I had a coffee date last week with someone who has just started the divorce process, including finally realizing the ex had already moved on without him. As we chatted about life after marriage, I was reminded of my own post-marriage realizations.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I chose to move 1,600 miles away from my ex-husband during the divorce process \u2013 something that I highly encourage to those that have the option. It eliminates the temptation to do foolish things in moments of weakness. Barring either one of you being a diaper-wearing crazed astronaut \u2013 you aren\u2019t likely to take a 24 hour road trip just to torture yourself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I arrived in Denver, I was so focused on finding a job and keeping a roof over my head, I barely had a moment to wonder what else was going on.\u00a0 It was no wonder that I failed to notice a huge gap in my life.<\/p>\n
My hug meter was low.<\/p>\n
Many people never have to think about their hug meters. Throughout their week they encounter individuals that they can hug freely, who greet them arms open wide.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t always so for those that experience major life changes. In my case, relocating to a totally new city meant that my social circle had been reduced to co-workers I had just met and men I was dating.\u00a0 Hugging the first could lead to an HR issue, hugging the second could lead to mixed signals and unwanted advances. Friendly hugs are a valuable commodity among many single adults.\u00a0 A huge help for me was when I started babysitting a coworker\u2019s son.\u00a0 He was a huge hugger and filled up my meter fairly quickly. \u00a0Not everyone has that option though, and if you go to playgrounds to randomly hug kids you can get in trouble.<\/p>\n
Nonsexual physical affection can be even rarer.\u00a0 I remember once sitting on a couch with a man I was dating.\u00a0 While we talked, I was absentmindedly running my fingers through his hair, running my finger over the ridge of his ear, tracing his jaw with my index finger.\u00a0 I was chatting along, not even realizing what I was doing, when suddenly tears rolled down from his eyes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t remember the last time someone just wanted to sit and touch me<\/i>,\u201d he said, \u201cwithout there being some kind of other intent involved<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
That moment just struck me to the core.<\/p>\n
First, because I knew what that felt like.\u00a0 Secondly, it was so easy to fix. Nowadays I make a more concentrated effort to give out friendly hugs and hand squeezes and just general affection.\u00a0 It\u2019s not always natural at first, but you never know what impact that simple gesture can make. \u00a0\u00a0It could be the difference between someone\u2019s hug meter going from empty to full.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had a coffee date last week with someone who has just started the divorce process, including finally realizing the ex had already moved on without him. As we chatted about life after marriage, I was reminded of my own post-marriage realizations. \u00a0I chose to move 1,600 miles away from my ex-husband during the divorce…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[29,9,27,28],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dating","tag-affection","tag-dating-2","tag-hugs","tag-single-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2UnPK-2b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}