Monthly Archives: August 2011

Falling short of perfect

Posted on by l0velyjune
2

I’ve  been wanting to write this post for a while now, but kept putting it off.  It’s so easy to fall into the trap of believing that once you’re “recovered” you are, for all intents and purposes, perfect. The pillar of  healthy perfection. But unfortunately (or fortunately!), I still have a ton of flaws that keep me grounded and always remind me that I will probably never transcend the ties that still bind me to who I used to be. Nor will anyone else. Sure, I’ve changed. Big time. But there are still remnants of me left over from my years of bad relationships and low self-esteem that pop up every once in a while and flick me off my pedestal. Sure, I always talk about how I’ve changed, but here are a few habits that I still haven’t (yet) been able to kick.

1. I still have a poor self-image of my body. This could strictly be a woman thing. But I think I am chunky and “big” and awkward.  Meanwhile, I am 5’4″, weigh 124 pounds, and wear a size 4 dress. I only eat extremely healthy foods (OK, I occasionally I eat junk), but I exercise 3-4 times a week and have no real discernible body fat. And yet, I see myself as a horse. Go figure. Definitely gotta work on this.

2. I sometimes still compare myself to others…and always come up short. D’s ex wife, for example. On the outside, she’s absolutely beautiful. Beautiful, skinny bod, gorgeous face, long flowy hair, great smile. When I compare myself to her, I simply feel like an ogre. In order to combat this, I tell myself that on the inside, she’s has nothing compared to me, which is true!. But I need to stop comparing myself to her and others.  When you make comparisons like this, you ALWAYS see your flaws, not theirs. And the grass is always greener. What helps is to put myself in their shoes and try to see the world as others might see it. When I do that, I am always able to recognize that no one is perfect and that what I’ve got ain’t so bad after all.

3. I still talk about old boyfriends. I really hate that I do this. D and I will be out driving around and we’ll pass a familiar site. And I’ll say, “Oh, that’s the spot where S and I used to go out to dinner,” or “G took me there all the time. ” I’ll mention things that happened, sad stories, funny stories, etc. And although D keeps in good humor, I can’t help but think that it’s just the wrong thing to do. If, for example, D talked about his exs all the time, I’d go nuts. Trouble is, that was my whole life. Men! So, while he’ll talk about sporting events with friends, or rallies, or political events he attended, or trips he took alone, I’ll talk about old boyfriends and dating. I think I need to give this up! It’s an ugly trait of mine.

4. I still procrastinate. I believe procrastination is a HUGE part of a Love Addict‘s make-up. We use love and relationship as a way to avoid our responsibilities and our pain, and the truth is, we procrastinate for the same reason. And while my habit of putting things off isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be, I could improve in this department.

5. I have a difficult time accepting undesirable traits in others. My mother overlooks everything. She loves and enjoys people for who they are inherently and she’s extremely patient with people and forgiving. Although I am forgiving, I am by no means patient or understanding. D is as perfect as it gets to being a great guy, but when he allows his daughter to eat one pea as a means of earning a huge 4-cookie dessert, I am exasperated. What is he thinking??? People’s faults are hard to overcome. And I believe it comes from my own unforgiving nature with myself. I should not be making any mistakes. And yet, I make so many! But this is  one of those things that I am working very hard on. I have found that the less caffeine I drink, the less likely I am to be impatient and agitated.

6. It’s very difficult for me to change, or be in a new situation. I have a hard time adapting to new circumstances. This may not be a unique trait. I think many people have a difficult time adapting to new circumstances. And yet, I feel as though I should adapt quickly. Maybe the true imperfection here is my inability to give myself a break and be more patient with my ability to change.

