Make Sure He’s Over His Ex.

(ThySistas.com) This brother we’ll call Derek was amazing. He was intelligent, handsome, kind, and excellent conversationalist. I met him in the grocery store after having seen him around the community on several occasions. He would always speak, but one day he decided to introduce himself. After talking for about thirty minutes in the supermarket he asked me if I’d like to meet over coffee, and I felt that was agreeable. I was low key looking forward to this sit down. It was important to me to show up with no expectations of Derek. I just wanted to have some really good coffee over great conversation. Yes, the coffee was priority important. The brother didn’t disappoint as he was well put together, on time, and the conversation was amazing. There was so much to talk about, and he had many like interests. We were about to talk about everything from anime, to politics, to gaming, to our love for sports. Before I knew it we had gone through several cups of coffee, plenty of conversation, walked to a restaurant for dinner, and more conversation. What could have been thirty to forty-five minutes of a coffee meeting turned into a three and a half hour meeting.

To fast forward we hung out regular, and actually began moving towards dating. Everything was great for about two months then the serious discussions began. I began explaining the issues surrounding my health, and to my surprise he was rather receptive.  He began explaining that he’s divorced and it’s rather fresh. He had been out of his marriage for about six months; this was a red flag for me. I began inquiring about if we should just remain friends verses trying to date due to his very recent divorce. I wanted to be considerate, but I also needed to protect myself. A sister just didn’t want to end up in a swamp worth of drama. I deal with enough physically on a daily basis, and I didn’t want to further complicate my life.

As you probably guessed I didn’t follow my first mind and friend zone myself. I allowed him to persuade me that he was ready to move on. Furthermore, deep down I was tired of being alone so I helped make his case that this could work. The self-discussion involved me trying to silence my gut by mentally highlighting how compatible we were, and reminding myself that every situation is not the same. The problem began to show itself as he would display behavior that undermined trust because he began to show signs that he wasn’t over the hurt of divorce, nor his ex. If I made mention of this, I was being insensitive, or overreacting. His behavior became controlling as he felt he was never going to let a woman walk over him again as he also began to seem distant. The communication, which was one of the things I was attracted to, became forced, fussy and toxic  quickly. He began to make his ex a frequent topic of discussion; that was uncomfortable. To make a long story short I wasted almost two years of my life on this relationship, while he and his ex-wife ended up reconciling.

Sisters, if you are considering someone that has gone through a divorce, or been in a serious long-term relationship do your best make sure they are ready to move on. You don’t want to have someone work out their healing at your expense. Even if you are tired of being alone you owe it to yourself to be with someone that will be one hundred percent invested in you. Love yourself enough to pay attention to red flags that point to him not being done with his previous relationship. The hurt you will incur makes it harder to move on to the love you deserve. It adds to the baggage you are already working on. I told myself I was hurt because this brother looked like he could be the one. The truth is I was angry because I knew I needed to back up, my intuition told me to slow down something about the time table wasn’t right…and I ignored it. Granted I don’t absolve his behavior, but I realize I could have avoided such. You don’t deserve to be a pit stop for someone to fill up on your goodness only to drive away headed to another destination.

Staff Writer; Chelle’ St James

May also connect with this sister via Twitter; ChelleStJames.

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