I’m sitting next to a good-looking guy at the bar. I’m there to grab a bite to eat and write an article. He’s in his world and I’m in mine. Until he has a few more drinks. We chat a bit. He’s interesting and talks about his second wife. I love it. A good guy.
Until he asks me to his room. Oops, I should have mentioned the restaurant is attached to a hotel. And maybe add in that he was just recently remarried. Seriously?!
And seriously NOT sexy!
What is sexy? A guy who loves his wife. A guy who raves about his wife. And in the normal respectful way. Not jokingly or sarcastically. A man who thinks he won the lottery.
People ask me when I’m going to start dating. I have lots of reasons. Scratch that. Excuses. But honestly, I’m afraid I’m going to meet a divorced guy like my ex-husband. One who is divorced for a reason. I know that’s not fair. I don’t want people to judge me for why I got divorced so I shouldn’t assume all the good guys are still married.
But I know a TON of good guys.
Pretty much every woman I know is married to a great guy. With few exceptions. And they’re still married for a reason. They love their wives, treat them well, and can’t live without them.
Every guy in my family is a good guy too. At my aunt’s service, my uncle got up and said, “When Sandra got to heaven they didn’t say welcome. They said welcome back.” My sister and I looked at each other and whispered the same thing. In a family of men like this, how did we choose the guys we chose?
My father-in-law? Another truly great man. He didn’t speak of his wife, he sang her praises. He put her on a pedestal. I asked my husband what happened to him. How could he have a father like that and not carry it to the next generation?
I got my answer one day in marriage counseling. I met with the therapist individually and he said, “Colleen, you put your husband on a pedestal.”
Oops!
It turns out I was the soprano in our relationship.
Hard to believe now. The last few years of marriage and divorce swept him right off of that podium. But before his bad behavior and financial abuse, I was a version of my father-in-law. I was proud of my husband and who he was.
I never noticed my husband didn’t sing my praises.
It was my sister who pointed it out to me.
She’s insightful and asked if he ever complimented me. I could only come up with two examples. He would tell me I looked nice and I was pretty. That’s it. Nothing else. He didn’t say I was caring, generous, kind, a good writer, a good marketer, entertainer, or problem-solver…nada…nothing. Not even at the beginning of our marriage.
I can’t really blame him because it’s absurd I never noticed.
Is there hope for me in the dating world? Yes. Because I know divorced women who have met seriously good guys. I’m trying to be open-minded. But it’s hard not to admire the men who got it right.
I jumped on Facebook the other day to read the sweetest tributes laced with a bit of humor. My friend Ann’s husband was giving her a shout-out for her birthday. I texted her to tell her how lucky she is. Of course, it goes without saying he is too. Theirs is a love affair.
What is sexy? A guy who loves his wife. A guy who raves about his wife. And in the normal respectful way. Not jokingly or sarcastically. A man who thinks he won the lottery.
I love guys who love their wives.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com
