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Restoration Beyond the Couch
The Beyond the Couch with Dr. Lee Long podcast is intended solely for general informational purposes and does not represent the practice of medicine, therapeutic and psychiatric services, nursing, or other professional health care services. It also does not constitute the provision of medical, therapeutic or psychiatric advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is established. The information on this podcast and any materials linked from it are used at the user's own risk. The content provided through this podcast should not be considered a replacement for professional medical, therapeutic, or psychiatric advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It is important that users do not ignore or postpone seeking medical, therapeutic, or psychiatric advice for any health or mental health condition they might have, and should always consult with their health care professionals regarding such conditions.
Restoration Beyond the Couch
Dating Again: Beyond the Expected
In this episode of Restoration Beyond the Couch, Dr. Lee Long and Dr. Don Hebbard explore the emotional complexity of dating again: after divorce, loss, or long seasons of singleness. They look beyond expectations to offer honest insights, practical advice, and hope for meaningful connection in a new chapter.
Welcome to Restoration Beyond the Couch. I'm Dr Lee Long and in this episode I'm joined by Dr Don Hebert, one of our counselors here at Restoration. Together we're talking about something many people face but few talk about honestly, and that's dating. Again, in this conversation, we go beyond the surface and explore the unexpected emotional layers, challenges and opportunities that come with reentering the dating world later in life or after loss. Whether you're navigating this season yourself or supporting someone who is, this episode offers wisdom, encouragement and real insight. Your path to mental wellness starts here. Welcome, don, dr Don Hebert, to Restoration Beyond the Couch. I am so excited you're with us today. You are a man of so many talents and the reason why we're here today is to talk about your latest book called Rematch. You can see here Love in Extended Adulthood and what a great, what a treasure of a book. So I won't go into that yet, but I just want to say welcome and thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Thanks, lee. It's good to be with you. I miss being with you every week and now that I'm in Houston I have to do this long distance every once in a while. We have to get our fix long distance sometimes.
Speaker 1:That's right. I know you had the great, I had the great pleasure and joy of getting to be with you every week. And now it's catch as catch can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I went off and ran away from Fort Worth and ran to the other side of the state. But there you go.
Speaker 1:But for a good reason right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's a very good reason, so that's okay, yeah reason.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's okay. Yeah, so so would you? Would you catch our listeners up?
Speaker 2:on why you ran away to Houston. Yeah, sure Cause it's. You know, ties into the book so well. After after being single again for shoot 20 years, I guess Lisa and I met on match. She's here in Houston. I was up in Dallas and we commuted, dated, we long-distance dated for about three years and then we got married last October. And because I teach and a lot of my work's online, it made more sense for me to come and a lot of my work's online, it made more sense for me to come to Houston and I'm selling my place up in Dallas right now and so I'm in a whole new restructuring of a whole new life, which is kind of interesting to be doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it makes me wonder is she a lot of the inspiration behind this book?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, the book has been a project for a number of years. When I was going through this pretty early on, one of my mentors, who you'd heard me talk a lot about, james Cale Cale told me he said you need to keep notes on this because he said at some point in time you know, as a marriage and family person going through all this, you may have some things you want to write about. And I thought, oh yeah, I don't know about that, but anyway. So I started taking notes and journals and stuff. You know, first year into this thing and you know it just shoved him aside and just started collecting that stuff. And then about oh, probably about a year into dating Lisa and our thing was really coming together nicely Cale came back to me and he said OK, you need to get your typewriter out, it's time to get after that thing.
Speaker 1:So I love it. Um, I love that. So. So when you found yourself newly single again 20 something years ago, he prompted you to keep notes of what it was like to date as a therapist Yep, yep, what, uh, and what?
Speaker 2:what was some? What was that experience like? I mean just thinking it all back through the seminars, this is our world. And we think I thought I knew what I was walking into. And I say in the first chapter I thought, well, I'll just, I'll go out, I'll date a little bit, I'll meet a nice lady and, you know, start life over again. And that was the most ridiculous thought that ever went through my brain, because we're living through such a shift in the way in which people meet and fall in love and do that whole thing that for me it was such a discovery that what I had learned in practice was not some of it was going to work and then some of it I was going to have to throw out because it's all so new.
