If you’re thinking about divorce or recently divorced, you may wonder, “Do good men exist?” Here’s what to consider if you’re worried about being single.
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Transcript: Do Good Men Exist?
Anne: I’m more than excited to have my friend Gretchen Baskerville on today’s episode. She’s a Christian living in the Los Angeles area. She’s been doing Christian divorce recovery ministry in churches since 1998. She hears many, many heartbreaking stories of betrayal and abuse, as you can imagine. We’re talking about do good men exist.
They think I better make it work with this guy. They’re terrified to be single. Because I don’t want to be single, and it’s going to be too hard for me to find a good man. At the end, we’re going to address the question, do good men exist? And we’re going to start by talking about a different way to reframe being single. Welcome Gretchen.
Gretchen: It’s so great to be with you again, Anne.
Gretchen: You just said how happy you were to be divorced.
The Hard Decision Of Divorce & Myths
Gretchen: And I truly look back now, 25 years later and say, divorce is the hardest decision I ever made. But it was also one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. And because we as Christians, as people of devout faith, we take marriage very, very seriously. We don’t believe in I’m bored divorces or I miss the party life divorces.
We hang in there. And we hang in there oftentimes longer than is good for us and for our children. As a devout person of faith. I am against frivolous divorce, but I am 100% in favor of life saving divorces because it saves the life of parents and children.
So let’s jump into those myths. I think the first myth, especially as a person of faith, at least in my upbringing, was you’re really nothing without a husband. After going through trauma you may wonder, do good men exist? You don’t have an identity without a man. For those biblically oriented, I would say there are plenty of women who are heroines in their own right in the Bible. So, for example, Ruth is already a heroine before meeting Boaz.
Deborah, Abigail, Dorcas, look at the midwives in the story of Moses’ birth. I mean, they were amazing. They stood against the great pharaoh of Egypt. As I came through this, and of course the first two years of divorce, my life was just topsy turvy. I just didn’t know which way was up. I was really numb for the first six months. And I started reading single women’s missionary biographies. I know that sounds crazy, I’m sure you’ve got some on your reading list.
Societal Pressures & Misconceptions
Gretchen: They were so inspiring to me, because here are these women who go to some foreign country and are virtually alone. They have very little support, and because they’re not married, they don’t fit into any society. And yet they do amazing things. I soaked myself in these kinds of stories. I realized, God called plenty of women to do great things.
And God didn’t call us to stay in these marriages to enable sin, cover up sin, pretend sin didn’t exist, what you call wickedness. He didn’t call us to bring up our children in a wicked home. My first myth is that you’re nothing without a husband. I think it’s just false, because the Lord uses people wherever they are. and he empowers and strengthens. He didn’t put us on this planet to cover up sin.
Anne: I did not marry until I turned 30, almost 31. I’ve only been married once, and I remember vividly right after high school, I worked at a video store. A woman from my church came in. And she said, Oh, who are you dating? I said, I’m not dating anybody right now. And she said, Oh, I’m so sorry. You don’t have a life.
Gretchen: Oh my.
Anne: And I remember thinking, I’m going to graduate from college. What are you talking about? That I don’t have a life. I have friends. I have interests. Am I literally nothing to you? Because I don’t have a boyfriend? And that idea that women aren’t anything, if they don’t have someone to define them, is crazy. Women can do amazing things, all by themselves. So let’s look at the second myth.
Do Good Men Exist? Build Freindship With The Good People Already In Your Life
Gretchen: All right, this one’s embarrassing to me. That women’s friends in your twenties are just placekeepers until you find a man, your soulmate. Women friends aren’t all that valuable. They’re disposable. I’m embarrassed to tell you that in my upbringing, marriage was promoted so much that this is the direction it went. Nobody actually taught this verbally. This was never spoken, always unspoken.