7. I tend to micromanage my life. I can even be a bit of a control freak. The thing that I tend to be most controlling about is, believe it or not, food. But rationally, I have no choice. I have to control what foods I eat because my system is so easily influenced by the smallest amount of sugar, caffeine, or alcohol. And if I want to maintain a state of equilibrium, I need to watch the amount of these things I consume. But, I can also be a little controlling over my environment too. Not that I tell people what to do, (well, sometimes I’ll hover over D in the kitchen  and tell him he needs to add more salt to the stew, or I’ll try to get his kids to eat their veggies) but I control what I do to the point where everyone around me needs to be aware. I need to sit in my own chair at the dinner table. I need quiet when I am reading. I need space and privacy  in my room at a certain time of night (when I get too tired) and I need to have my morning routine undisturbed lest I not wake up properly. Other than those instances of control over my world, I am rather adaptable in most other circumstances.

8. I still do not put forth enough effort to achieve my dreams. I want to write a book. I want to record music. I want to go back to grad school. I want to do this. And I want to do that. I end up only going so far before bailing out. The biggest issue is with my writing. I give up on getting my work published. Come on, Lovely! What’s holding you back?!

9. I still occasionally lose track of the bigger picture. Sometimes I can bemoan the little stuff. And it takes days to calm down, step back and say, is it really worth it arguing about this tiny point, when there’s more important things to worry about? But I think this kind of nitpicking comes during that time of the month. I am still a victim of my hormones!

10. I still occasionally obsess. I don’t obsess about D, or my family or my loved ones (you never obsess over that which is yours). But I find that I will obsess over my kids and sometimes work. In the case of my kids, it’s been a little difficult for me letting go of that control I always had over them. They are 11 and 13 now and want freedom out the wazoo and quite frankly, I think I am giving it to them, and yet, I still want to hold on. Being a mother of teenagers (and tweenagers) is definitely a hard task to a quasi control-freak like me. I need to learn to let go. And yet, I also need to hold on tight.

If I were completely able to manage these 10 issues would that make me perfect? Nope. I’m sure something else would crop up. And I’m not so sure having these issues means I am imperfect. These are my idiosyncrasies and I have learned that despite all the recovery work in the world, these traits are probably going no where. They are part of the landscape. And while I will still try for the rest of my life to work on improving myself, I am definitely going to try to be accepting of who I am and the baggage I come with. It’s the only way to survive and be relatively happy!

Top 10 lies we tell ourselves to keep hanging on…

Posted on by l0velyjune
1

So, you’re in a bad, dysfunctional, crappy relationship. How do you know this? Because despite your undying love for this person, you feel miserable, you’re not getting what you want and you’re in deep, emotionally pain. Red flags all over the place and yet, you’re not paying attention to any of them. Here are 10 lies we tell ourselves to remain anchored…