Speaker 1:What were some of those tensions that you saw? Because you're right, we are in a really big shift in how we meet people, like the culture shift that is upon us, like it or not.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah. Well, one of the big shifts of course it's the reason I call it, you know finding love and extended adulthood is that when you're like I was 47 when I started this that I used back in college in my 20s, to meet and date. You know, back then I was an old guy. You called up the dorm. There was one phone on the dorm hall you called in for you know Mary in room 232. They'd scream her name out and then you'd hope you didn't hear a cackle of laughing from other girls in their rooms and they'd come down to the phone. You had 20 girls sharing one phone and it was all about propinquity.
Speaker 2:You dated and you mated people that you were around and you did that within that mid-20s, late-20s period of time and you really locked in to all those major commitments who you're going to be married to, where you're going to live, what your occupation was. All that stuff got started early on. Well, nowadays all that stuff's getting shoved back a decade. People are doing that in their 30s and now people in their 50s and 60s and 70s are dating and they have these old templates of how they used to date back in their 20s and those don't work when you're 50 or 60 or 70 years old. You're going to do it, but it's going to be done in a whole different way. I don't know. Does that make any sense?
Speaker 1:It makes perfect sense, because the interesting thing there is, like when you're talking about you know, you call up to the dorm and you ask for a marry in room two or whatever, you have all these. You're dating in front of a lot of people, oh yeah. And now, with everything well, not everything, but most things being online and very siloed it's you don't date out in front of a big community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exactly right and it's a great observation. You're very siloed. It's a very honestly, it's a very lonely kind of endeavor, which is why I went and got some. I called them wingmen and wingwomen to make sure I wasn't crazy sometimes. But yeah, it's a very lonely and that's why a lot of people get real discouraged with it is because you get ghosted, you get lied to, you get betrayed, all that other stuff goes on, or there's fake, you know profiles and whatever, and you're kind of doing it alone and you go. This is too crazy. I, you know I I can't do this. And so people have to kind of develop that alligator hide and and kind of you know, toughen up a little bit and be able to pull it off.
Speaker 1:That does seem like it is a theme of of date. I think it's a theme of dating in general. Now, because I hear this from the folks I work with in their, you know, teens, 20s, you know, 30s and up, it's that it does seem like it's a big cultural shift. I don't, I'm not, I don't know that I've thought about the fact that it's a big cultural shift for people 40s and up or if it's just across the board, but it's impacting 40s and up, maybe I should say late 40s and up, because we didn't grow up with, I mean, I remember, when you know, the first cell phone, I didn't have a real cell phone until I was, you know, married and you know you got dial up internet in college, I mean, where you know you dial on and it makes this horrible noise and then squeaks and squawks and then finally it connects and you might be able to hack out an email and then it might take a minute if you had a photo to attach to it. Now it's like, you know, I mean, kids are in restaurants dialing up, you know, all types of things, sending all types of files, and it just goes like that.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm wondering do you think that there's like, do you think that there's an? It was an. It's a technology thing. Do you think it's a cultural thing? Do you think it's all of the above? Yeah, it's a great observation, it's a great question, and yeah, I think it's a cultural thing.
Speaker 2:Do you think it's all of the above? Yeah, it's a great observation, it's a great question and, yeah, I think it's all of the above. And I think for the you know, the just pick a number, the 50s and up, that did not grow up, uh, maybe as technology driven and comfortable with that there's, there's the whole. You know, I'm a new single person, either widowed or divorced or whatever, and I'm trying to figure out how, to date, at this point in time, you know, what do I do, what do I say, how do I present myself? What am I looking for? All of those questions, what are those essentials? And then there's navigating, the technology part of it, which is like, okay, what pictures do I put up? How do I describe myself?
