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Go ahead, go back…

Posted on by l0velyjune
32

Go ahead. Go back to your PoA (person of addiction)! You know you want to. ANd if you want to and feel as though you should, surely that means it was meant to be, right? Why not! Every emotion you have, even a burp or a fart has huge significance. Right? A sign from God. So follow it and go back to him.

And when you go back….enjoy! And be happy! Be happy that he’s IGNORING you. You don’t deserve to be paid attention to anyway. In fact, everyone including friends and loved one SHOULD ignore you. Because what you have to say is not very important. Other people (who ramble on about nothing and do nothing with their lives) are so much more important than you.

And when you go back….feel the amazing feeling of the CONFUSION. It’s fun and exciting to never know what to expect from one day to the next. She’s running hot and cold! One day she loves you, the next she doesn’t? Perfect. Instability is probably just what you’re heart desires.

And when you go back…feel the intense love that, let’s face it, you are most likely creating on your own, because, let’s face it, half the time he’s off with another woman. Oh the LIES, of the BETRAYAL! WHen I was a child. I always dreamed of having a loving relationship filled with these things. I also wanted a guy I had to fight for. Nothing comes easy! Love is meant to be painful and filled with suffering.

And when you go back….celebrate the good times! Because they are few and far between and erratic as heck. And well…they don’t exist anymore. Because she’s gone. But who cares! She comes around every so often, and isn’t that a sign from the Gods that she’s still hanging on and wants to come back? Because people who love you want to spend as little time as possible with you. Ah…the memories! They will keep you warm at night.

And when you go back….rejoice in the REJECTION and the SCRAPS that he’s feeding you. Why take anything else? You are not ready for anything better. Rejection and scraps are right up your alley and you are worth it! There’s no way you could handle a decent, warm meal. Not you! You’re too rugged for that. You prefer to eat your meals out of the garbage can.

SO yes! Next time you wonder if NC is just getting in the way of this great relationship of yours, if NC is not worth it, if NC is just a waste of your time…then I DO suggest going back. And maybe then, you’ll remember why you left in the first place.

Expectations

Posted on by l0velyjune
5

One of our biggest downfalls as humans–(healthy and unhealthy alike) is our level of expectation of others. To put it to you plainly, we tend to expect too much too soon from the wrong people.

What do I mean by that? Well, would you expect a baby to talk? Of course not. Would you expect a fish to walk on two legs? Pure silliness. And yet, everyday, we expect avoidant people to be intimate and close, we expect people who clearly are not showing much interest in us to be interested, and we expect love from a source that is incapable of loving us.

When we look at people and accept them for who and what they are, it means giving up unrealistic expectations of them. For years I dated (or married!) men who were avoidant and the entire time I was in the relationship with them I expected them to be in love and attentive and treat me like men treat women in the movies. My expectations were so high that they were unrealistic. High expectations are bound to disappoint.

But I thought we were supposed to have high expectations of being treated well and good!?!?!

YES! We are supposed to have high expectations of being treated well and good—BUT FROM THE RIGHT PEOPLE. You cannot expect a man who has a track record of cheating on all his girlfriends to suddenly stop cheating once you’ve come along. Your expectations will never be met. But you can have high expectations for YOURSELF that you will not date men who cheat (and if you don’t find out until later into the relationship it means that you don’t stick around and demand they change; it means YOU LEAVE). See the difference.

Set high expectations of and for yourself, and expect them of people who can meet them. Otherwise, you are basically expecting the impossible.

How are your current expectations of others? Have they improved? Are you more accepting of others’ realities and who they really are? Or are you still expecting to fit a square peg into a round hole?

Love vs. a healthy relationship (there’s a difference!)

Posted on by l0velyjune
1

Are you looking for love or a Healthy Relationship, because let me tell you, these are two totally different things!

One of the hardest things I ever learned was that “Love” was not all I needed, and that “Love” didn’t save the day. And, dare I say it, “Love” was not the answer. A kid thinks that. Not an adult. An adult knows better. And here’s the difference:

Love is an emotion. It is spurred on by chemicals, feelings, or circumstances. It is JUST an emotion, just like hate, anger, joy, sadness, etc. It can last a lifetime, just like depression. It can be something you carry with you and give to others, and it can be a quality you seek in a mate. But it is singular, meaning it comes by itself. Love is love. Period.

A Healthy Relationship is multi-faceted. It is a WHOLE PACKAGE. It has many, many components to it: love, respect, trust, comittment, kindness, friendship, humor, seriousness, strong communication, an ability to compromise, patience, care, chemistry, compatibility, security, and so on.

Love addicts (like teenagers) tend to seek the emotion. They tend to look only for LOVE when they go out in the world to find a mate. It doesn’t matter if the person is available, or neglecting or avoiding, or hurtful. As long as LOVE is the encompassing emotion. Love addicts will overlook a host of red flags, because, as long as they feel LOVE, what else is there?