  1. I love him/her, or I’ve never felt this way about  anyone before. Love is like a sailboat. When it’s on the water, it carries you smoothly across the seas. But when it’s on dry land, it doesn’t do a damn thing.   Love is an almost pointless, burdensome  emotion when you feel it for someone who treats you like garbage. And that is why it is the number one WORST lie we tell ourselves to keep hanging on. Focus instead on the actions in your relationship. What is going on percentage wise. If you can’t see it clearly, keep a journal of your feelings (today, I was angry, today I felt good, today we fought again). Make sure you re-read it after a few months and with your BRAIN, not your heart or your emotions, gauge whether it is an overall healthy relationship or not. But do not base whether you remain in a relationship on love alone. Don’t base things on whether you have a sailboat or not. Base it on whether you’re trying to sail it on water or dry land.
  2. He said he loves me. So what. I love you too. And Britney Spears  loves her fans, each and every one of them. Love is action. Love shares the same values. Love doesn’t feel like pain. The love songs are WRONG. Love doesn’t hurt.
  3. He needs me. No he doesn’t. He’s a grown man. He’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Or, at least, he should be. If he’s really in need of an adult woman to take care of him, or keep him out of trouble, or whatever it is he can’t do himself, then you’re dating a teenager or worse, a toddler and not a man. Then again, maybe, you’re the one who really needs him…
  4. I need him. No you don’t. You just think you do. You are also a grown woman. People need each other situationally, not in entire relationships. You might “need” someone to get a dish down for you if it’s high up on a shelf (then again, get a chair). You might “need” someone to take care of you if you’re sick, you might “need” someone to set you straight every once in a while. But you should not need anyone financially, or emotionally or to be “around” to give you what you lack. Being grown up entails learning how to make do on your own even when you are lacking.  Sure this sounds cold and shrewd. Hollywood and American culture has defined people who take care of themselves  as cold and emotionless. SO not true. You can be independent, take care of yourself, not need anyone for anything AND have a loving, warm , passionate relationship.
  5. We work together/we live together. I have to make it work. Get a new job. Move out. These are excuses you use to keep you in a bad relationship that needs its proper burial. Getting a new job or finding a new place to live is extremely scary and disruptive. We all want stability and we’ll do darn near anything to keep it. But you have no right staying in a bad, loveless, or otherwise painful relationship just because you are afraid of change. Take a deep breath, open your eyes, and dive into the unknown. You both deserve this kind of freedom.
  6. I’d feel like I was giving up. Sometimes relationships do bear the weight of struggle. There are phases couples go through, and having patience and working through those troubles is a necessary part of your commitment. But ask yourself two questions: 1.) Is my partner as committed as I am when it comes to working through this? And 2.) When I take a hard look at the QUALITY of our relationship over its lifespan, what percent has been really good, as opposed to painful, and have I been able to maintain my values throughout? Be honest now. Giving up can be a good thing when it comes to toxic.
  7. I don’t want to be single again. Too bad. Not wanting to be single is like not wanting to go to the dentist to get root canal. It’s a part of taking care of yourself. Better yet, it’s an unnecessary fear. There are 96 million singles living in the US alone. 12.2 million widows, 3 million widowers,  and 25 million men and women who are divorced. It’s time to change your paradigm about being single. It doesn’t mean you’re always alone. It doesn’t mean you are unloved. And it certainly doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you (especially according to these stats). But being single does demand that you face yourself and learn to be independent. It means spending extra time getting to know what you like and what you are capable of. If you avoid being single at all costs, you deny yourself a chance to experience life in a new, positive way. Still need convincing? Read Jen Shefft’s book Better Single Than Sorry. As Jen says, “single doesn’t equal lonely…”
  8. No relationship is perfect. I need to accept that. Yup. You’re right. No relationship is perfect. But “perfect” should not be the standard to which you hold your relationship to. Nor should it be the highest measure which allows you to shoot close to perfect and be OK when you don’t reach it. In fact, perfect has no bearing on how to measure your relationship. But health does.  Health is a lot easier and more realistic to measure. Take people, for example. Say you have two friends: one smokes two packs of cigarettes a day, eats fried foods, never exercises, watches TV for 5 hours a day, has problems with obesity and was just told by his doc he has early onset Diabetes. The other friend is lean and fit, eats healthy, exercises every other day, educates herself and also just got back from the doctor. She gets a clean bill of health. She also manages her money well, volunteers in her community and is generally a happy person. Is she perfect? Nope. But she’s healthy. View your relationship in terms of health,  not perfection. Health is also something we can work towards, perfection is not.
  9. There’s no one else out there for me. If this is what you’re telling yourself, you are in serious depression and denial and need a wake up call. I understand that many people out there are in geographically challenged areas, maybe even isolated. I understand that we all don’t look like Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie. And I totally get the (faulty) thinking that there is only ONE soulmate out there for each of us (not!). I even get that the pool of available men shrinks the older we get. But this kind of thinking is a.) hopeless, b.) negative, c.) false, d.) limiting and e.) it ends up being prophetic if you really begin to believe it. Wipe it out of your mind. It’s an excuse to stay in a relationship that is poor and unhealthy simply because you are AFRAID to try again. Simply because you are afraid of taking a risk. Of course you want something better for yourself, but with this kind of thinking, you begin to believe that the risk of a better life is simply not worth taking. Why? Because there are no guarantees. And we want guarantees. Well, there are none. You need to get out of this relationship despite having another one to jump into.
  10. He’ll/She’ll change. He’s/She’s just not ready yet. A tiger can’t change its stripes, but it can change the direction is which its walking.  Do you see the difference between what it can change and can’t? Humans can also change certain things about themselves but not others. We can change a like or dislike, or even a habit. But we cannot generally change a value–something we inherently believe in. We can change our minds about something, but we cannot generally change our inherent nature. My point? He’s not going to change the fact that he neglects you. She’s not going to change the fact that she doesn’t really love you. You know how hard it is to change one little facet about you when you try so hard? Well, imagine how hard it is for someone who has no inclination to change. It’s pretty much impossible. Second point: YOU are not the one who will change him. Especially if you’ve been at it for quite some time now. Give up the fantasy. You’re life is not Love and Other Drugs,  Casablanca, The Notebook, or any other cheesy love story told on the big screen. Move on. Change what you can…yourself and your situation.