Wow, was I wrong! So I got divorced in 1996, and in 1998 at my church, I met in one of the Sunday school classes, a woman who was raising four kids by herself with almost no child support. I had two kids, and I was completely in awe of her. It was difficult for them. They had this old clunker car and a shabby tiny little apartment. But they had love, safety and acceptance, and we got to be best friends.
Every Saturday, we would walk down the street together for an hour at the beach. We live near the coast in Los Angeles area. She was an introvert and I was an extrovert. So we just made sure that we each got about 30 minutes to share. Then we prayed for each other at the end of our walk. And together, we started a group for other single mothers in our church. And this small group was absolutely fantastic. We were supporting each other, not worrying about, do good men exist.
I have never seen so many strong, courageous women knocking it out of the ballpark every day. We had teachers, a swim coach, a small business owner, a childcare provider, a paralegal, a homeschool mother, a manicurist and a disabled woman. We were all proud survivors, and our own community. If you feel the need for support, join Betrayal Trauma Recovery’s Group Sessions.
Closeness Of Caring
Gretchen: We were like heroines to each other, and we shared our hope and our experience with one another and prayed for one another. Sometimes we helped each other financially. And when you do that week after week for years, you realize that this is the best group you’ve ever been in. Whether Bible study or church, small group or adult education, it is absolutely so powerful.
There was so much emotional closeness and caring, and women would come to our group from other churches. They’d come to our group and cry for the first three weeks. And then they would sense the Lord’s presence, and they would start to feel that hope and faith. There is something special about the dynamic of women friends when there’re no men around. First, there’s no sexuality to motivate you or cover up one another’s slights.
We have to put in effort to keep our women friends. We have to learn to behave well. And have to learn to take turns paying for coffee. We have to learn to hold up our end of the friendship.Those are such wonderful, maturing character traits to learn. As you can imagine, when you’ve done that for 15 years with an amazing close cadre of women. When you start dating again, I started comparing all the men to these close girlfriends, I kept wondering if good men even exist.
You know, probably like you’ve experienced, most of them couldn’t hold a candle to my girlfriends. I mean, they didn’t have authenticity. They didn’t have integrity. They weren’t as financially responsible as my single mom friends. And so it was pretty easy to identify and ditch the losers, because I had the loving warm community around me.
The Impact Of Abusive Relationships On Friendships
Gretchen: And I think that’s one of the most powerful things, and this is something that anyone can do in their own church or ward. They can start a group like this. It just becomes wonderful. It’s easiest to start it at the same time other groups are going on at the church. So there’s free childcare, but this becomes an amazing place for fellowship.
Anne: And for those introverts out there that are like me, who might not want to like start a group. Because that feels overwhelming, just making one friend to go for a walk or doing something with the friend regularly, can help.
Gretchen: um,
Anne: And that’s also a good place to start. It feels like when women find our community. Their abusive spouses think like, Oh, they’re a bad influence on you, right? Because they start setting boundaries. They start being more healthy. And start maybe doing more self care, and then the abuser doesn’t have as much control. And so that feels uncomfortable to him, and he tries to undermine it. Abusive men would also likely try to undermine women’s friendships with other women.
Do Good Men Exist? Abuse Of The Marriage & Trust
Gretchen: At least in my church, the unspoken message is, if you’re a godly woman and have done your best to be a radiant virgin bride on your wedding day. That you’re going to get this incredible, emotionally intimate, connected spouse. This husband, and you’re going to have a mind blowing love life. Teachers taught this. It’s a form of what I would call prosperity gospel. If you’re good, you’ll get a good man.
If you’ve got some secret sin or you’re covering up something, well, then you’re going to get someone bad. But I mean, I don’t know how you could be more of a goody two shoes than I was as a kid. I wasn’t perfect. Obviously nobody’s perfect. But man, I got in trouble for staying up till midnight reading my Bible, okay? I was part of youth groups, youth choir, and everything. And all my friends were Christians.
And yet I married someone with serious, serious character issues. I know you talk about those kinds of things all day long, so we won’t go into that. In my case, it wasn’t so much abuse, as it was immorality, covert, chronic, scary and illegal.
