For people who feel like their love lives are lacking, Valentine’s Day can be really miserable. I know. I spent far more years of my adult life alone than I spent attached.
Pining for romance makes us vulnerable to the sweet nothings of the sociopath. Of course, we don’t realize when we hear those smooth, silky words that they literally are nothings—empty promises. We think they’re the answers to our prayers. Our dreams come true.
Then, at some point, we shockingly discover that our “relationship” with Prince or Princess Charming is nothing but a cruel mirage. We’ve been tricked. We find ourselves once again single, but now we’re also carrying whatever additional devastation the sociopath has wrought—embarrassment, rage, doubt, illness, debt, a multitude of losses.
The pain and emotional turmoil are so overwhelming that we feel like we’ll never recover. Or, perhaps we passed through the worst of the trauma and now we’re just tired, too exhausted to care about Valentine’s Day. Or, we still want to fill that empty hole within us, but our faith in our own judgment is severely shaken. How can we feel better?
The answer is always to heal our own hearts. Much of my book, Love Fraud—How marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan, is about discovering how to do exactly that.
Deciding to heal
The first step is deciding to heal. When we’re in the midst of the trauma, this may feel counterintuitive. We want somebody to do something about the sociopath. We want somebody to deliver us from our circumstances. We want somebody to fix us.
Unfortunately, it’s rare for the situation to change quickly enough to make us feel better. But we don’t have to wait for changed circumstances in order to begin healing. In fact, we shouldn’t wait, because that’s not the way the energy of life works. First we heal ourselves, then the circumstances change.
Pursuing healing requires conscious action, participation on our part. It is something we do, not something that we wait for. So how do we pursue healing? By purposely finding peace and moments of joy.
Peace and joy
Yes, we can find peace within us, even as the storm rages around us. You can use any method that is comfortable and comforting, such as quiet contemplation, meditation, prayer, religious services, walking in nature, listening to music, or any activity that brings a sense of stillness and calm.
At first, we may feel only fleeting moments of peace before we are interrupted by stressful thoughts of our circumstances. That’s okay. Keep trying, and little by little, you’ll find that you’re able to hold on to the peace for longer and longer periods of time.
Then, as you go through your day, look for moments of joy wherever you can find them. Maybe you find a sock that you thought the washing machine ate. Maybe you get a good parking spot. Maybe a clerk in a store is helpful. Maybe a friend takes you out to lunch. Notice those little treasures, no matter how small. And when you do, say a small prayer of gratitude—it can be as quick as the words, “Thank you.”
What happens when you focus on peace and joy? It reduces your stress, which deactivates your fight or flight response, which allows your body’s natural healing capacity to do its job. I’ll be talking more about this in a future blog post, but for now, know that focusing on peace and joy starts the process of change.
Miracles
Healing your heart is always the answer. When we work on healing our hearts, miracles happen. When we create peace, harmony and health within us, our life circumstances improve as well.
I know this for a fact, because it happened in my life. I worked on changing my inner landscape, and as I made progress, my life got better. It took time, but I finally let go, emotionally, of the sociopathic ex-husband. As soon as I did, I met Terry Kelly, the man who became my new husband.
Terry and I are now in the midst of what we call “Love Week—”the celebration of our wedding anniversary and Valentine’s Day. We go out to dinner. We indulge in a one-pound box of chocolate and slowly nibble away, a couple of pieces at a time. Best of all, we exchange mushy sweet somethings, words that reflect our love and happiness.
True love feels like a miracle, but in reality, it is a direct result of a healed heart.
has anyone here ever watched the show, “Intervention”?
How come they never have “love addicts” on?
I really think I am a love addict who used “love” to self medicate my depression. Now that my latest “drug” turned out to be a fake one– I am back at square one.
Or– am I just a normal person who would like a partner in life and is sad b/c she doesn’t have one and she’s 41 years old.
Dear Meg,
To answer your question, My guess is BOTH.
I was so lonely after my husband died, totally devastated and felt like I was “over the hill” and no one would ever love me (wrinkles and all) and I would die alone and lonely! WOOOOOOOOOE is me! LOL
Now, frankly, the chances of finding a GOOD man at my age (64) are slim and none, but I also realize that I won’t settle for anything less than WONDERFUL. I don’t want some reject wino, and there are not that many single guys out there my age (64) who can’t find a woman your age (40s or 50s) so I’m competing against a great many women from ages 40-70 for men whose ages are 55-70 and there are wayyyyy more single women in that age group than there are single guys.
But, I have also come to realize that being with someone is not what I have to have to make me happy. I am happy or not as I DECIDE TO BE….If I did find someone great, it would be to share my happiness with, not him to make me happy. I started out sharing my happiness with my husband, but in the end, I let too much of my happiness DEPEND on him and his presence, and when he died, I LOST IT ALL. If I make myself happy, no one can take that away….even by accidently dying.
