Break Up Rules

This is kind of like a prenup. I decided that we should really have these for dating, to avoid pain, humiliation, embarrassment, and misunderstanding. It's not about money or possessions in this case. It's just about dignity.

So I wrote these break up rules. Feel free to adopt them and adapt them for your lovely self.

Break Up Rules:

If you want to date me, you have to agree to the following rules, in the unhappy event that we break up:


1. You must never speak ill of me, whether I am dead or alive.
2. Don't really speak of me at all, except to say very cursory vague things like, "Molly's a great person."
3. Absolutely don't tell anyone ever what went south in our relationship. Say something akin to, "we wanted different things."
4. Swear to keep every secret I ever told you and take it to your death bed with you.
5. It's okay if you tell people I'm "the one that got away."
6. If we used to get coffee together, find a new coffee shop. That's my coffee shop we were going to.
7. If we used to go to yoga together, find a new yoga studio. That's my yoga studio.
8. If we hung out at the pool together, find a new pool. That's my pool.
9. When you date someone new, she needs to be at least half your age plus half your age. Otherwise people will think you want to be worshiped and that you have the maturity of someone half your age.
10. When you date someone new, you can't bring her to my coffee shop, my yoga studio, or my pool. Remember, these are all places you should not be going to anyway!
11. Don't text/email/call me when your therapist is unavailable to you. I'm not a drop in, stand in therapist for you.
12. Be my friend after 6 months have passed.
13. Continue to offer to fix my truck.
14. Don't ever speak to me of our relationship again. Don't say a single negative thing about me, to me, ever again. This is why I broke up with you, so that I wouldn't have to have these conversations.
15. Don't unfriend me on Facebook but don't ever comment on anything I post until 6 months have passed, and then comment once every three months.
16. If you get married, don't tell me! Absolutely don't send me a personal message telling me. I will find out. DO NOT INVITE ME TO YOUR WEDDING.
17. Yes you can stay friends with my brother. But keep it on the downlow. Don't show up to his birthday parties.
18. YOU MAY NOT NAME YOUR FUTURE CHILD AFTER ME!
19. You may name your cat after me but don't tell me this. Only if it is a super cute Scottish Fold.

Fourteen Fabulous Life Hacks for Single Parents!

Essential Life Hacks for Single Parents that Only Single Parenting This Long Could’ve Taught Me