Anne: Which is, by the way, abuse.
Gretchen: Yes, yes it is.
Anne: Criminal sexual behavior is abuse, they’re a registered offender and abuser. The emotional abuse, psychological abuse, lying, gaslighting and all that is all occurring. Here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, infidelity is abuse. They’re abusing the relationship. They’re abusing the marriage and your trust.
Gretchen: Any kind of betrayal is abuse, emotional abuse.
Anne: Yeah.
Gratitude For Girlfriends
Gretchen: And when you’re always wondering what’s going on with that other person, because they live a completely separate second life, a hidden secret life. Yep. I mean, you never know when the other shoe will drop. I worried, you know, will my name be on the front page of the Los Angeles Times? This is awful stuff. So yeah, it’s definitely abusive. I agree with you.
Anne: Yeah, I am so grateful for my girlfriends. Girlfriends that I made in my late twenties when I was single. And are still my best friends today, who have stuck with me. They have been my support and strength. And also, my sister and my mom have been an amazing support system to me. I’m grateful that I had time in my twenties to develop that. So many women, especially women of faith, are married early.
And so when they find themselves divorced, they haven’t had that experience of maybe making adult women friends. And so instead of being like, I don’t know how to do that. If we have that growth mindset to say, I have the opportunity to do that now. You’ll find real, true, emotional intimacy. And platonic love with your girlfriends, and it’s really, really amazing.
Gretchen: It is really something. My family raised me in a very devout conservative family. I thought divorce was like the worst possible thing that could happen to me. Even though I had valid grounds, it somehow reflected and told the world that I lacked personal maturity or spiritual maturity. So I was pretty eager.
The Reality Of Post-Divorce Life
Gretchen: Straight out of my divorce, you know, I thought, Oh my goodness. I hope I remarry fast. I wasn’t as far along as you are, Anne. Looking back now. I’ll be vulnerable and honest. If you had told me I would be single for three years, I might not have filed for divorce. If you told me I’d be single for five years. I would curl up on the floor in fetal position, sucking my thumb.
And I ended up divorced, a single mom for 20 years. And I’ve got to tell you. The Lord just completely rebuilt my life. He restored the years, the locust ate. It took me a while to get back to my normal level of happiness. And then I went through a lot of court abuse. There was a lot of post separation abuse from my ex-husband. 10 years of my husband dragging me into court over and over, with him wanting joint custody. And me saying, you know, over my dead body. I wanted to build my life on my own and not worry about finding a good man.
What I found is that as the Lord carried me through each day, every 24 hours, I was still alive. I did not always get the answers to prayer I wanted. God often answered later than I wanted him to answer. And he didn’t give me the answer I wanted. Looking back, I see that it was what was best for me. It wasn’t what my church had told me was the ideal situation. I can honestly say at year five, I was happier than I had ever been in my life. That’s year five after separation.
Do I Need A Good Man: Contentment In Singleness
Gretchen: And by year seven, I had completely rebuilt my financial stability. And that felt great. It felt great to store away money for retirement. And feel like, you know what, even if I never remarry, there are many women who don’t ever want to remarry. A survey done a few years back showed that four in 10 were absolutely sure they did not want to remarry.
And I found myself getting very, very content, and really even enjoying my singleness, and wondering if I could adjust to the constriction of my friendships, if I ever remarried.
Anne: Yeah, I was single. until 31. Then police arrested my ex when I was 37 and my youngest was 11 months old.
Gretchen: Oh, wow.
Anne: And now I’m 44. So since 20, that’s 24 years, I’ve only been married for seven of those. Singleness is familiar to me, and I enjoy it. But post divorce, the first, two, three, four years are really hard. Even though I was happy to be divorced and proud that I was divorced, and for surviving what I had been through. It was about year five, six, seven that I started to feel like, Oh, this feels good.
