You Lost Me at “GPS on My Wife’s Car”

Yes, I heard this. On a date. A very rare second, and now final, date. Oddly preceded by, “I’m probably revealing too much but…”. Why yes, yes you are, and I’m happy you did.

Ironically, the first date was after a sexual and domestic violence seminar at which I listened to a woman talk about being stalked by her ex-husband.  My date, I’ll call him, Terry,  was a nice, successful IT professional, fairly recently divorced. Smart, successful, humorous, devoted to his kids. The first date was iced tea and chatting about our lives and what brought us to our date – yes, online dating. Nice guy. No sparks but good conversation. Actually, didn’t think I’d hear from him again. No harm, no foul.

The next day Terry texted and asked to go to dinner. OK, maybe I missed something. I was going out of town for a week so we planned to meet when I returned. Dinner at a place I’d been to before (always a prerequisite), just outside of town midway between our homes. Much better conversation than the first outing, better energy. Until THAT. As much as us divorced folks like to say we’re not going to talk about the exes, it always comes up. We want to make sure that there is no possibility of going back. The greater danger is our inability to move forward.

Marriages don’t immediately combust. The deteriation is slow, gradual, mostly painful, and in the end liberating, with a soupçon of regret and/or anger. We try to move on quickly. In the short term we think we’re there. The farther out we get we knew we weren’t then. A year makes a difference…unless there is a GPS involved.

For Terry, his wife admitted to 2 affairs and instead of taking her at her word that she was a cheater and calling it quits, he needed to catch her. And he did. Because he put a GPS under her car. He caught her “in the clinches” in the back seat of that car. And then he waited for her to divorce him. His point in telling me the story was that his older son needed a car and “she stuck it in (my) face by giving him that car”.

I’m a nice guy, I’m smart, I’m educated, I’m funny, I work hard,  I love my kids, but don’t ever go somewhere where I can’t find you. Did I mention angry?

#dating #baddates #onlinedating #relationshipviolence #stalking