"Lost in Translation, Yet Again"

2 Comments: "Lost in Translation, Yet Again"

1. I didn’t know I had ADHD when I was single, but now I see that it was a big part of why I stayed single so long. I was impulsive, and that impulsivity had landed me with a very short marriage and a child WAY too young. I decided I couldn’t be trusted not to choose someone bad, so at first I wasn’t dating because I didn’t want to bring anyone into my life that could hurt my son. But then my son got older, got to an age where he could TELL me if someone was hurting him, so I started looking. But who could I bring into my mess of a life? I couldn’t bring anyone home to my mess of a house, could I? I couldn’t explain all my “weirdness”, why I’d obsess over some things, but didn’t care at all about other things, why music sometimes made me want to crawl out of my skin, why I was so damn quirky about practically EVERYTHING.

   But the truth is, I just hadn’t met the RIGHT person yet. I did meet one guy before him, and we had a semi-functional relationship, but the truth was it never functioned very well because he had no intention of being anything more than a part-time boyfriend, which is why HE didn’t care about the quirkiness, he could just ignore it and walk away when it was too much. But then I met my husband. I didn’t know I would date him when I met him, and certainly couldn’t have predicted marrying him. We just talked, alot. I met him in a chat group online, and he was in another state, so there was no thought of a relationship at all. We just talked about our lives and grew to be good friends we could confide in. I told him all about my quirks, he told me his, and somehow, before we quite knew it, we realized we’d crossed the line between friendship and love. We never really had a dating “anniversary” because it just happened so slowly and naturally. But here we are now, married. And while it isn’t perfect, he has his own daemons and can sometimes grow impatient with mine when his start revving up, we do have a pretty good and supportive marriage. I’m no longer alone at family functions. I no longer have people staring at me with pity because I “can’t find someone”.

   My advice to you is just to wait. Stop pushing. Stop focusing on getting a relationship. Just focus on yourself, and, like your therapist said, what makes you happy. Join groups or clubs that match with your interests. It may not be as soon as you want, but eventually you’ll end up meeting someone who can look at the whole you and see something beautiful. Then you’ll know it’s right.

   1. CBT has really helped me. The fact is we do often jump to conclusions or judge ourselves for being single. The fact is I was married for several years and then I had some longish relationships…so it’s not like it’s impossible! I do feel bad for being single now but I think your therapist is right. From my understanding Asian society is more intolerant of single people (women especially) and it’s hard to tell them to back off. But you almost have to do that because pressure does not help!! Guilt just makes things worse!! Maybe join e-Harmony or something like that, and take your time meeting people. When you push to force a relationship bad things happen.