This narrow-minded belief comes from childhood. Most likely you were raised in a household that did not exhibit adult, healthy behavior. When this occurs, we learn a very child-like version of a relationship. We don’t learn about the whole picture and all the components that go into a healthy relationship, we simply learn the Disney version of two people coming together.  There may be abuse, neglect, addiction, avoidance or cheating, but if there is “Love,” and if the parents stay together in spite of all those other things, we learn that love is the higher good.

“Why do you stay, mom, when daddy hurts you so badly?”

“Because I love him.”

If there is divorce or separation or simply a lack of love between the parents, and we never see our parents love or have a healthy relationship, this is also detrimental to our education about what is “healthy.” We tend to learn about love and relationship on the street, so to speak. From our friends, or worse…from Hollywood, which tends to send incredibly bad, wrong messages about what a healthy relationship is (Twilight, The LIttle Mermaid, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Notebook, Titanic, The Body Guard, The Wedding Planner, Brigid Jones’ Diary, and on and on). In his article in Cracked, about how movies influence you, David Wong writes:

The reality is that vast piles of facts that you have crammed into your brain basement were picked up from pop culture, and for the most part, you don’t realize that’s where the information came from. This is called source amnesia, and I’ve talked about it before – you know that giraffes sleep standing up, but you’ve long forgotten whether you heard that fact in school or in a tour at the zoo, or saw it in a cartoon. Either way, you will treat that fact as true until something comes along to counter it

When parents don’t teach us to have healthy relationships, we fill that void by getting our information elsewhere. And when we depend on pop culture as our teacher, we fail to learn an essential truth: that love isn’t the end all and be all to life, that it doesn’t save the day and that it isn’t the only thing necessary for marriage, dating, making babies, growing old together or existing. Yes, psychologists and biologist say we need “love” to survive, but there is no professional, anthropological or biological study that states that that love must be romantic love.

I was lucky. I realized this truth by seeing it in my mother’s second marriage to a wonderful man. Her first marriage was fraught with pain and suffering. When she decided she was more important than the relationship itself and that she needed to get out to save herself and her children (we were in physical danger), she left. She always loved my father. But there was a huge disconnect between the love she felt in her heart, and the life she was living in pain. When she went back out into the world to date, at that point, she believed she was important and should be treated well. She did not look someone that ONLY made her feel love. She looked beyond that. Was he a good man, was he good to his children, would he be good to her children, was he fair, trustworthy, respecting, kind, could he financially support himself, did he have good values?

You see what else she looked for? She looked for those things because she believed she was worth those things.

When we start to want better things for ourselves and realize that we are TEMPLES, we begin to understand how limited the concept of Love can be. We are SACRED and anything we do to ourselves and anyone we come in contact with needs to respect that we are sacred. Love ,as delicious as it is, doesn’t always show respect. It isn’t capable of being kind or caring. Love can be downright painful and poisonous. And it certainly doesn’t protect us.

But a healthy relationship, by virtue of the word “healthy” encompasses all that is good and worthy AND it protects us. The other person in the healthy relationship doesn’t protect us, WE PROTECT OURSELVES by seeking out healthy people who treat us well. And only people who ALSO recognize their sacredness will understand this and seek out the same.

SO…maybe it’s time to change your paradigm. Maybe it’s time to redefine what you want. DO you want LOVE, or a HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP, which encompasses so much more and tends to meet more of your needs.

Thoughts?

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Know thyself

Posted on by l0velyjune
1
Instability

Instability (Photo credit: cliff1066™)

One of the biggest characteristics of Love Addicts (or any addict for that matter) is that we do not know who we are. Sure, we may know what we look like, what foods we like, what TV shows we like, where we live, etc. But I am talking about knowing oneself on a much deeper, well-rounded level. One of the reasons we don’t know ourselves so well is because we have been avoiding ourselves. We use our addiction as a way to escape the inevitability of growing up and knowing ourselves deeply.

Another reason is that we simply see ourselves wrongly. We “imagine” being one way when in reality we are something else. This is a very normal state if you’re a teenager. When you’re a teen, you’re supposed to be dreaming up the person you want to be. But the inevitable next step is to try to become the person you want to be. This is where I think many people get stuck.

Here’s a story.

When I was a kid, it was evident that I loved to write. So, my mother told me, “you are a writer.” I also saw that my father was an artist and a music, as was my mother and many other family members. So, when I grew up, I took on their definition of me. I loved being an artist, I loved the artist’s life and most of the men I went after had some unique, artistic twist to their personality. Thing is, I was ALWAYS frustrated within the lifestyle. Artists tend to be impulsive, unstable people. Many are immature and narcissistic, putting their art and music first. Some are addicts. The older I got the less I liked the idea of dating an artist. But I was one, wasn’t I? ANd this was the pool that I needed to draw from, wasn’t it? But the answer to those questions was no. More than an artist, I was a woman who loved family, stability and a place where I could go where there were no drugs or avoidance of growing up. I had two small children and I wanted to be around responsible, financially stable people! As boring as that sounded to me, THAT’S WHO I WAS. I was, after all, not like my parents. And while I still had within me the artist’s soul, that did not mean I had to live and breath in that world.

