Dear Man Shrink,
I was married for over twenty-five years to my high school sweetheart, but we divorced a few years back. I began dating a divorced man who made me feel very welcomed and loved. We were together for a year and a half when he started to withdraw from me. Gradually, he made it clear that he no longer wanted to see me and I was utterly heartbroken. It was especially difficult because I became close to members of his family.
I have been through so much pain because of relationships and I don’t want to get hurt again. However, it has been nine months since my boyfriend dumped me and I would like to try dating again. I just don’t want to get hurt, so I sometimes shy away when a man expresses interest. Any advice?—K
Dear K,
Yes, I have advice for you. Tons. I just can’t promise that you’ll like any of it.
Before we get into the relationship stuff, let’s talk about how you’ve been feeling. Your letter makes it sound like you’re depressed and possibly anxious. Depression and anxiety rear their heads in different ways for different people. Some people isolate themselves. Others drink or use drugs. Some people become irritable. A lot of people, however, try to fix their feelings with love.
Your question has an unspoken premise: If I have a partner, I will be fulfilled. This is one of the biggest loads of crap that popular culture sells us. Trust me, if Sleepless in Seattle kept going after Tom and Meg got out of that elevator, we would have seen a whole world of ugly. Two people who start holding hands before they’ve spoken more than ten words to each other are just asking for it. But I digress.
Having a partner can bring intimacy, companionship, pleasure, and whole lot of great things. It does not, however, fix someone’s problems. In fact, it usually makes them worse. If someone is unhappy or feels unfulfilled, falling in love will cheer them up for a little while. Then the honeymoon ends and the bad feelings start to resurface in other ways. You start asking for more and more reassurance that you’re attractive and lovable. You start to doubt your partner’s love and commitment. Or, on the other hand, you start looking for love elsewhere because the adrenaline from the beginning of the relationship has worn off.
Your anxiety about dating again makes a lot of sense. Nobody likes to get their heart broken. The end of a relationship almost always causes pain. Why would you go looking for that again? Under normal circumstances, I’d tell you that it comes with the territory, that it’s better to have loved and lost, blah blah blah. However, I think you should go with your instincts. You need to be single until you can honestly say the following three things:
My life has meaning and purpose.
You need a reason to get out of bed every morning that’s yours. It should have nothing to do with work, money, or finding a boyfriend. You’ve got to find something important to you, ideally something bigger than you. You need a purpose. It could be anything from art to politics to charity to faith to chasing the squirrels out of your yard with a hose. It doesn’t matter as long as you find it exciting and—this next part is important—challenging. You need to work toward something difficult. This will not only take your focus off dating, it can also enrich your life in ways that you never imagined.
I feel okay most of the time.
Notice I did not say “happy.” Happiness is overrated. It’s hard to sustain and it’s not even healthy to be happy all the time. Feeling okay is different. It means that your emotions are stable. You get upset when you should, happy when you should, and you don’t feel sad or afraid at unusual times.