1. Run instead of resent your ex. Resentment is a huge waste of time. You’d be far better off channeling that into boxing or baking a mean pie and letting your kids take it over to your ex’s house. And if it’s deep, true anger and resentment that you find yourself ruminating on, see a therapist. Truly. That stuff is like slow poison in the water.  
2. Pretend you are running a farm or ship. Don’t get annoyed by the work of life. You have to milk the cow and gather the eggs and keep scurvy at bay and plow the fields and shoe the horses and get the floors scrubbed and fight off the pirates. Don’t let the work of life surprise you or annoy you. Dishes again? Laundry every morning and night? Trail of mud from the back yard to the bathroom? Yes!!! Just do it, don’t get pissed off about it. 
3. Wash everything/body at once. In the summer (or always, in Tucson) have the kids wash the car because they will love the suds when they are little and you can hose them off after and skip the bath. Going to the pool? Throw the kids in the shower there with a bottle of shampoo. The bigger point here is, don’t care so much every day about who and what is clean. My car has had a graham cracker crust since 2000 and I plan to keep it that way for the sake of nostalgia. 
4. Which brings me to, skip the bath. Not every night, of course, but daily baths aren’t all that important.  If your ex complains, explain that you are working on the children’s biome. 
5. Play tag in the yard or at the park, and run races against each other. Take a phone-free walk with kids and dogs every day, even if you are exhausted. This is exercise and bonding time in the same moment. And while you’re at it, practice gratitude with your kids. Talk about how lucky you are to have each other, and your good house or apartment, and your super cool neighborhood. Physical play with your kids keeps you connected, and keeps the muffin top on the actual muffins.  
6. Buy your kids aprons and tool bags and work gloves and tiny spades. Use them regularly, and make a big deal about it— how awesome and responsible and helpful they are. And then, have them actually do chores. It will initially take longer but pay off enormously in the end (if you don’t do this you will understand what I mean when your teenager cries at the sight of a dish with egg yolk on it.) Don’t be the only farmer on the farm—you can’t do it all alone.
7. Take wine to the neighbors. Or beer or kambucha or home made brownies (from a box because you are VERY short on time). And be friends with them. Be a good neighbor who trims your tree that dirties their lawn. Because it makes for nicer living. And because, someday, your miniature dachshund might run into a cholla cactus at 10 p.m. and your four year old might be really sick with strep throat at the same time, and it would make a big difference if the neighbor who was also your good friend would come over to your house for an hour while you ran your dog to the emergency vet that cost you seven hundred eleven dollars and 89 cents. 
8. That being said, don’t try to keep up with the neighbors. The neighbors are married and have an inheritance they have invested in Swiss bank accounts. The neighbors have a cleaning lady and a yard guy and a nanny. The neighbors go on date night and get to take turns going to yoga. Whatever. Married or single or neither, great people that they are, don’t keep up with them. You be you. If your roof isn’t clean and your snow is dirty and your mailbox falls off every time the postal carrier breathes on it, oh well (eventually the postal carrier might just nail it on himself).  At least the car and the kids were soaped off last Tuesday. 
9. Which is a good reminder to not keep up with the single Joneses. Another single parent is on the PTA and built the set of the play and writes a blog and is the soccer coach? Whatever! He is sponsored by the divorce attorneys! And they are giving him Ritalin or meth. Either way, you are a beautiful zebra and it is your own, totally unique stripes and children with unbrushed hair eating ramen out of the bag for snack that makes you a zebra. I repeat, you be you.
10. Forget about dinner. Well, not completely. Please do feed your children dinner. But give yourself a break sometimes. Toast is way underrated and you can put tuna or pizza sauce and cheese on it and call it a melt or a special pizza. In fact, in my house you can put cheese on anything and call it cheesey pleaser and the kids will eat it. Don’t feel bad throwing everything from your fridge into a wok and calling it casserole deconstructed. 
11. The car is an emotion machine. Use it! Things too tense in the house? Cranky kids? Needing naps? Take your kids for a spin with the music up and the windows down and sing really loudly to Abba. A change of scenery can make all the difference. And drive long enough, and sing a little more quietly, and they will fall asleep. 
12. Lock yourself in. We are all a little bit on the verge of a nervous breakdown at least once a week. Locks were invented for a reason— use them! Lock yourself in to your: bathroom, closet, bedroom, car with the music turned up and take 15 minutes if it will save you from losing it with your kids. If it doesn't work and you know you’re going to lose it anyway, invite the neighbor over, forget an ingredient, and a quick run alone to the store will do the trick.  
13. Vent. To a friend. Even if you don’t have kid-free time. Have a friend over for coffee or beer or a BBQ. Nobody cares if your floors are covered in mud. Laugh and vent and listen and share. This will keep you from EVER using your kids to vent, which is so toxic if it’s about their other parent I want to shoot you with my glue gun. Never excuse bad-mouthing your ex to your child. If you slip up, slap yourself in the face in private, then apologize to your child— say that you made a mistake and you will try to not do it again. 
14. Pretend this is exactly the life you wanted. On some days, even if it’s not true, gather your kids in your arms after you have chased them or wrestled or made a giant cinnamon roll, and thank any almighty or tiny power that gave you this great life in which you get to be with your kids at all. What an amazing gift, right? Whether you chose single parenting or not, you and them create a family: own it, love it, celebrate it. 

Content Originally Published by the Good Men Project, by Molly M. Knipe, me. 

Why I Find Single Parenting to be an Extraordinary Act of Bravery

I give all parents props for being brave— you have to be. The moment a baby is on your horizon, you wear your heart outside your chest with no armor. Parenting is scary daily because loving anyone that much makes us vulnerable to being ravaged by loss. It also gives us extraordinary hope and joy and changes our perspective on the world. And, it gives us opinions on things like how much sugar should go in a juice box and how fast a child should run with one of those infuriating miniature shopping carts. 

