Where do I go from here?

Newbie31

I don't know where to start. I'm a female, aged 31 and life seems to have stopped. I'm from a small family (parents died when young), sibling married with own life. Living away.

I'm ok looking, pretty average I'd say and can attract (some) guys but mostly the wrong ones for me. I've dated a bit and I've had three pretty serious relationships.

No. 1 in my early 20s which was a lot of fun but too many ups and downs and ultimately completely wrong for me although it took me a long time to realise it and I ended it when he told me had cheated on me (twice!).

No. 2 was about five years ago to someone I fell for completely and almost instantly. Of course this was just lust but the chemistry was there. Or so I thought. He blew hot and cold from the start. I figured he was shy and made many excuses for him. He treated me quite badly. Cancelling dates, numerous lies and he made me feel I wasn't good enough for him. Now I know someone can't make you feel like that unless you yourself feel like that already but the truth is, he really did. From commenting on my appearance etc. I groan when I think about how bad things were and how little dignity I showed by running back when he beckoned. The 'relationship' died out and I'm afraid I pretty much lost it with the pain of losing him. To this day, we remain in contact. Usually when he is looking for a bit of attention which I'm aware of but the (perhaps) sad fact is now that I can lessen the hurt by not being involved with him on a sexual level, I remain quite fond of him and accept his flaws though I'm not so sure he can accept mine...

Just as the pain had subsided, I met No. 3 who was quite different to the others. For the first time I didn't go on looks. I was attracted to his personality first and really enjoyed spending time with him.I felt ok being just me. The relationship felt very different, and real compared to the previous two, I felt accepted and I felt secure. He told me what I wanted to hear I guess (its hard to write that) and of course I fell for him. Again because I wanted to but he made it easy. Following a small, stupid (and first) argument one night, he turned to me and said he was unemotional about the relationship and sorry for whatever lies he had told me to make me think he was serious but if he hadn't told the lies he'd have been 'shooting himself in the foot' because 'as a woman', I probably wouldn't have continued seeing him! Two years on and I'm still trying to get my head around it. I tried to resolve things with him (yes even after he said that) because I missed him and wanted him and I was grieving and still am for the future I had imagined spending with him. He had already moved on. Two years on and I still don't think I can handle any more rejections.

I've never had many friends but was close to a few and had a good social life. In the two years following No. 3, I seem to have fallen out of favour with mostly all of them. I helped by streamlining an already small bunch of people as if anybody did anything or said anything that I perceived as hurtful, I cut contact but the truth is the majority seemed to drop me first. I wasn't exactly fun to be around and have been hyper sensitive. So now here I am, a tiny bunch of friends although the few I have are all long termers and who are like family to me. Unfortunately they are scattered and none of them live in my area. I'm living by myself and am lonely but above all I am desperately afraid. I'm afraid of life. I'm afraid at what it can throw up next and while I'm terrified of being alone, I'm afraid of more hurt.

I have tried not to let this sound too self pitying although thats plentiful in this post but I honestly don't know what to do now. Its like I never grew up or never gained maturity. Partly maybe because I never had an example to follow growing up but now I'm an adult and should know my way in life. I've tried many times listing the good things and things to be grateful for like health, my job etc but the list is shorter every time. I feel like packing up and running away but where will I go? Part of me wants to do the impossible and change the past but the reality is I want to let go of the emptiness and sense of loss. I'm also afraid of leaving behind the only (partial) security I have which is my job.

Thanks for reading this. If you have any advice I'd gladly listen.

drunkmonkey

Newbie31 wrote: »

I feel like packing up and running away but where?

hard to know where to start, all depends how much money you can get your hands on, if i was free to roam i'd probably start in france and work my way through italy, then down through asia.....god knows after that, your 32 single go for it!! The world is your oyster.....

girl_friday

Have you considered going to a life coach??

newestUser

See a counsellor. If I were in your shoes, I'd rather talk to a professional than come on here and get travel advice (see above post).

You seem a bit needy. Do you let people mistreat you by rationalising it? Are you aware at the time you're being mistreated?

Why do you feel you can't handle rejection? It's part and parcel of life, we all have to deal with it. You clearly need to work on your self-esteem.

If I were you, I'd go see some manner of a counsellor. If you do it with an open mind, you'll gain some helpful insight that you might not otherwise achieve.

Karen_*

Op here's a fact of life: you are going to be hurt and rejected again many times through your life and in many ways. Life is a series of ups and downs. We're all scared, not just you. So you just have to get on with it and I'm not being harsh. If you don't take risks then you may not get hurt but you also won't find what you're looking for.

Firstly get rid of that bloke who was always putting you down. You are not moving on and you need to. Chalk the realtionships up to experience and don't let them have any bearing on your future other than what you learned from them.

You can't run away OP because you don't like yourself and your life and if you run away you have to bring yourself with you. It solves nothing.