I also used to think of myself has highly unstable, until one day, a close friend of mine said, “you’re one of the most stable people I know!” And she listed my qualities. I tend to like to stay home at nights, I am always on time, I never miss events that I have promised to attend, etc. Here, I thought I was incapable of all those things, but I was not.

These realizations came to me late in life. And so, I’ve tried to put together a list of traits that you can use to ask yourself if you know these areas of yourself. The more you know about YOU the clearer you know what you want (and who you want) closest to you!

  • Level of tolerance: What is your level of tolerance for certain things like drugs, drinking, immaturity, avoidance of responsibility, mistake making. Take a look at the people around you. Is it very difficult of easy to put up with certain characteristics?
  • Are you serious or not so serious? I found that I was a very serious person on the inside, and that I felt most comfortable when I was with people who “lightened” me up and were playful.
  • What class are you? It would be nice if you could turn a blind eye to class. In a perfect world this may be possible, but not now. How did you grow up? Rich? Poor? Middle class? Blue collar? White collar? Silver spoon? Sometimes (like the fantasy story of the Prince and the Pauper) we date outside our class. But this may cause problems and uncomfortable situations. I dated a guy who came from a much more privileged home than I and I felt hugely uncomfortable and insecure. I also dated a man who had no class and was very poor. As much as I loved him, I found myself unable to tolerate some of his habits. I overlooked it for so long because I didn’t want to be superficial. But now I see it differently. We tend to be most comfortable within our own class. That’s NOT to say you can’t have a healthy relationship outside your own class. But it is something to consider. What is your level of tolerance for class-related issues?
  • Do you like stability or instability? I always thought I preferred a more unstable life. But when I looked at how stable I designed my own world, I realized that safety, security, reliability and simplicity were the stronger qualities in myself. This is not surprising. My life as a child was very chaotic. We moved 14 times in 20 years. SO, although I was attracted to people who were living wild, dramatic, chaotic lives (because they reminded me of my childhood), I didn’t like that lifestyle one bit!
  • Are you a control freak or can you go with the flow? So often I would date men that were non-commital. They’d make plans vaguely. Maybe we would get together on this date. And when they wouldn’t call or show up, I was insanely upset. Everyone told me to lighten up. “Go with the flow” they said. But I soon learned, that wasn’t me. I needed to find someone who was as much a planner as I was. Someone who valued reliability and a more controlled atmosphere (but not so controlling that we couldn’t be spontaneous every once in a while). Know what makes you feel more comfortable and stick with like-minded people.
  • Level of education. Obviously you know your level of education. But how important is it that you surround yourself with people who share your same level of education?
  • Religious views/beliefs. People are usually passionate about their religious views, whether they passionately belief in one religion or passionately believe they want nothing to do with any religion. Some people don’t care. Where do you fall on the scale and how important to you is it that others share your same beliefs?
  • What is your financial health. Can you take care of yourself? Are you looking for someone to take care of you? Or do you like to be independent? When I was younger, I was very dependent upon my husband to take care of me. Because I was so dependent, I had to put up with things I didn’t particularly like. And let’s face, when you’re dependent, you’re trapped. After I went back to school and began working, I realized I despised being dependent upon another person for my security, and so I eventually came to know that being financially stable and earning my own money was mandatory to my personality.
  • Are you a caretaker because you like taking care of people or do you secretly want to control other, or be taken care of yourself. Are you a Mother Theresa or a full-fledged co-dependent?
  • What is your comfort level when it concerns intimacy? How close do you like to be to people? How much space or “alone time” do you need? We can be very attracted to certain people because we inherently know they will give us lots of emotional space (because we cannot handle too much). But the drawback is that sometimes they give us too much space. Know your level of intimacy and what you are most comfortable with.
  • Get to know other smaller but significant things about yourself:  are you a morning person, a night person, are you generally positive or negative, do you like healthy food, or junk food, where do you see yourself in 5, 10 years, what are 10 things you can’t live without, with whom are happiest (not including the PoA and sentences that resemble “I would be happiest with _____ IF ONLY HE/SHE WOULD (fill in the blanks)” )

Thinking too much and doing nothing about it?

