Loving Another After A Divorce
Nov 5th, 2008 by Keith Weaver
A friend of mine is in dilemma right now. She met two men at the same time and she is dating both of them. One is a romantic and stereotypical individual who has all the fundamental principles in life where she can have all the security she needs once she marries him. The other guy is a divorcee but a warm, modern and happy guy whom my friend finds easy to be with and is actually beginning to fall in love with.
The problem with the second guy she is dating is that he still sees his ex-wife and still supports her even though she is already married to another guy. Malen (my friend) confides in me that she would have chosen Alan (the second guy) over Melvin (the first guy) if only Alan would stop seeing and supporting his ex-wife. She believes that after the divorce, he does not need to support her anymore.
There is now a strain on their relationship since Malen has expressed her wishes to Melvin and he feels that Malen should understand and accept him. They clearly care for each other and don’t really want to end things. When one of them would try to break it off, the other would argue not to give up and now it seems to be a cycle.
When things are bad between Alan and Malen, she will tell me that she should just marry Melvin, which frustrates me because I believe she should follow her heart and accept Alan and love him unconditionally.
I just feel that to put demands on someone, especially at the start of a relationship, is pretty selfish. I think if Malen accepts the fact that Alan still has a relationship with his ex-wife, things will work out. She should realize that things will change since Alan is willing to work at it. They both just need time and eventually Alan will give Malen all the love she wants.
If only Malen can understand this and accept it, things should be better for both of them but she is very stubborn in her beliefs that Alan can only prove his love to her if he follws her demands. Now they just waste time on absurd disagreements when they know that they really like each other.
I know there are lots of couples like Malen and Alan, but the key to making it work is truly understanding one another. So for example, if Malen would just start understanding Alan and how he feels about the situation, they could be happy and working toward a stronger relationship instead of hurting it. This is true for other situations, too. If you think of understanding as the core of a relationship, you’ll find that it simplifies things and you can look forward to growing as a couple.
