He's older, worldly and whisks you off your feet. He also has had another life before you. As one woman discovered, dating a divorcee can be a bittersweet experience.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------  By Michele Koh

<eastciti.com, September 8>
What's it like loving a man who had at one point in time made the decision to spend the rest of his living years loving only one woman?

It's painful. And probably even more so for the wife who had to walk away from the blessings of marriage, to save herself from the madness of being shackled to the heart of a fragile dreamer.

On meeting Andrew, divorced from his wife and now best friend Kate for 3 years, I could not decipher a trace of solemnity in the face of this 30-year-old man. He got along great with other men, cracking jokes like a restless schoolboy, always courteous with the ladies. He was sociable.

Andrew often willingly shared a little about his marriage, mentioning their brief but intense courtship, then cutting right to the day she left. "She had enough and I didn't bother chasing her," he said, raising his palms in submission, citing that edited chapter with the nonchalance of a pastor enlightening the unwed on the virtues of the inevitable.

Trying to understand Andrew was frightening and uncomfortable. In public, he carried himself in an overly relaxed fashion, adding to his composure the languid feminine charm of a reclining Renaissance painting. But within close proximity, you could sense an awkward suffocating silence, so neglected it would make mothers weep.

I got into a relationship with him, and for the longest time, read too deeply into smiles and touches; relying blindly on words, which in both eloquence and deliverance rang truth, if not hope. I started to believe in loving this sweet, sad man.

Then out of the blue, he admitted to "sort of" seeing another girl, without so much as an apology. We left his place and spent a day with May, a sturdy young woman with a warm smile and a tremendous capacity to care. Surprisingly, this infidelity didn't hit me in the gut. I got along well enough with his girlfriend (sex partner) of 2 months and ...whoah...she was aware that he and I would be sharing a bed after we left her apartment!

After the hurt came disenchantment and after a while I realised why I didn't feel betrayed. Andrew had been living out disenchantment. No love in the world would ever be great enough to fill his needs and it'd do him no good to feel responsible anyway! He simply expected all women to be stronger than him; and he left the risk of loving and leaving entirely to anyone willing to take a chance on him.

Andrew and I are still friends, but there's a lot more distance between us. He's been in and out of "girlfriends" hoping it might work out, but mostly filling time. His last girlfriend (of 2 years) just left him; part of it had something to do with his marriage a month before to "just an old friend" so they could apply for an apartment, he quips.

It's too difficult to be in a relationship with a man whose own dreams are too precious and too big for your heart.

Have you dated a divorcee before?
>> Share your views in our message board.