Are you Ready for Love Again?

After the end of a significant relationship, you may wonder about the right time toget back in The Game. Begin too soon and you will destine yourself to repeat past mistakes. Wait too long and you may get settled in the habits of solitary life.

Usually, when a person jumps into dating soon after ending a relationship, it signals an attempt to avoid the pain of the current break-up. This is normal, and encouraged by loved ones. They urge us toget over him/hersince there areplenty of fish in the sea. The idea is that the quicker you replace the lost relationship, the happier you will be.

Though well-meaning, this is bad advice. No, this is terrible advice.

A break-up requires grieving. We are not comfortable with grieving. We are afeel good fast society, impatient with the natural ebb and flow of emotion. We want — indeed, we expect — to feelgood all the time, and when we don’t, we rush to anything that will make us feel better.

So instead of experiencing our grief, we stuff it, avoid it, medicate it. We use alcohol, television, work and . . . dating. But a loss un-grieved is a loss unhealed, which can wreak havoc with our emotional and physical health. So before you begin a new relationship, give yourself adequate time to heal from the old one.

A key part of healing is learning from the past relationship. Experience alone does not make you wise. Gathering wisdom takes time and focused reflection, and often, an outside perspective. You can’t see what you can’t see, so you may need an objective perspective (minister, coach, best friend, hairdresser) to help you glean the insight.

Here is a checklist to assess your dating readiness (and be honest!):

  • Letting go- Do you fantasize about reconciliation? Do you needclosurean explanation or apology from your ex? Do you still complain about your ex’s faults to your friends and family? Are you automatically triggered when you see his name on the caller id? If yes, you may still have some letting go to do.
  • Realistic view-Do you have enough emotional distance to see your ex in a balanced way? To see his light and dark, her gifts and faults?
  • Role in break-up-Do you understand the part you played in the break-up? Even if the other person lied, cheated or stole, a relationship is ALWAYS a two-way street. You need to be able to see your role to learn from the experience.
  • Alone time-Have you learned to be happy alone? When we date out of fear of being alone, we make poor choices just to avoid spending another Saturday night by ourselves.
  • Resilience -Are you strong enough to handle rejection? With dating inevitably comes rejection: some people you want to date won’t want to date you. Or this rebound relationship may not last-are you emotionally ready and sturdy enough to handle another breakup?

If, after careful reflection, you determine you’re ready to get back in the game, congratulations! Use this new wisdom to create the relationship you truly want.

Or, if you decide you’re not quite ready, congratulations also! Then do the personal work and honor your own timing. Because there is no single right time, only the right time for you!

Personal and divorce coach, Rene Cooper of One Journey Consulting will present her Dare to DateAgain workshop in Wayland, MA on January 31, 2009. For more information, contact info@onejourneyconsulting.com or visit www.onejourneyconsulting.com.