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Divorce survival tactics

Part 4

By Harlan Jacobsen
copyright 1996 by Single Scene Newspaper

The following rules or points will enable you to go out and operate successfully as a newly singled person with the least amount of trauma. You may not agree with or accept all of these initially but with a proper explanation and understanding you will. Most professionals in the field and well-adjusted adult singles will agree that following these rules and attitudes will enable you to lead a happier life. There is sound logic and experience behind everyone although we have not taken the space here to explain each.

1. I realize that the "fairy tale" or "one and only" person is not going to rescue me. I will, from single life, learn to be self-contained and complete on my own.
2. I concentrate on developing many friendships of all types and from all roles and walks of life, developing platonic friendships and same sex friends as well as regular male-female friendships.
3. I will take inventory and classify my friends, those negative and helpful, eliminating the negative and cultivating new, positive friends to replace them.
4. When attending singles affairs I will consider all as potential friends, not as losers, and my attitude will make the difference.
5. My new attitude and outlook will be that single is all right and I no longer consider it temporary penance or something from which to escape.
6. I will not go mate hunting. I will learn to make my own life satisfactory and meaningful, knowing that the right mate will happen along naturally when I have everything together.
7. When I go out I will go out just to "practice" developing relationships for the first six months. I realize that I have had little experience in male-female relationships in recent years.
8. The relationships I develop I will look upon as temporary and that it is okay to have temporary relationships (of which 95% will be.)
9. I will spend as much time as possible where other singles are and see and be seen. I will allow myself as much opportunity as possible to mix and meet with other single people.
10. I know that I will not develop a new relationship every time I go out to do so. I will average around 1 new relationship for every 500 singles with whom I mix.
11. I will let them know when I am interested, not depending on fate or them. I am developing my own relationships and getting them started.
12. Initially I will date the easy ones and go on from there after I have had several good experiences.
13. I will be honest, real and open. I will do some experimenting in developing relationships.
14. I will develop several different relationships to fill several different needs, not expecting to find or fill all my needs in one person.
15. Though I may like a certain one better than the others, I will date several at the same time and develop no exclusive dating relationship for at least six months to a year. I will not "own" anyone and they will not "own" me. I will not, however, fragment myself over dating.
16. I know that the most valuable thing I have to give to a relationship is my time and attention, not my genitals.
17. I will continue to go out at least once a week to develop new friends even when I have more dates than I can already handle.
18. I will be in control and "on the top" of all my activities and do what I want and not what someone else pressures me into. I will do my own choosing and be responsible for my own deciding.
19. I will make my own decisions on who to go to bed with and who I don't and not decide strictly by the passion or pressures of the moment.
20. I will not find it necessary to con myself into believing I am in love in order to give myself permission to be involved in a sexual relationship.
21. I will allow myself to develop several relationships as an adult when I feel the chemistry is right and will not need to feel guilty about it. I will not deny that I have sexual needs.
22. I will use this period of single life to grow sexually and overcome any sexual problems that I may have as well as fulfilling my current needs. Therefore, when a meaningful relationship does come along I will not still have my old sexual problems to drag along into it.