Posted on by l0velyjune
2

PART II: All Talk and no Action

Taking Action (on virtually anything) was one of the hardest things I have had trouble doing. I was lazy as the day was long. It’s not that I didn’t think things through. Heck, that seems to be all I did.  I would get stuck thinking too much but then doing nothing about it, because, let’s face, the more you think about something, the more time you can come with excuses not to do it. And it was like that when it came to my career, my relationships, my education, you name it. I didn’t know how to move from THINKING which I did incessantly, to MOVEMENT, which I barely did. In fact, I did what we all dread…ran around in circles and got nothing done. But, eventually, I figure it out. I took on certain beliefs that required me to realize the importance of movement and action (mainly that I will only live once, and that I am running out of time). I also placed the idea of being a “productive member of society” higher on my Values list. When I did that, I was far more inspired to take action, because, when something is on your Values list, you are bound to (if you love yourself!)  Here are a few more things that helped me get off my arse and start doing:

1. Start to brainwash yourself and think in terms of action as necessity. We take action to go to work. We take action to feed ourselves or shower in the morning. Right? We do those things almost on autopilot because we have no choice. We take those actions to survive. Well, we need to move away from the PoA to survive. And we need to get involved in other hobbies (so as not to think of PoA) to survive, and so on. Start to change the way you think about the Importance of the task you want to accomplish.

2. Write a list of things you want to accomplish. And further, give yourself a time frame to complete those tasks. Where do you see yourself in 6 months? 1 year? 5 years? Write out every detail of your plan of action. This because your road map.

3. Practice taking action with baby steps. If your goal is not stop talking about changing careers and actually do it, start with baby steps. Update your resume. Research your new career. Then, try to find a networking group in your area that has similar interests. The more you are around people who ALSO take action, the more likely you are to do so too.

4. KEEP doing something. Don’t worry about the importance of the action. This is how you build momentum. If, when you do something it exhausts you or disappoints you (and this was always my case) DON’T GIVE UP. Get right back out there and do it again. This is where we fail. This is why we procrastinate. Because the pain of doing something outweighs the pain of doing nothing. When we go out and do something ONCE, and it doesn’t feel right, we immediately want to stop and say, “That’s not for me.” And yet, this is the most important challenge we need to overcome. This sensation of awkwardness is what holds us back and what we have been avoiding all our lives. But remember when you first learned to ride a bike? It was AWKWARD. You fell off. But you had to get back on and keep trying. And now, it’s a smooth ride. Have that same faith in your ability to learn new tasks. 

5. Do a certain activity 3-5 times, even 10 times before quitting. Get used to the follow through. I had to take a kickboxing class 5 times before I started to enjoy it.

6. Lastly, and this kinda goes back to number one, change your brain! Change your perspective. Your mind is the ONLY thing keeping you from doing something. Not your body, not your emotions, nothing else but your brain. And guess what, your body and emotions will do virtually anything the brain tells them to do. Feed your brain negative thoughts (Nah, I can’t do this today, I’ll do it tomorrow) and that’s what it will believe. Feed your brain positive thoughts and that’s what it will believe.

All talk and no action?

Posted on by l0velyjune
5

For many, many years (too many to count), I was the smartest failure at relationships around. I had picked up some of the best advice on how to date and learned many lessons on how to have a successful relationship. I also knew extremely well the concept of loving myself, that I had to love myself in order for others to love me, and that I was one-of-a-kind. I knew I had to behave a certain way and that if I wanted anything in life I had to go out and get it. I also knew all too well that when I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, I would change.

But change never occurred. The same problem kept repeating itself over and over and over again. I would “say” that I was worth a lot and deserved better, but then I would date men that treated me poorly. And so, I was stagnant, stuck in one bad relationship after another. And when I picked up that gazillionth self-help book that told me everything I already knew, I felt defeated. I constantly asked myself, how could I know all this stuff, but still be living an unfulfilled life?

And then it hit me…

Sure, all these lessons were sinking in. And sure, I was learning them. But I wasn’t put them into action. I was still remaining in my head, hoping that my outside environment would change so that I wouldn’t have to. I was waiting for the “right” guy to show up on my doorstep. I was waiting for the current guy to change his behavior and be my dream guy. I was waiting for the perfect job to appear out of no where and beg me to work it. But the truth is, the only time in my life that real change ever occurred was when I took action. When I actually got up and made some physical or mental change that could be measured in comparison to my previous actions.

  • A job never “appeared” until I actually went back to school and got my degree (I took action to gain valuable experience and once I was surrounded by people in my field of choice via an internship, I was able to more easily make connections and get job offers).
  • My current guy never “changed” so I made the decision to leave him and I took action to do so. It was painful, but I was willing to take the risk because I believed I was worth more than he was willing to pay.
  • My dream guy never “showed up on my doorstep” (well, he kinda did, but I took action long before that happened, to change ME so that my dream guy would actually be interested in me and recognize me as someone mutually healthy). I began to support myself financially, I finished my degree and went on to grad school, I dressed better, I improved my overall appearance, I learned the meaning of being grateful everyday for what I have, not what I “could” or “should” have. And I was happy being me.

OK, so it’s time to ask yourself if you are taking real action towards your goals or if you are “all talk” and no action. Are you waiting for Prince Charming to show up on your doorstep? Or are you focusing on becoming a better more fulfilled person on your own, so that IF Prince Charming (I kinda hate that term but it’s the best I got for now) comes along he will recognize you as someone healthy? Are you waiting for your current guy to stop neglecting you, stop cheating on you, and get real? Or are you being realistic in understanding that if he hasn’t changed by now, he most likely never will? And are you taking action to move away from the relationship?