Start in small ways making changes to you life. If you'd like someone to talk to then I'll meet you for a coffee. I am by no means the expert on anything but I know where you're coming from and I do understand how you feel. And as someone who has had to make radical changes even though I'm terrified maybe I can help. But you need to help yourself. I love to sit around feeling sorry for myself and waiting for something good to happen but its been a huge waste of time. People who have it all and who things work out for have usually had to work for it. It doesn't just drop into your lap. We're all entitled to a bit of self pity but its wasted energy OP. Nothing changes if nothing changes and you have to make the changes yourself.

Marksie

Its a truism OP that one is responsible for their own happiness and unhappiness.

Its also true that you have it in your own hands to achieve what you want to achieve. You just have to believe in yourself.

You are looking at the past and in reference to your past realtionships again,
look at it another way. They are not attracted to you for the wrong reasons..but you are choosing them for your own wrong reasons.
In reading what you have said subsequently to your relationships and your assessment of you losing friends and why you cut them out after your hypersensitivity.
You have hit the nail on the head : You are afraid, not only of life, but of getting hurt..whihc of course comes part and parcel of it.

As for immaturity or not, we all mature at some point and iwhat makes us mature are the lessons we learn in life and how we choose to apply those lessons.
You are maturing: you have realsied that its your own behaviour that has caused the loss of friends, the lack of a close relationship and subsequently the feeling fo emptiness.

The past is memory, old thoughts, dead. They are shaping your present and the potential of your future.
Let them go.

To become what you want to be, you will have to do this.

1) let old thoughts and doubts go. They are blocking and holding you back.
2) learn from what happened: whether you placed to much reliance on others, too much neediness, held onto someone because you beleived that you could not live without them
3) Accept all in life: The good and the not so good. Don't close off to it, its hard, but stay open to experiencing bothe physical and emotional and expriential facets. Realsie that all your doubts, hurts and insecureties stem from within you, from the fact you allow yourself to be hurt so much, to teh fact you stop peopel being close by keeping them at arms length over these worries.
4) realise your issue is not about alack of guidance from another adult: they are essentially in the same boat anyways: Butfrom your own lack of connectedness.

What do you do now?
Well actions speak louder than words (thats a good lifecoaching phrase BTW)
You are looking at what you have as a millstone.
Flip it: it is also an opportunity.
THe only thing encumbering you is yourself:

Make a list of:
what you want to change about yourself/circumstances
what you want to do
where you want to go
what you want to achieve.

make the list as long as you want. then grade them as to what you think you can achieve easily and what is most important.

Take them bit by bit, perhaps by chosing ones that will not impact on your job first so you can maintain that pseudo security.

Then begin to look at how you can achieve the simple ones, resources, abilities, counselling, whatever it takes (even the good old join a club standby )

By changing the small things, you will gain the confidence to move onto larger things.

But it will take time and you will be struggling against yourself for some of this.
Old patterns, old feelings, old thoughts.
If you sense them, accept them and dont dwell on them, let em bypass, because you know where they are coming from.
The "old" you.
If you fail, learn by it. Dont close off.
If you are scared, face it. Fearshrinks in proportion to how one deals with it.
But above all remember this: in the end, all the help, the courses, the worskhops, the counselling, the travelling, the loving, the acceptance are only possible because of one thing:

that fact that you ahve turned to face yourself and determine who you are, and that you are the only one who can do it.

Best of luck

How Strange

OP, from how you've described yourself I'd say you've no idea who you are in terms of character and personality.

Would you consider cognitive behaviour therapy?

Perhaps it would help you look at why you act the way you do around men and around your friends and help you work on your self esteem and self worth.

sryk

too many probs at the same tym dear...take it izy..and stp taking it as...i dnt know what....step by step...or else ul brk dwn:S

dazberry

Newbie31 wrote: »

I have tried not to let this sound too self pitying although thats plentiful in this post but I honestly don't know what to do now. Its like I never grew up or never gained maturity. Partly maybe because I never had an example to follow growing up but now I'm an adult and should know my way in life. I've tried many times listing the good things and things to be grateful for like health, my job etc but the list is shorter every time. I feel like packing up and running away but where will I go? Part of me wants to do the impossible and change the past but the reality is I want to let go of the emptiness and sense of loss. I'm also afraid of leaving behind the only (partial) security I have which is my job.

You are fooling yourself in to thinking that every adult knows their way in life - there is no set plan and I can't help but feel that your frustrations are born out of expecting your life to be in a different place - there's nothing necessarily wrong with your life - its just not where you want it to be.

I feel that you want serious relationship 4 but you're still hurt after 3 and just feel tired and jaded and maybe a bit scared at the thoughts of trying to find and start a new relationship and hope that this time it really works out. Your not the first to have felt this way and you won't be the last.

So what to do? Find other things that make you happy, be it walking, running, the gym, dancing, night classes, singing?, musical instrument, new hobbies, cooking, a good film, the friday evening glass of wine - maybe all of them. None of those need be big wins toward any great masterplan, but if you can do things that make you happy you can become happy in yourself and you'll then find it much easier to be forward looking and build your confidence.

D.

Newbie31

Thanks for your replies. I've read them with interest and am pretty stunned at how accurately so many of you have hit the nail on the head. You're right when you say I am afraid of being hurt. Terrified would be more apt!

