The “grass is greener” syndrome. This is something to really think about … especially if you are not yet a midlife bachelor, but instead are reading through this website in order to find out what might lie ahead for you if you do leave your wife or long-term partner. When I say, “the grass is greener”, what I mean is that you believe that whatever you have now is no longer adequate – and that you as a person would be much better off making a particular change. This greener grass syndrome usually refers to you switching to a different lover – but it can also apply to a job change. I’m going to stick with the changing of lovers aspect of the syndrome here – because that’s what I have the most experience with, and the most to share.
When contemplating a “grass is greener” type of switch to a new lover, the key question you have to ask yourself is,
“If I make the switch, and it does not work out – then will I still be
better off than I am now with my current lover?
The easier the answer to this question is, the more likely your potential switch will amount to something positive in your life. In other words, if you absolutely can no longer tolerate your current relationship and are seeking a mechanism to jumpstart your exit – then migrating to someone new might just be the ticket. But you have to plan for worst-case – you have to assume or presume that the relationship you are about to pursue will fall apart … and if you will still be happy with your overall situation under that circumstance, then you will have succeeded in avoiding the “grass is greener” syndrome.
Many guys fall prey to the “grass is greener” syndrome. They go ahead and have that affair with the young secretary … they assume that having sex with her successfully several times each week means that a full-time relationship with her would be great. They leave their wife … then they discover after spending more time with the young secretary that she is a nutcase that just needs a lot of attention. Or maybe they just discover that the age difference becomes more obvious and annoying over time. Or maybe they discover that the young secretary just loves to have sex – and dumps the midlife bachelor after several months. All of these scenarios are very possible, even probable. I cannot think of one single instance where a man or a woman that I know has fooled around on their wife or husband, left them for this other person, and then had a successful relationship with the person they cheated with. That’s why I believe the key to success is knowing that you will still be better off if that new relationship burns out quickly.
I personally have experienced success and failure with respect to “the grass is greener” scenarios in my midlife bachelor past. Let’s start with the failure. There was Becky, the blonde bombshell who I had been strongly attracted to for many years – but who was living with her boyfriend when we started having lunch together as friends. I had also been dating a woman for a while at that time – one who I was very attracted to, but also who was extremely critical of me at all times. I loved that girlfriend – but she made my life hell a good part of my waking hours … and I often thought that I needed to replace her, but never took the necessary proactive steps to do so. Then Becky and I started hanging out together for lunch once a week or so. We had been friends for a long-time, but I had never hid the fact that I thought Becky was very, very hot. One time at lunch, Becky and I found ourselves in my kitchen – and some kind of chemistry just took us both over … we started making out madly with one another. We didn’t have sex – not that day … as she wound up pulling away when I started tugging on her pants. But she kept coming over for lunch, and with each successive lunch – we started getting more and more friendly with one another … until one day, we could not hold back, and started having what I would call massive sex with one another. “Massive sex” for me meant that I would make love to her between three and five times in one two-hour session. I had not come that many times since my early twenties – so this was a very intense experience for me … mind-shattering to be accurate. I didn’t think it was even possible for me to have sex like that – I would have bet money against it, in fact. These once a week massive sex sessions soon turned into twice a week … Becky would come over, and attack me at my front door. It was absolutely intense. But Becky could not live with the guilt associated with her current boyfriend – so one day she announced to me that she moved into her own apartment, and had done so to be with me. Okay – I’ll be honest with you here … previously, I had no intention of leaving my girlfriend for Becky. In my head, I was simply fucking her – and so I had not really considered the situation as I described it as being a possibility. But since Becky made this blind commitment to me, I went ahead and dumped my troublesome girlfriend – and then took up with Becky full-time. Now you know from my earlier discussions that the Becky relationship went bad in a hurry – she turned out to be trash-mouthed (which I cannot stand), and I also had some extreme differences of opinion with respect to how she was raising her daughter … so the relationship went nuclear … there were no survivors. Was I better off without the previous girlfriend? Probably – but at least that girlfriend was somewhat stable, and decent … plus she would have been a much better mother to my potential children than Becky. My point – both Becky and I thought that the grass was greener … but once we made the switch, we soon realized that we were wrong. The grass was not greener in our case. Be careful what you wish for!
Okay – so how about a successful “grass is greener” story? You may remember me writing about Joyce – the hot divorcee who I met on-line, but became bored with over time. I knew after several months that Joyce and I would be better off as friends – but I maintained the relationship because I thought she was really nice. However, well before I met Joyce on-line, I had met the hot Latina nurse named Debi on-line – but Debi was not yet really ready to date. After months of dating Joyce, and being bored with her – Debi got back in touch with me and suggested we go to dinner again. [The one single time I had met Debi way before, we went to dinner and had a great goodnight kiss makeout session.] I was still technically dating Joyce when the day came to go out with Debi – and Debi called that afternoon, and said that we should just hang out at my house that night instead of doing some formal dinner date. [Remember that whenever a woman tells you that she wants to hang out at your home – that good things are about to happen to you, right?] Anyway, Debi came over that night – and we had a number of drinks … followed by a very nice makeout session … followed by mad passionate sex on my living room carpet. Debi was just so damn sexy that I couldn’t hold the chemistry back – the only thing I could do was to pull off her skirt, and just give it to her. And she loved it. She loved it so much that she told me she wanted to see me more. The next date with Debi went essentially the same way – but with her spending the night. And so (in the interest of pursuing a “grass is greener” policy) I promptly dumped Joyce the next day. Debi didn’t last forever – but she could have. I loved her so much. Even though my relationship with Debi ultimately failed, I still consider the switch from Joyce to Debi a success … because at the time, I really felt like I needed to let Joyce go out and pursue someone who was interested in her for the long-term. In other words, with Joyce – I felt that staying with her was essentially “leading her on”, and I didn’t think that was fair to her.
