Robyn Todd - How to Survive Your Boyfriends Divorce: Loving Your Separated Man Without Losing Your Mind

HOW TO SURVIVE
YOUR BOYFRIENDS
DIVORCE

Loving Your Separated Man
Without Losing Your Mind

ROBYN TODD AND LESLEY DORMEN

Copyright 1999 by Robyn Todd and Lesley Dormen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

M. Evans and Company, Inc.
216 East 49th Street
New York, New York 10017

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Todd, Robyn.

How to survive your boyfriends divorce : loving your separated man without losing your mind / by Robyn Todd and Lesley Dormen.

p. cm.

ISBN 13: 978-0-87131-922-7

1. Divorced menUnited StatesPsychology. 2. Single womenUnited StatesPsychology. 3. Man-woman relationshipsUnited States. I. Dormen, Lesley. II. Title.

HQ834.T63 1999

306.7dc21

99-14056

Book design and typesetting by Rik Lain Schell

Printed in the United States of America

FIRST, OUR GRATITUDE AND thanks to the women and men who shared their personal stories, hard-won insights, and experiences with us.

We are indebted to Dr. Leslie A. Pam, Dr. Judith Sills, Dr. Jayne Migdal, Dr. Sheenah Hankin, and Dr. Jane Greer. Their thinking was crucial to our understanding of the hearts and minds of divorcing men and the women who love them. We extend that appreciation to Eleanor Alter and Raoul Felder, who shared their impressive legal experience with us.

For their ongoing support and advice, we thank Herbert Frumkes, Patti Frumkes, Mel Frumkes, Lewis Burke Frumkes, Howard Teich, Will Nix, David Levin, Ellen Lavinthal, Kathleen Freston, Jeanette Mistretta, Richard Valvo, Lee Fryd, Gregg Goldstein, William Fitzgerald, David Steinberg, Cynthia Parsons, Julia Cameron, Michele Golden, Art Harris, and Marcy Posner.

Deepest gratitude to George de Kay and his staff at M. Evans and to our agent Susan Schulman for championing this project.

Finally, a special thank-you to Ruta Fox for her early contribution to this material.

Leslie A. Pam, Ph.D., is a California marriage and family therapist in private practice; a former radio talk show host (Sex and Relationships, 19941996, KMPC); a lecturer and seminar leader; President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, Los Angeles, 19851986; and the founder of Conflict Resolution Unlimited, mediating the gamut of marital, business, and other relationship disputes and negotiations. A member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, Dr. Pam has been extensively interviewed in print, radio, and television on a variety of relationship subjects. Dr. Pam is married to Marriage and Family Therapist Ann Christie, M.A., who works with him in their Los Angeles practice.

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I fell in love with a man who was separated and in the process of getting a divorce. I thought, No problem, love will conquer all. Well, it didnt. This book is the result of that roller-coaster ride. Its the road map I needed then, the guidance that might have saved my relationship, the advice that most certainly would have preserved my sanity.

In the dating world, I always considered myself pretty savvy. I never had a problem handling situations with men, and I had no reason to think this new relationship would be any different. So when friends warned me this was a whole new world and implored me to run for cover, I figured they just didnt understand my situation. It was unique, and I was special. I was convinced I could handle whatever lay ahead. But dating a man who is separated and going through a divorce turned out to be unlike any situation I had known.

Where do you go for help? My married and single girlfriends couldnt relate. Id flipped through Oprah, Sally, and The View without seeing even a glimpse of my dilemma. I wanted to know how to handle myself, whether my situation was unusual, and how other women handled these same problems. Id already stepped on a few land mines; I was frantic to avoid others that surely lay ahead. So I hauled myself to the self-help and psychology sections of every bookstore in town. I learned that men are from Mars, how to deal with stepchildren, the stages of grieving for a dead spouse. I learned how to save a marriage, how to avenge a philandering husband, how long to spend on the telephone with a new boyfriend. But I found not one sentence about how to go the distance with a not-yet-divorced man.

Eventually, I turned to a therapist. By then my once-promising relationship had crashed and burnedalong with my self-esteem. I needed help putting myself back together again. Do you know how, once youve survived a romantic war zone, you start hearing other survivors stories? Well, I began to hear themin great numbers. Every story was a variation of my own and involved the ex, the kids, the lawyers, the blame, the manipulations. None of those women had had a clue what to expect, either.

Now that I do, I feel compelled to share the lessons I learned with other women. If I can educate you, forewarn you, even make you laugh a little, maybe I can help you avoid some of the potholes on this particular road. While I was going through my boyfriends divorce, Id have given anything to read this book.

So to all you women going through your own boyfriends divorce, the book I wanted to read is now yours.

Robyn Todd

ALL YOUR DATING LIFE, youve probably played by the rules. Like most single women, youve loved and lost, been wounded and healed, and gotten up the next morning to do it all over again. Youve lived through the usual cycles of infatuation and romance, disillusionment and disappointment, the various varieties of wrong men, the almost-but-not-quite relationships, and the sexual and emotional droughts. Youve listened politely to love advice offered by your best girlfriends, your mother, the occasional psychic, and the nice stranger at the next manicure table. For the most part, youve followed your own instincts, and theyve probably served you well. Youve managed to stay just this side of serious love trouble and nowarmed with strength, hope, and a good haircutyoure ready to get lucky.

You never believed you wouldnt find the right man, not deep down. After all, men are always moving in and out of relationships, just like women. People break up. Its a sad fact that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, but its a not-so-sad reality that all those ex-husbands are recycling themselves at any given point in time. However, youre a person who sees the glass as half-full. Youve always trusted that there was a man out there as ready for happiness as you were.

Then, miraculously, it happened. Your spunk and your staying power paid off. You met the most wonderful man! And even as your heart dared to soar, you did everything rightjust the way you would with any new man. You looked both ways before flirting in his direction. You checked his ring finger. After all, youre no fool for love; youd sooner eat beef in Britain than fall in love with a married man. You found out hes not married. Not really. Actually, hes In the Process of Getting a Divorce. And therein lies the problem.

Maybe it began something like this:

It was a fix-up, but as soon as I opened the door and saw Willys kind of shy smile and the humor in his eyes, something in me just relaxed and expanded, says thirty-four-year-old Lucy. My friend had told me Willy and his wife had split up, that he was a wonderful guy, though not a hunk. That was fine with me. I hadnt been involved with anyone for over a year, and just meeting a nice guy sounded exactly right. We had dinner, then just walked and walked, talking and laughing, stopping somewhere for coffee. Suddenly it was three in the morning. We couldnt believe it. I couldnt stop smiling to myself. Not only did I think he was cute, he