Grumpy: Angel, ha! She’s a female! And all females is poison! They’re full of wicked wiles!
Bashful: What are wicked wiles?
Grumpy: I don’t know, but I’m agin’ ’em.

— Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

It took a lot of time after my divorce before I started dating again.  In fact, it was over two years from the time that my ex decided it was best that we go our separate ways until I met Irish Woman.  I knew I was angry, both at my ex and at women in general.   I recognized that if I were to have anything to do with a woman, it would not be healthy, and nobody deserved to be my emotional punching bag while I got myself together.  I wasn’t quite as abrupt about it as Grumpy, but the underlying feeling was the same.  I guess you could call it ‘irrationally applying a bad filter to all inputs from women’.

Luckily for me, Irish Woman showed me that not all women were evil, hateful things.  She showed me that I was a better man than the thing that was sitting at the bottom of my psyche.  Our relationship and family are rarely easy, but they’re definitely the best I’ve ever had.