Questioning Love - Al-Anon Family Group

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Questioning Love

Bettina · ~*Service Worker*~

THE MARRIAGE BOX

Most people get married believing the myth that marriage is a beautiful box full of wonderful things.
Things they have longed for : Companionship,nurturing,friendship, etc.

The truth is that marriage or relationships at the start is an empty box. You must put something in before
you take anything out.

There is no love in marriage. Love is people and people put love in marriage. There is no romance in marriage. You have
to infuse it into your marriage.

A couple must learn the art and form the habit of giving, loving, serving, praising, keeping the box full.

If you take out more than you put in , the box willl be empty.

(read this today on f/b)

-- Edited by Bettina on Thursday 11th of July 2013 12:09:25 AM

InspiredPhotography · Senior Member

I can't help but thinking about love. If it really does exists the way I think it does? To what extent is love shared between both man and woman? The nurturing, caring, sacrificing one selfish to make sure the needs are met. To feel completely secure without no question and knowing your place. The honor, respect and strong love? The deep thoughts of emotions and understanding of each other.

Maybe I am too much of a sap? I have to believe it exists somewhere. Watching the Vow, Beastly, and other movies just reinforce those questions. Even people's stories of how they met and what their relationships look like.

Part of me is scared of looking in the mirror and taking a good look at my own self. I have always felt that somehow I was a passerby. No one ever notices me. It was such an effort to meet such a person (pouring so much, years into them) standing strong and committed and yet all of it was swept from beneath me (when I realized that it was just more then bad behavior ...it was alcoholism).

I keep asking myself why? How hard is it to be a phemonal mother? Yet be attracted to such sick men? My children have both said how much admiration they have for me. Yet where is that one person that I need beside me? To shoulder on? To lean and to be there? I even wonder if it is fantasy that is just not met to be. Maybe love isn't for everyone.

John · ~*Service Worker*~

My gawh, I can so relate to this post! I know that true love really really does exist. My heart is very capable of experiencing it, feeling it, sending it out. However, when I ain't right, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually I tend to pick the wrong woman to share it with.. cuz they ain't right either! LOL

Most people would say I am so bold, outgoing, funny, etc, yet they don't know the me that shows up when I am around a woman I am attracted to. I seem to revert back to the 12 year old boy, shy and not knowing what to say to get the girl he likes in school to sit next to him on the school bus for the ride home.

Heck, when I first entered recovery I went to a few sober dances. Now, before recovery I didn't have a problem moving around asking woman if they would like to dance. I was so so smooth! LOL
But for whatever reason, I got sober and I got shy, and very self conscious. So, at this one dance there was a lady standing across the gym the dance was being held in... she was moving like she wanted to dance. She made eye contact with me a few times. She was attractive so my eyes were glued to her..."way over there".
I finally drank enough coffee to get the courage up to ask her if she would like to dance. Then I would think, "not this song, wait, the next one.... next song would come on... my foot is moving to the beat and I really want to dance with this lady... but my mind would say, "nah, not this song, its too fast... wait, next song". I suddenly realized that the "right" song would never be played, and that if I kept waiting to ask her, the dance would be over, while I was standing there waiting the whole time! LOL So, I put on my big boy pants and went across the gym to ask her if she would like to dance. She had been in recovery long enough to learn how to say "NO". So, I walked all the way back to the other side of the gym sure everyone was looking at me and throwing ill thoughts my way. yes, I was reading every one's mind that was in the gym that night. LOL Well, long story short, my sponsor encouraged me to continue going to the dances, and a few dances later, I saw another woman. She was the one I would try to dance with. After about 30 cups of coffee later, I finally got the courage up to walk across that gym once again, and asked her if she would like to dance. It was my lucky night. She was still sick enough to say YES! And I have been dancing ever since. I had to grow up a lot over the years, learning how to think, feel and act like a mature adult, instead of that 12 year old boy, and it hasn't been easy. One thing that still remains is how I initially respond on the inside when I am around a woman I am attracted to. It's like .. poof, I'm gone and out comes the 12 year old again. LOL

Sometimes I think I should wear a T-shirt that says, "I'm single and available" across the front of it and hang out at Walmart where lots of woman go shopping 24 hours a day! LMAO!

Being single has its moments of contentment, serenity, and surely can save me from a whole lot of grief, but it also cheats me out of the joy of giving and receiving true love and someone to share it with. I tend to believe that is what my life is suppose to be about, true love. I am a domesticate kind of guy. I miss going to bed with someone I truly love every night, waking up with someone I truly love and that truly loves me each morning, coming home and being greeted with a hug, and/or kiss at the end of a day, holding hands walking across a parking lot, smiling at each other for no reason at all, besides the fact that love makes you do that googly eyed stuff with each other.

But today I also believe that my Higher Power has already created my soul mate, she is out there... but He won't let me close to her until I am truly ready to receive that gift. So, just for today I am not going to make a shirt that says, "Single and Available", and I'm not going to go shopping for a woman at Walmart!

