My First Broken Heart After My Divorce

Makes me want to say screw falling in love again.

“I don’t want to be the guy that hurts you,” he says.

I keep replaying some conversations I had with my 5-week guy, pool guy, and Bud Light guy. The line above ended up being the most ironic.

Because he did hurt me.

It’s late night and we are having one of the few serious conversations we had. We knew what we were doing. We understood our time together came with an expiration date.

Or as he once said, “We knew it had an end before the beginning.”

We did.

It’s why we didn’t have many serious exchanges.

Instead, I would call them weak moments.

When emotion took over, and we said a few things to each other that were deeper than our 5 weeks permitted. It’s like we both drew imaginary lines.

What was acceptable and reasonable?

And what wasn’t?

I know I made a conscious decision not to ask him about certain aspects of his life. It felt invasive. It felt like I was asking too much from someone I knew I would share only a limited amount of time with.

It may sound silly now.

I felt I was being respectful and realistic.

I don’t believe he meant to hurt me.

Any more than I believed I would be hurt. I think we both underestimated the depth of the attraction we had for one another. I think we both believed we weren’t capable of emotional attachment anymore…for different reasons.

I think we were naive.

Sounds crazy at this age to claim that.

But it’s true.

I was completely and utterly unprepared and naive about the potential of my first heartbreak after divorce. I didn’t believe it was possible. I didn’t believe I would attach myself to someone enough to allow it.

But I did.

And now I just feel like saying…

Screw falling in love again.

It’s not worth it.

I was happier before a man consumed my thoughts. Scratch that. I was happier before I stopped seeing a man who still completely invades my thoughts. Despite being on an entirely different coast.

Ironically, he said a few other things that night.

“No, really,” he said. “I was up all night after you left. I don’t want to be the guy who hurts you. You were better off weeks ago before you met me.”

“No,” I said. “I wasn’t. I’m happier knowing you.”

“You think I don’t think about the fact that you’re on the East Coast,” he says. “And I’m on the West Coast because I do. And you’re not leaving the East Coast and I’m not leaving the West Coast.”

I’ll leave out the rest.

Because it was more personal.

But that night, in particular replays in my mind.

I have a few guesses as to why it was a deeper conversation than we usually had. We had a misunderstanding the night before. We were nearing the end of our five weeks together and he had gone out with friends that night.

I think a few more drinks than usual made him more vocal.

My friend always asks me the same thing when I say I’m frustrated that I can’t seem to forget my 5-week guy.

“Would you rather have never met him?” she says.

“No,” I say.

“Then stop missing him and be happy for that incredible time you both spent together,” she says. “I witnessed it nearly every day and two people never seemed happier. It was a great thing. Hold onto that.”

I know she’s right.

But I’m learning a few new things post-divorce.

Namely, that my heart was open enough to get broken again.

I guess that’s a positive. I always try to look at the cup being half-full. It’s a great thing that I’ve healed enough to want to love again. And that the walls around my heart have evaporated.

A broken heart was just unexpected.

I didn’t even want to date a few months ago.

I feel like I could have avoided this. But at the same time, I didn’t want to avoid it. It’s how I felt when I first met him. I didn’t want to go out with him but I wanted to go out with him.

I was conflicted about getting involved with him.

I was conflicted about letting go of him.

That’s simply an emotional summary of divorce.

It chews you up and spits you out.

You don’t know what is up and what is down.

My friend is right. I have to look at the positive. I got my heart broken for the first time after divorce. I was a divorced virgin. He was my first. It’s no different than young love.

That first guy you’re crazy about.

The guy you can’t stop thinking about. The guy your 16 year old heart never fully gets over, nor does it want to get over. You romanticize that first experience of love.

You make it bigger than it was.

Because it was for you.

It or ‘he’ might not have been that great.

But to you it and ‘he’ was.

I resisted dating for so long that I never fully delved into it before I gave in to it. I never did the typical research this love and relationship columnist does on every other topic.

Because it wasn’t something that interested me.

I wasn’t going to dive into that area of expertise.

But Labor Day, a pool, a Bud Light, and an unexpected guy made me go against my protective instincts. I can’t regret that. I can accept it for what it was.

The first guy I was crazy about.

My first love after divorce.

My first broken heart.

Someone had to do it.

It might as well have been my 5-week guy.