Relationships gone bad: The right way and wrong way to love. Don't make the mistakes I made. What not to do in relationships!!!

It has been almost 7 years, thats over half a decade.  Half a decade of secrecy and lies and sneaking around....all under the auspices of protecting the children, protecting the family, of doing the right thing by sacrificing love, life, happiness, joy and everything else that comes along with meeting the right one, falling in love, building a life together, committing, being intimate, living everyday with zest and passion and joy.   The stress that comes along with that lifestyle has made me physically ill.  Cancer, autoimmune disease, depression, jealousy, heartache, hopelessness all slowly appeared over the years and all in the name of sacrifice and love and doing what was necessary for my partner to be happy.  Is that really what love is?  The story books say its so.  Poems, short stories, movies, historical novels, all of the above and so many more state that love is about putting someone else's needs ahead of your own.  Is that right?  Is that true?  How many of you can honestly say that they have done such things and forsaken their happiness, their needs, their wants and found true love and happiness?

Well, I can't.  Sure, I did all of the above every single day for 7 years.  Maybe if it was acknowledge, noticed, appreciated and rewarded then maybe, just maybe, it could have had potential.  However, isn't that specifying that doing all of that for someone, entitles me to being appreciated, rewarded etc.?  And isn't that in and of itself, exactly the opposite of what the whole intention and chosen sacrifice is all about?

I did all of those things and sure as anything, as time went by, I was taken for granted, nothing was appreciated and I simply became someone who was guaranteed to be there for him no matter how poorly he treated me, how many times he blew me off, how over time I mattered less and less and then when I did raise the issues, it was I who was the cause of dissension and conflict.

The argument became what came first?  The chicken or the egg?  Who caused what and what caused who to react?  Sure as anything, distance and resentment slowly moved in and filled the space that once was filled with love and laughter and need.

If you give someone all of yourself.  If you offer yourself and your heart and your soul unconditionally, asking nothing in return, expecting nothing in return and make it your sole existence to put them first, because that is what is said that we are to do if we love someone, then how may I ask, can respect and interest, and value and challenge and excitement maintain its course?

I know for sure that I would get bored quickly and lose respect and ultimately whether intended or not, I would begin to take them for granted and slowly but surely, start to walk all over them and not even realize that I was doing it.

I would begin to resent if they argued, or fought back or suddenly appeared with demands or expectations and I for sure would never, after such love sick devotion ever question myself, my behaviour and simply presume that it was not I but of course, they that had changed.  Accountability and responsibility would not ever come to mind because by god, they had never had to own anything before because they were unconditionally loved and no matter what, they were accepted.

So whose fault is it when relationships like this fall apart?  There is definitely a past and when unconditional love and complete autonomy has been the norm then why wouldn't he be quick to blame and accuse me of being the one to change and become insecure and the culprit who ultimately ruined such a perfect thing that we had going.   Can you blame him?  I certainly can't.  I can't because I single handledly created this monster.  This monster that ultimately thinks of no one and nothing but himself and over time morphed into the most narcissistic and selfish, compassionless person alive.

But I, alone, had created him.  So be very careful to offer unconditional love to your partner.  Be careful never to not challenge or ask for what you need or want because I just lost the love of my life, the "one" because I loved him too much, I offered too readily and I expected so little.  I made him matter and I made myself inconsequential.

Love isn't about putting someone else's needs and wants above your own.  It is about compromise, respect, honesty, integrity, authenticity and valuing yourself and your partner.  It is about give and take and most importantly, it is about communication and standing up for what you believe in and what you need and knowing who you are and what you bring to the relationship, to life and believing that you are worthy of everything that he is.

Don't make the same mistakes I made.  Love is about sharing, and give and take and honour and respect.  Don't give those up for your partners.  If you do, your relationship is doomed from the moment you think his happiness, his needs and his wants are more important and meaningful than your own.

I lost the love of my life, but you don't have to.  Heed my words.  If you allow someone to walk all over you, disrespect you and minimize your self worth, you've already lost and best turn and walk away now.

Know who you are, what you want, what you need and what you are willing to compromise and know the same things about your partner.  Make sure you smile and laugh at yourself and life and always make sure your glass is at least half full.

Value yourself.  Value your life.  Value your partner.  Love does not require hardship and sacrifice of your needs and your wants.  It requires a partnership, an understanding.  Most of all, it requires two people who respect and value themselves and know what they each bring to the relationship and don't ever forget that.