Speaker 2:I probably wrote 50, 75 different versions of profiles through the years short, long, cute, funny, serious, you name it, kind of thing. And you're trying to navigate. And then the different platforms are going to have different procedures that you have to follow, you know, to match up with some people. You know, early on eHarmony they had these crazy eight stages of questions you went through that were just brutal because they were so self-revealing early on and thankfully they got rid of that stuff. And then you got other platforms like Match, where you're basically, you know, out there doing all your picking and sorting and profiling yourself, and so for those older foes, it's the how do I date at this point in time? And then how do I not look like I'm stupid online, trying to do this at the same time and then not get paired up with somebody? That's not somebody of character that I would want to go out with, because everybody's heard the horror stories oh, have we heard the horror stories?
Speaker 1:yeah, and it's interesting because, yeah, you're, you're, you're so spot on. I was listening to a body language expert who was talking about you know how to how to pick the best online profile picture and I just, oh my gosh, like the granular nature of what we can get into Now. She was doing a phenomenal job, she had such great ideas and feedbacks and thoughts, but, wow, it seemed overwhelming. Yeah, now to think, oh, you need a picture with a half tilt and a smile and a don't smile with your teeth. Or if you're wanting to convey this, convey. And it's like, oh my gosh, I don't, how would you know what to convey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it just it can be absolutely overwhelming and, uh, what I ended up looking for? Uh, after you know, a long time of being online dating and whatever, and I actually liked it, I mean.
Speaker 2:I'm a proponent of it, I'm in favor of it for a number of reasons, but I would look for a sense of authenticity coming through in the way the person wrote, in the way way they would text and the way they would present themselves. If they just seemed basically honest, if there was a sense of humor in there and real authenticity, if it is a real person, they seem to be trying honestly to meet somebody and go out, then that would be what I would look for. More than that, you know, real, getting into the details of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense, and I would imagine it's difficult to know if there's authenticity without giving it some space and time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:With this pared-out authenticity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was. You were talking about surprises. One of the things I learned through the years was that the quick startups there were people out there doing they're just in a hurry and you know you'd hear from them. You know you'd get five messages in one day. They want to be meeting you know, in two days or three days and then meet again. It was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Meet again, it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And invariably those were the ones that would drop off the end of the earth and you'd never hear anything from them, because they're onto the next, they're onto the next match and they'd wear you out too. So when, to your point, when you'd get somebody who had a sense of timing and they seem to be be within themselves, they weren't rushing as much, that was usually a pretty good sign.
Speaker 1:That makes good sense. Um, yeah, it makes me think about too, like when you're, when you have, when you find somebody who's sounds like to me you're talking about speed dating, like there's trying to speed through the process. Yeah, there's so many, there's the potential of so many complexities of of a uh, kids, career, extended family that all still want and need your attention and aren't willing to give that up and shouldn't be willing to give that up, maybe to uh, to you going out and finding a new mate. What advice do you have and how do you address that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's a great observation and one of the things I do. You mentioned that there's steps in the book kind of toward the end of that process. I asked you know, how is this affecting your decision making? How is this affecting your extended family? What's the overall impact of this relationship on your entire life?
Speaker 2:And you know as well as I do you've done enough therapy to know that when you're matched up with somebody who's got some pretty serious problems, that when you're matched up with somebody who's got some pretty serious problems, they're going to want to constrict and control your life and your relationships and the people you're around and they're going to want to be more controlling and have your attention. And if you're dealing with someone who's healthier, they're going to be a better partner. They're going to incorporate your life into their life. And, of course, when you're 50 or 60, those are bigger lives to put together than what it is when you're 20 years old, because you've got kids, grandkids or you know like we had separate towns and big lives both places. And so, yeah to your point, when you've got somebody, you've got somebody, that's and it happens real subtly you get certain personalities that will very subtly cut off their partner's relationships with their kids and with family members and with people they played racquetball with, and suddenly it's just down to those two people. Well, that's usually a pretty bad sign.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause it's. It's like you said, there there's a further siloing that you away from this, because the thing that I think is really beautiful about yours and Lisa's relationship is that I know she has been woven into your circle and I know you've been woven into hers, and so, rather than pairing out what you previously had, it's like you guys have joined a way bigger support network, a way bigger support network.