Akita,
I’m looking forward to joining the gym down the street. I found out last night that the funds are coming so that I can.
How’s the effexor working for you? Many side effects? I think I might ask my doc to switch me off the prozac. The side effects are getting a little scary.
It sounds like you’re making great strides in creating a better situation for yourself Akita. that’s so good! It encourages me too.
LL
Ox,
I know this is somewhat hypothetical, but…..do you think if you realized that so much of your happiness was dependent upon your husband, would you have changed that while he was alive? I wonder if it’s not just natural and normal to be happy in a good marriage with a good man? I think that throws me off, because isn’t that what you would WANT to be, is happy?
Could you elaborate on what you mean? It seems to me (i know i”m not you) that when you talk about your hubby, it seems healthy and normal to me. I never would have thought you were “dependent” upon him in any way for your happiness? If it was a healthy happy marriage, wouldn’t that be the way it’s suppose to be as well as your reactions to it when he died?
LL
Dear LL,
I’m not even sure I can verbalize the concept of “dependent on him” for my happiness…or make it more concrete. We had a good marriage, but not a perfect one, and we had pretty much ironed out any differences we had. We trusted each other and respected each other though we did not always agree on everything by any stretch of the imagination.
But when he died, I had NOTHING left—and almost as soon as the smoke from the fire blew away, I felt that I would never have anything again, that because I was “alone” and not likely to find anyone again, that I was going to be lonely and unhappy forever.
Then, when the P came along 8 months later telling me how wonderful I was, how sexy etc. BOOM, I was HOOKED! I let his attentions make me “happy” again, and my whole “happiness” (actually pseudo-happiness) depended on him. If he didn’t adore me then I was miserable, if he was upset I was unhappy and miserable. If he was making eyes at another woman I was devastated, unhappy and miserable. etc.
Now, my happiness depends on ME….not my relationship with others. Others can leave you, even if through death…so we make our own happiness and security or we don’t have any is my opinion.
Ox,
I see what you’re saying. And I didn’t mean to imply that your marriage was a perfect one, but a NORMAL, HAPPY one. Which puts your grieving into a NORMAL grieving….ya know, I don’t know one person who would not have been absolutely devastated and feeling “alone” as you must have that day. I guess the closest thing I could come to that if it were one of my children who had died in front of me while living at home. Devastated, alone…..I realize that’s a poor analogy, but…if P bf had not come along to show you that you needed to be happy alone with yourself, do you think you would have figured it out anyway during the grieving process? Do you ever wonder how it is you found such a healthy husband given your background of P’s? I’m curious as to how you found one another, given your background. That you must have had some idea what a healthy relationship was when you met your husband, fell in love and got married?
LL
Oxy Moxy…..you ARE one SEXY woman!!!!
🙂
Hey guys….YES….I was blessed yesterday!
It was SUPER COOL!
Thanks!
He had known me back in my youth, he and my sperm donor were actually business partners in the early 60s for a little while (not long) and I got to know him, and we stayed friends and kept in contact through the years. Actually, people who knew my sperm donor were kind of a “club” or sorts—no one else would believe what we knew about him unless they had known him also. He was a very VIOLENT psychopath. But anyway, we happened to sort of start dating when I went to California to get some specialized medical care for one of my sons. Then we moved to Texas and then Florida and then to Arkansas on the farm, where we lived for 12 years before he died.
I’;m not sure what would have happened if I had not met and dated the P, I know that even after a while, clear up to about 3 years ago I still felt like I needed someone else to complete my happiness. Now, I have learned that I don’t need someone else, and I can look back and see that I did let too much of my happiness depend on my husband. I didn’t realize it of course at the time.
Actually, I think a lot of the progress we make is to realize things in RETROSPECT. There’s no way a kid can realize he is being mistreated or neglected by the parents, but in RETROSPECT he can figure this out and see that he WAS abused or neglected. Sometimes we can I think only realize things AFTER-the-fact not while it is happening.We may be aware that something isn’/t “right” or that we are in pain,, but we don’t realize the real source of the pain/discomfort. If that makes any sense.
Thanks EB,
Say, speaking of Sexy woman, have you seen the new Kathy Bates series “Harry’s law?” where she is a lawyer who quits a rich practice and opens one in a hood in an abandoned shoe store?
Really cool. With my new bouncy hair I think I am starting to look like her. It comes on on Monday nights.
Yea, the pot pie was great! I will make the gravy in it a bit thicker next time but I was trying to leave out as much fat as possible and your fat amount and flour amount have to be equal so it wasn’t as thick as I wanted because I couldn’t put in enough flour to really thicken it. TASTE was wonderful though! Got enough for tomorrow night’s supper too.
Got a lot done in the lovely spring weather! Got my new front door up, and put up the new wall paper border in the kitchen, got some more trim paint to do and such tomorrow but got a lot done and it was nice to be outside in a SHORT SLEEVED TEE today! Eat your heart out!