A fish is not a bird: having realistic expectations

Posted on by l0velyjune
2

I want to focus this blog on expectations, because they were such a huge part of my issue as a love addict. In simple terms, I had the wrong expectations of people throughout my life. I had high expectations at certain times, and low expectations at other times. Expectations confused me!

Expectations can be hugely tricky. We’re supposed to have high expectations of our partners. By having high expectations it proves that we demand the best for ourselves, doesn’t it? Well, yes and no. The trick is to have high expectations from someone who can realistically meet them. And this is something I never got. So, here’s a little repetition to help you understand this concept better than I ever did:

You cannot have healthy expectations of someone who is not healthy.

You cannot expect an unhealthy person to respond to you in a healthy way.

You cannot have high expectations  from someone who doesn’t have his/her own set of high expectations. 

Just as you cannot expect to have a logical, healthy, deep, meaningful conversation with a drunk or drug addict,  you cannot expect to have a logical, healthy, deep, meaningful conversation about love with someone who has so much trouble showing it or giving it or doesn’t have any to begin with.

And you cannot expect a fish to be a bird, and that’s most important. 

When I was younger I would date guys with no job, no way of caring for themselves, still living with mom, unable to take me out any where, and then I’d get angry because they needed to get their act together. Well, who’s the fool here?

I was. I expected them to be something they were not. And those expectations grew stronger and stronger until my frustrations got the best of me.

When that happened, I then went head-first into a relationship with no expectations. This was an equally bad idea. When you have no standards, no VALUES, you’re like a bad filtering system that lets all the junk in. You play Russian roulette and hope to get a winner. That’s no way to live, let alone choose a mate.

Unsolicited advice on expectations?

Have realistic expectations from people who can actually meet them. You can reasonably expect that a man who has worked every day of his life, providing for himself and saving his money will continue to make a good living and be able to afford a girlfriend. You can reasonably expect that a woman who has a loving family and treats her friends well will also treat you well. And you can reasonably expect that someone who has had a stable, loving relationship in his or her past (whether it worked out or not) is capable of having another stable, loving relationship.

Finally….how do you know you can expect certain things from certain people? You don’t know right off the bat. But you can make educated guesses, you can use your instinct, and best and most important of all….you can get to know people BEFORE creating any kind of love or sex relationship with them. Time is your most valuable possession as a recovering LA who is getting back into the dating world. DOn’t be afraid to wait. DOn’t be afraid to make use of Time.

And likewise, here’s something else that you can apply to the expectations you have of yourself: Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid. ~Albert Einstein

Bottom line: I think it is incredibly important to have high expectations of people. But they have to be the kind of people that can live up to them. And it’s your job to know the difference!

On sharing the past

Posted on by l0velyjune
7

Pernille finally sent me a copy of the film. (quick background info: I took part in a documentary about love addiction in 2008) Once home from vacation, D and I had a long talk about whether or not he’d like to see it. Or, for that matter, whether I’d like to show it.

This topic came up in the forums a couple weeks ago: do you share your love addiction with your “new” partner? Operative word being “new,” and my answer was a resounding No. Absolutely not. It would be like telling someone what you do while sitting on the toilet. It’s not very self-flattering and let’s face it, it makes others immediately assume you might be a bit unstable. Like it or not, people want to remain in denial over other people’s baggage. Besides, some things are better left unsaid– at least at the onset.

However, love addiction is a big part of our lives–or at least for some of us, it was, at one point. But unlike sitting on the potty (which, I’m pretty sure never needs to be discussed), you may want to share this part of who you are and what you have overcome.