So I don’t want to misrepresent this. And say like, once you divorce, everything will be amazing immediately. You have to rebuild your life, and it takes time, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And you will be okay whether or not you know, find a good man.
Gretchen: The idea that all your problems will disappear, you know, two to three years after your divorce. No, that’s just not going to happen. What I tell people is that you’ll return to your normal level of happiness within two to three years.
The Importance Of Prayer & Faith
Gretchen: I’m a person who was dragged into court for the next ten years, and I can tell you I was on my knees in prayer. I asked people to pray for me. I was frightened, I had insomnia, all kinds of things just begging the Lord. Please affect the mind and heart of the judge. You know, I need help here. I can’t have shared custody with this man. So, when I say that by year five, I was happy, that doesn’t mean my external circumstances had all resolved themselves.
But there’s something about watching the Lord rescue you day after day, week after week, month after month, that you start to realize, okay, he’s got my back. And that’s really important.
Anne: I relate so much. I went through that exact same thing for eight years post divorce, and was praying and praying. And the Lord led me to the strategies I now teach in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. And they helped me so much. Of course, I had to get them into a workshop once I learned them and once they delivered me. It was a miracle to see that come together. I was doing great independently, not worried about finding a good man.
I was shocked that my prayers had been answered, but also not shocked, because I had been praying for it for so long. And even though I give all the credit to God, I feel like those strategies he gave me apply no matter what your situation. Because they’re not specific to whether you’re married or divorced, they’re not specific to what he’s doing. They’re principles and strategies that can be applied in any situation.
The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop
Anne: Really quick, you said something, you’ll get back to your normal level of happiness. I want to acknowledge that there are women in our community who perhaps married at 18 or 20. They didn’t have the opportunity to even explore that before they married their abuser. And then for the next, maybe 10, 15, 20 or 30 years , they were being abused continually. And so they might think, what is my normal level of happiness? I don’t even know who I am. I don’t know what I’m doing.
It’s also an opportunity to not just go back to your “normal” level of happiness. But also decide who you want to be and the kind of life you want to live, and start working toward that. There are exercises to help you do that in The Living Free Workshop. I wanted to include healing exercises in the workshop to help women move forward.
You can get more information about The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop by clicking on this link. It’s so hopeful that you can build the life you want with or without a good man.
Gretchen: It’s absolutely fantastic. One of the little things that really, made me feel alive was learning how to fix basic things around the house by watching YouTube videos.
Wow, I believed fixing things was a man’s job, and that makes you feel helpless. The first time you watch a basic YouTube video on how to change the flapper on a toilet. And you do it yourself, and you go, wow. I mean, I’d have to watch these YouTube videos like five times. Okay. I’m ready. I’m ready, I’m going to do it. But the sense of accomplishment you get standing on your own two feet is priceless.
Do Good Men Exist? Overcoming Myths & Misconceptions
Gretchen: There are so many myths that we get in our religious communities. If you’re divorced and haven’t remarried, you must be spiritually lacking. You must have some secret sin, or maybe you’re not mature. Another big myth that I see in churches is that if you divorce, you’re going to bring your problems into the next marriage.
And it’s going to fail too. Which is an ugly, ugly thing to say. And it totally ignores the fact that you weren’t the cheater, you weren’t the abuser, you weren’t the addict, and you’re not bringing them into your next marriage. Another one is that if you were just godly and prayed.
Anne: As if you’ve never prayed about it ever. Then they tell you the story of the night they prayed to find their righteous husband. And the next day they met them at the dance. And because they had that experience, they assume the reason you’re single is because you don’t talk to God, apparently. You have just been surviving, not looking for men to rescue you.
Gretchen: Yeah, it’s offensive that they would, assume that about us. You know, obviously you did something wrong. That’s the automatic knee jerk reaction.
Anne: You either did something wrong or you haven’t done the right thing.
