Single Again: What Women Want, Part 2“Cherish is the Word”

By: Lucy Connor
It has been a while since I wrote the first installment of What Women Want, and every day since I published that article I thought about what the next one should be. Today, out of the clear blue, it came to me. Remember this part of your wedding vows?
 “I promise to love you without reservation,
comfort you in times of distress,
encourage you to achieve (higher/all of your) goals,
laugh with you and cry with you,
grow with you in mind and spirit,
always be open and honest with you,
and cherish you for as long as we both shall live.” (Traditional Wedding Service)
We want to be recognized, encouraged, comforted and…… cherished. Cherished. Webster’s defines cherish as “to protect and care for someone lovingly”. Basically, if someone cherishes you, he has your back. You are not an object put on earth to wait on him, clean up after him, tend to his needs, or put up with his disrespect. You are his BFF, the one he wants to talk to at any and all hours of the day and night, the one he comes to with news of his day. You are the first one he thinks of when something funny happens, the last one he thinks of before he goes off to sleep. You are the person whose heart he always protects…forsaking other urges and temptations. You are his muse, his love…the joy and center of his life.
Sounds like a tall order? For me it sure does. In this no man’s land of Mid-life, after divorce dating, it seems a miracle if a guy I have gone out with even calls to chat once or twice after the date. I recently had a second experience with a man I met in a dating site about six months ago. The day we met in person, I of course, drove to him. We met in a park and he said we were going to walk around the park and get to know each other. Instead, we stood outside of his car in the parking lot talking for several hours. Needless to say, after this less than thoughtful beginning, I was not in a hurry to go out again. We did not talk for quite a while then he re-appeared. We messaged on facebook and texted a bit. He came over to just hang out and by the end of the night I had to basically ask him to leave. He did not come over because he enjoyed my company or because he wanted to get to know me. He came over for other, less than noble reasons.
What happened to manners? What happened to respecting a lady and wanting to learn something about her? What happened to the romance that through nurture and friendship, blossoms into love? Have we become a society so entrenched in ourselves that we cannot look up and see the person on the other side of the table as being someone you want to know inside and out?
As a middle aged woman, a successful survivor of mid-life divorce…I want someone who wants ME. I may be imperfect, no longer a youthful beauty. I might forget where I put things and I might have a few ugly veins in my legs. Does this mean I am unworthy of being someone’s forever?

In the unrelenting quest to find a forever at this age, it is necessary to remember that when we love someone…we cherish that person. We have that person’s best interest in our hearts and heads at all times. We have our partner’s back…for better and for worse. It is only through the experience of putting our forever first that we can truly experience love.
“Cherish is the word I use to describe all the feelings that I have hiding here for you inside
I don’t know how many times I’ve wished that I had told you
I don’t know how many times I’ve wished that I could hold you
I don’t know how many times that I’ve wished that I could mold you into someone who could cherish me as much as I cherish you. And I do cherish you. Cherish is the word.”(The Association)



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