Trying Again

When I met my soul mate I was not physically attracted at first. I fell in love with his personality. We were laughing one day and suddenly my heart skipped a beat and he looked gorgeous even though by worldly standards he was not. For the first time I understood the old expression, "Love is in the eye of the beholder."

I am so proud of you for learning this less and taking your time with this new guy. Congratulaltions

Thank you so much for the kind words Butterflygirl. And picard, I totally agree.

I have come to believe that we are all ambivalent. When someone is unavailable we obsess. When someone is available we run. This all stems from a dysfunctional childhood in which we experienced abandonment and some kind of emotional incest.


We want love, but we are afraid of it. We seek out a relationship and then sabotage it the first chance we get. We want space and when we get it we are lonely. We can’t live without a relationship and we can’t live with it. What is going on here? It is simple. We are ambivalent.

Ambivalence is the number one problem in relationships today. We are no longer bound by a social order that dictates we marry and have children. We are no longer bound by a division of labor where the man has his duties [bread winner] and we have ours [domestic bliss]. We have choices and now we are confused.
I sometimes think that this is the lost generation and that in many respects my generation had it easy. I was told to stroke a man’s ego. I was told to let him make all the decisions. I was told that I should have children. Unfortunately, I was not meant to be a housewife and mother. I was born to write which is what I am doing now. So everyone around me suffered, especially my children, as I tried to find myself. I have thus concluded that even if this generation is confused and unhappy, so was mine.

I recently wrote an article about knowing yourself and it took me a long time to discover my true identify. So my heart goes out to young people today who have so many choices they don’t know what to choose. The media tells they can have it all and they believe this. So they run themselves ragged trying to take all that life has to offer. Then they reach middle age and are unhappy with life and the choices they made. They dream about starting over again and they can’t. They take control the situation, which has always served them in the past, and try to fix everything right now.

Ambivalence is a double-edged sword. It can give you time to think things out before you make a commitment. Love addicts, who fall in love so quickly, would love ambivalence. But in the hands of a commitment phobic or a confused person it can be a nightmare.

There are no easy answers to this dilemma. One can sort through their childhood for the origins of their ambivalence. Were their parental role models ambivalent? Do the chaotic relationships in their family of origin give them an uneasy feeling when the fall in love and fall into a relationship? Do they idealize relationships because their family was so dysfunctional? Do they look for the perfect partner because their family was so imperfect. At least one of these thing is at work. Perhaps all.
To solve this dilemma, I suggest that you research healthy relationships, get into a recovery program for love addiction and love avoidance, find someone who can love you and cherish you and then stay committed even when you think you are being smothered even when you are not.

This worked for me. I stopped idealizing unavailable men like my father. I found someone who I was attracted to but not obsessed with. I gave the relationship a chance and after awhile fell in love. Today I am happily married to someone I would never have chosen for myself twenty years ago. We are a work in progress.

Recovery is a process. We are always a work in progress. Some people believe in a cure, but I believe in remission. Slips happen less often and are less intense. I slipped after 10 years with a crush on my unavailable therapist who reminded me of my unavailable father (Imago). That lasted 6 years instead of my usual 20. I was a Torchbearer. Then I got back in recovery and did not slip until my partner died and I started obsessing about an unavailable man to avoid grieving. But this only lasted 7 months which is progress for me. While I cannot give you an exact timeline, if you do the work and change how you think and behave you will see results right away after withdrawal begins to subside.

This is what recovery should look like eventually. I wrote this for the LAA website . . .

Recovery for Love Addicts

In LAA, recovery is a state in which you are able to love yourself as much as you love others. You are guided by a power greater than yourself who knows what is best for you. You are growing and changing. Love is a want not a need. Romantic love enhances your life but does not determine your self-worth. Most of the time you are serene and think clearly when it comes to relationships. Your behavior is sane and marked by emotional sobriety. You do not "love" too much. You do not "do" too much for others You do not chase after unavailable people. You do not put up with ambivalent people like narcissists or seductive withholders. You have researched healthy relationships so you know what your goals are. You stay close to people who are also in recovery in order to avoid relapse. You never take recovery for granted or become complacent.

Love addiction is "cunning, baffling, and powerful." It lies in wait for us when we let our guard down. Above all else, you put your well being ahead of your romantic attachments. You understand that romantic love is not enough to sustain you. It is like a flower without roots. You need love and compatibility with someone who can reciprocate. Finally, you put an end to all triangles. Monogamy and recovery are synonymous.

In my first book, Addiction to Love, I had a chapter on the importance of changing how you think and how you behave. Also you have to change your values like believing agape is as important as romantic love. I got a letter from a woman who said I was blaming the victim, but I knew she was wrong and that love addicts have to face our shortcomings. So I wrote a whole book about change entitled, The Art of Changing. My epigraph reads: