How I completely changed the dating game for myself

Don’t let the pain of the past dictate (my) choices of the future – Mastin Kipp

A few years ago, after a long-term relationship crashed and burned, I found myself single once again. Only this time, I was older, and felt a lot like a failure when it comes to relationships. I have written a lot about the many heartaches, questions, and adventures from that time period. It was horrible and it was beautiful and it was exactly what I needed to change the game. During that time I was putting humpty back together again, I really looked inward and thought about all I had learned from all my past relationships. What I realized shocked me. At the center of the most important lessons I learned was one glaring truth I couldn’t ignore: when it comes to love, the real focus needs to be on myself, rather than my love interest. And so, here I share 5 bits of awareness I had when I realized that by focusing on myself I can change the dating game.

 

Love doesn’t make us stupid, self-judgment does.

It has been said that love makes us do stupid things. And maybe this is partly true. But when I look back and think about the stupid things I did, it wasn’t love that made me do it. Almost every time, it was self-judgment. I judged myself for not being able to “roll” with one girlfriend’s inappropriate boundaries with her ex. I judged myself for not being the kind of girl who could just be cool and not trip when some girl seemed not all that into me. Mostly though, at least in the long-term relationships, I was afraid of some perceived notion of failure if I ended the relationship I was in. I was afraid it would mean I couldn’t make relationships work. In one case, I started dating my then girlfriend while I was in the middle of a dark period of my life. I literally had to start my life over. I had several friendship shifts, and this girl, the one that became my girlfriend, was one of a handful of friends I had left as I tried to find my way back. I told myself if I broke up with her after she was there for me, then I must be a bad person. Nothing like fear of failure with a big pile of misplaced loyalty and scoop of guilt on top to keep me stuck in an unhealthy relationship.

 

 

Focusing on our girlfriend rather than ourselves keeps us in victim land.

One of my very favorite parts about aging is that I have learned to take more responsibility for myself. At some point, despite anything negative that has happened, I realized that in order to stop being a victim in my life I had to own everything that that was mine – even if it wasn’t obvious at first glance. For example, one of the ways I didn’t stand in my own truth early on in one unhealthy relationship is by moving in with my then-girlfriend too soon. I knew I should get my own apartment, I felt it in my gut – I needed to stand on my own feet after the dark period and to recover from the chaos that led to it. Instead, I opted for what appeared easier – to move in with her after only a few months dating and basically focus on merging our lives, rather than rebuilding my own life. It was easier for me to focus my energy on the relationship rather than on what I should have been focusing on – myself. In the end, I had to put myself back together while in the relationship as there is simply no going around it. This experience was a good reminder that the easy way is never easy because in the end, when the relationship eventually ended, I still had to deal with myself.

Being in love doesn’t mean you’re compatible.

Of all the love lessons I have learned over the years, the fact that we can love people that we aren’t compatible with is the most confusing yet most important and biggest game changer of all. If, like me, you’ve grown up watching romantic comedies, then somewhere, maybe buried deep down in that feminist heart of yours is the belief that love conquers all. I know I held tight to the belief that as long as we loved each other we could work it out. Now, after many loves lost, not for lack of love, I know that’s a bunch of bullshit. We can’t help who we love, be we can sure help how long we stay in a relationship that isn’t working. Compatibility is about being seen and valued for who we are, growing together, and supporting each other in our own uniqueness.

Part of noticing incompatibility sooner, rather than 5 years into the relationship is being awake in our own lives, taking responsibility for ourselves, and accepting that while relationships take work, they shouldn’t be incredibly hard.

Love shouldn’t be that hard.

Love shouldn’t hurt. Period. That is not to say that sometimes we don’t feel hurt, fear, anger, confusion when we’re in love. The difference in my mind is that love, when it’s healthy, balanced, mutually expressed, is pretty smooth. Stuff may come up, there will be misunderstandings and misses. But with those comes communication, repair, and moving forward. The hard love that I confused with healthy love in my youth, is more like a roller coaster of inconsistency, worrying, waiting, wanting something, or feeling genuinely crappy. These disaster cycles can be addictive, and for many of us who experienced some difficult family situations growing up, are so familiar they feel like love. So much that we can come to believe that is what love feels like. To truly move forward into healthier relationships, I had to accept that love doesn’t hurt and shouldn’t be hard. And the truth is, when it’s that hard, we’re probably not compatible. And where there is incompatibility in a relationship, it’s not about me. Or you. Or her! It’s not personal. It just is.

 

What I learned from almost 2 decades of dating is not that I loved the wrong women, it was that I focused on the wrong woman: the other person rather than myself. By turning my focus inward instead of outward, I began to practice watching my self-judgment, my tendency to focus too much on the relationship, my compatibility deal breakers, and differentiating between drama and the normal “stuff” that comes up. In the end, I realized that I had more power than I ever thought – and the responsibility to stay focused on me in dating.