In the early months of us dating (about 2 months in, maybe 3) I did tell him I took part in a documentary on love addiction. I told him, rather vaguely, that “love addiction” and “codependence” were things in my past that I was not too proud of, but that I had overcome them. Of course I downplayed it–not the struggle to survive and recover, but the “addiction.” Again, potty talk.  I left out the messy details, save a few comments about my bad marriage and what I’d been through. And after that,  I never mentioned anything more about it. He knew that I spent some of my free time on a “self-help forum,” and he knew I wrote a blog, but I never shared any of that with him. Again, I believed (and still do) that as with any struggle in our past, it is ours and ours alone to conquer. It is my job to recover from the loss of a loved one. It is my job to snap back after a tragedy. And it is my job to get over my hang-ups and move on. It is no one else’s responsibility but mine. Why put that on someone new? Why invite them into our darker selves? And why expect them to understand what any of it means?

Every once in a while a story would crop up and I’d mention it, and D would nod, or pat me on the back. He was very respectful of my LA. But I always felt that it was something he was afraid of, like the unknown, and so never wanted to rock the boat or open Pandora’s box. But after our talk the other day, I learned that wasn’t true at all. He simply wanted to respect my privacy and thought If she wants to tell me I’ll let her do so on her own time, without trying to pry it out of her.

With that said, I asked, “So then, would you like to see the film?”

“Of course,” he said. “It’s a part of who you are.”

SO, we watched it together, and though I flinched–yet again– at seeing myself on the big screen, D was fascinated.

His overall comment about the film, this coming from someone who knows little to nothing about love addiction, was: Why include the extreme story of a stalker with the more realistic stories of individuals who seem to be merely struggling with bad relationships? It doesn’t seem like you have two ends of the spectrum, but rather, two different issues.”

Good point. Most love addicts don’t stalk in the traditional sense. Sneaking around on someone’s Facebook page pales in comparison to hiding out in the bushes, peering in someone’s window. And yet, stalking, manipulating, lying, dating and/or sleeping with a married individual, cheating, begging, wanting to commit suicide– these are all (according to society) freakish, ugly behaviors that some love addicts exhibit, like it or not.

I realized that D was harboring his own fantasies  and denial about love addiction. He loves me, so he doesn’t want to assign ugly qualities or acts to my past. He doesn’t want my reputation tarnished. He wants to continue to believe that while I am not perfect, I was never a “freak.” And while I was never a stalker and consider myself on the milder side of LA, let’s be honest. I remained in relationships with abusive, neglectful men, I gave up my career goals for booty calls, I had extremely low self-esteem and I did things that were sadly freakish.

Love addiction isn’t pretty.  On that, D and I agreed. But he was still convinced that Pernille added the stalker bit for ratings. Drama is, after all, the backbone of the TV and film world. She really had no choice. I partly agree. And yet, love addiction is what it is. In fact, we can even add drama in itself to the list of symptoms.

But that night, after watching the film, and after a long, wonderful discussion about it, we celebrated the fact that I’m not there anymore. Plain and simple. And to me, that far outweighs the shame of any ugliness in the past. While love addiction helped me become the strong woman I am today, whether I liked it or not, it no longer defines who I am and who I may be if I choose. Just like a broken leg or a traumatic event or the death of a loved one, love addiction  can help make us who we are, but it does not have to define our whole being. We can be other things. And we should.

My unsolicited advice: Share your past, but be selective. There’s no reason to tell a new partner right off the bat about the sordid details of your addiction.  We do not have to be completely open books to achieve intimacy with another individual. On the other hand, there’s no reason to lie or be so secretive to the point where your new partner can’t get to know you. If someone truly wants to get to know that side of you, don’t be afraid to talk about it. Likewise, if any information  from your past has bearing on who you are or who you are with, you need to come clean (i.e. I slept with your best friend last week). My point: be honest and respectful, but recognize that there is a proper time for this info to be shared (not on the first date!) and a proper level of expectation from you of the other person’s interest and understanding of your past.