I have asked No. 2 to stop contacting me. While not exactly a problem, he certainly wasn't helping me improve my self esteem.

About the neediness - I've thought long and hard about it and it certainly was true for No. 1 and No. 2. Unfortunately with this awareness, I became almost the opposite with No. 3 to the stage where I honestly don't think he half realised how much I enjoyed him or his company. I was flippant to the point of arrogance at times and carefully watched out not to idealise the relationship. It wasn't deliberate game playing on my part (I would never do that to someone) - the realisation came through self analysis in hindsight. The sad thing is that I think I only fell more for him because I saw his minor faults and because they were minor I was more than happy to accept him for who he was and thought the same applied for him towards me. I think, in hindsight, he was hooked on the uncertainty and the chase and when this came to pass, he was off.

Perhaps I'm fooling myself by thinking like this but in a way I figured that this was the ultimate healthy relationship ie awareness and acceptance. Its also why I thought we'd be together for a good while yet. Well that and his talk of 'the future'! Not because we'd marry etc but because by saying what was said, he was going to be around. The truth is I'd be very happy to be surrounded by people I care about and who care about me, given the choice between that or only a 'life partner' (if such a thing exists anymore).

About the lifecoach, this seems to be about evaluating long term goals and I'm not particularly ambitious in my career so I'm unsure how helpful it would be. I tried this before and I'm not very enthusiastic about sitting down and making a five and ten year plan, so I don't think this one is for me.

I have thought of CBT but can anyone just look up a number and make an appt or do you need a referral? I'm a bit worried also that while people have real and external problems, that me going down this route is in a way selfish and self absorbed.

I think that one of the main problems is, as most of you hit on already, the problem of holdng people at arms length. I think the reason I do that is because I have a huge problem of getting close and saying goodbye. I know the old story that everyone comes into your life for a reason or a season etc. I don't know where the feeling stems from but I know that it brings its own problems.

Thank you for taking the time out to reply as you have done. I really appreciate it.

Tom Dunne

I'm not so hot on the whole relationship stuff, so I'll leave that to the experts.

Newbie31 wrote: »

I have tried not to let this
sound too self pitying although thats plentiful in this post but I honestly don't know what to do now.

It sounds nothing like self-pitying, it sounds like a realisation of where you are, which in itself is a very positive thing.

Newbie31 wrote: »

Its like I never grew up or never gained maturity. Partly maybe because I never had an example to follow growing up but now I'm an adult and should know my way in life.

Let me tell you about my experiences growing up. My parents, while they are still wonderful people, would be somewhat unsophisticated and not very wise to the world. As such, they did not instill any self confidence in me, and didn't really give me an example to follow. During my teenage years, and well into my 20's, I was a basket case of insecurity and devoid of any confidence.

Anyone who knows me now, will find this very hard to believe, I am sure.

I like to think now, I am in my 30's, I am much more confident, much more outgoing, purely because I learned to believe in myself. I set myself goals and I made sure I met them. Nobody can help you but you. Yes, others can be there for you, hell, we all here on Boards.ie can be here for you, but you have to help yourself. You have to believe in yourself.

Newbie31 wrote: »

I feel like packing up and running away but where will I go? Part of me wants to do the impossible and change the past but the reality is I want to let go of the emptiness and sense of loss. I'm also afraid of leaving behind the only (partial) security I have which is my job.

Is running away such a bad thing? Starting over, making a new life of it in a foreign country? It might not be. But before you do anything hasty, have a good think of it. Think of the pros and cons. Think what Plan B is, if Plan A goes wrong.

insomnia08

We all have felt a bit like you sometimes. It's ok. But don't let that feeling of sadness invade you.
I'd say going abroad and change your environment would be a great idea. Don't stick to things because they give you "security". Go and get WHAT YOU WANT!
Life is full of opportunities. Learn to love yourself and you will somebody who will love you as you deserve. Forget the past and start anew. And if something goes not as well, forget about it and start anew! always positive.
Don't be afraid, you have nothing to lose. Go to a warmer country, do something new, meet new people, you could even try a different job!
Start making plans now and chin up!
Good luck x

Geology

sryk wrote: »

too many probs at the same tym dear...take it izy..and stp taking it as...i dnt know what....step by step...or else ul brk dwn:S

Can you please stop using text speak. You've got a full keyboard in front of you.

JuliusCaesar

Newbie31 wrote: »

I have thought of CBT but can anyone just look up a number and make an appt or do you need a referral? I'm a bit worried also that while people have real and external problems, that me going down this route is in a way selfish and self absorbed.

You can get CBT through the HSE system free but you'd probably need a GP referral. You can just ring a private CBT therapist off your own bat. The Irish Council for Psychotherapy list some HSE and private CBT therapists; the Psychologists Society of Ireland will list psychologists; the BABCP lists CBT therapists mostly private/working in private hospitals. These will be lists of accredited and reputable CBT therapists. Hope this helps.

If your problems are affecting your life and your mood, then they are real problems and you're no more selfish than if you were seeing your GP for a physical problem.