Speaker 2:It's like you guys have had this wonderful multiplication here. Yeah, that's exactly right. Cale made the comment early on. He said, talking about me, he said you do work really well, but you need to marry some fun. And I did. Lisa's just a lot of fun and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to come to Houston. I lived in Dallas since 68. I lived other places, but Dallas was home since 68. Her whole social network down here is so rich and interesting and varied and I've picked up a whole new aspect to my life that's way beyond drumming and working all the time, which is all I did, and so, yeah, and then she, her family's all gone, they've all passed, and so you know, coming in and and she just picked up with my kids right away and she texts them and talks to them as much as I do. And so it was.
Speaker 1:It was a nice blending of those things and we both, we both have benefited from that, which is such an immense blessing, not just to you but to your extended crew and to hers, because it's a dovetailing in of both of you and you guys both get to be blessings to all of that, which is a really sweet place to be of that, which is a really sweet place to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know it's interesting because I was talking with Dr Margaret Pender and you know Margaret from Amberton Days and we both love her dearly LMFT and she made the comment a number of years ago to me about this dating thing. She said, you know, don, she said when it works and when it's right, you just don't have to work at it that hard, it just comes together and it fits in a nice way. You have to, obviously, relationships all work, but she said there's a coming together and a blending there that you're not having to just force.
Speaker 2:And I think she was exactly right.
Speaker 1:I think she is too. And it's funny because people say to me I've been with my wife for 28 or 29 years. People say, oh, marriage is hard work. I'm like, yeah, oh, is it? Because it's like you're saying. It's like when you find the person that you're compatible with, there's so much synergy there that you know it is work. We do work at our marriage, but when work is fun, it feels less like work and more enjoyable.
Speaker 2:And I think that's a good time. Yeah, and I think one of the not to be negative at all, but I think one of the discouraging things about dating in this second half of life is you do have to go through usually a number of people to date to finally find that one where it does work. And I would talk to a lot of people who dated that were my age and they would say repeatedly I'm going to keep at it because I'm not going to settle, and that was kind of a phrase that we'd use. I don't want to settle, I want to find that person that there's that nice complementary relationship to, and I always respected those people tremendously because it's just a lot of work too and I always respected those people tremendously because it's just a lot of work.
Speaker 1:Well, because, like you're talking about, you're going through. I mean I'd be curious if there's and I don't know if you have this number, but I'd be curious to know how many people you've been through, or one would go through, to find that one person and I'm not saying that there's only one person out there for you, I don't believe that but go through how many people a person would go through to find somebody that is compatible. Just the sheer volume of people would seem to me overwhelming. And I know that when I talk to folks who are post-divorce, they're walking back through the whole idea of dating or they're post-widow or widower and they're talking about this whole idea of dating. Again, it does seem so overwhelming and they're like I know it's a numbers game how many people am I going to have to go out with to find somebody that is compatible?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's where my dating coaches kept telling me is you got to keep fishing and don't get locked in too quickly. You know a first date and then you shut down all the other people you're communicating with and that's real hard to do, especially if you both kind of think, oh wow, this is pretty exciting. But it is. It's what Cale called. It's a numbers game. You just got to go out on enough dates and meet enough people. But you know the thing that's interesting about it and, if you can look at it, keep a sense of humor and I try to envision it as a learning experience and an adventure and me trying to learn more about myself. But it was always real interesting. It was fascinating to me.
Speaker 2:One the people I would be attracted to. Because I started thinking, ok, I kind of know what I'm attracted to and the longer I dated, the broader and the more intricate that became. You know, you go out on a date and you'd find yourself going, wow, they're really interesting. That would be a fun person to date that you might never look at the profile and think, oh, that's, that's going to be way up there. The other one's real interesting is the reverse of that. The reverse of that. When you're out there online, you know people can men, women can contact you as well, which you know. I was always real amazed at the women who would initiate contact with me because I would you know I might go, I might pass you on the street and I would never dream you'd be interested in going out with me, and so it really broadens your view of attraction and how complicated that thing is.