Some parents choose to become single parents. I didn’t. Not at first. I suppose I chose it later when I had opportunities to partner up that I turned away from. I never saw it that way at the time. Regardless, it took me some time to settle in to my initially unwanted title of single mom. At first, I hoped it would be short lived. Because I felt lots of things but two things overwhelmingly: lonely and pitied. So I decided instead, or at least in addition to these, to be brave. I figured I would need it. 

And I did need it. My daughters were six and three years old when my ex and I split. I had only ever spent two nights away from them. There are single parents across the country spending our first nights away from our kids who had spent their tiny lives falling asleep in our laps, or who had cuddled into that space in the crook of our arm each night. Some of us feel just fine, knowing that our child will be in good, safe hands through the time away from us, however long that might be. But plenty of us don’t know. And plenty of us don’t feel fine at all. And we could make ourselves truly sick with anxiety and worry, if we allowed that. So we have to be brave, or have faith, or give it to God, or punch something, or cry ourselves to sleep for a while. 

The likelihood, for those of us divorced single parents, is that our kids are going to be parented by someone else. Which we have no control over. We don’t get to pick him or her. How crazy is that? Remember when you were so in love with your ex (hopefully) that you (maybe) wanted to have a baby with them? That you thought there was no one else on this earth (if you were lucky) that you wanted to have a baby with? Well how ironic that now, that once chosen person, gets to choose someone else to have YOUR baby with, sort of. To raise your baby with. YOUR BABY! I don’t care if that baby is one month or 11 years old. It hurts. The hurt of your ex being with someone new is a nothing, a blip, in comparison to the pain of your child being in the hands of someone new. Who you don’t know and you don’t trust. And that someone new could be an anybody. I won’t list the potential nightmares. But you know. 

Once upon of time, I took my precious six and three-year-old daughters shopping at Trader Joes. My six-year-old was excited to talk about her weekend with her dad. “And then,” she said taking her little breath in her long story, “we went to the park with daddy and mommy!” I was lifting a watermelon to put into the cart and my heart dropped. It actually never occurred to me that my ex would have my kids call his girlfriend “mommy.” I knew that even as an adult he felt guilty addressing his step-father as “dad” in front of his father. Because he knew how much it would hurt his father. I held the watermelon tightly to my chest. “What do you mean, sweetie?” I said, “I didn’t go to the park with you.” “No,” my daughter said, “with my other mommy. My new mommy.” I took her and my three-year-old, and the unpaid for watermelon straight to the car where I could sob into the steering wheel. My three-year-old furrowed her brow and kept reaching for me. “Mommy is okay,” I said, “Mommy is going to be okay.” It would be pretty cool if, when you push a baby out of your vagina, you would be the only one she ever got to call mommy. Just sayin’. 

Single parenting also requires bravery at holidays, especially that first holiday after your split. Easter happened to fall days after my divorce was final. I had my girls with me, in their matching floral dresses, all curly-haired and darling in front of the table spread with a ham that someone had been picking sugared flakes off of. My mother and stepdad and grandparents and brother and his girlfriend had all gathered, all wondering why so much of the sugar from the ham was already around my daughters’ mouths. We aren’t a family who prays. We usually just collectively sigh and dig in. So as the newly naked Honey Baked Ham was carved and passed out by my step-dad, my older daughter said, “Guess what! Mommy has a baby in her tummy!” My family, those good, decent people, were kind enough to not look at me. Since my divorce was only a couple of days old, the pronouncement did sting. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later— I had just put a lot of unjustified faith in the curse I had placed on my ex’s penis. My daughter was confused at the silence that settled as she quietly munched her ham. In better, less shocking, circumstances, we could’ve been more supportive. Of course we did care—hugely. My kids were going to have siblings. That I didn’t plan for them! That didn’t come from me! It seems so obvious, but I didn’t plan this when I planned my kids. I planned that their siblings would be planned by me. Plans, plans, plans. For single parents plans have to go out the window. Trust may go with plans, for a while. Life dishes stuff and you just have to take it. And breathe, be brave, have faith, give it to God, punch something, and go to sleep. 

