Why People Want to be in Relationships

Now that I am single once again, I believe it is time that I try to understand myself and relationships better... to gain a little more awareness. When a person is in a relationship, you have the opportunity to have someone else lay witness to your life... both the good and the bad. Your significant other can offer advice, can share experiences with you, can laugh and support and love you. You have a companion and a friend... hopefully someone who's company you enjoy as much as they enjoy yours.
When you are single, you lose this companion. I think this is why it is sometimes such a deep sense of loss. Not only do you lose your best friend, but you lose a lover and a person you once thought you would walk through life with.
It is challenging to start thinking of starting over... challenging to think of trusting a stranger, challenging to think of meeting someone who interests you physically, emotionally and spiritually.
I understand that the world is full of people and that a lot of these people are single and available, however, it is important to note that the older we get, the harder it seems to be to find a good match. In your twenties, lots of people are looking for mates. There are lots of meeting places like universities, bars, concerts, parties, etc. it is a stage in our lives where individuals are naturally out there actively looking for partners.
Now let's jump and skip ahead 25 years in to the future. Everyone has experienced a lot more of life. People have had careers, had families or have chosen not to have families. Many marriages or unions have failed and people are not as innocent or naive or trusting as they once were. There are a lot of broken people, sometimes with children who have also had to bear witness to their own pain from broken families. Not too many people are interested in finding a new mate at the bar scene. It goes without saying that for the majority of women and men, they will never be able to compete with the younger generations, nor should they have to.
But it is obviously so different when you try to find mate when you are older. The majority of people are no longer in their prime and their lives are much more full and complicated compared to their early years. Complications are not all negative, but, as the word implies, just a little more challenging.
You have lost your former best friend and are a little less hopeful that what you have to offer is what someone else will want. I have always been pretty much an optimist, but even I can see that the process gets a lot more challenging to say the least.
On-line dating sites have popped up, along with singles events, speed dating, etc to help address the issue of meeting new people, but this doesn't take away from the complications that have arisen from merely having lived more and spent more time treading on this earth.
In many respects our lives may be richer than before, but how do we get to show this to others? How do we find someone who sees that the life we have built is rich and rewarding? It requires a very open, non-judgmental person to open their eyes wide enough to see this, and an opportunity to showcase this to others.
If we are able to even find a person who might be interesting to us, that person has to have enough awareness to address their own pain and learning experiences rather than succumbing to a sense of loss and bitterness over their own change in circumstances.
All I can say for this post is that I do believe this love thing is... well... complicated.

Letting Go of Relationships

The end of a relationship for anyone is not without it's challenges but it is in these months that follow that one truly wonders how to fill the void. The sad thing is that at 46, nobody wants to have to think about starting over again. And yet, that being said, it is also not good to stay in a relationship that isn't working. I know now is the time that I should be evaluating how I have ended up in a relationship that just was not what I needed and why I not only ended up there, but why I stayed for 3 1/2 years trying my best to make it work.

Making it work seems to be what I am about. I guess I must have been successful at "making it work" in my 18 year relationship prior to this one but in the end it did not matter what I did or didn't do. The bottom line I suppose is that perhaps my new modus operandi should not be to make something work but rather to spend this time in between relationships increasing my self-awareness so I do not put myself or another poor soul through this again.

I know more than anyone that there are no guarantees when you meet a person and begin "dating" but what is not always apparent is that it takes time to figure out whether a relationship works. You have to go in first before you can ever find out your compatibility level and I think it is during this phase that I have a "too high" tolerance level and I do not see the signs with enough awareness that there may be incompatibility. I wish there was a manual written on this!

I can be hard on myself now but I do believe there are reasons why the signs do not necessarily scream out at me. Sometimes the other partner can want they relationship so badly that they actually obscure the truth. My old boyfriend is now "advertising" himself on Facebook seeking a new relationship and it is ironic that as I read his profile, I find myself shaking my head and saying "but that is a misrepresentation. What he writes here is not necessarily the truth."

It is interesting that life evolves around all types of relationships but when I am single it is still hard not to feel like I am somewhat "flawed". I know intellectually that this is just crazy but so much of what society operates around is oriented to couples. It's flawed logic because all a person has to do is to look around at the number of dissatisfied people who have partner's. Many of these people who are in relationships feel as though they are stuck. They are perhaps stuck in an unhappy union and feelings of love and belonging to something great have long since expired.

So, I wonder, is it our nature as human beings to never be satisfied with our plight? It is not that I am unhappy with where I am, it is more that I recognize I have to rethink my views of what it means to be a single person so I feel like I am perfectly where I ought to be. If I could turn old thinking patterns around, I might actually appreciate the fact that I am no longer in a relationship that is unhealthy for me. As well, I have been given the gift of time to figure out really who I am and what I want, and to question what went wrong and why.

And so... now begins the process of discovery and of facing my biggest fears.