If you are taking actions, what are they? And most important, are you repeating these healthy actions or are you doing them once and giving up?

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Self-sabotage

Posted on by l0velyjune
1

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk of self-sabotage and while this is a a real and true problem that applies to most of us (addiction, by nature, is self-sabotage), I feel as though it is being misused in many ways.

Self-sabotage, according to Psychology Today is, “behavior that results from a misguided attempt to rescue ourselves from our own negative feelings.” In other words, self-sabotage is self-destructive behavior that keeps us from living and growing up to become healthy adults. Addiction is self-sabotage. Addiction is a behavior or defense mechanism that we believe is soothing us and helping us to avert pain and suffering, whereas in reality, it is blocking us from living a healthier, happier life.

But many here are using the term self-sabotage to explain how they are finally finding truly healthy mates, but instead of giving into them and accepting their goodness, they are running away.

This is where I tend to believe the idea of self-sabotage is misused. I believe, as humans, we have a gut instinct about people. We know what we like. And I think that most of us, if given the opportunity, would not turn down a good, healthy relationship. Heck, love addicts will settle for a bad relationship because they want one so badly, so why wouldn’t they adapt to and accept a good relationship?!

I too used to believe I was sabotaging myself by running away from some men. In retrospect, I ran away from those men for a reason: I simply didn’t like them. Whether they were healthy or not, wasn’t the point. The point was, we had no chemistry, no attraction, and little in common. But in my mind, at the time, I thought I was a fool for turning down someone who was seemingly healthy. I must be sabotaging myself, I thought. And yet, what I was really doing, was not recognizing the nature of attraction. You can have two completely normal, healthy, good looking, smart loving, ready individuals and NOTHING will come of them. Why? They’re not attracted to each other. Period.

Because we come from the love addict perspective, it is often skewed. We tend to think in black and white.If someone is healthy and I turn them down, that makes me unhealthy. But that’s entirely NOT true. We cannot blame some of our choices on self-sabotage, but must instead, hold accountable, our ability to recognize someone we like and can ultimately love. We have far more strength in this department than we give ourselves credit for. And if you don’t believe me, here’s a little test: look back at all the men and/or women you’ve dated. How many times can you recall, upon first meeting them, that despite a sense of chemistry and attraction, you detected RED FLAGS? That tells me, that most of us have it in us to sense danger and sense attraction. WHere we go wrong is not in the sensing part, but in the taking action part. We recognize the red flags, but we choose to ignore them.

The same can be said for situations where you meet someone with no red flags but also, little to no chemistry. You sense the no red flags, and you sense the no chemistry, but you ignore the lack of chemistry and date anyway. After getting sexually involved, you wonder why you are not attracted to someone who has no red flags. You blame yourself. You think it’s self-sabotage.

I don’t think it is. I think our instinct for attraction is far more powerful than we give it credit for. And think we can be attracted to good people and bad. It is in the logical choices we make or don’t make (to choose someone good or settle for someone bad) that creates in us the “addict’s brain.”

OUr true self-sabotage comes not from giving up good relationships, but from remaining in bad ones. When we finally have the recognition that we should seek a healthy person, that does not mean that EVERY healthy person will be right for us.

Lastly, I think that many people get involved too quickly after recovery (myself included). When we don’t have a strong sense of self and knowing who we are, we have trouble recognizing someone who might be right for us. So, it makes dating harder. And it makes it seem like we are throwing away something that could be good for us. You don’t know what’s good for you until you really take the time to get know someone. And that takes years.

Eight months into my new relationship with D, I was on the brink of throwing it away. I had a very silly (immature) notion that I should be dating a scraggly, dark-haired, wild musician-type. That’s who I was physically attracted to. And I felt that if I dated D, who was blond, German, all-AMerican, clean-cut family man, I would be giving up that fantasy forever. This made me heartbroken. It hurt to have to say goodbye to a long held fantasy. But I realized that in order to grow up, I had to start valuing other things more than my fantasies and my childish notion of beauty. I had to really THINK about what I had with D and if it was worth throwing away. D was generous, kind, attentive to me, caring, he made me laugh, he was intelligent, he was good looking, we had chemistry, he was mature, and he had no red flags.

Growing up and making the right choices is what life is all about. I had to give up thinking with my EMOTIONS and I had to think with my HEAD. When I did that, everything fell into alignment.

I do believe, as my own personal story shows, that wecansabotage ourselves by giving up something good. But it takes A LONG time to realize you have something good. And it takes a lot more than throwing away healthy to sabotage yourself. To this day, I can still fall into a pattern of being ungrateful for what I have. So, I have to bring myself back, constantly, to a remembrance of my VALUES.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on self-sabotage? Share ‘em!

