When a colleague asked me a few months back if I had started dating I responded, “Dating me, even in the most seemingly casual way, is an instant commitment. I work hard for my money and if I am going to allocate dollars away from children for a date, I better get a return on my investment. So, rather than put that burden on someone, I stay away from dating altogether.” As the words rolled off my tongue, I cringed at how very apparent my pain was.
The majority of sole working parents have limited disposable income and therefore very few babysitting bucks available for dating. Any financial cushion is allocated to the incredibly high costs of childcare for business travel and emergency situations like hospital visits, surgeries, backup childcare, prescription medication, etc.
Dating as a sole parent, let alone assembling some sort of relationship, is so very different than dating as a single parent with shared custody. I don’t have someone taking my kids every other weekend nor do I have any weeknights free for me and me alone. With my children in my home 100 percent of the time, I won’t have a man over or invite him up after a date.
And, yes, I am complaining. It really sucks to have structural and financial parameters suppressing my sexuality and desires for intimacy. I love the sexual, sensual, seductive part of me and I miss her tremendously when she’s not there. So, yes, it sucks, like really sucks, that I’m not spending more time enjoying horizontal, vertical, perpendicular deliciousness.
I can’t just date around until I connect with a man and get to the intimacy–that costs way too much money. I also can’t invest in casual sex–that’s never very rewarding and if it sucks (or is even mediocre), well, that’s money down the toilet – a sunk cost. And who, on limited disposable income, wants to face a sunk dating cost?
I’ve never been more thankful for my business degree than I am now as a sole parent. To even near the possibility of a date, I employ the highest order of managerial talents including strategic planning, cost accounting, and operations. I start with the household cash flow statement. How many babysitting bucks can I allocate toward dating this month? How many days can I actually be away from the children to enjoy a rendezvous? Who can I trust to stay with my children overnight? When? Where? How will it work?
That’s way too much mental energy for one date. As little disposable income as I have, I have even less mental energy after a full time career, college teaching on the side, and doing the work of two parents.
Thus, up until recently, I had no line item in my household budget for dating. It was too much to navigate and, quite honestly, some of my attempts at dating were incredibly unsuccessful.
My first foray into dating was really about the banter and the opportunity to wear sexy clothes. I’m a firm believer that women of all ages should find reasons to dress in a way where they feel sexy, feminine, and seductive. I wanted a respite from motherhood. I wanted to show my bare shoulders. I’ve got good shoulders and a pretty clavicle – both of which had belonged to my children for so long I forgot what they looked like without slobber, snot, spit, and remnants of food smeared all over them. It had been even longer since I felt a man’s hands, lips, and breath on them. So I liked the prospects of dating – dating helped breathe life back into the softer, feminine, sensual side of me and bring my shoulders, neck, and clavicle back into the light.
Despite having my marriage end, I fundamentally believe in that romantic connection between two people. Two of my younger girlfriends made an observation over lunch one day, “When we talk about men and relationships, love is not our first concern. But, you, who has every reason not to trust it, still consider love, trust and intimacy first and foremost.”
A few men I dated made me keenly aware that I distrusted charisma, finesse, and charm. My ex-husband had all that and he was the perfect storm. When he talked I found myself thinking, “When’s your shit gonna hit the fan, mister?” It’s around the time I realized I distrusted these characteristics that I decided I just wasn’t ready to date. I decided to refocus all my energy on my children, my career, and me. I tucked my sexual self away and determined that dating was a financial burden I would not assume.
I now realize that everyone who has ended a long-term relationship experiences a time in which they are angry and bitter. This gives way to skepticism and dismay, but ultimately culminates in rekindled hope for a new, inspired, thoughtful commitment only gently underlined by wariness. Unbeknownst to us, as our hearts heal and the dark, ugly events that led to the death of a relationship retreat into the quiet, forgiving corners of our memory, we actually begin to open up again.
I believe that opening always comes as a surprise. After spending so many years destroying and ultimately dissolving a connection, we find ourselves interested, wanting, and even hopeful about imagining what a new connection might be.
Initially, I did not want to follow this time-tested path and I was not interested in any sort of romantic relationship. I wanted to be the woman who ignites and maintains amazing lifelong friendships, the rising executive who aggressively climbs the ladder of opportunity, and the mother who selflessly guides her children through a life filled with love, laughter, adventure, and inspiration. This was working just fine until I started really missing that sexual part of myself. I hadn’t factored in my inner firecat of passion. After five years of an entirely sexless marriage (we had sex once after I got pregnant with my daughter to conceive my son) and over 18 months as a sole parent, I had all but retired that part of myself.
