For the person who is newly divorced, meeting a “soul mate” and falling in love quickly is not unusual. It is best to stay out of serious relationships until we’ve healed from the divorce, but it’s not always easy to do.
The transition lover is usually the first serious relationship partner after a divorce. We may have met them while going through the divorce or shortly afterward.
The transitional lover fills an immediate need but usually not the long term needs of a newly divorced person. The transitional lover provides comfort and validation. They are probably a good (if not spectacular) sex partner. But the relationship is usually doomed.
Suppose you had a job that required all of your time for the last ten years, night and day. You cleared your life of everything else to do the job, and then the job ended. You may have enjoyed the work and you may be unhappy that it has ended. Or you may have dreaded going to work every day and are elated that it is finally over.
But now what? Unless you have an excellent retirement plan or sufficient funds to quit working entirely, you’ll search for another job. If you don’t have the resources to wait for the right job, you’ll probably take the first job that’s offered and leave it when the right job comes along.
It’s the same with transitional love and lovers. In a relationship, the resources to wait for the right person come from within. So do the resources to be happy with your life whether or not another person is a committed part of it.
If you need someone to complete you or to make you happy, you’re not ready for a serious relationship. Only you can complete you, only you have control over your happiness.
If you don’t take the time for “me work” after your divorce, if your needs are too great to wait, you will fall in love with the first person who fits your current needs.
The first years after a divorce are the most dangerous times for making relationship commitments as they may be temporary at best. To keep from hurting others, it is best to travel on our self-realization journey alone. Transition love occurs when we take a passenger with us.
Somewhere along the journey, the transitional lover no longer fits our needs and we dump them. They are confused and hurt because the relationship has ended. We wonder what we ever saw in them in the first place.