Love Will Save Me: Why Working on Your Problems Before Marriage is Smart

Just because you love someone doesn't mean you have to be involved with them.

Love is not a bandage to cover wounds.

~ Hugh Elliott, Standing Room Only

June is the FLX/WordCount Blogathon!  Join us for 30 Days of blogging madness! 

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t’s Throwback Thursday. 

Which usually means posting pictures that highlight what a bad idea that mullet and blue eye shadow were back in 1985.

It’s also Hunger Awareness Day, and since emotional hunger is a very real problem in our society today, I thought, why not revisit an old post about relationships?

Also, I’m lazy, ADDish, and tired.

Six years ago, I had a discussion with a couple of bloggers about whether a person should work on their psychological and emotional wounds before entering a new relationship and whether that relationship could itself be a source of healing.

I had forgotten all about this discussion and the post it inspired, and upon reading it, I quickly realized this couldn’t be just a lazy re-blog.  Because six years ago, I was a different person.

A Broken Vase Holds No Water

Six years ago, I was four years out of a manipulative  and co-dependent relationship.  Six years ago, I wasn’t in therapy with the incredible shrink I have now.  Six years ago, I thought I was fine and okay.

But six years ago, I was depressed and didn’t know it.

Six years later, I’m more self-aware, more confident, more don’t-give-a-flying-truck-what-anyone-thinks.  More in touch with my wounds, my past.  And more in touch with my anger and disappointment.  You could say, I’m a little more hard and cynical.  Still, my six-years-ago self was pretty much dead on.

Read the original post: The Power of Love

Let’s get one thing straight right from the start: a relationship, whether it’s romantic or platonic, is never a cure for loneliness.  People are people, not objects to be bought, sold, or used.  A relationship built on hating eating frozen dinners in front of the boob tube by yourself is going to last as long as my coffee pot.  Actually, my coffee pot will probably last longer.  

Not to mention it makes things exceedingly tiresome and boring for the other person.  

And quite frankly, I’ve met people who still felt alone in their relationship.  And that is worse than literally being alone. 

Since that post was written, I’ve had several friends date, break up, and get married.  And as I began learning more and more about child development, and family wounds, and inter generational healing, I began to talk more and more about the need to tend to our wounds before entering into a life-changing commitment.  But time and again I was told: not all take the same path, not all journeys are the same; some people are healed by the relationship itself.

While I agree that we all have different paths to take, they all overlooked one thing in their reasoning: they had already been in therapy and done work on themselves or were in therapy when they met their future spouse.

Prior to that, they were dating and getting nothing but heartache in return.

I Want a Girl (Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad)

Many of us had (or have) troubled relationships with one or both parents.  And many of us either ignore that, or try to compensate with their significant other.  But we learn all too soon that the other person is just as flawed as we are, as our parents are, and in fact, may even be flawed in the same way our parents were!

When you enter a relationship without addressing the fact that your father always promised he would do X, Y or Z but never did it, you may have a tendency to expect all men to promise but not deliver.

Image credit: Chappell Therapy

If your mother was manipulative and domineering, you may have the tendency to view your girlfriend’s ability to handle herself well and take charge of a situation with distrust or you may simply retreat when faced with taking responsibility.

And still the pain continues and the need to address past wounds remains.

Do all relationships work this way?  Of course not.  Things like mentors, the moderately functional friends we had growing up, and even grace need to be factored in.  

But enough have problems that books have been written about the parent-child connection and influence over current relationships.

The Journey So Far

Six years ago, I said that I believed “perfect love drives out all fear” and I sort of still believe that.  The issue I have now is, in order to experience love in a healthy, integrated way you first have to know what it looks like.  Otherwise, you’ll keep getting your heart stomped on. (Think of abused women who won’t leave their abusers).

How do we do that?

I don’t know how you do it, but I read books.  And talked with friends.  And joined a support group.  And talked with friends some more.  And read more books. 

Until finally one day, a romantic interest said to me: “You know, you’ve told me about X, Y, Z in your past and I think you should join a support group or talk to a spiritual advisor ~ because the reason you’re attracted to me is because I remind you of your father…and you really shouldn’t date me.”

So (heartbroken), I joined another support group.  And I read some more books.  And talked to a priest or two.  But I didn’t find a competent therapist. 

And would you believe, I went back to thinking I was working on things and everything was fine. Denial ain’t just a river…oh, you’ve heard that one already.

It would take me two whole years ~ and one last majorly dysfunctional and painful relationship in 2009 ~  to finally hit rock bottom in January of 2010.  Suddenly, everything was not fine ~ in spades.  I was not okay.  As smart as I was, and as many supportive friends as I had, I realized (finally!!) that I needed more help than I was getting. 

