My first appointment today is a man, early 50’s, divorced, and his long term goal is marriage. He was married for 25 years when his wife met someone online and she decided to end their marriage. She moved to the east coast with their teenage daughter whom he misses very much. This is certainly not the first time I have met with someone who has been blindsided by a marriage ending because their spouse met someone online, but it still saddens me and makes me wonder how online dating has effected so many marriages and relationships. His wife was a stay at home mom and he worked two jobs so she could be a stay at home mom. He knew she spent a lot of time on the computer but she told him she belonged to a “recipe” club and she was exchanging recipes. He said “Yeah, a recipe for divorce.” He has been separated for two years and his divorce was final six months ago. He has been reading my daily dairies for over a year and thought that my advice to wait one month for every year he was married to start dating was good advice, then he called me. I told him that my advice was to wait one month for every year before getting into a serious relationship, not necessarily to start dating. He asked me if he could “think about it” a few days before becoming a client. He asked “Do you think I am ready?” I said “Sometimes there is a fine line between when you are ready, and when getting out there and meeting new ladies and having fun can help you move on.” He booked an appointment to come back next Friday.
Today is Veteran’s Day and I want to say a heartfelt thank you to my Dad who served during WWII, the Korean War and Vietnam. He also mentions that he participated in the Berlin Airlift, which according to him, no one ever mentions. There are less than 1% of people alive today who served during those times, and he is one of them. I also have a brother, Doug, who served in Vietnam and because I graduated from high school in 1965, I have numerous classmates who went to Vietnam and some of them never returned. Every Veteran’s Day I remember them and say a prayer of thanks for the ones who did come back and the ones who did not. If anyone had told me that 46 years later Americans would still be dying in a war, I would have found it hard to believe. Thank you to all of the Veterans and active duty military men and women for every day you serve, and for everything you do for our country.
To be continued………………….