And then a man I’ll call Captain America gently collided with my self-portrait and overnight sketched in the sexual dimension I had neglected. It was truly overnight: we literally moved our friendly, flirtatious banter straight to his hotel room. Shocking both of us, I opened up in his care instantaneously, like a floodwall breaking. My whole body lit up. I actually found myself apologizing for being so hyper-stimulated by his touch. Think Niagara Falls.
Now, of course, what man wouldn’t enjoy that type of sexual power? We had a mind-blowing sexual feast and, surprising both of us, we found we genuinely enjoyed one another’s company. That one night became two and then a long-distance crush that inspired a dynamic of sex, emotional generosity, and a kind, open, unencumbered friendship via Skype, text messaging, e-mail, and phone calls, with monthly rendezvous to break up the digital monotony. We weren’t dating. We were rendezvousing. Captain America calls it cross-country boning and sexting peppered by a virtual friendship.
I call this man Captain America because he cuts a very American phenotype. Captain America stepped in and courageously healed so many hurts and pains that had strangled my body, heart, and mind that he became my sexual and emotional superhero complete with the protective shield I so deeply needed. He saves the day every day in the humble and simple ways he delivers up a respite to all the responsibility that I bear. Through his emotional generosity, his kindness, and his amazing ability to read my body and listen to my needs, he has given me the healing space to care, desire, enjoy, and connect with a man. Quite frankly, after almost six years of sexual dormancy, the man has woken up my body in ways I never imagined possible. So much so that when I went to the gynecologist to discuss birth control recently I literally said, “Look, I don’t want any birth control to mess with my body. I’m finally having amazing sex and this guy loves how my body responds. So, let’s try a really non-invasive, low-dose birth control option.”
I realize I’ve missed out on a whole hell of a lot in the last 34 years of my sex life. I had no idea that intimacy could be so damn open, generous, understanding, and empowering. I had no idea that I would ever get to a place in my life where I no longer needed to perform in bed.
Sounds ideal, right?
Not so fast…let me bring you back to the point I made about the managerial demands of dating. At times, it overwhelms my emotional maturity. Here’s how…
One evening, Captain America proposed, “You should be allowed to date. You’re on the west coast, I’m on the east coast. You’re a single mom. You should have the freedom to find someone.” That didn’t sit well with me emotionally. From a rational perspective, an open relationship between two people who recently left marriages, living on opposite coasts with no real understanding of where the dynamic would lead, made perfect sense. Still, my emotions almost always beat my rationale.
I gave it some real thought and came to the conclusion that the thing really bothering me had to do with money and budgeting for babysitting bucks.
On my way to a meeting, I called the Captain. “Look, I don’t mean to burden you with this, but you are dating a sole parent and with that comes a certain context that I need to address. I figure you into my cash flow statement each month. I allocate dollars toward the limited time we share together and I’m sorry to impose this on you, but I’d be insulted if you took another woman out on a date. After dinner and wine, you’d have spent well over $100. That’s 1/3 of a plane ticket to see me. Of course I’d hate if you dated someone else. You’d be allocating money away from me. I’m sorry that my status as a sole parent makes it uncomfortable and less free for you, but this is my reality. I know you just got out of a long marriage and I’m sure you want to play the field and you should have the freedom to do that, but I can’t help it. I’d be insulted. You are a line item in my household expenses. I literally invest in spending time with you and if you are not doing the same…”
Now, recall I mentioned that Captain America is emotionally generous and listens well. He stopped me. “Mind if I throw something back at you? I appreciate that you are making it about the finances to remove the emotional responsibilities, but all this indicates one thing… You have feelings for me. And I have a feelings for you. It’s not about the budget.”
There it was. Two years after leaving my ex-husband and starting my journey alone with two small children, I found myself in a new type of relationship, one that was financially feasible with a geographic moat that enabled both of us to keep the emotional brakes on, remain objective about the relationship’s evolution, prioritize our children, our careers, our personal growth, and, when we can, carve out the time to enjoy a little co-created respite from reason and responsibility.
Captain America has become a line item in my budget. I’m pretty certain if or when he picks up that protective shield of his and heads elsewhere, I’ll continue to allocate resources towards dating. Removing babysitting bucks from the budget no longer makes sense, because the sexual, passionate, feminine me is a permanent fixture in my self-portrait.
Femme Firecat is the author’s pseudonym.
Photo credit rebecca anne/Flickr
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