Gretchen: Yes, okay, omission or commission, exactly. At any rate, you could have fixed this had you just done something different. And you know, life isn’t that way. I mean, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Some of the most evil people have had these charmed lives. You know, it just doesn’t work that way.
The Role Of Self-Examination & Boundaries
Gretchen: If you did a lot of self examination and turned yourself inside out. And tried to find that secret sin and uncovered it, that God suddenly brought you the love of your life. Another one is that you’re being punished for something. And that’s rarely spoken. That’s kind of just this undercurrent that you’re being punished.
I’ve found women who maybe slept with their high school boyfriend one time, and then they ended up marrying an abuser and felt like, okay, this is God’s punishment. I deserve it, and I have to stay in this. And then I’ll never, ever find a good man to marry.
Anne: Even that they slept with their abuser before they were married, and their punishment is then that they have to be married to them forever.
Gretchen: Yes, yes, yes, I hear that a lot too. I slept with him, so I had to marry him.
Anne: I didn’t feel right about it and I’ve been trying to work it out ever since. He’s been abusive ever since. if you’re Christian, Christ came to deliver you. He came to save you. So if you made that mistake of sleeping with your abuser, and you feel like you have to stay married to him, that’s not what Christ would say. He would say, I came to redeem you, save you, and to deliver you.
Gretchen: When we actually look at the life of Christ. It’s a whole different ballgame than some of these covert messages we’re getting from our spiritual communities. So for example, Luke 13, I call Luke 13 my favorite divorce story with Jesus, except for it doesn’t mention divorce anywhere.
Christ’s Teachings On Deliverance
Gretchen: So Jesus is in the synagogue, and he sees a woman who has been disabled by an evil spirit for 18 years. And she’s hunched over, and he calls out to her. It’s the Sabbath and says, come and be healed. She takes the step. Now, she knows that the synagogue leaders are not gonna like this, but she is courageous, and she takes the step toward Jesus. And He heals her.
Oh my goodness, the synagogue leaders go nuts. They say there are six days a week that you can heal people, but that’s work. This is the Sabbath. You can’t work on the Sabbath. And they tell the rest of the crowds of disabled people to go away, and Jesus is having nothing of this. This is Luke 13 again, and he says, you guys on the Sabbath, you take your donkeys and your oxen and water them. You treat them well on the Sabbath.
This woman is a daughter of Abraham, and you’re treating her worse than a donkey. She is a precious daughter. Jesus isn’t having any of this sanctimoniousness. He came to release us from evil and deliver us from evil. And that’s, the prayer many of us pray regularly. Are we going to take that prayer seriously? Do we want the Lord to deliver us from evil? Yes, that’s what he came to do.
Anne: Yeah, so you were mentioning things like trying to find your own secret sin, trying to make yourself perfect. For the agnostic or secular women who are listening, thank you for listening as we share stories from our own faiths. Your goodness should exist for your own self not just for a good man.
Do Good Men Exist? Secular Myths About Singleness
Anne: Some secular myths might be like, you need to work out more. Or if you were fun, or if you were easier to talk to, maybe you’d be married. My dad was ridiculous when I was in my twenties, and he always said things. Like, well, maybe if you made them a basket of brownies and wrote a nice note. Did you say at the end of the date, I had a good time? I enjoyed your company. I would like to go out with you again.
And I’m like, Dad, there’s not some formulaic thing, and if you do these steps, you will get married. Also, I’m not married, because I’m not doing some certain thing. We’ve all met women who are socially awkward. I might be one of them. Or they might not be “the most attractive” or something like that. Who have loving husbands. Who have good relationships with non-abusive men. Do good men exist? Yes, but you don’t have to be perfect. When people say, well, you’ve got to put your best foot forward,
Gretchen: Right, right.
Anne: I say, no, because I don’t want someone to fall in love with my foot. I want them to fall in love with me. So I’m just going to be myself.
Gretchen: I love that.