I am a psychologist, a chinese medicine practitioner, I am a mother, a partner, a daughter, a sister, a friend and a woman who has had to learn the hard way in love.  I hope you don't make the same mistakes I did.  It is unnecessary and heartbreaking.  Learn from my mistakes.  Your partner will appreciate you all the more for it.

Invaluable lessons learned from heartbreak by being extremely honest with myself

A letter to my lost lover:


To the love of my life, It was 11 years yesterday that my dad died.  I thought it was ten years.  How fast it goes.  You have it more right than I knew.  You live life on your own terms and I couldn't understand all of it.  I of course understood much of it, but there have been many choices you made that have baffled me, challenged me, taught me, scared me, hurt me and many other such feelings.  Yet you are true to yourself, always true to you and rarely veer off course from what it is that you want or need either in the past, present or future.  Is that right?  For you it is.  Is that wrong?  For others it may be. For me, often times it was.  Whose perspective is more important, more meaningful, more valid and who is it that gets to make that decision?  Its impossible to know.  


In the past I have definitely resented you for the course you have set for yourself, as it invariably changes with old friends or new, past favorites or new, ocean or desert, new investment interests or old, functional relationships or dysfunctional, kids at home or no longer, boating or golfing........the variables are constantly changing and thus so is your perspective and who am I to decide what is true or false, real or pretend?  Important or unimportant?  Our perspectives are different.  We are different.  Everyone is different.  So I have come to the conclusion that it is unfair of me to resent the bulk of your behaviours. 


For example, most recently you spending months away golfing while you've repeatedly told me that it is being with your kids that has prevented you from bieng with me, that it is waking up in your own bed and making them breakfast that you need and clearly one cannot exist with the other, that you like them around, waking up knowing they are there etc.  So I have felt a fool.  I have felt betrayed.  I have felt decieved and  manipulated and I have felt to be living the life of a victim.   Because essentially nothing you've done in months has had really anything at all to do with your kids, or your house or your bed or even your city and most people in it.  Im not wrong, because that is my perspective.  But does that mean you are wrong?  Or does it mean that you make life what you want it to be, that you know what you want and you go out and get it and that you make the very most of every minute of time that we have all been so graciously allotted.  


Does it mean you lied to me all these years or does it simply mean your needs and wants changed course?  What is the truth, the reality, your version or mine?  I don't think there is one, because it is different for everyone.  Everyday.   So I wont resent you anymore and I won't try to understand what it is that you are doing so far from loved ones months on end, hitting the same ball over and over and gleaning more satisfaction and pleasure from that repetitive act than clearly everything and everyone that constitutes the other part of your life.  How can I understand that?  I don't golf.  I havent gone away with friends for weeks and months so how could I possibly resent you for choices you make that I can and will, never know myself?  


I can only feel sadness that I went from being your golf, to being someone you can live without in your life.  One day it will be golfs turn when you become too old and golf becomes too hard and something or someone will rise up to take its place.  I envy you that.  God I wish I could do that.  God I wish that one thing could bring me such pleasure no matter how many times I repeated it.  I have never found that something.  I did however find the someone, that made anything and everything whether good or bad, fun or boring, pleasureable, and enjoyable and special.  So how are we any different?  


You found a something and I found a someone and your something and my someone fulfilled each of us in the very same way. I have minimized your golf as a game and maximized me as more valuable and important.  Who said?  Me?  Why is my perspective any more important than yours because they are different?  Does that make mine right and yours wrong?  Of course not.  It is simply a matter of individual preferences and choice and what is right for one person is wrong for the next person and that is something that people can agree on.  So I am sorry for resenting you, for resenting your choices and behaviors and for not understanding this.  If it is golf that makes you happy love, then by God you should play as much as you can because the first rule of love is that you just want the one you love to be happy and you do everything you can to help them be happy.  I thought I was doing that but I was wrong.  


I was blinded by your life and kids and circumstance and insecurity and hurt and jealousy and I sacrificed so so so much of myself in all the wrong ways for all the wrong reasons and actually expected appreciation to be expressed.  Those weren't the acts of love, those were  the acts of someone who thought they knew what love was supposed to be and now I know that my choices weren't made from love, they were ultimately made for bargaining, manipulating, for trying to create the relationship that I wanted, that worked for me.  After all, you chose them, and I chose you and that ultimately was supposed to make you happy and appreciate me, which in turn, would help you to ultimately choose me.  Instead of that story playing out, the very behaviours that I alone chose of myself hurt me, weakened me, made me dislike and disrespect myself and in turn, you chose no one.  You chose a game - golf.  