There will be Christmases that Santa will "go to Daddy's house this year" or Thanksgivings that the ones you are most grateful for will not be sitting around the table. You will probably never like it. It will get easier though. Maybe you will create a tradition, like we did (Pie in the Park day), that has no specific day, so it can only fall during "my" parenting time. Maybe there is a way you will hold your kids close even when they are far away--like a little note in their backpack about their loose tooth, or telling them every time you look at the moon you make a wish that they are looking at the moon too and smiling. I really hope, for everybody in the world's sake, that you get to gaze upon your baby on their birthday, at least until they reach adulthood. After all, this is the baby that the stork brought you, and you (and your ex) should get to commemorate that day with your baby! If you are single and sharing your baby with your ex, this probably won't always be the case. On those birthdays that you don't get to be with your child, do this: light a candle and say a little wish, hope, or prayer that children everywhere know someone loves them like you love your child. Fiercely and forever and in the unbreakable way that not being together on a birthday just doesn't break. 

So many single moms and dads make me look like a lilliputian in the bravery department. They face far worse than I have— financial hardship, illness, being isolated from a support system. I bow down to them. If you are raising kids alone and surviving and thriving in spite of how hard it can be, I bow down to you and kiss every toe on your feet (after placing some saran wrap over them). 

That’s it. I just wanted to say I see you there. I see you in the drug store with your snot encrusted feverish four year old lying like an old coat in your arms while you search the back of the cough syrup for suspicious ingredients. I know it’s because you don’t have a partner to send to the store, and you wouldn’t leave your kid home alone. I see you at the park, online dating on your phone while sitting in the sandbox, half paying attention to the mud soup your kid is adding leaves to. I see you at work— I see the shadow pass on your face when school calls because you don’t have a back-up person to pick up your child. And, just so you know, I think you’re brave and I don’t feel sorry for you. I know it sucks to be pitied and you certainly don’t deserve it. Single parents have to have their shit together just to get out the door on any given Tuesday. 

How cool would it be if we had single parent villages where you could go for a while to heal from the emotional hurt while people who had been through it made you casserole and babysat your kids and you all ate together around a huge long table. And you could stay as long as you needed, until you launched yourself into a new relationship or didn’t, until you struck out alone or maybe not if you never wanted that. Maybe I will make a place like that someday. It could be like coming home again, but without judgment and failure following you like two hungry dogs. I’m not sure what I would call it. But I know I’d feel better about launching my kids into adult life, about the risk of marriage and the risk of divorce and the risk of going it alone, if places like that existed. 

Wish

This windworn day
and the smirk of play
I see it in the gap of her front teeth
and her unwashed unbrushed hair
I bunch it in my hands and let it fall
Her eyes come to rest on a important small spot on the ground.

Let me keep her like this
With snow cone on her lips
With sunburn on her right cheek
In the spot that I missed
With my kiss
In the palm of her hand
And all the sand
She left in the tub tonight
Lights out
A sigh in the nightlight lit darkness.

Let me put my babies in close pockets
One on each side
While I run
Through life
Let me hold them safe and steady
Let them be where my hands can feel the warm breath
Puff off of their chapped little lips
The dough of their small hands
Wrapped around my finger.

Let me live beneath her bunkbed
She is my starry sky
Let me ride in her lunchbox
She is my juicebox and my chocolate milk and the center of my oreo and my everyday
Let me keep her
Just here just like this
Let me soak her like a sponge
And hold her to my heart
So still and fast
The world stops.

How to Have a Relationship With Wanting

You can also find this at the Good Men Project:
For Singles, How to Have a Relationship with Wanting
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/for-singles-how-to-have-a-relationship-with-wanting-dg/

If I am waiting, should I be waiting? If am wanting, should I be wanting?— The Decemberists

Me: Yes, yes, be waiting! Be wanting!

I am afraid that us singles have been left fearful of wanting, so we climb on our little flying carpets and hover just above it. It’s a mind trick that ultimately leaves us sad but uncertain of why. We tell ourselves we aren’t wanting, we’re above wanting, but we have a pervasive loneliness that we can’t assuage. 

