SHE Asked Podcast

Learning to Trust Again: Red-Flags for Dating After Divorce

• Anna McBride

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Dating after divorce can be messy and murky as we tend to lightly tread around the core of what it means to trust again . But when we learn to trust our intuition before diving into a new relationship - the dating pool looks as clear as the Maldives. 

In today's episode, Anna explains these three essential truths for post-divorce dating:

  1. Consistency is clarity 
  2. Charm is not character 
  3. Intuition is Information

With wisdom from her personal journey and professional insights, Anna helps listeners avoid repeating old patterns and trust themselves again. 

Interested in one-on-one coaching around your dating life? Book a consultation call with Anna here.



Speaker 1:

Hi everyone and welcome back to she Asked Tools for Practical Hope. I'm Anna McBride, therapist, coach and your guide in rewriting the narrative after heartache, loss and transformation. Today, we're talking about something tender but vital dating after divorce, divorce and the red flags that matter most. This episode is not about fear. It's about clarity, empowerment and making sure you're not rewriting the same chapter with a new title. Let's dive in. Here's the first red flag I want you to pay attention to Consistency is clarity.

Speaker 1:

Inconsistency is not mystery, it's a warning. We need clarity. This is how we know what's happening, and when we don't know, we get confused. So inconsistency leads can be like inconsistent communication, unpredictable affection, showing up hot then cold. That's not chemistry, that's chaos. And it's not just annoying, it's destabilizing. In a 2022 study published by the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, they found that emotional inconsistency in romantic partners is associated with increased anxiety, decreased trust and lower relationship satisfaction.

Speaker 1:

Yikes, I once coached a woman we'll call her Sarah who dated a man who would text every morning for a week, then disappear for four days with no explanation. She'd start to feel secure and then boom, silence. She told me it's like he was giving me just enough to keep me hopeful. Oh my gosh, how many times does that happen? Remember, people show you who they are all the time. We need to believe them the first time.

Speaker 1:

I can tell you from my own experience that you know, I was married for a long time to someone who had narcissistic traits, who had narcissistic traits. So at the beginning we were very connected, he was very attentive and I felt really loved. And then, as time went on and life settled down and we were beyond that initial phase, the honeymoon phase, it became very apparent that we were incompatible. Yet, for reasons that I'm still healing from, I stayed in it, even though I experienced from him minimizing of my feelings, gaslighting of any scenario where I felt like he was wrong. He made me feel wrong and the thing is, is that reliable people create calm, not confusion? I was confused all the time, much like Sarah.

Speaker 1:

I saw a pattern, yet I wasn't willing to look at it. She wasn't ready to look at that pattern for her person either. But remember, that's not love. What they're doing, that's emotional baiting. We want calm, we want clarity. That's what true love really looks like. Yet if we don't pay attention to the patterns, we're going to miss the message. Humans are patterned creatures. They actually do the same thing over and over. Yet some of us will handpick what we like about what somebody does and make a whole story about that and make that why the relationship is meant to continue. I did that for 36 years when, really, if I had really identified the full pattern, I would have possibly been able to get out sooner.

Speaker 1:

Here's the thing what somebody shows you at the beginning isn't always the extent of their character. That's what takes us into lesson number two, the other red flag that we often miss. Usually at the beginning, charm is not the same as character. Charm can be practiced, polished and performed, but character that shows up in how someone handles disappointment, boundaries, honesty and emotional labor. Again, this is what we see consistently in someone. Character is consistent. Charm is fleeting in.

Speaker 1:

Individual. Differences showed that individuals high in narcissistic traits often score high in initial likability and charisma but struggle with empathy and long-term relational health. That's what my marriage was all about. It was very charming at the beginning and then, as things went on, the character was revealed. That's important. We have to really pay attention to how we feel, what we're being shown, because people show you who they are that it's too good to be true feeling you got to trust it. Trust is a must when it comes to dating, when it comes to any relationship.

Speaker 1:

You know a man I dated shortly after my divorce was also very charismatic, very charming, read me poetry, made me dinner, was totally attentive. I was so into that. But within weeks I realized he couldn't tolerate discomfort. If I brought up anything vulnerable he disappeared. He wanted a performance, not a partnership. He wasn't ready to be my guy who could hear how I felt about anything, particularly about the relationship. He wanted exciting. He wanted fun, good times, not the everyday stuff.

Speaker 1:

And I think what we have to remember is that when we are looking for a partner, we're looking for somebody who is sturdy, who is stable, who is reliable and has character. Good character, a real character, is often quiet. It shows up over time. It's who someone is when they don't have anything to gain, and that is often something that is easy to miss. You know it takes time to get to know someone and I'm embarrassed to say this, but this is true. I met and married my husband in less than two years, stayed married for 36 years, even though within the first 10 years I knew it wasn't working. So this is why it's important to take your time in getting to know someone. Get to know the character of the person and let them get to know yours, because that's when you're going to really understand that character isn't charm, it's a part of who you are, with consistency, and you have to pay attention inwardly in order to understand that. That's what leads us to lesson number three our intuition. It's a data point.

Speaker 1:

Your intuition is not your imagination, it's information. Intuition is information and the in part means it comes from within us. It's not something we get outside of us, it's something that we already have inside us, yet we have to cultivate it. The payment for the intuition, the information, is time spent with yourself. The intuition, the information, is time spent with yourself, getting to know yourself, feeling your feelings, really examining your thoughts, your motives, your character, maybe even asking yourself some questions like who am I? What do I want? What kind of partner do I want? And let it be something more substantial than looks, charisma, fun. It's got to be more than that. It's got to go deeper. You're deeper, so should your partner be?