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Learning to let go

Posted on by l0velyjune
4

When I was a kid I had what many kids have– a security blanket. I also sucked my thumb and had a goofy-looking teddy bear I creatively named “Teddy.” And while I was able to get rid of the thumb sucking and the teddybear, I was unable to let go of the blanket. In fact, it followed me well into my married life. I slept with it nightly.  And it served one of the most important roles of any object around the house– it comforted me when I was sad or angry or upset or in pain. I would roll it up in a ball and press my face into it and touch the binding. And lo and behold, it worked. It calmed me down.

Unfortunately, as I got older I learned to cling to more destructive things– smoking cigarettes, food, people, shopping. These things all served the same purpose. To comfort me. Yet there was a paradox. The more I clung to these things to comfort me, the more uncomfortable, out of control and painful my life became.

Relationships are a perfect example. No matter how real and fulfilling the relationship was for a time, if it had come to its end for whatever reason, I needed to respect that end, not try to emotionally (or physically) drag it out, which I was doing. The trouble was, I had made the relationship not only my security blanket but the be all and end all of my existence. It was the entity which validated me, comforted me, defined me, saved me. And while every good relationship can and should be considered a comfort, it should not be considered something that saves, validates, completes or defines us. That’s when we seem to get into trouble. And that’s when we hurt the most if the relationship ends.

HOw so? Well, when we cling to a relationship that is clearly over, we sabotage ourselves. Sure, the relationship may have been beautiful at one point. But when we do not let it go or respect the passing of it, we do great damage to the self and stunt our growth. It’s like mourning the dead for too long, or worse, having a relationship with them. We deny ourselves a true present. And we fail to take care of that deep human need in us to be loved–not by others, but by ourselves.

But in order to let go, we need to know why we are hanging on.

My thoughts on this are simple. We hang on because we don’t believe we have anything else. We don’t believe we can do better, or find someone that will accept us or love us with what we believed was the best love imaginable.  And most importantly, we fail to recognize that we–ourselves alone–were so much more than the relationship and still are. The relationship ended, we did not. Also,  we hang on because we do not (nor possibly ever did) have a clear sense of the actual health of the relationship. Wanting the relationship to work more than wanting to face the truth puts us in a position of denial. But, if we are to be brutally honest with ourselves, the relationship might not have been a healthy one, it may have been broken in spots that could not be fixed. This, in no way, means we have to beat ourselves about how we lived through the relationship. But we do have to be honest and face a truth that we might not want to face, NOW. Facing the truth, and not holding on to a fantasy, helps in the healing process and helps us to move on.

Finally, it happens often with relatively healthy people too, but when it comes to relationships, some people give everything away. They sacrifice their identity and become the other, they give up their hobbies to follow the other’s hobbies, and they lose themselves almost completely to the relationship. When and if the relationship ends, what do they have left of themselves? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done this. I proudly called myself a chameleon.  And for what? Looking back, I find it strange that I was so proud of having no identity of my own and could change so easily to fit into the lifestyle of whomever I was dating.

When I was a teenager, I spent a summer working on the boardwalk down the shore. I sold t-shirts for a young, but wise Israeli man named Eyal. I had fallen in love with another of my co-workers, and at the end of the summer, when he went back home, I was devastated. I felt like my whole world blew up in my face and I had nothing. Everything that was important in my life was gone. Eyal and I talked about this one night and he said this: “There is an old, Israeli saying that when you fall in love,  give everything to the other person, but keep three finger for yourself. This way, when you fall,” and he made pretend that he was falling to the ground, ”you have something to catch you so that you can get back up again.   And he held up his hand with three fingers.

Where are your three fingers? Have you given them away in this past relationship? Do you feel like you have nothing to stand on? Guess what, you still have them! Find them and stand up again. When you do, it makes letting go a lot easier.

For a great blog on “letting go” try this one from tiny buddha.

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Decisions are a girls best friend

Posted on by l0velyjune
4

Do you have issues with making decisions? DO you feel as though you can never seem to make the right decision?

One of the main jobs of being a healthy adult is to make decisions. In fact, there is a saying, “More than doers, we are deciders.” And this quote couldn’t be more helpful when it comes to love addicts (or any addict for that matter). The reason I say that is because we love addicts tend to do before we think. We tend to be doers, not deciders. We act impulsively, we make decisions based on our emotions, or our fantasies, we even allow our inner child to “get behind the wheel,” as Susan Peabody always says. And while this is a great way to live and experience the world when you are a child or a teenager, it’s not a great way to live as an adult. In fact, it’s downright irresponsible and careless. I have a lifetime of bad relationships and mistake as proof, and I am sure many of you might feel the same way.

But in order to go from being a poor decision-maker (Hey, look at that guy laden with red flags, he just winked at me, he must like me, maybe he’s the “One” I’ll go for it!) to being a good decision-maker (Hey, look at that guy laden with red flags, he just winked at me, he must like me, I think I will AVOID that one because I deserve more than he can offer…”) certain lessons must be learned.

