Or, how to BE like Demi, Ashton, and Bruce.
Your marriage is breaking up. You're in shock, you see the life you thought you would have disintigrate in front of your eyes, and you feel like you haven't been loved in years. You're left reeling, wondering what you could have done differently, how this will impact the kids, and then all the logistics of who gets what, including which friends you keep. I know. I've been there. It sucks ass.
And this, my dear fabulous women, is exactly the time you are most vulnerable, and most likely to make the fatal mistake of rebounding. I want you to stop right now and listen: DO NOT REBOUND!!! And again, I tell you this from experience. By the time I'd worked up the courage to get a divorce from my daughter's father, it had been a good three years of a loveless marriage. I had no idea this would ever happen to me, and I took all the precautions I could to ensure that this was the right lifelong partner for me. I was very upfront about who I am; he and I were best friends for over a year before we even started dating, at HIS insistance by the way, we even lived together against my better judgement because he said he wanted to be sure we could actually cohabitate together. I was clear about wanting children, and he agreed that "someday" he would want them too. My point is that even if you take all the right precautions, follow all the right "steps", you can still get blindsided.
So where does this leave you? lonely, that's where. In order to mitigate the rebound phenom, I've put together a short list of questions you need to ask to know if you're about to enter into an authentic relationship.
First and foremost, for me anyway: Do you have a 401K plan? seriously! i mean, hell, I've got a plan for the future and I'm not willing to support anyone else besides my child. So why the hell would I hook up with someone who hasn't bothered to care about planning?
2. If said potential partner has a child or children, observe very closely their relationship. Is it good? Does he call them often, keep in touch? Is he civil to his baby mama, especially in front of the kids? Does he pay child support or is he in arrears? (a sneaky way to find out about child support: propose a trip to Canada, or anywhere else he might need a passport. If he doesn't have one, and he applies and gets denied, it's probably because he's in arrears. That's how i found out. Nice, eh? ) Honestly ladies, if he can't take care of his own, how the hell do you expect him to take care of YOURS?
3. Back to the bank account: soooo, any weirdness with taxes? Again, I had to find this out the hard way. I was so swept off my feet by this "knight in shining armor" I didn't even bother to look at his financial history. Ask him about past jobs, look him up on Linked In, Google him, find him on my space or facebook... in my case, my rebound man explained his many business failures as "unfair"... and that he was "just started to get some success when ...." a layoff, downsize, whatever. A BIG red flag for the 35 plus crowd: has he ever owned a house? Seriously, if not, you might want to catagorize that one as a red flag.
4. Does he include your baby daddy, or try to push him away? Now not all of us are as lucky as I am, to have a baby daddy that I get along with very well now. As mothers, of course we want the perfect childhood for our children, so by the time we're done berating ourselves for getting out of a miserable marriage, of course we try to make it as pallatable for the children as possible. Does rebound boy support this? If not, tell him to fuck off fast. Seriously. You should have a ZERO tolerance approach for anyone who A. tells you how to parent or criticizes your parenting, or B. tells you how to manage your relationship with your ex, or C. does not support having blended celebrations with your baby daddy. You need to tell rebound boy to grow the hell up and get over it. Reference Demi, Ashton and Bruce. Really. LOVE them!
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