Speaker 1:Well, that's very well said, because I think about the people that you know, like we tend to have a type or we think we do, we think we do Right, and I think that at times people get super locked in on. Well, they don't meet my five criteria. Yeah, go out on a date and you're like, so, do you attend church? Yes, I do. Okay, check, are you? Do you still speak with your family? Yes, I do. And okay, check, and it's like we get, we can get so locked in and it's like we get, we can get, so locked in. We miss. We miss a breadth, a depth and a breadth of the things that we could potentially see in somebody else that might blow the doors off of our list of five or 10 things that that we want.
Speaker 2:Thoughts on that. Oh yeah, you're. You're hitting on one of the big core issues there. I couldn't agree with you more because I'd go out on these first dates and it was almost like a car salesman coming in and going through the checkoff of all the features on this model. You know, do you have four-wheel drive? You know how many miles do you have on you. You know, has your transmission been changed recently? I mean, it was like but they're going through the you're exactly right, going through and you contrast that with dates. You'd go out with people and they would just show up. It would be like let's talk and let me get to know you a little bit and you get to know me a little bit. And even if there wasn't any chemistry, even if you know we're not going to go out again, but you'd have this lovely conversation with somebody and you'd make a friend and you know you'd learn something about somebody that you didn't know. That was a lot more fun to do than the checklist thing.
Speaker 1:Oh, no kidding, Because on one level not to be crass, but I would imagine that checklist feels a little bit like a medical exam, like oh yeah, you for a colonoscopy sorry to be crass, yeah. On the other hand, it's like there's no chemistry here, but that doesn't matter. We can still get to know one another and and not not to make it sound perfunctory, but what a great opportunity to practice getting to know somebody and, like you never know who, who you would be attracted to and what things you learn about people that pique your interest and help you grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's where so much of the material from the book came from. You know I would I don't know how many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dates. I went on, I have no idea, but a lot, and so many of them, you know, you'd know, midway into it, you know you'd both kind of have a feeling, ah, it's not going to go on, and it would switch gears and you'd start talking about that person, would want to say, well, what's it been like for you dating online? Well, what's it been like for you and you start sharing war stories and things with one another and it's like you're both in the same boat together. And that's where I learned so much from people was. You'd be on those dates where you'd know we're not going to date but we're both dating and what's it been like. And you, you know you talk for an hour about that stuff. And I learned so much from people that way.
Speaker 1:That's, that's a really that makes a lot of good sense. I mean it's, it's. It's not only grabbing your experiences, but it's like you're grabbing their experiences and it's, I would imagine, knowing you, that you collating all that and and looking for themes and and what's common and what happens, and yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a question for you about that. How would you coach somebody who, between because thinking about all of that, I mean you when you know it's not gonna, or I guess early on, you're thinking I'm, I'm wondering if you're, if one's thinking, hey, I'm not going to just get out there and be vulnerable with everybody, because I'll have, as Bernie Brown calls it, I'll have a vulnerability hangover every morning. Yeah, because I'm doing it so often, won't be as vulnerable anymore. Yeah, right, comes in and they're sitting like this and you know, like closing their body language and not hardly talking. And how many kids do you have? Enough, you know, or that could not be. How? How would you coach somebody to, to to find that balance?
Speaker 2:to where they be a little bit more comfortable opening up on those days versus self-protection versus self-protection.
Speaker 1:I mean, would you suggest to people to be protective in the beginning, would you? I don't know? What would your sage wisdom on that be?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a great question. I probably erred on the being a little more open and being a little more out there, because that's just kind of my personality. I can pull that off and it doesn't. It does get tiring over time because you feel like you're having the same conversations over and over and over again. And one of the things we run into at least I ran into an awful lot was people who were coached to get out there dating by a friend. One of their kids wrote their profile and you'd get on a date with them and they'd own up to it. They'd say you know, this is the first time I've been out and I've tried this and I'm just not ready and I can't tell you the dozens and dozens and dozens of times that happened. And so you do have. There are a lot of people that because they've been hurt, probably in the past in a relationship, they're still carrying some woundedness around. Probably in the past in a relationship, they're still carrying some woundedness around.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's why I think and I talk about it in the book those those first two phases. Before you get started dating, you got to work on yourself and do some internal healing, some core work, and but a lot of people they skip that. They're going to think dating is going to solve my woundedness and it's just kind of frustrating more and more.