During my path, it took a while, but I learned the following lessons that helped me become a better decision maker. If you have lessons of your own, please share! Here are mine:

1.) I used to make decisions based on what others thought and felt of me (he is showing me attention, whether I like him or not, I should date him). Now I base decisions on what I think and feel (I am flattered that you like me and are showing me attention, but I’m not interested).

2. I used to make decisions based on no sense of right or wrong. I would overlook all kinds of red flags and flaws (OK, so he has a drinking problem, that might go away. I will date him any way because he’s cute.” Now I make decision based on my VALUES (I will never date anyone that drinks alcohol too heavily, so I will not date this person even though he is cute.)

3. I used to make decisions regardless of items of importance or significance (If someone was good looking or had chemistry, that was more important than the fact that he constantly cheated on past girlfriends). Now I make decisions based on a hierarchy of important items (Looks are secondary to a man who has values, respect and virtue.

4. I used to make decisions in a split second, without thinking. I believe my first impulse was correct. I was so wrong. My first impulse was almost always wrong! Now I take my time before I decide anything. 

5. I used to believe I had to make a decision (you either commit to me or not!) Now I recognize that sometimes it’s OK to not make any decision (the world is not black and white, I don’t have an answer right now and therefore, do not feel the need to make a decision.)

6. I used to base my decisions on my emotions (my heart says “He’s the one!”). Now I base decisions on both my head and my heart and weight the importance of both (My heart says “He’s the one,” but my head says he lies too much and he’s too avoidant for the long haul, so I will have to cut my losses and move on.”)

7. I used to panic at the thought of making the “right” decision and so I would make a decision blindly, without thinking (Who cares what I decide! I’ll probably suffer anyway.) Now I know that it takes a little more effort and work to come to the “right” decision and it may not always be right, but I assess my risks and try to make the “best” decision (Writing lists, taking time to think about the positives and negatives and knowing that you are WORTH making a good decision helps).

8. I used to make decisions based on no knowledge of a subject or a refusal to look at the reality of a situation (I made decisions about relationships based on my fantasy of that person). Now, I am less afraid.  I make decision based on the truth and what is real (I no longer close my eyes to the truth, even though what I see I may not like and it may mean I will have to give up a potential new relationship, at least I making a clear, wide-eyed decision).

I would like to add too that learning to make good decisions on your own will give you good practice for when you need to make decisions, problem solve and negotiate with a partner. So, see these lessons as important stepping stones that will make you a more well-rounded, conscientious person within a relationship. 

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Valentine’s Day for survivors

Posted on by l0velyjune
3

If you’re anything like me the “V” word is one of those words that,  when seen dangling ubiquitously in all its red and pink glory in the window of every card shop in town kinda makes you want to vomit. In fact, it may even bring up nightmarish flashbacks from youth…checking your mailbox daily to see if there was a card from a secret admirer waiting inside, just for you—only to find nothing but your parents’ junk mail and a couple of bills.

During my teenage years, Valentine’s Day should have been called Rejection Day. One of the fundraising groups in high school had a yearly Valentine’s drive. A couple weeks before February 14th you could pay a dollar and buy a chocolate rose on a lollipop stick for your sweetheart so that on V-day it would be delivered by hand during homeroom. For four years straight I had to sit through this ritual of watching chocolate sticks with little love notes be delivered to cheerleaders, football players and other more popular types, while I sat at my empty desk, pretending to study for a test I didn’t have, feeling the swoosh of movement every time the delivery kid would pass me by.

In my twenties, it was much the same. I dated guys whose idea of Valentine’s Day was to break up with their girlfriend—me—before the holiday ever arrived. Or, if I had been halfway lucky to date a decent fellow, I may have received a carnation from the local convenience store. But never much else. No dinners out, no jokey porn gifts, no red hearts or box of chocolates. Mostly, I was alone on this holiday, and forced, like much of society, to sit on the sidelines like a wallflower at a dance, watching shmoopy couples exchange tokens of love and celebrate something which was as foreign to me as a trip to the moon.

Even during my seven-year marriage I can’t say Valentine’s Day had ever become a day to look forward to. In my mind, I had high expectations. I wanted everything I had been denied all those previous dating years. I wanted to be showered with gifts, taken out to fancy restaurants. And I wanted the pop of the champagne cork to explode like fireworks of love and adoration. None of that happened. My ex-husband was from a foreign country and lacked the cultural knowledge it took to celebrate Valentine’s day the American way. Sure, I taught him that this is what you buy and this is what you do and this is the way this day is supposed to go. But it wasn’t the same. It’s never the same when you have go out and buy the flowers and chocolates yourself, wrap them up, then give them to your husband and say, “Here. Give these to me tomorrow, along with this card and then, tell me you love me.”

