W2R
Moderator Emeritus
I met Frank through one of those online dating websites a couple of years after my divorce. Before I began dating again, I devoted a year or two to some truly intensive meditation, trying to figure out what went wrong, and what I actually wanted in life so that I wouldn't end up miserable like I was in my marriage.Interesting posts.
It appears most folks would not wish to remarry, irrespective of a current satisfying relationship.
Consequently, on the very FIRST date, before I had even told Frank my contact information, I told him that:
1) If he wanted a wife or a live-in girlfriend, move on, and
2) No mixing of his money and mine.
3) These rules limit intermingling of finances, but do not require any limits on how loving and emotionally committed to one another we might wish to become.
Number 2 above was because I wanted to retire and was in the middle of starting over after a financially disastrous divorce. I couldn't afford to get too loose and easy with my money.
Frank was a widower, and I was a divorcee, so we had each BTDT when it came to marriage and neither of us was looking for a spouse.
Anyway, Frank liked what I was suggesting, mostly because his dead wife had been a spender and because he had heard too many stories about gold-diggers and bad divorce settlements from his buddies. We are both still happy with these boundaries.