Speaker 1:That makes so much sense because you're right, regardless of why you find yourself in this place at this time of life, where you're out dating, whether it's through going through a divorce, whether it's being a widow or a widower, there's something there that you went through that you've got to. You're suggesting, and I'm agreeing, that you've got to sort out. You have to. I always say you have to find me before I can bring me to we.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exactly right me to we. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And for, obviously, if a marriage ends in death, that's one set of circumstances and there'll be grief and there'll be loss and there's that dynamic. If a marriage is going to end through a divorce, then there's some some fracturing there. There's some woundedness there Well early woundedness there, well early on in my divorce adjustment.
Speaker 2:I'm an expert at talking about what my spouse did that ruined the marriage and I've got that narrative down, pat. Well, if you do your work, the narrative you really get is your own narrative. This is what I did that led to the. This is what I contributed to the failure of that thing. And if I don't have that narrative, if I haven't owned my own story of what my woundedness is, there's a real strong likelihood I'm going to go out, get on match and repeat it all over again and I'm going to find myself, you know, back as one woman said. She said I've been married three times, but it's the same man, just in a different body. He said my man picker is broken. Yeah Well, she finally decided she was going to do her work. So yeah, I agree with you 100 percent on that do her work.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent on that. Yeah, cause what is it? It's? The divorce rate now for first marriages is about roughly 50%, for second marriages it's roughly 60% and for third marriages it's roughly 75%, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah Just going on on that thing. Right. Going on on that thing, it's do your work.
Speaker 1:Do your work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love what you're saying about one of the ways that we can understand, as a person's out there and you know, enjoying the that dating process and hopefully they are enjoying that dating process. They are enjoying that dating process but they're enjoying that dating process. One of those cues to look for is is if everything's externalized, that hey, you know my husband or my, you know my ex-husband or my ex-wife or you know anything, that's always that's externalizing it out to them and you don't hear it. Coming back to what was my contribution, even if your contribution was 5%, yeah, still the thing that I can own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, my contribution may have been. I just didn't see it. It was there in black and white. I just didn't recognize it or didn't want to look at it. Okay, well, that says something about me.
Speaker 1:I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that's. Do you think that there's speaking of divorce and widowing? Do you think that there is? Did you? I don't know if you dated widows, but I'm curious if you found in your experience and research that dating someone who had been through a divorce was different than dating somebody who had been widowed or widowered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question. And I drove up there and her ex had had been a college administrator and I was a college administrator at that time, so we had a lot of things in common. And I drove up and we were at a Mexican restaurant, just met her and we had been talking for a few hours and whatever. And she looked at me and she said I can't, I can't do this. And you know, we talked later and she just said getting out there and dating has helped me understand. I'm just, I'm not over him. So the grief hadn't worked through. And so, yeah, I ran into women who they'd had the love of what I call is they had their love of their love of their life, and that was it. Then.
Speaker 2:The other one, though that was real interesting was you'd run into women who had been married to one kind of guy I talk about in the book. There was a lady I knew years ago and she was married to an engineer and he was, you know, buttoned down in Alan Edmonds shoes and real conservative, and he was buttoned down in Alan Edmunds' shoes and real conservative and she was too to match that. And then he passed away, real suddenly, and she shows up with this guy from South America who's just flamboyant and hairy and just out there and all of her friends were going. She's lost her mind. Well, no, she just shifted that template of attraction. She was very broad for her and, being a widow, let some new parts of her personality come out and be reinforced.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting because, you know, we, we see that in our, our offices, right, and and people do, especially the family members are thinking, oh my gosh, like you said, they have lost their ever loving mind. And it's like, no, I do think that there is a certain point of being a widow or a widower, If there, if, if you were married to, like you said, the love of your life. There is a certain that, that chapter that closes off and says, okay, I don't want to find somebody. That's the same Like you were saying about this woman that you were dating, that was a nurse, and that you know all these things that you all enjoyed together, but you were way too similar to this, that she lost.