I am going to be patient, keep working on myself, growing up some more, and get myself right so I am ready to receive the gift of true love that my Higher Power will one day put right in front of me. And as someone else said in this thread, I believe when that happens, we will both know it.

Lastly, I have stopped trying to be the "perfect" person, looking for the "perfect" person. I want to simply be a human being, that see's another human being and let love reveal itself, instead of looking for it and trying to create the "perfect" relationship. I have come to believe that is reserved for God and me. Everything and everyone else, including me will have flaws, but the relationship I have with God is flawless.. truly unconditional.

I like a thingy that I saw and saved from Facebook... it really hit home for me. Made me laugh...

weird love.jpg

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

Let me say what your share got me thinking. Just because one is an addict, does not mean they are a sick. Many, many of our poets, inventors, actors, doctors and more are addicts. It does not mean they are using.

A's to me in the most part, exciting, fun, lots more willing to play. I look back and all my boyfriends were addicts who had not touched drugs yet. When they drank they were fun, funny, sexy, sure. Trouble was they were stuck after awhile as the disease slowling pickled them, rotted out their insides.

There is a time in the life of an addict they are very attractive. At my age believe me they are not anymore.

As far as love, we all need it. We need touch, interaction, sharing, conversations etc. When we are lonely and grieving that we have no one to hug, hold, kiss, be kissed, be touched, listen to, we listen, we hurt horribly. It is a fact when we are lonely and hurting that chemical stimulates our pain centers and we really hurt physically too.

I have prayed for so so so many years for a mate. I lost one to death young, celibet many years out of choice, then married, lost him to a brain tumor surgery and relapse. I still pray so much for a mate.

I have a man who loves me. We have so much to get thru to get to where we can be together. He lives many states away. I love the person he is, he feels the same for me. But this separation is horrible.

If I were single, I was so many painful years. I would go my best to get myself out there, volunteering, allow people to intro me to single men. Would check out singles in my religious group. Then just get to know men as friends. If something is special, believe me you both will know it.

Then you work on it.

Love does not just happen. We make it happen. It is a live thing. Read 1 Corinthians. 13:1-8. you do not have to be religious to love what it says.

A lot too is loving the self we are.

I was so hurt by the loss of two husbands, I really walled up big time. My second husband I knew all my life but he had to work hard for a year to get me to marry him. I wouldn't even kiss him for a long time.

Now my guy now, he had a granite wall to get thru. then he would keep asking me why I am backing off.

We have been thru heck in our situation. It still is very hard. very. I know no matter what I love this man, we have had no physical contact. After over 11 years of contact as just friends, we know each other. We are stuck with each other...

Make some friends. Learn about the men you meet, take your time. Its ok to keep a journal about what you need/want in your life.

Ask people it they know any cool single men. Coffee shops are a good place to meet people. I invite three of my very dear friends of yikes over fourty years to lunch. We were all beautiful young women in our time. When we have male waiters or whatever we have so much fun with them. Believe me, ask a man a lot of questions, he will love that you want to know. I am shocked by how many women these days are in it for themselves. My son is very handsome, motivated, fun, not an A, is outdoorsy, he had enough of these women who just want to hit the sack and dropped him when he wouldn't! They only talked about themselves.

Ya gotta get out there and MAKE it. Smile at men, say hi. To find out if they are single ask if they have kids. haha

I have men look at me a couple times, I think wow, what would I do if I was unattached? I smile and would probably talk to them.

sorry I am yakking. you are romantic I can tell. there is a man who will love that, but ya gotta take risks and get out there. Go out with a few people and see if you meet others at some fun restaurant.

hugs,debilyn

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

Hello. My experience of love in my life has been different with different people. I probably say I know more about what love isn't than what it is.
I don't hunger for the type of relationship that you are longing to experience in part because I don't truly think it exists in one person. I did at one time in my life, but not now. I am content to live a single life without a partner for many reasons and don't feel the absence of love in my life because I am single. Occasionally, I think about it, but for me there is more to life and love than can be found in a single partner, and that truth always sweeps away my thoughts about having a partner.

My happily married friends are comfortable with each other and live pretty ordinary lives together but they also look outside their relationship for other ways to express the love that is God within them and to receive it as well. Many friends of mine although they loved their husbands and were happy with them - don't want to re-marry if their husbands die before they do. They want to be single and free. All of them will have to face the loss of their spouse in one way or another as they age and they will be single. None of them are married to alcoholics or addicts, but they're not interested in marrying again.

I truly believe that what we need to help us be the people we are meant to be in this life will be supplied if we will stay open and trusting. I also believe that love cannot be defined or limited or confined and still be love. Love is more than two people together and it can be experienced by one person who is alone and praying for God to be their all. If there is a God-given need for you to experience a loving relationship with a man(erotica), I believe you will meet him when you're ready and he's ready because God always meets our needs. But until that time happens (or not), you can choose to be content with the state you find yourself in now and invite God/Love to show you how S/He/It sees you and how loved you are.