I went to a divorce recovery group of sorts a couple of years ago. It made me so uncomfortable I could hardly keep my mouth shut. The leaders—two passive, soft spoken, doughy guys in their early 50s (I’ll call them Little and Big, because they came in two sizes), had a lot of catch phrases they would return to, as if you kept pulling the little string attached to Little and Big’s backs. These were the words of recovery, I suppose. Everyone in the group was clinging to them so fiercely they all stared me down with accusing eyes when I dared to dissent. And I could tell they were all thinking I was just a poor outsider who didn’t yet know the way. The way to happiness, for them, lay in the pull string phrases from Little and Big. We’ve all heard them: Be happy alone first; You don’t need someone else to be happy; Needing someone is weak; Needing someone is codependent. 

Respectfully speaking, I think that is a little pile of bullshit. This is what happens to us when we have been burned by love, crashed in romance, beached on a deserted island with no one to come yank us back into the water. Sometimes, sadly, it’s happened to us over and over again. It seems easier and less painful to decide we don’t need anyone else and can be perfectly happy alone, ballroom dancing by ourselves in the kitchen or knitting a onesie for the chimney. Once we decide this, and convince ourselves of it, we might just be temporarily elated for five minutes or five days. And then the unrest sets in. We can’t identify the unrest because We are happy alone! We don’t need anyone else!  But the unrest is there because we drank the potion, a little bit, and convinced ourselves of something untrue.  

It is okay, people, to be wanting. It is okay to want a buddy, companion, compadre, and to even, Gasp! think you could be happier with a dance partner. The trouble lies, I suppose, if you wait for that person to initiate a happy life. Yes, be happy anyway, in spite of your loneliness. But, be lonely also. Because it informs you that you are wanting. And things come to those who want.  

It is really painful to engage in this relationship with wanting. I’m not honestly sure how to do it. A couple of years ago a friend who happens to be a therapist challenged me to be alone for 6 months— no dating, no searching, just resting in my singleness. So I did it, just to check it out, because I am a student of life like that. (And I wanted to prove him wrong.) It was amazing! I had a million revelations. I noticed all of the ways I was waiting for the right person before I was willing to really dig deep and live in the way I wanted to live. Stop that at once! I decided, and became more invested in the life I had as a single mom of two girls. “I am going to be the one person carrying all the shit to the school ice cream social and not feel sorry for myself,” I decided. And I did, instead of thinking, “When am I going to have someone to help me carry all of this shit!?” “I am going to love my house as if I could live in it forever,” I decided, instead of “Someday I will meet someone and leave, so why get invested here?” It was transformative and intoxicating in a way, to be shamelessly my single self. My married friends act as if they have chosen the lives they are leading, so why shouldn’t I? Why should I act as if this life just landed upon me? When in fact none of us are the masters of our destiny just as much as we all are. It is completely relative. 

Anyway, I made a mistake. My friend’s dare temporarily lifted some of the pain I had been feeling about being alone, and made me decide “I do not want!” I threw a tiny temper tantrum in my own mind and became fiercely committed to not wanting. Because it was such a relief! If I did not want, I didn’t have to be heartbroken that I did not have. If I did not want, I didn’t have to be vulnerable, or try to trust, or really, try at all. If I did not want, I didn’t have to reflect much on myself or my practices in getting. Because I was going to be happy alone, god damn it. I wasn’t going to get anything, and that was fine, because I did not want!

Except for that I did. I just buried it deeply in the defenses of radical, empowered aloneness. There is a middle road. It is the road of happy-ish wanting. How do we get into relation with happy wanting? I don’t know exactly, but I’m pretty sure the first step is getting honest. I am pretty damn happy, a decent amount of the time. I am also having a human experience on planet earth— that leaves for some trials of the heart. I am also cognizant that I am living a middle class life in the USA and that makes me pretty damn privileged and lucky. Anyway, in spite of all the bounty I have, I want. I’m going to be okay with that. 

Why do I give a care? I guess because my friends in their 30s and 40s are deciding that life didn’t give them what they wanted, and they are becoming complacent in that. My friend said yesterday, “I always wanted a family and I’m starting to realize I’m not going to get that.” He’s 40. I’m worried that we are setting ourselves up for failure with our absurd expectations of what a modern romance should be, and when it does fail we throw up our hands completely and decide not only that our life does’t hold that for us, but that it won’t. 

