Wednesday, October 22, 2008

to anonymous (marcia)

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for sharing your feelings about Marnie’s posting about Visualizing Marriage. I can feel your pain in your words and I’m so sorry you feel the way you do. I think we’ve all been discouraged at different points in our lives – I know I’ve been there more times than I care to remember.

What I love about this blog is that it forced me to get out of my comfort zone. I also love how the other writers remain hopeful and optimistic about reaching the end goal – even when the process is sometimes painful. I think everyone who is single and who wants to get married has been discouraged many times. What I’ve learned is that there really is no one right way to date or get married. What works for one person may not work for another. The point of this blog was to force us out of our comfort zone, to try things differently, to just make us accountable for getting out there and doing something…anything.

I give total credit to this blog for getting me married after 42 years. My relationship with Clue was on a path headed towards failure. We weren’t communicating, we weren’t connecting and we definitely weren’t progressing. For me, this blog helped me open up and communicate my feelings with Clue. That was all the opening we needed. In hindsight it seems so simple, but at the time it seemed so difficult and hopeless.

So my challenge for you, Anonymous, is if visualizing marriage hasn’t worked for you, try something new. Maybe you could start with Marnie’s “security guard stare” experiment. I’ve been trying that lately and it’s not always easy, but it’s something!

Hang in there Anonymous…we’re rooting for you and we’re here for you if you need a cheerleader!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, I believe it works for other people. Changing things up can be a good thing, and it's worked in other parts of my life. But sometimes it seems to me that over the last several years of my life the message I've been getting is "nobody wants you--why would you even think that's possible?" I can be at the top of my game in my career, I can be the best person I know how to be, and I can't control how another person chooses to see me. I can't control how my body won't cooperate with my wishes, and I can't stop being sick all the time, which makes me not be able to exercise, which makes me more unattractive, which contributes to more depression and feelings of worthlessness and unloveability.

I think it's great that people can find ways of feeling positive and finding love. I just find it really, really hard to believe that it's ever going to be possible for me. I've done the going-out-of-my-comfort-zone thing, and all I got for it was a lot of weirdos who blamed me for their issues and made me feel like it was my fault that they treated me badly.

It just seems to me that I've had enough abuse in my life, from childhood on up, and I'd rather be alone than deal with the painful consequences of trying. Even the ones that seem normal only end up randomly turning on me after a few months. It's simply not worth it.

Bridget said...

I can surely relate to you, Anonymous. I do know, however that the thoughts and beliefs and stories we tell about ourselves, to ourselves and others are simply not true. I have a suggestion of a book that really helped me, by Byron Katie, Loving What Is. If you're up for a good book, please look for it. All you need is another self help book, I know, but it was really helpful to me and the many thoughts and beliefs that I had/have about myself and others that were damaging and ultimately holding me back from what I wanted. Hang in there, Babydoll, you have many women that relate :)