Speaker 1:

Too often we override our intuition. We tell ourselves oh, we're just being dramatic, needy or afraid, but your body knows what your mind can't always explain. So true, in fact. Research from the University of Iowa found that people's physical bodies register danger or unease seconds, even minutes, minutes, before their brains can articulate it. So what that means is your central nervous system is always talking to you. The way we experience it is through feelings like anxiety, like tension, like dis-ease or upset, or anger or fear. Any one of those are possible. We have to pay attention to the stomach flips, to the tension in the chest. It's all data, data points. It's our inner compass. We have to pay attention and it comes from cultivating a connection with ourselves.

Speaker 1:

I talk to many women who say I knew something was off, I just didn't want to start over again. And I get it. You know that was me. After my marriage ended, which took a long time for it to end, because I didn't want to start over again, I began dating and as I dated, I kept dating the same kind of man. I found that they were. They were fun, they were exciting, they wanted to have fun with me. They just weren't the type of guy that had the character to do the long haul. And honestly, that's what I want. That's what I want and I imagine that's what a lot of you want. Otherwise you wouldn't be here listening. You know.

Speaker 1:

Some of my listeners have asked me you know what's the difference between feeling maybe anxious after a date or after a connection with someone, or feeling, you know, the calm that we had suggested would be good to feel when you're with the right person. And I find that that's interesting because, depending upon what's known as our attachment style, meaning how we connect with other people and this goes back to our early child development and depending on how healthy of an attachment we had with our early caregiver, our moms, our fathers, we can either have a comfortable attachment or we can have an anxious attachment, where we feel like we need to have someone connected with us all the time, and when we're away from the people that we're wanting to have a connection with, we can feel very anxious all the time. Or we can have an avoidant attachment, where we actually are anxious when we're around someone because we don't know if we really can stay connected or they'll stay connected. So it's almost like we have this inner desire to push them away because we feel like we're going to be abandoned anyway, and so it's important to understand what your attachment style is If you experience anxiety during a connection with someone that you're dating, or after the date, or if you feel the sense of like, oh, this is going to end anyway. Let me end it now. You might want to explore that with the help of a therapist or a coach, because that is something outside of what I'm talking about. That's not necessarily intuition. That is an attachment style that can be healed, which is good news. Yet your intuition is a part of you also, and it is something that you'll need to connect with and cultivate a connection with so that you get the information about the person that you're considering and you're dating.

Speaker 1:

I can tell you from my own experience that my biggest karmic lesson was I wasn't listening to how I felt. I denied the way I felt in my marriage, which really came out of the way I was brought up. I was raised in a family where having feelings wasn't safe. We weren't allowed to express them, so of course, I carried that into my marriage, which I married very young, hadn't healed from that yet. So, because that wasn't a healed situation, I was acting out this negative feeling, this negative sense of self in relationship to my husband, and so I was anxious all the time, yet I denied my anxiety, I said that was nothing to pay attention to. Instead, I kept looking outside of myself. I looked at the lifestyle we had. I looked at the fact that he had a job. I looked at the fact that he did his best to be a good father to our children, that he had great friends, he had a great career, that he wasn't an alcoholic all of these things. The boxes were checking, yet I wasn't paying attention to how I felt when I was with him.

Speaker 1:

This was my intuition talking to me all the time, and what I've come to appreciate is that, you know, intuition speaks quietly. At the first it's like a little whisper, it's a nudge, it's like that stomach flip, that chest tug or that little knowing that comes to you. Yet if you don't pay attention to it, it gets louder and louder and louder and eventually it's like the proverbial brick that's whacked upside your head. Ouch. And my marriage ended very dramatically because I wasn't paying attention to the information, the intuition that was always being shared with me by my central nervous system, by my body, by my spirit. And when you don't pay attention inwardly, you pay the cost outwardly. That's called karma. Cost outwardly. That's called karma, and if you haven't listened to the karma episode, I highly recommend it. It will help fill in the blanks about the way karma works. And so I had to pay the karmic price because I wasn't paying attention to the intuition that I now know was truly talking to me all the time.

Speaker 1:

So here's your post-divorce dating mantra right? Learn please from my experience Consistency is clarity. Right? People show you who they are all the time. We have to pay attention to what they are showing, how they're showing up consistently, not what they say, it's what they do that matters.

Speaker 1:

And charm is not character. So Prince Charming can say lots of things. He can love, bomb you. He can pour on the attention at the beginning, but his character is revealed slowly over time. Get to know your man. If he's the right man, he has good character, and you will get to know that.

Speaker 1:

No rush, and your intuition is a sacred tool. Pay attention to it. Pay attention inwardly now. That is my definition of what pain means P-A-I-N. Pay attention inwardly now. Love is not meant to be painful, it's meant to be intuitive, it's meant to be calm, it's meant to be clear and it's meant to be not rushed, not forced, not swayed. Narcissists are really great at convincing us that they're the right person for us and then, from that point on, once they've won that game, they go about confusing us and convincing us that we are wrong about everything else.

Speaker 1:

Dating again isn't about proving you're lovable. You already are. You don't have anything to prove to anyone else. Just show up for yourself. It's about protecting you, the peace you fought so hard to reclaim. Don't give away your peace, don't give away your serenity, don't abandon yourself and don't be afraid. You just have to stay awake, stay aware, stay conscious of what you're doing, what you're choosing to do. So I hope this has been helpful and until next time, I'm Anna McBride, and this is she Asked. Where healing meets practical hope, be well.