Love is in crisis. Because we have made it into something nearly impossible. Any given year, 50 percent of us are suffering from a broken heart. But because love as we know it is flawed, let’s not throw it out the window. Let’s not discard it by saying “Not in this lifetime.” Let’s desire it still. Even through our pain and disappointment. Let’s want it. Let’s keep it energetically alive so that it will continue to evolve. Let’s hold it in mind, and imagine the impossible, possible.    

How (and Why) to Come Clean with Your Cheating Heart

You can also find this article at:
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-and-why-to-come-clean-with-your-cheating-heart-dg/

In the infamous words of Hank Williams, (though I prefer Patsy Cline’s pleading delivery), Your cheatin’ heart/Will make you weep/You’ll cry and cry/And try to sleep/But sleep won’t come/The whole night through/Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you…

And friend, ’tis true. Someone knows you are cheating. That someone is you. (And hopefully the person you are cheating with.) The reality is you. just. can’t. stop. Or, maybe you don’t want to. Either way, cheating is as powerful as a drug, and we know this now because of nifty brain science. The neurotransmitters you get from the thrill of 1. having illicit sex and 2. keeping it from your partner (even if you wish you weren’t) are way more intoxicating, and therefore addictive, than, say, a day of Frappuccinos and vodka. Hank was right on about the weeping and lack of sleeping, and that is why this needs to stop. It will reek havoc on your mental and physical well being, to live in a state of discongruity (a word which, Mr. dictionary.com, is not obsolete for therapists!) 

The self you put forth into the world, as you step into your wingtips or loafers or flip flops in the morning, and then out your front door into the bright of day, needs to be a somewhat harmonious, unspilt self. So that you can function at work, be a contender in your racquet ball game, be a good dad, a decent partner, and feel like a stand-up-guy. If you are cheating, and you already know this of course, this isn’t possible. You defend that you really are a stand-up-guy who is forced to behave in such a way because your life is such a miserable wreck, or maybe your wife is such a miserable wreck, and cheating is bringing joy, or release, or relief, or something. It is bringing something. Sooner rather than later it is bringing a wrecking ball to the rest of your life, and that is why coming clean now may preempt some of the damage. 

How do you do it? First, you come clean to yourself. Cheating is not simple—you aren’t possessed by a demon that can be eradicated with a saging ceremony. You are going to need some help. To come clean to yourself that you are cheating means that you get real that you are doing something destructive to your life as you know it. That’s it. You don’t need to heap yourself in shame or judgement or put a scarlet letter on your face. You are doing something destructive, perhaps because something needs to be destroyed and you don’t know a better way to destroy it, perhaps because you became weak in the face of temptation. Perhaps it is something more serious and you have a sex addiction. This is murky water and this is where you need to take step two, which is to come clean to someone else. (Very obviously, I hope, the person to support you through this is absolutely not the person you are cheating with.) A good someone else is the person in your life who is a locked down vault for secrets. If you aren’t sure, don’t share. This person also needs to be on your side and willing to help you through, but not judgmental. I don’t recommend a priest, but that’s just my slant.    This person also needs to be strong enough to challenge your perceptions. Because like any addict, you are going to justify the addiction and you need to be pushed a little. This might be your brother, your best friend, or a therapist. I like therapists, because I am one, they get paid to do this, and they are probably, hopefully, trained. They have no strings attached. They can shine a light on a dark gloopy monster hiding in the shadow of your heart and help you stare straight at it. Sometimes. 