Speaker 1:And so there's this whole idea of looking for where am I on the spectrum of life and what do I enjoy? And it's like, had that, loved it, it was amazing and I don't want to have it again. It's almost like this is, I hope, isn't irreverent, but it's like it's. It's a, it's a terrible analogy and my apologies, but it's like having a, this amazing meal and experience, and it's recreated. It's like no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to recreate that. That was too amazing, too perfect. Don't try it. So, while that was in a French restaurant, let's go to a Brazilian steakhouse and let's try it that way. So I get what you're saying Interesting, but what do you? What do you see that similarly with? With women who have gone through a divorce? Or would you say there's really no pattern there? Women who have gone?
Speaker 2:through a divorce, or would you say there's really no pattern there? Well, yeah, with the divorce there, of course, if so many of the divorce people, men and women, they well, you know this from transition work they want to run through the ending, get through, get through the divorce as quick as they can.
Speaker 2:you know, put a profile out there, get back out dating, because their friends are saying, you know, as soon as you can get dating, you'll get to feeling better, and they skip over looking at what happened in the marriage, what happened to them going through that, ending being alone, learning to be alone, is a really good thing and, you know, it's like Murray Bowen said a real balanced person can be separate and together and be whole. In that, well, he was exactly right. And so the divorce people. A lot of times they'll run out, they'll date real quick and then they'll get paired up with someone who's not good for them, have a bad experience, and then now you've got the divorce and you've got this bad dating history lapped on top of each other. And so what I try and get people to do is slow this thing down a little bit.
Speaker 1:Give yourself some time and give yourself some room to breathe a little bit and figure out who you are and then what you're looking for. Yeah, yeah, because that may ebb and flow, that may change, that may, as you walk through the whole idea of self-discovery.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. It's what I call that pocket list of non-negotiables. What can you put on a three by five card that you have to have in a relationship? Well, chances are, what that looks like when you're 25 is very different from what it looks like when you're 55. Or it can look different from the divorce to the time that you're starting to date again. Well, that's a really good thing, it means I know myself better. Or it can look different from the divorce to the time that you're starting to date again.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a really good thing. It means I know myself better. How would you capture for someone the idea of healthy expectations? Because, you're right, expectations change in the different seasons of life. How would you capture, or what would you advise in, healthy expectations for people in this stage of life?
Speaker 2:rematching with somebody. Yeah well, those expectations are to your point you made a few minutes ago. You have children, you have families, you have lots of people involved generally in a person's life, and so those expectations are generally going to be a bit more complex than they would be when a person's 20 or 25 years old. And so it's me allowing the other person to have their complexity and them allowing me to have my complexity. It's a dumb illustration, but it's like when I pulled up Lisa's profile it said you know, I have a long haired dachachshund and we're a package deal. Okay, well, I come with three cops, we're a package deal, so we figure out how to dogs and policemen. Okay, well, that's our complexity and it's learning to give grace and space for those important parts of that person's life. And saying I'm going to love I was like she did I'm going to love your cops and I'm going to tell her I love your dachshund and we're going to figure out how to move forward with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds an awful lot like knowing yourself well enough to know. Can I give you this flexibility? Yeah, because I may not be into long hair dachshunds and you may not be into the stress of what it means to have, you know three very, very, very close loved ones who risk it for the community on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's that flexibility of you're worth it Therefore, or I'll, I'll, I will hold hold back is probably, but I will not press forward with judgment and say, oh, I'm out, I don't think I can do that Now. If it's, if it's like I'm just thinking about, like my wife is definitely allergic to cats and if for some reason, she found herself later in life dating if somebody had a cat, that'd be a deal breaker because she couldn't shake it. Be flexible in that. But other things there, there are other people, there are other themes that I think you know. We think, oh, I'd never do this or I'd never date somebody like this. Where it's like, if it's not a moral or a legal or a ethical issue, yes, let it, let it. You're saying kind of, let it coast for a minute, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that was one of the things that I. I don't know that I did everything right in the dating period, but one of the things that I did do was I was open to a wide variety of possibilities. I dated a couple of ladies that were Jewish and their families welcomed me into their families and were just fabulous people. Some of my favorite times were with them. Dated women who were, you know, highly educated, like I am, and then went out with a lady who was a truck driver across the, who was nothing like me.