So, it’s no wonder that after years of crushed expectations, when I finally did find a really great guy who knew the meaning of a flower, a kiss and a card, I couldn’t appreciate it anyway. In fact, by this point, it disgusted me. I had become so beaten down by the yearly rejection of the day that even though I was with a loving man, the thought of celebrating it left me feeling a little nauseous and avoidant to say the least.

Absolutely no flowers, please. I don’t appreciate them, I said. And I don’t like chocolate. Please don’t get me any. Forget about dinner. We’ll order Chinese and eat in. And there’s no way we’re having sex tonight, just because it’s Valentine’s Day. Too cliché and expected. Nope. No way.

I had adapted so well to not celebrating this holiday, that I had brought myself to a point of not being able to celebrate it. More interestingly, was that I had an “us vs. them” mentality. Over the years I had taken to protesting the commercialism of Valentine’s cards, gifts and other mass-produced junk that society forced upon us all. Anyone who willingly celebrated—my lovely boyfriend—was the enemy. He had had great experiences celebrating Valentine’s Day. He was popular in high school, always had a girlfriend and did all the things associated with the formal celebration of love. How would our relationship be able to survive this vast disparity? February 14th would forever be a day that made apparent the coming together of the haves (him) and have-nots (me).

But, as it turned out, he didn’t want to celebrate it either.

“Why in God’s name not?” I assumed his “type” celebrated this holiday with fervor as if it were their official day of tribute.

“Because it’s a cheesy holiday for when you’re young; it’s not really for adults,” he said.

“A cheesy holiday?” This didn’t make sense. “You mean, Valentine’s Day is not the end all and be all of your existence?”

“Nope. It’s just a cheesy holiday spurred on by great marketing from Hallmark and chocolate companies.”

We had something in common. We both believed the day was one big marketing scam.

But it did make sense that he could think it was “cheesy.” He had the luxury of thinking this way. When you’re able to partake in a cultural tradition year after year as a normal, healthy part of growing up and coming of age, you’re free to let it go when you’re older. It’s allowed to become “cheesy.” But when it’s been denied you for many years, it tends to take on this larger-than-life significance, something you desperately want, or something that, in my case, is so out of reach, you end up protecting yourself against it with an abnormal aversion.

Needless to say, it’s not a very celebrated holiday in our house. If we do anything at all, we exchange books. And maybe, just maybe, we go out to dinner, not exactly on the 14th, but thereabouts. But, I have lightened up over the whole V-day thing. It’s not high on its pedestal like it used to be when I was a girl, nor do I have an abnormal aversion to it anymore like I did in my twenties and thirties. The dog bit me so long ago that I can no longer find the scar. And yet, one thing’s for sure. Chocolate roses on lollipop stick and carnations are officially banned. Every girl, after all, has her breaking point.

So…if you’re the type to have either an unnatural, extreme dislike of Valentine’s day, or an unrealistic desperate need to celebrate it, here are a few fun facts to help put things in perspective, or simply help you maintain your sense of self worth and happiness in the face of all the shmoopiness around you.

Ick!

Fact: There are approximately 96.6 million unmarried, single, divorced or widowed Americans in the U.S., which equals 43% of the population over 18-years old.

Fact: 31.7 million people in the United States live alone.

Fact: Statistically speaking, single people are happier. “Dr. DePaulo, author of Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After says there is no truth to studies that show married people are healthier and happier than singles. Instead, the method is flawed and doesn’t take into account the divorced. Other studies that have followed people for 20 years from the age of 16 show that the respondents become slightly happier around the time of the wedding and then return to being as happy or unhappy as they were when they were single. “So they get a little honeymoon effect. It doesn’t last,” she says. “The averages are not consistent with our myths about happily ever after.” After evaluating many of these surveys for over a decade, she finds that “the single people are always on the happy end of the scale.”

Fact: “Antivalentinism is an objection to the “forced” observation of romantic love and/or consumerism. The criticism of forced observation of romantic love is based on the idea that if a person is forced by culture to profess or observe their love to another (especially on a universally agreed-upon day), or else suffer within the relationship as a consequence of not doing so, then there is no free will in said expression and thus it is not love.”

Fact: Japanese females believe that store-bought chocolate is not a gift of true love.

Fact: In India, public display of affection is a criminal offense with a punishment of imprisonment of up to three months, or a fine, or both.

Fact: Valentine’s day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentine and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 500 AD. It was deleted from the Roman calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI, but its religious observance is still permitted.

Fact: No romantic elements are present in the original early medieval biographies of either of the two martyrs named Valentine.

Fact: In Saudi Arabia, in 2002 and 2008, religious police banned the sale of all Valentine’s Day items.

Fact: According to Hallmark, Christmas is the largest card-sending holiday in the United States with approximately 1.5 billion cards sent annually, not Valnetine’s Day.

Fact: One in four Americans does not celebrate Valentine’s Day at all.

Fact: The most popular recipients of Valentine’s Day cards are Teachers.