Last is the super ugly hard one. You have to come clean to your partner. And I don’t mean if you were drunk and kissed someone at the office party five years ago. I’m talking about “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!” when, you know damn well what the definition of is is. (Sorry, Bill, I do love you.) This is also where some coaching and role play with a therapist ahead of time can help. Coming clean is going to be very hard. You need to be very brave. I really recommend you do this with a third party present, because people feel completely threatened and like their life is utterly upended when they find out their partner is cheating. Chances are, your partner knows, but she is keeping it in the back of her mind and naming it something else (“Work is really getting to him/He’s depressed/He’s having a hard time turning 40/ He just loves the gym!/ Is he doing coke?”) Your partner will likely be devastated. Hopefully, you are devastated too and you can communicate that. If a therapist can be a part of this conversation, awesome. A huge mistake that is often made when coming clean is giving too much detail about the affair— who it was with, their physical description, their contact info (under no circumstance do this!), what exactly took place, where, when, how frequently, etc. Try, try, try not to deliver these details. They unleash something even more destructive to your relationship— the wild, threatened, imagination of your partner. Decide, before this conversation, what you want from this relationship. You may very well not get it, but you may. If you can clearly say that you are still in love with your partner and are willing to get help for cheating, because your partner means the world to you, go there. Or, maybe your affair illuminated that your relationship is deficient and the two of you need help— then ask gently for that. This conversation is not the time to place blame on your partner. That is a very destructive move that will probably lead to the end of your relationship. Blame belongs to you, ultimately, for choosing to cheat. You need to be ready to take that on. It doesn’t mean that other dynamics didn’t contribute to this breaking point, but your taking responsibility for cheating could lead to saving the relationship, if that is your ultimate goal. 

Don’t ask for forgiveness, yet. It is too great a request initially. You can say that you hope for it in time. That you will work for it. That you would like to earn it, if that is the case. After the initial shock wears off (which could be days or weeks), ask what your partner might need from you so that he or she is willing to offer you forgiveness. It could be a little unreasonable, initially. She might need to check your texts. He might want you to not go alone to business conferences. It will depend very much on the circumstances surrounding the affair. Some advice: indulge these requests IF they don’t build resentment in you (resentment leads to… guess what?) and you agree that together you are working towards forgiveness. Ultimately, you also will need to forgive yourself. Sometimes that is the hardest piece. Not feeling forgiven can be a projection and an indication that you haven’t offered this to yourself. This is a process that also takes work and you will benefit from a coach of sorts. 

Remember if the affair has been more than a couple of encounters, it may be truly difficult to extract yourself. I wasn’t being glib when I said it was like an addiction: it is. You need to arm yourself with resources and strategies from experts— there is ample help out there if you look under the right rocks. If you work with the person you've been cheating with, you need a hiatus or to leave your job. You need defenses against temptation, and oftentimes you need to acknowledge that your own will is faulty. That’s part of our humanness. Again, a therapist can help you figure this out. 

An authentic life requires extraordinary courage. We all have that courage within us and there are great rewards to accessing it and using it wisely. This sounds hokey— but if you are cheating you already realize this— more than anyone, you are cheating yourself. Out of something honest and real. It is not illusive, though. When you come clean to your partner, it will change your life, probably forever. It might not be in the way you anticipate. But. You changed your life when you started an affair. In a strange way, that was the beginning of the work that you now have to finish. Finish the work. Ultimately, you will be better for it.  

Dear Men, How To (and How Not To) Write an Online Dating Profile

You can also find this article at The Good Men Project:
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-to-and-how-not-to-write-an-online-dating-profile-in-10-fabulous-steps-dg/

Dear Men, 

I know, it’s not easy, putting yourself out there. Maybe it’s been a while. Maybe you think you are an old pro at this. Whether you are first dipping that big man toe in the proverbial waters of online dating, or you are already swimming circles around the pool, to get inside the female brain, read this. I promise, you will be editing your profile before you even finish reading number one. 