Speaker 2:But they were interesting people and they all had interesting stories, and it was good for me to broaden myself out. I'm going to throw a question at you, which is do you find because you mentioned a moment ago rigidity versus flexibility Do you think that that's a problem that we encounter as we age, a tendency toward more rigidity?
Speaker 1:I do, I do, and I'm curious if you found the same thing. I think that we, you know, as our, as our brain pairs down to the things that we utilize over and, over and over again, our brains become more efficient, which is a really nice design.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:With that, I think it lends, it can lend itself to us becoming not as flexible, a little more rigid, which I don't think serves us well those were my least favorite experiences dating.
Speaker 2:The more rigid a person was, the less I had in common with them, because I live in a gray area, we work in a gray area, we don't work in black and white, and I like complexity and I find that rules are great, but there's a lot of exceptions in life as well, and I just encountered a lot of real rigid people that I think were going to be alone for a long time Unless they found somebody that thought just like the way they did.
Speaker 1:Well, and yeah, that's an interesting thought, because what I hear from people that tend to have a little bit more of a rigid mindset and I don't think it's everybody, but it is like, oh, the pool is drying up, there's not as many great people to choose from, and I keep thinking to myself you know, I know so many people that are really fantastic people and maybe they're not your cup of tea, but is tea the liquid that you demand every time?
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, is it could could there be, you know, a flexibility to find somebody that is Maybe just a skosh different than you originally thought that you needed? And it's as you've as you've talked throughout this time, and it's as you've as you've talked throughout this time that's what I'm hearing you say is that you went out on this quest, this adventure, and it's not necessarily, yes, it was to find a mate, yes, it was to find, but it was more about finding there's also, it seems to me like it was also an internal quest of learning more about you while you learn more about other people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exactly right. I made the decision early on into the divorce adjustment. I was going to embrace any kind of therapy or self-discovery or book or seminar, you name it. If it was put in front of me and there was something I could learn from that, I was going to. I was just going to flat do it, because how can you be an ethical clinician and not do that? You know you can't look at yourself in the mirror and it was a marvelous. It was a marvelous learning experience. I'm not at all the same person I was 20 years ago because of having gone through all this, but that's one of the same person.
Speaker 1:I was 20 years ago because of having gone through all this, but that's one of the things that I love most about you, or one of the many things I love most about you is this internal drive to constantly learn. You're an eternal learner and it just it adds a complexity and a dynamic to who you are. That is wonderful and fascinating and, I think, exciting because it's an event. It's like we get to do co-adventures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very much so. Well, you're the same way. You're an explorer and your eyes light up whenever there's a new idea and you're like, let's go for it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:All of our fun discussions? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, is there anything that you want to leave these listeners with this book? I mean, look, pick it up, it's rematch love in the extended adulthood and where can people pick this up?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's on amazon, it's on barnes and noble uh websites, walmart, so it's all the big distributors. And, yeah, love to hear feedback from folks how different thoughts different like it's.
Speaker 1:it's like a it's um, it's like a window into the, the experience. You know, when you, when you say I said the other day I said I would love to be a fly on the wall of that experience. This is a fly on the wall of that experience and there's so many great stories in here, it's so well-written. Everybody needs to go pick this thing up and understand either what your friends are going through or how to go through this in a really, really healthy manner.
Speaker 2:So Don thank you for writing this. Well, thank you and thanks for letting me do this with you. This has been so much fun. Thank you If you found value in do this with you.
Speaker 3:This has been so much fun. Thank you. If you found value in our discussion and wish to uncover more about the fascinating world of mental wellness, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Stay tuned for our upcoming episodes, where Dr Long will continue to delve into empowering therapies and strategies for mental wellness. Your journey to understanding and embracing mental health is just beginning and we're excited to have you with us every step of the way. Until next time, keep exploring, keep growing and remember to celebrate restored freedom as you uncover it.
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