Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono FreeDigitalPhotos.net
A few months ago I was very reluctant to date anyone because I was enjoying my relaxing life at home and spending quality time with the kids. I did not feel ready to begin dating again because I had suffered so much heartache and I was not emotionally ready for it. I had the good fortune to have been asked out by Mr. Giants Fan who I had a Facebook friendship with for a very long time. Unfortunately things have not really been working out and I think deep down we both know it inside. It’s a struggle for me mainly because I think about him all the time and it has developed into this unusual obsession that frightens me to say the least, but I can honestly say that I have identified some key areas where we went wrong and you may want to follow along to see if this is a part of your relationship. A while back I wrote about the concept of “Not falling too deep” as my sister put it. In that post, I quietly discussed the responsibilities that single parents have in the courting process and how it’s different from those individuals that don’t have children or other obligations.
I will be fine and you will too
Mr. Giants Fan and I had a very big emotional blow up which resulted in him giving me the silent treatment for a day. However, the feeling of turmoil that I had in me was just so profound that I could not shake it and I knew that this was God’s way of telling me that this is not the right relationship for me. I then began to panic and I had to put those fears aside and really look at it from this perspective: Before I dated him I was perfectly fine and even if he’s gone I’ll be fine after him. This doesn’t take anything away from him because I definitely thought that he was sexy, attractive, smart and we had good conversations. There were taboo items that we could talk about like politics and religion that you could not talk about with just anyone. So I had to bite the bullet and tell him that “I need to work on the relationship with myself. . . . Nobody should be held hostage any longer to each other’s issues and blah, blah, blah I need a break.”
So I told him I need an emotional break and I wanted him to pray for me. I care about him enough to be the one to step up and admit it’s not working and do this for me. How this will eventually affect our relationship with each other is a mystery. If I had a man act out the way I was acting out, I would have been gone a long time ago and for some reason, there is something that keeps us there but not fully present. Whatever the outcome is, we should all be mature enough to know that our lives will be fine afterward. It’s only with hindsight on my friendship with Mr. Big that I can tangibly see the effects of the joy you can have when you finally let it all go.
Honestly your fears are mostly unfounded
At times our fears and our imagination get the best of us. When we are heading down a road to breakup or have already broken up we have a tendency to have irrational thoughts. These irrational thoughts are what feed our fears. We have given ourselves a checklist of what we had hoped to accomplish by the time we are 30, 40 or 50. When we don’t reach those goals we tend to punish ourselves or ruin our self esteem by thinking we have failed. The idea here is to NOT hold ourselves hostage to lofty goals that are rooted in the future but not in the present.
My fear was that Mr. Giants Fan was going to be having all of this fun without me and that he was going to hook up with somebody else if I left. Okay, so let’s rationalize this. Now that you are taking a break he is allowed to date, go out and have fun. However, does anything he does really harm me? No, it does not. I also have the chance to date again if I choose to and the month of February is a fantastic time with charity functions, birthday parties, Valentine’s Day (or more like Un-Valentine’s Day celebrations) and more. It’s a little selfish for me to think that I’m not having fun and I just need an attitude adjustment on putting the focus back on me. He is also a single parent so he has to go around looking for sitters just like I do. The reality of single parenthood is that most times it’s just not fun at all and we are not getting out and about like we’d want to.
My regrets
I think the biggest regret was moving too fast. I wish we had not moved as fast as we did and I wish he had not met my children until much later in the process. I feel like there is a lot to learn about him and I just never had the chance. I also fee like I should have listened to my inner voice sooner and should not have gotten so attached too soon. This is definitely a hard lesson learned and for me, I will need to meditate on things a lot sooner and quietly get to a point of hearing my inner voice and watching for the red flags sooner.
My educational journey towards defining my emotional desires
One of the first things you need to do is CLEARLY define your emotional desires and come to grips with your attraction profile. Who you attract and date are a just a part of YOUR human experience and it should teach you something and bring you to a better place. It should raise you up to your higher purpose, that which is God’s purpose and NOT make you feel less. The key here is attracting your true love and when I mean true love, it’s the love you have with yourself. I will be writing about how you can achieve this in a later blog post. All I can say for right now is if you are going through a break up in order to find your break through get yourself a support network either through therapy, friends or family.
Disclaimer:
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
