Today I’m feeling so much love for you because you are just like I was. You are single, maybe never been in what you consider a “real” relationship, and you want that more than anything else in the world!
Maybe you want to be married, maybe not. Maybe you want to have children, maybe not. Maybe you love your work but realize it can’t give you the warmth, the joy, the ultimate fulfillment you seek because those qualities come from relationships with people, not projects. You want to give and receive affection, joy, respect and love and you deserve it! And you’re exhausted, depleted and sad sitting on the sidelines feeling that love is passing you by.
Please don’t believe the people who say they have the answer to your question, the solution to your problem. You are a unique individual and deserve to be seen and understood in your uniqueness. There is not one answer for you, although there may be one idea that strikes a chord, that sparks a flame within you – follow it!
If any of the following ideas resonate for you, please delve deeper! Don’t just say, oh, and move on to the business news – have more love! Figure out what’s holding you back from having the love you desire and then go create it.
If you’re doing one of these three things, you may be stopping yourself from making the connection you crave with a high-quality man.
Spending every moment of your free time with your family and friends
You love your family! A weekly dinner with your mom and babysitting your nieces and nephews so your sister and her hubby can have their weekly date night are just two ways you express it. Add all the times you volunteer to help a friend with a garage sale or paint her spare bedroom on the way to babysit those nieces and nephews and there goes your whole Saturday, right?
Sunday is either brunch with the girls or church in the morning and some well-earned you-time, and between the babysitting and the unlimited mimosas you crawl into bed on Sunday night and wake up Monday morning wondering how another weekend has gone by without a date.
Ask yourself – What’s in it for me? What are you gaining by supporting other people’s life goals and not leaving yourself enough time or energy to support your own? Is it possible that you have grown so accustomed to identifying as the one who supports all the people you love that you can’t allow yourself to risk changing your identity?
Ask yourself – How can I start to change the way I see myself? Can you learn to identify as someone who supports all the people you love and expand that definition to include yourself? If you do that, then in addition to spending time with your family, you might also spend some time going out to a place where you can interact socially with potential partners or peruse online dating sites or apps.
Spending every moment of your free time catching up with your favorite shows
You love your stories! You insist on knowing who’s doing what to whom at all times, but let’s think about this logically. If you want to be married in the real world, why are you spending so much time in the virtual one?
After my dad passed away I felt bereft. He’d been living near me for the 7 years after my mom passed away and he was the focus of my time and attention; weekly errands and dinner and then, daily visits at the hospital and rehab center. I remember the first Friday night after he passed I was literally wandering around my apartment not knowing what to do with myself. I turned on the TV and found the Friday night lineup of old British sitcoms.
They became my replacement family, and for close to a year I kept my Friday night dinner date with them. That was then; for you now it might be binge-watching Netflix or Prime, or Hulu, or YouTube or Brit Box or … There are so many choices we could all stay home forever! And my goodness, you can get them on your phone, so you don’t even have to be at home to visit, you can tune in wherever you are – and miss the chance to talk to the handsome man standing in the checkout line at the grocery store. Because you literally do not see him.
It gives you a sense of belonging, they’ve become like family, after all, so it makes total sense that you do it – although continuing to do it is taking away so much time and energy that you might be directing toward having more … let’s call it warm love, interactive love, living, breathing, real love.
What can you do about it? Stop. Just stop. At home, instead of turning on the TV or popping open your laptop, look out the window, notice if a neighbor is outside and go talk to them. Standing in a line, keep your phone in your purse. Tune in to your actual surroundings; take in the weather, the people, the conversations and music around you.
And when that handsome man in the checkout line asks you to hold his place because he needs to get one more thing, look him straight in the eye, smile and say, I’m happy to!
Hoping that someday your prince will come
Maybe you believed all the people throughout your life who told you to “Just live your life, do what you like, and he’ll appear when the time is right.” I always say you have to have hope as a noun, you can’t use hope as a verb. If literally all you’re doing is hoping you are not serving your highest good, nor are you moving yourself any closer to the enriched romantic relationship you desire.
I used to take that kind of inactive advice to heart, and coupled with hearing I was supposed to, “wait upon the Lord” I was doing a lot of waiting and hoping. What I wasn’t doing was dating.
Why do we take some advice so literally, and not act, even when we know the clock is ticking and inaction is not getting us what we want? Because it lets us off the hook. If you post your pics and profile on a dating site and you don’t get a lot of positive reactions you might have to admit that something about your profile or pics isn’t attracting men. And then you’d have to really commit to doing the work to figure out what it is so you can correct it. If you don’t sign up at all you get to stick to your story that no men your age want women your age.
If you want to be married and you’re not, stop waiting and hoping and start swiping and dating. And if it’s overwhelming to do it alone, call me.
This is your life. Your marital status is up to you.
#datingandrelationships #midlifemarriage #datingat50 #marriedat50 #marriedat40 #midlifedating #onlinedating #havemorelove