1. Do not shame online dating! Everyone you are trying to appeal to (at least in this virtual format) is online dating too. Women don’t want to feel like we are the only ones in our fuzzy socks and bathrobes on a Friday night, trolling the internet for hotties. So you, and we, are online dating like the rest of the country. We want to feel hip and wanted, and we want you to have just a little bit of swagger. So, don’t say, “We can lie about how we met,” or “Nothing else has worked for me.” Reframe! This is an adventure, you’re happy to be here, now go. 
2. Do not explain why you are online dating.  Nobody wants to hear why you can’t meet someone at the office (we know you tried), and the bar scene isn’t for you (this is code for “I am old”), blah, blah, blah. We get it. We are here, too, remember? Do not explain us to ourselves. Hi, nice to meet ya, is a great start. 
3. Say NOTHING about a glass. Do not say you are a “glass half full” kinda guy because every dating profile on the face of the internet says that. And what kind of dork would say “glass half empty?” (That would actually be refreshing, no pun intended, just for originality’s sake). In fact, avoid cliches all together. Be original! Instead of “glass half full”, say that you know how to make your own silver linings, or you have learned through adversity, or you once saw the actual end of a rainbow, pulled over the car, and sat right under it with your kids (but don’t lie! Only if this is true of course.) 
4. And on that note, don’t tell us you are an “all-around good guy.” We don’t know what that means anymore. If we did, we would be dating him and not on this site. (Smile). Instead, say something interesting and original. Do you own your own bonsai forest? Did you groom your dog last night and then stroll down at the U just to let her show off? Did your dad teach you to make sushi? Do you always roll your little girls socks down for her so the lace shows? Say that.  
5. Don’t flex. Don’t drop hints about your PhD or your car or your 600 thread-count sheets, for Chrissakes. If you are a doctor, mum is the word! BE HUMBLE. Don’t include a picture of your Mercedes, your diploma, or God forbid, your bed! Holy moses. Do NOT, (and I am screaming this) take a picture of your naked upper body in your bathroom mirror. We can see your bathroom! And the toilet seat is up. And in the background, we can see your bed! And it’s a mess. And there’s a picture of your wedding hanging above it. If you have lovely pecs, get a great shot of them in action while you are water skiing or fly fishing or saving a hedgehog from a burning palm tree. That would be a deal maker. 
6. Don’t whine. Good grief, stop whining! Dating sites are not matchmaking services. Understand this. Reread that sentence. I’ll help: Dating sites are not matchmaking services. Dating sites are just virtual bars. Today, in 2015, it’s easier for us to wink at someone virtually instead of in person, because in person would make us feel creepy. Understand that the online dating site you are using is just a bar, just a safe place to wink or say “how you doin?” It doesn’t owe you anything, just like the bar you used to go to didn’t owe you anything (other than the beer you paid for). Especially important, is the women on the site don’t owe you anything at all. They don’t owe you a wink back or an email or to follow through on the date they set up. It’s not very nice, but it’s true, and I think if you understand this, and understand that the service you are subscribing too is just a way to access single people to see if they would like to receive that wink, or not, you will be a happier online dater. There are a lot of whiney, upset, venting online daters. Stop that. If it’s making you angry, stop doing it. 
7. Which brings me to what I’ll call “getting personal.” If you want to get personal on your profile do it like this: “I’m looking specifically for that tall, leggy, witty brunette who was playing Scrabble with her son at Coffee-a-go-go last Saturday, or someone who would do exactly that.” But not like this, “I actually met a woman from this site who weighed 30 pounds more than what her photos showed, drank too much wine and proceeded to tell me TMI about her divorce.” Don’t make us afraid that we will end up as a story on your blog. And your profile is not your blog, by the way.  
8. Care. Women are totally drawn to caring. Care genuinely, about something, and show it. Everyone is a “family man” or “passionate about my kids.” That’s sweet and fine to say but just know that it doesn’t make you stand out. But what else do you care about? Deeply about making your community safer? Passionately about tiny rare cacti? Extraordinarily about the research you are doing on breakthrough alternative to liposuction? Ok, not that one. But something. Show us something matters to you. More than your ATV. Which you might want to take the photos down of.
9. Your dog is cute. We like her. Put yourself in the photo with her. Do not wear her in a front pack in the photo. Or have her tongue in your mouth. Ew.
10. Be you! There is something that makes you a snowflake. Ask around to see what it is. Maybe you sculpt your mustache into a different topiary shape in the shower. Keep that one to yourself. Maybe you teach kundalini yoga to prisoners, maybe you wrote a song for your mom last Christmas and you wouldn’t mind singing it at a karaoke bar, maybe you know how to do the Texas two-step blindfolded, maybe you make a mean Coq-au-Vin, maybe you have seen every Wes Anderson movie ten times, maybe you host an annual trampoline-a-thon to raise awareness for bladder dysfunction. Ok not the last one. You are you are you and the more you are you and not everyone else, the more we will see you and know if we want to wink back, or not.
11. Good luck!