Anne: I would tell my dad, he would just shake his head and be like, oh, Anne is never going to get married. She just doesn’t get it. And so that was also, I think for me, an extra hard thing. That at 30 I get married, and it feels like this miracle to people, because they maybe thought I was never going to get married. Then to get divorced after that.
Rejecting Stereotypes & Embracing Authenticity
Anne: And be single again is like, oh, so she is meant to be single. Yes, and you know, what’s funny is I’m like, maybe I was, I enjoyed being single. It’s awesome. Like maybe that is God’s will for me. Maybe I operate the most happily in the world as a single person.
Gretchen: Yeah, absolutely, because I think singleness has tremendous advantages. Just the freedom to do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, is amazing. And the freedom to have friendships with such a wide variety of people. But I wanted to go back to what you said, where we have to feel like we have to fulfill this womanly mold. You know, like your dad’s saying, make the brownies, you just have to reject the myth that all men want this.
All men want you to be feminine, sweet, and quiet, and a good cook and all that. And I thought, I’m sorry, that’s not me. I come from a car family, an automobile family, and I’ve always loved cars. I cried when my parents sold the first car I remember from childhood. And my father drove sports cars, not super expensive ones, but more like the little pocket rockets. And I knew what people were thinking.
Good Christian men see a middle aged single woman driving her Corvette, and they don’t find that attractive. They don’t like women who are confident drivers. Or they might say, you know, good Christian men don’t want women who attract attention to themselves. And so there’s these messages that you can’t be you.
Finding Love & Acceptance
Gretchen: And I remarried at age 57. So I was single a long time. I was plump, I was opinionated. I was used to having authority over men, because I was a top executive in a company. And I had many men reporting directly to me. I just came to the point in my life where I’m not going to apologize for who I am. And lo and behold, a man came in my life with whom I had worked about 10 years before.
And we liked each other, and he loved who I was. He loved having an outspoken, fast driving, girlfriend and wife. And we have had a lovely, lovely marriage for over five years now.
Anne: That is wonderful. It’s interesting Gretchen, because people ask me. You get to know thousands of victims in all your work, women who have been abused by men. Because we only deal with that here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery. Do you just hate men, or do you see abuse in all men? And, the more I’ve learned about abuse, the more I’ve learned to recognize healthy behaviors. Actually, I have more hope now than ever. I have healthy men in my life now that I really appreciate.
One of them is my uncle, who has helped me so much with so many things. I just talked with him yesterday, and we have such a good, sweet relationship. I appreciate my aunt, who I don’t talk to her often. And my relationship with my dad, brothers, even my dentist, colleagues, or my best friends husbands who are supportive of me. When I’m at their home having dinner, we get along well. Do good men exist? Yes they do.
Do Good Men Exist? The Importance Of Safe Friendships
Anne: They ask me how I’m doing, and I feel like I have a good relationship with them. So it’s been interesting to see how many healthy men there are, and how comfortable and peaceful I can feel. And how supported I can feel. It feels good to start there with friendships, because then I know more about what I’m looking for when it comes to dating when I choose to date. Like as we separate ourselves from abuse, we can also see the healthy behaviors in the men in our lives.
Gretchen: Yes, you mentioned the uncle or a good friend’s husband, somebody very, very safe. I mean, I think we need to retrain our minds. When we’ve been hurt to realize that real men, good men, safe men, want mutual support, integrity, emotional honesty and closeness. They aren’t into seduction and manipulation, and love bombing. And, of course, there are people we can’t trust. There are men we can’t trust, and there are women we can’t trust.
But in 20 years of having close friendships with safe men, I have been able to weed out the bad ones, and I never had any trouble with the good ones. And it’s based on having good boundaries and watching them. Okay, so a man with good boundaries is like this. A man who’s safe. A man who cares about my well-being, not just love bombing me, is like this. I worked in a male dominated industry, so men surrounded me all the time.
Do good men exist? Yes, they proved to me year after year that there were many good men out there. Now, I will say that in 20 years, I did have two step over the line, and I immediately distanced myself from them.