I have learned that I must question and evaluate all of my decisions and actions and discern what is my motive, is it pure, is it honest, does it come from a place of understanding, compassion, integrity,  love and acceptance of what is, not what was or what could be.  Nobody will ever understand everything about other people but everyone sure can try.  The only way to do that is to be completely honest with oneself and look at our own individual behaviours and motives.  Ultimately everyone needs to take responsibility for ourselves and hope that that is good enough to invite others into our life who will inturn accept us whether they fully understand us or not.

Without this, I would never have figured that out, and I think this is the most valuable lesson I have ever learned about life, about people about myself so thank you.  It hasn't been easy to get here, but it will be invaluable for me and my life going forward.

I love you so much.  I apologize for every choice I made that was not in your best interest but rather in mine.  I apologize for not understanding this sooner and for not being the lover and friend that I should have been.  Love is a selfless act and I thought that is what I was doing, but it wasn't.  It was exactly the opposite.  I am sorry love.  I am a better person because of us and I thank you.   

My son's demonstrates courage few teenagers demonstrate and acknowledges he is depressed and needs help

It is ironic to think that when my 15 year old sons friend arrived on my doorstep yesterday with tears in her eyes very worried about him that I felt an enormous rush of relief.  Over the past year my typically hard working well adjusted, goal oriented high achieving son has disappeared and in his place left a very angry, disrespectful, uncaring, excuse filled young boy in his place.

The social media website Tumblr is a beehive of blogging and posting quotes and pictures that represent how a teenager is feeling at any given moment in time.

As my 3 kids have gotten older, I have monitored their social media sites such as Facebook less and less, never having found a single posting that would cause me alarm.

As my sons mood darkened and he became obviously depressed, I made the decision as a parent to violate his privacy and I went onto his Tumblr site, as he spends what seems like half the day on it, to investigate.  

What I found horrified and frightened me.  Every post, that scrolled down page after page after page was dark and brooding and overwhelmingly sad.  He posted that he hated his life, he pondered whether anyone would miss him if he were gone, he stated that life was sh.., he was sh.., every single post was heartbreaking to read.  Deciding I had little choice but to disclose my invasion of privacy I gently confronted him asking him if he felt depressed and overwhelmingly sad, had he had any thoughts of taking his ownCh life and he laughed at me.  He got angry with me and he ultimately denied the whole thing. He was so convincing that my husband and other children told me I was blowing things out of proportion and he was just fine.

But a mother knows.  And I knew, I had known for a long long time.  I set up an appointment with a family counsellor and my husband and son and I went and talked with him for hours.  The conclusion by the social worker was that my son displayed no signs of depression or anger, in fact, that he presented himself as much older and more mature than an average 15 year old boy.  I was stuck.

Until yesterday afternoon, when his close friend arrived on my porch in tears very concerned about my son and his whereabouts.  She said he had posted once again on Tumblr that he was coming home to kill himself, to walk in front of a bus.  Thankfully, he was with his team at the gym working out.

We put her car in the garage and had her stay out of sight until he had come in through the door and I asked him to sit down.  When I told him that his friend was here and was very worried about him he simply looked at me.  I walked to him and took his face in my hands and said love, you are depressed, your friend is a true friend but you cannot deny this anymore.  We need to get you help.  He broke down and held tight to me for a very long time and finally he whispered, okay mom.  I will get help.  I was trying to do it alone but I can't.

I always thought the word "duck" would be the happiest word I would hear from his lips - his first word.  But the immediate sense of pride with my boy having the courage and strength to admit to himself that he was depressed and needed help was overwhelming.  A huge sense of relief flooded my body and he has told me it  did his as well.   Once it was out in the open he began opening up and finally letting me, his mom, back in.  This morning he got up and went to school and carried on his bravery when he went straight to the counselling office and spoke with the therapist for an hour and a half.  He is helping himself and we are all here to support him.

Teenage years are some of the most difficult in this journey of life.  Mothers, follow your instinct with your children.  A mother does know.  And welcome your children's friends into your lives for I will forever be grateful to my friends son.  She brought him back to us, and he back to himself.  They are never too old as teenagers to occasionally monitor these social media sites.  You can learn a lot and it isn't snooping.  He will be mad at me for a long time for invading his privacy but this one has a happy ending.  He is still here, he will be ok and our family will be okay because of it.

Be grateful for friends.  You never know when you will need one, or your child will.  Be grateful for moments of joy because life is hard there is no doubt about it but if you appreciate those moments that make you smile and your heart patter, you're succeeding.

Cheers to friends and cheers to teenage courage.  I couldn't be more proud of my son.  Be careful with the social media sites.  They do deserve monitoring.  And go with your instincts.  It just might save a life today.