration that interrupted the peace I’d built in my new home. And he was a quiet reminder that in the past few years, I’ve started to embrace that I am happiest when my life revolves around friends, family, my two rescue pups, and travel. And the beautiful thing I’ve come to realize is as disappointing as romantic love has largely been for me, the rest of my life is always waiting with open arms to remind me that my unconventional path is one that fits me perfectly and effortlessly.

For me, while my love life has been an uphill battle laced with constant frustration, the best parts of my life have always been downstream. Things clicking into place so easily I take it for granted at times. And oddly it’s times like these when another disappointment leaves a mark that I’m reminded of how many people are willing to show up and listen – even if they are the people who never hurt me in the first place, but only help make the sting of something or someone else a little more bearable.

My dissatisfaction in men and dating is different at 40. Because unlike my 20s, I have fallen deeply in love with the life I’ve created. I’m in a place I couldn’t begin to imagine in my youth and feel so fortunate to have arrived here. My life is filled with love, my heart is content, my joy is consistent and my calendar is full.  The dream of having my own family is one I’ve grieved fully and continuously through the last eight years, and it’s an ending I’m making peace with.

Maybe one day I’ll get it right, as they say. Maybe I’ll find someone as excited about me as I am about them. Maybe we’ll travel the world and spend cozy nights by the fire watching a show we both love, spending our days together laughing about nothing and everything. Maybe one man will adore me as much as I am captivated by him. Or maybe I will never truly get it right in this lifetime.

But maybe, just maybe that’s okay.

Maybe it’s more than okay. Maybe it’s even better.

Because next adventure awaits.