Healthy Men & Boundaries
Gretchen: But I didn’t say, this is my fault for interacting with men, working with men, and confiding in men. This is that person’s problem. It’s not my problem. And I just moved away from them, stepped back. Just as we want to find good, healthy women, especially single moms, who are walking with integrity, courage and strength. At the same time, we know that they’re juggling fear, doubts and worries. The same thing goes for men.
And, every good person we have in our life who is respectful and has good boundaries helps us develop self respect and good boundaries.
Anne: Yeah, I’m thinking about addicts or abusers and how you could be friendly. And say, Hi, how are you doing? Just as a regular person. And they tend to think that women flirt with them.
Gretchen: Yeah.
Anne: Right, good men do exist? I’ve noticed that healthy men could be like, hi, how are you doing? And they’re like, I’m fine. How are you? They don’t think you’re flirting with them. And they think you’re just having a regular conversation. They don’t assume everything is flirting or something’s going to happen. Because they’re secure in the relationship they have with their wife or their situation. And so they’re free to just see you as a person.
And I want to tell one story of my best friend’s husband. He’s amazing. And the other day I was talking. And I said, the addiction industrial complex sometimes says things like, well women, you have to be safe enough. So that your husbands will tell you about their affair.
Interacting With Healthy Men
Anne: Or about their pornography use. And he just started laughing, and he was like, what? What are you talking about? Like, of course, they’re going to be angry. Does any man think like, Oh, she’s going to get angry, so I’m not going to tell her? His reaction was genuine, and it was so unfathomable to him that someone would think that.
And that’s the type of stuff that we get all the time with abuse or people trying to enable abuse. Where it’s like, well, this is the reason he did it. Rather than thinking, there is no reason. It’s ridiculous, and it has nothing to do with you. The reason he didn’t tell you about his affair was because he was trying to protect himself and keep having the affair.
It wasn’t because he was worried about hurting your feelings. So, interacting with good men sort of helps you see like, Oh, their reaction to this is different. Than the ten men my husband hung out with that were all addicts. Who were telling each other how hard it was, that their secretary was coming on to them when she wasn’t at all. When she was just sitting there doing her work.
Gretchen: Yes, only in their own mind.
Anne: Exactly, Gretchen, thank you so much for coming on today’s episode.
Gretchen: It has been a real pleasure, Anne. Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you guys.
This was very cool and I enjoyed listening. It seems so hard if not hopeless to even meet single men that are decent men that are somewhat attractive with even a job somewhat close to my almost senior age. It seems so many men too out there have addictions to inappropriate stuff online!! I do not use dating apps whatsoever and won’t. I believe they have proved to be very dangerous. I don’t mind being single really. I do find though I run into many scary situations out there because I haven’t had a car in a few years that I walk places more and am constantly having men in cars trying to approach me and I’m just dressed in jeans and hoodies not even in decent shape. I’ve had men literally follow me a few times to my building and walk around inside the building . It’s nicer not as scary when I had my boyfriend this never happened. The difference between owning a vehicle and not owning one is huge. sadly I doubt I will be able to own a car again but I will see . I can’t even imagine if this all the time happens to me how hard it must be for younger in better shape women must go through daily that don’t own vehicles! Really the police need to do something about this and maybe just pay attention to women that are walking for a few minutes to notice if men are following them etc. I’m in Los Angeles all my life and it’s horrible here with men who use women as their preferred “drug”. Men will be driving along side of me while I’m walking literally with their phone having exploitative material on it , I can see it while driving along side of me trying to talk to me for sometimes 20 mins even. It gets scary as hell. It’s made me cry a couple times and then be really afraid and scared to go somewhere. It’s then afterwards made me so angry. Ladies at the very least carry pepper spray on you where you can reach it in two seconds flat while walking. The ten bucks appx it costs could literally make the difference of you being thrown into a vehicle or not!