And even then, I was stubborn and didn’t meet my shrink until six months later.  (Gee, it’s been four years?! Happy Anniversary, Siggy*!)

Bottom line: no one human being can “fix” or "fill" you by themselves.  Would you expect your spouse to set your leg if you broke it?  Or do open heart surgery on you if you had a blocked artery? No, that would be stupid!  They aren’t trained to heal those kinds of wounds/illnesses.

And yet, many of us expect our spouse to heal our emotional and psychological wounds.

The Power of (Unconditional) Love

We were not created to be alone, to work out our problems in isolation. We are social beings, made for self-gift and with an incredible capacity to love and forgive and grow.

Pride says you do not need anyone or anything to help you heal. That is not only false, it’s unwise. But neither are we meant to just expect things to magically get better without putting forth any effort at all and letting our spouses, children, friends, confessors, shrinks do it all for us. 

The answer lies in between: take the time to become self-aware; work on your issues; talk to a therapist (consider them your psych surgeon).  Healing those wounds enables you to feed that emotional hunger yourself. 

Only then can you feed others.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Agree, disagree, hate me? ;)  Do tell!

*Siggy - oh come on.  Siggy - Sigmund.  Yeah, you got it.

The Serrated Edge of Criticism: How to Wound Your Loved Ones

There is a magnificent, beautiful, wonderful painting in front of you!

It is intricate, detailed, a painstaking labor of devotion and love!

The colors are like no other, they swim and leap, they trickle and embellish!

And yet you choose to fixate your eyes on the small fly which has landed on it!

Why do you do such a thing?

~ C. JoyBell C.

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month.  Join me in blogging to erase the stigma of mental illness so our loved ones can seek the help they need.

C

riticism has a serrated edge like no other.  It cuts deep and leaves jagged wounds.

I’m not talking about literary criticism. 

Or the critic a writer asks her beta readers to give her.

Or the critique of a fine wine or good restaurant.

I’m talking about negative criticism that tears down confidence, shreds self-esteem, batters the heart, and breaks the spirit.

But I Say This Because I Love You…

The problem with most of us is that we speak before we think.  We eagerly leap to correct someone without getting all the facts (Facebook, anyone?).  We delight in pointing out flaws ~ either character, moral, or simply “You missed a spot there.”

And we usually brush off any pain caused by our omniscient fault-finding by saying “I’m only trying to help.  Don’t you want to be better/turn in a good report/do your best?”

No one is more guilty of this than parents.

I know.  Many of my friends are parents and will probably cry foul.  “But Junior is doing X, Y, and Z!  How else am I to raise an upstanding citizen?!  He has to learn right and wrong.”

True, he does.  No one wants to raise the next criminal mastermind.  But will your negative words really inspire him to greatness?  Has yelling, screaming, or insulting ever produced healthy, integrated results?

 

Words credit: Handsfreemama.com
Image credit: Google

No.  It produces broken, anxious people.

Nine times out of ten, when we are frustrated with someone ~ be they a child or another adult ~ it’s not because we love them. 

It’s because we love our ideals and they aren’t living up to them. 

Now, does this mean that children shouldn’t be taught right from wrong?  Of course not!  But teaching them manners and morals doesn’t have to be done at the cost of their dignity and self-esteem.

Rachel Stafford over at Hands Free Mama has an excellent article today on this very topic: To Build (or Break) A Child’s Spirit.  She admits to being that negative parent and talks about the devastating effect it had on her daughter.  She ceased to see her as her own person, and became either a project to be worked on and perfected.  Or a nuisance to be dealt with.

She was so focused on the fly that she stopped seeing the beautiful work of art.

Happily, she realized the damage she was doing and changed the way she interacted with her child.  And her daughter blossomed again.

Accident Forgiveness for All

How many of us grew up in a home where no matter what we did, it was never good enough?  Or where we were “too much” ~ too loud, too quiet, too energetic, too lethargic, etc.

I may be a grown woman, with years of experience and accomplishments behind me, but even today, both my parents (although my mother is much worse about it) still find fault with everything I do or say. I tried confronting her about once, but that is another story for another day (or a whole chapter in my memoir).  Suffice it to say, my own criticism didn’t go over very well.

One of my co-workers has a sign on her wall that says

You cannot live wanting mercy for yourself
and judgment for others.

And yet that’s how most of us live, isn’t it?  We want everyone else to be perfect, but if we screw up, we want immediate and unconditional “accident forgiveness.”

Isn’t it time we started granting some accident forgiveness to others ~ as well as ourselves?

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

There’s an old poem that starts out “if a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.”  Read it, print it out, and tape it to your bathroom mirror and your back door.  Make one change in how you interact and react to others, especially your children if you have any.  See if there’s a difference in their demeanor and behavior.