The Expense of Joy
There ought to be some joy in all this. Dating in middle adulthood is all confusion. Everyone I meet has been wounded, one way or another. The formerly married endured divorce, the never married endured someone who left or whom they had to leave. Everyone fears vulnerability. They question whether the benefits of partnership are worth the potential expense. I’m not saying dating in young adulthood is any kind of picnic by comparison. I remember it as an anxious, stressful endeavor; the part of my life that causes me to say things like, “Every boyfriend I ever had, except for my late husband, made me miserable”. I did, in fact, marry Dave because he didn’t drive me crazy. He made me calmer. I saw this when I picked up a journal I’d written in...
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