One of the fears I always had at the end of each relationship (and especially when I found myself divorced) was this:
What if I’m the exception to the rule to find true love and I’ll end up having to choose between settling for less or just going it alone.
Not everyone wants to be in a long-term relationship, but I did. I wanted the loving husband and the babies and all that came with it, so this fear gutted me. And as limiting beliefs/fears tend to do, each time a relationship failed or fizzled, I was more and more inclined to believe I was actually doomed. In essence, the ‘evidence’ piled up.
👉🏽I’ll give you an example! Post-divorce, I dated someone too soon and with way too much intensity. I wanted so badly to move on and I thought choosing someone I’d known for forever would be a safe choice. Tried and true. Only, he wasn’t any of that. Instead, he hid me from everyone in his life with the promise that everything would be amazing soon (I came to hate that word. I held on but all it did was keep me in a holding pattern for months on end. One day, I hit a wall and found the strength to walk away. I was proud of myself for that, but I also felt so embarrassed that I believed him and heartbroken that he would string me along. His words did not match his actions.
I didn’t seek out new relationships after that, but rather just entertained them when they presented themselves to me. I thought I was preserving myself somehow by not pursuing them, but even those fledgling whatever-they-were failed. Back to square zero, back to feeling awful.
Even though I was doing all the self-work that would ultimately go into the step by step courses I would write within the next two years, I didn’t feel or see any of the results yet. I was so discouraged in both my personal and professional lives in early January 2018 that I found myself unable to get out of bed one morning. I was tired of trying to pull myself out of the hole all of sudden, and because the course hadn’t actually been written out yet, I fear that I had gotten everything wrong and hadn’t made any progress after all. (I had no idea that within a few months, I would be meeting my future husband in person for the first time).
I went to the doctor. I got on a low dose of Lexapro to help take the edge off my depression so I could at least function. And that low dose gave me the push to stay the proverbial course a little longer.
And then, almost out of nowhere, the results started showing up, slowly but steadily. It turned out they were happening the whole time, little by little. Isn’t that the way it always is? You don’t see it or feel it, so you assume it’s not real or happening at all. Anyway, when I did start to see some, I was able to build on every little win, knowing that each one was proof I was heading in the right direction. Today, I’m remarried to the man I could only have dreamed of before this process. And guess what?
I’m not the exception to the rule after all. In fact, I just needed to make my own.