Nothing so easy as catching a heart on the rebound. -Mary Russell Mitford
A recent amour and I were chatting.
Me: "I've been thinking about how the first time you sleep with someone, you're not really sleeping with that person -- you're really sleeping with all the other people you've had sex with before them."
Him: "That's right. You're really sleeping with your point of reference."
In essence, before you get to know a new lover's body and preferences -- as well as how your own body and preferences fit with that person -- each of us is really just sorting through all of the bodies and preferences that came before in order to truly enjoy current company.
Relationships are no different. And this analogy holds most true in a rebound relationship.
There has been plenty written on the perils of the rebound. The old maxim suggests that the recently heart-broken is too angry/vulnerable/hurt to be truly open to a new love. The rebounder is at risk of attaching too quickly to the wrong person, and those dating a rebounder are subject to wandering into the line of fire of scatter-shot devotion.
I've written exhaustively about my own post-marriage rebound with a man who was also recently divorced. It lasted a full year and was thrilling, wonderful and dysfunctional.
When that relationship ended, it hurt like a motherfucker! Holy shit did that bloody hurt. Ochie!! Owwie ow ow ow! Mommy! Make it stop! Please, ow ow owie ouchie ow I can't take any more!!! Even more than an ending love, all that pain and torment was really about contending with unresolved heartbreak from my divorce. But I needed to go through that rebound and the subsequent pain. It served as a critical point of reference through which I dealt with the dissolution of my marriage.
I just called off a month-long liaison with a man so recently divorced that his clothes were still packed in the suitcases with which he removed them from his marital home. By all outward appearances we should be planning our second marriage by now: In addition to the crazy chemistry, we're both creative, ambitious people who share sensibilities about money, child rearing, politics, travel, style -- and a love for divey ethnic restaurants. He is one of the most brilliant people I've known, open, affectionate, thoughtful and physically gorgeous in all his points of reference.
But no matter how much I tried to stay true to my belief that anything is possible in love, there was no escaping that I am three years out of my marriage while he is a mere three weeks. This guy's giddy openness about starting life anew reminded me of just how I felt at that juncture. I also sensed a vulnerability and neediness that was woefully familiar -- in this man I could see myself two years ago when I, too, first ventured into post-divorce dating. It evoked being on a third date with my own rebound boyfriend. Anxiously, across the table in a dimly lit West Village restaurant, I stammered: "Are you dating anyone else? Because I'm not." My barely salvaged heart could barely stand the risk of being dinged yet again.
Today, I feel differently about emotional risk, heartbreak and dating. On the one hand, bring it on! You don't get to the good stuff in relationships without putting yourself out there emotionally. But now I don't feel quite as vulnerable and needy. I am feeling strong and free and optimistic about love in a different, more grounded way -- one that allows me to see obvious love landmines before I enthusiastically dance on one -- Gangnam style. As such, I couldn't figure out how to make my own phase of divorce jibe with that of my recent amour.
So in a breakup email exchange, I shared more or less what I said here. I added that I hoped we could stay connected in some way, keep open the possibility of finding each other in other phases of our journeys. What I got in response was one of the most touching compliments I've received in a very long time. It said:
"I can't think of anyone I would rather have lost my divorce virginity to."
This post originally appeared at WealthySingleMommy.com.