My Sense Of Love Is So Messed Up

[Deleted member 1860]

I'm thinking that I'm not alone on this one! (Unfortunately...)

Does anyone else feel that they have a really messed up sense of love that stems from past abuse (childhood, domestic, etc)?

I feel so old to be saying this as it seems like everyone else my age is either married or otherwise attached. I'm still very much single. Really, shouldn't I have this figured out by now?

I've been wondering this for awhile...I mean, am I so messed up that I wouldn't know love if it smacked me in the face? I'm always telling people that they don't love me, they don't care about me, I mean nothing to them, etc. But really, why is it that I don't feel love, or even cared about? Am I in such a protective mode that I don't allow myself to feel these things? Or am I so messed up from the past that love=pain so my mind won't even let me go there anymore? Between an alcoholic mother, a father who smacked me around, and a babysitter who molested me, no wonder I have such a messed up sense of love!

So I have this friend... We've known each other for over two years now. In the past he's told me that everyone experiences love a bit differently. Love means something different to one person than it does to another. This sort of took me aback. Yes, I know, sort of a "duh" moment, but really, I think I've romanticized love for so long that I don't have a good sense of what real world love is. (Damn you, Hollywood!) And then today, after I'd pulled even more crap on him, I asked if perhaps we should just end things between us. He told me point blank, SOL, you're not going anywhere and you know it. You've left a thousand times and you always come back. I was shocked to hear him say this as everyone else (well, most everyone else) has left me at the very first sign of trouble, but he wasn't like oh, get gone I'm sick of you...not in the least. A few stayed around a bit longer, but none as long as him. (Ok, so he did leave me a few times, but he came back, too.) So I'm thinking....he's got to love me in some sense of the word, right? Really, who else would stick around so long? Or am I messed up in thinking this, too? Oh, I'm so confused!

I'd go and find a "love for dummies" book, but somehow I don't think it would cater to this specific problem. Or maybe I'm wrong again... Sigh.

 

[therapybankrupt]

What is Love? Cause anytime I trusted that to be real I got badly burned! Maybe there is no such thing. Maybe it is just a case of erasing to many boundaries and trusting to much. Is that not part of PTSD?

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Erasing boundaries? Like tearing down walls. I don't know how to even start doing that. Well, I've been able to tear down some of those walls, but other ones...I think they're keeping me safe so they very much serve a purpose, even though that "safety" keeps me isolated.

Maybe it's one of those things that you can't really teach someone about, you can't learn from someone else, or from reading a book. It's something you have to just experience on your own, in your own way, at your own pace, in your own capacity. I really don't know...

 

[Katz2]

I have a problem with this too, and it is a hard one, cos I have such a guilt complex as well as many other problems. I think love is someone you work at things with, and you get on, from time to time :) and Hollywood does have a lot to answer for, lol

I'll give you a example of my guilt, I was feeling stressed, and I wished my partner would just go to work, oh my that sent me on a mega guilt trip, and it wasnt till I was talking to my T that I realised it was normal and didnt mean anything.

The way I see it now, is I'm not working with a normal set of tools, and I have to talk this kinda thing out with someone you trust, and someone that knows you.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I wish I had that, but sadly I don't. I dont have a partner. But, I do get told to just think positively. When I try to explain my troubles so others can understand what I'm dealing with, I'm accused of being a buzz kill who just wants to bring everyone else down. (FYI, I don't...I just want a bit of understanding and support.

 

[Sues]

I'm pretty messed up from before. What is love? I don't even know anymore. Love isn't mean. Love isn't violent or angry. Love doesn't lie, cheat, or betray you. Love doesn't strike fear into you, make you feel unsafe, or keep you up at night because you're afraid to go to sleep. Love shouldn't hurt you, scare you, control you, or break you into a million little pieces.... I don't know what love is anymore. I just know what it isn't.

 

[Bilby]

I think love comes in many forms, and I do believe that people do experience it differently.

There's obviously romantic love, and there's friendship love - if you have both of those with the one person, then I think you're on a winner, i.e. romantically in love with a person is truly your best friend.

There's also the love you have for your family, which give different feelings again (if applicable).

I think 'real' love is all sorts of things, like:

• happiness with a person that you feel with no other - that 'inner warmth' kind of thing
• feeling safe
• feeling like 'home' - no matter where you are, if you are with 'that' person, then everything is alright
• complete trust
• a feeling of wanting to be a better person, not just for yourself
• Where your partner will tell you what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear
• Someone who will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you
• A feeling of being 'complete' and like things are as they 'should' be
• Being healthily challenged by the other person, and also able to challenge them
• Being able to see a future - as individuals, and as a couple and being able to foster and support both...

This is more difficult to describe than I thought, dammit LOL

Maybe it's one of those things that you can't really teach someone about, you can't learn from someone else, or from reading a book. It's something you have to just experience on your own, in your own way, at your own pace, in your own capacity.

Yeah, I think that's about it really! :)

 

[piratelady]

I have the same problem and discussed this in therapy as I'm being...nudged back into the wide world of dating. I know I have a messed up sense of what "love" is. I wish you the best in figuring this out.

 

[AS1975]

I had the same problem for a long time. I thought I had found love in 2001, with a girl I got engaged to in 2002, but in 2008 the whole thing fell apart, due to it not being love obviously (although I can be awfully difficult to live with).

In 2009 I was online participating in various forums and other such sites. I'd tried the nightclub scene, but my tolerance for adolescent stupidity particularly drunken adolescent stupidity and people with no manners (DO NOT TEXT YOUR FRIENDS WHILE I'M TALKING TO YOU or I will walk away shaking my head at the lack of basic decency). I'd pretty much given up, so I went online in search of friendship and someone to talk to.

While I was on there I met a woman about my own age, with 2 kids from a previous marriage, who was articulate, clever, witty and very down to earth. We decided to meet and that went well, I got on well with the kids, I got on well with her and things were looking good. So much so, that I (with a lot of trepidation) moved to the other end of the Country to move in with her in late 2009.

The kids went over to the Dad's place on Thursday afternoons, returning on Saturday, so Friday was our day. On the 6 November 2009 I was cooking at what was then her house, while she went out and got a haircut. Everything went to smash and I ended up badly burned, while several areas of the house were also seriously singed and there was cooking oil and water spread all over the floor in several rooms, with heavy smoke marking in most rooms of the house. I was picked up by the ambulance (they cut my shirt off and put it over the fence) and taken to hospital. When she got home, she saw the badly singed shirt and an unholy mess in her house, with no boyfriend.

There was a stuff up in the hospital, she rang around and finally found me. I'd been telling the nurses to remind me to tell her that her hair looked good, which I did when she arrived (it did). As the nurses and doctors were trying to get me stabilized so they could put me in an induced coma and intubate me before my airways closed up to do irritation and burns. I remember being bloody annoyed when her mobile kept ringing, it was the bloody insurance company wanting to talk to her, I'm about to go into a bloody coma for 3 days, they can talk to you later, I can't I told her.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, love is when you wake up from an induced coma, in the critical care unit, in several shades of deep shit, with tubes hanging out of you and machines doing your breathing for you and smiling uncontrollably because that special someone you most want to see has actually been sitting there waiting for you to wake up. I cannot imagine any other person in the world that could possibly have made that situation bearable, let alone joyous.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I am happy you found love A51975. It really does make a big difference in life.

 

[Sues]

Thank you for sharing that AS, I'm so happy for you.