Breakingfree · ~*Service Worker*~

Hmmm LOVE is a hard one for me. I used to believe it was this whole finding someone to complete me and that could be my other half. After getting older and have been married for years I have decided it should be two whole people coming together to compliment each other's lives. I do believe there is someone out there for me that would be my perfect match, not perfect by any means, but that the bad wouldn't be so earth shattering bad like my exAH and the good would be great and fun. I have yet to find this relationship where I find myself excited and happy and able to mentally dive in completely. I am still healing from my divorce and want to make sure to not repeat some of my mistakes. I do believe it is out there and when the timing is right it will happen. In the mean time I can not settle for any more Mr. Right now's. Sending you love and support on your journey's!

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

I would like to add one thing to my previous - content with being single post: Should Liam Neeson look me up, I would probably re-think my happy to be single status. First, he'd have to drop his publicist.

PP · ~*Service Worker*~

Oh grateful, I am grateful for your sense of humor but back to the topic of love..hmmmm. I am not sure I have the words to articulate what it is, but I can say I have had to break the myths of what I thought it was...Hallmark and country western songs have fed us a bunch of hooeeeeeeey. Now that those myths are behind me, I can feel God, who I know is LOVE in capital letters, in the the little and big places of my life. When I saw my first grandchild, when I see a child hurting from a mom's angry words at Target, when I see an old man kiss the top of his ailing wife's head, when I watch my husband sleeping in his chair with our cat on his lap, when I read the posts here to those that are suffering...this is what love is to me.

ilovedogs · ~*Service Worker*~

I love what everyone has shared here, especially Paula's share because that is what love is to me, too. It's different things in different situations. If we're talking romantic love, then I'm stumped and have no idea what that really is. I think my whole marriage was based on 2 very codependent people who met needs within eachother and filled those voids, however sick they were. I still wonder if my AH and I actually truly loved each other in the real sense of the word. But, then, what really is LOVE, right? Hence, the reason for this thread, LOL. I do know one thing about love: it reaches deep within our souls, it connects us to others, and it brings us closer to understanding with our HP(God).

Bettina · ~*Service Worker*~

So, in conclusion to the marriage box, if one partner takes everything out of the box, and puts nothing into it, then you have unbalanced love and no mutual respect, so marriage cannot exist that way.

Wouldnt you say the disease of alcoholics do that , they take and take, while we keep putting in?

Can love sustain itself then??

Love takes on many facets, highest being compassion.

Love should be a force that helps you expand your lives and brings forth your potential, love is vitality.

If you are neglecting things you should be doing, forgetting your purpose in life because of the relationship your in, then you are on the wrong path. A healthy relationship is one in which two people encourage each other to reach their respective goals.

Real love is not two people clinging to each other; it can only be fostered between two strong people, secure in their individuality. A shallow person will only have shallow relationships. If you want to experience real love, it is important to first sincerely develop a strong self-identity.

A relationship should be a source of inspiration and hope.

My thoughts for whatever they are worth.

Bettina

InspiredPhotography · Senior Member

I want to thank all over you for contributing to this post. It made me laugh, think and smile. I really needed to read what you have all said! I do believe like one person mentioned that two whole people coming together. I do agree with it entirely. I do not just want the romantic part, I want the commitment, the honor, respect and communication. I want to know that if I get sick, that person will be by my side. I have had a very hard life (no complains) it has only made me stronger. Is it selfish of me to say enough is enough? I need a break from the trials, tests, hardships? Can I please take a time out? Then again mentally I never quit, I am always pulling up my boots and get it again.

Learning to complete myself has been a challenge, I have been doing it. Step by step. I am doing things for myself. Responsibly. That I mean not blowing my week's budget just because I want to fulfill myself! With many years being with men that were (very dependent) I forgot myself, I made excuses, I ignored my own needs. I wished my life away wanting them to give what I have given to them. Made holidays special, baked a special meal, wrote love letters and all the wonderful things I could think of to show how much I cared and loved them.

Silly as it is, my girlfriend comes over for supper at least once every two weeks and we chat. She always does the dishes. I tell her how much I appreciate it. Yeah so what it is dishes. But you know my men that I have been with (never took the time to read me, to acknowledge that I needed a break, they did not give back. It was difficult for me because I felt drained, everything was always being taken from me. My emotions, my energy, my money, my love and basically my heart. But turn it the other way and I willingly gave it (until I decided no more and break the cycle).

So it brings it back to the point, love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boost, love gives until when? At one point so you say no that isn't love...yet you think you are doing exactly what love is. Yet you are allowing someone to take advantage of your ability to love?

Believe me I enjoy being at the point where I am. I am willing to accept where I am at. I want someone to be there. Not out of need, it's out of want. I say okay, am I being selfish? I don't think so. I want a happy balanced and unconditional love that I can share and give back. I don't want someone to fulfill me. I don't want someone to complete me. I just want someone to share my life with and knowing that no matter what heads our way we will always come back and find each other. God willingly.

The material presented here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method to exchange information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal level.