And to anyone who is reading this wondering if there is hope, of course there is.

You can mail me at timbochard@gmail.com.

You asked about my blog, and as yet I don’t have one. Although my website http://www.timchard.com is up. It is still a work in progress though.

Tim

It’s funny because since my divorce I’ve met so many men who just don’t know who they are or lacked a sense of reality. These are men I dated – only briefly – because it was just boring. Takes me back to the 10% idea…makes total sense to me.

Since reading your first few responses I’ve been making a conscious effort to love and get to know myself better…so far, so good.

Thanks again and Happy Holidays!!!

Old: Is it not logical then that her love for her husband has finished?

New: Is it not logical then that her love for her husband has not finished?

Sorry,

Your objectivety will go a long way to help with your emotional development. To fast track your emotional self, research Empathy and apply it. To be able to have empathy we must first understand ourselves. Yet to have empathy indicates that we already know ourselves. You must give yourself much credit. To be able to be objective indicates to me that you are developing empathy. I am sure you will be fine. In fact, you are already laying great foundations for your own path. I just wonder how long it be before you can see that and be emotionally free.

Tim

Just a quick (its quite long actually – lol) note on your mother and what I said about love after death. Sometimes people can have feelings of guilt after a partner passes and not know why. These feelings of guilt appear to be very deep and unreachable. These feeling of guilt can be transferred onto other people as blame or even rejection. This can make those who are close have feelings of guilt.

Guilt, My Def: is a misunderstanding of intention.

To Do:

Ask your mother to think about her vows. Ask her if she thinks she should stop loving her husband just because of his passing. If not then sit with her and write up a new vow. A vow to love her husband forever as she actually intended to. This love will be for all the times they shared together, both physical and emotional. You yourself are the very embodiment of the love they shared. Is it not logical then that her love for her husband has finished? Loving a partner who has passed does not mean that the person is not moving on with their life.

Recognizing our emotions and acknowledging them is the best way to overcome fear. When we overcome our fears, we can love. Love is the breath of life in all of us. Without love in our life, there is no reason to breath. But what is love? Love is the desire to please. As we grow more emotionally attached to another person we will want to please them more. So your mother can still be very much in love with you father by doing things that she knows would please him.

Now to you…

Sometimes in life we look at what we do, we think about the things we say, we look at the people who surround us and we ask ourselves, why? Why do we do what we do, why do we say the things we say, why are the people who surround us there? And we realise sometimes that things must change. We realise we don’t like the things we do. We don’t like the things we say. And the people who surround us are just…growing invisible. All of these things are symptoms. Symptoms of our emotional state.

If we are ill, the doctor does not treat the symptoms but treats the cause. Treating the symptom may make the illness go away for awhile but when it comes back it will be worse.

If we treat our emotional symptoms, we are not fixing the cause of the symptoms. As an instance, If we have a husband who is mistreating us and so we end the relationship. We are only treating the symptom. (I believe in such a case that this needs to be done, for the safety of those involved). So now we seek another partner. All goes well until the symptoms reappear. The mistreating begins again and so we treat the symptoms by ending the relationship once more.

When a relationship has ended because of problems symptomatic of an incorrect emotional state, we must alter that state so as not to induce the same symptoms. Do not read this as me blaming the women for inviting the mistreatment. No, what it is, is the women taking responsibility for her emotional state and being aware that her emotional set was in need of alteration.

An example. If the captain of a ship was given a map to take his ship through a particular channel and he ran aground, it would not make sense to dredge the channel floor so the ship could pass. It would make better sense for the captain to redraw his charts so that in future he was able to take a better route and thus bypassing the obstruction. He could blame the rocks, he could blame the map maker, but in the end he has to take responsibility for his actions and be big enoughto say ‘well if they can’t get it right then I will.’

I hope this makes a little sense. I will post again soon with more bits and bobs. I am in the process of putting together a website for my thoughts. So will let you know. For now though, be safe.

Tim

It’s funny that you mention responsibility because I do realize my failed marriage was definitely a 50/50 situation. We were in love, he needed a green card and we married in a rush. Very impulsive, I know. And that experience in itself has had me questioning my own judgement ever since. I don’t blame him. I actually blame both of us…for being two adults (very young adults) who committed to something and then couldn’t make it work. But I credit both of us for remaining friends and for realizing that we were two completely different people who just made a mistake. It’s been hard since leaving him to see his life deteriorate. But he presses on and continues to see his son.

On my goals – Having been married and having had a child my goals in life have changed. They used to be career, career, career and money, money, money. Now my goal is to create a loving, happy and comfortable home for myself and my son. My career is still up there as it always will be. But because I’ve got such an amazing job right now I feel like that goal is already checked off (although it will always be a goal of mine to succeed and continue to excell at work.)

Now I’m just focusing on creating a happy life for both of us that will ideally include his future step-father and my future-husband. It’s why I’ve been asking myself all of these questions over the past year – realizing that I need to work on myself before I can really make this happen. That I do have a lot of dark closets to explore before I can really have a successful relationship. Nothing is too hard. I have to figure this out. It’s not an option. I want to be the best mother I can be and the best wife I can be and most importantly, the best person to myself that I can be.

I wasn’t on my own list – on my list of who I love. I think that going from a single career woman to a single mother in the course of two years knocked me off course. I have been lost to myself for a while but recently, in just the past six months I have been waking up again. Remembering who I am, who I was and who I will become. It’s why I have this blog. I do want to give other single mothers hope. Granted we are all different and every situation is unique – but this particular life situation is definitely hard to explain to others.

My parents were madly in love with each other and fortunately I witnessed that as a child. But, that has also left me with some unrealistic expectations of how a relationship should be (as my mother reminds me I saw the easy part – the end of their relationship – not the years of molding before I came along.)

I love what you said about continuing to love someone even after they’ve died. For me it’s easy, he was my father. I still feel like he’s around. I still feel him with me. I still love him so much. I actually put him on my list. Didn’t know if they had to be alive or not.

If a car did not have a steering wheel we would not drive it – we like to be in control. In life we can’t stop living because we lack direction or goals, but we can gain control by getting to know yourself better. I could tell you that making goals is the answer, but what goals? If you say to me right now, OK, I want to be an Air Hostess for Airline A, easy lets set the goal. But, is that who you are? Is that what you want? Is that what you need?

Goals can only be set by evaluating ourselves and knowing what we really want and need in life. In your situation as a single mother you have many variables to deal with that a single or even married person does not, but that is not a reason to say it is too hard. Having a blog and putting your heart on line to find answers, tells me that ‘too hard’ is not a word that you use very often, so that is good.

The reason you need lists is for evaluation. Each time you write a list it will change. Note these changes to yourself. Recognizing yours fears is the first step to addressing them, by gaining knowledge. A dark room is scarey until we turn the light on.

Your son will judge your situation based on how you handle it. While no one is in a position to tell you how to deal with it, being objective in handling it is a good place to start. Having empathy for your son will reveal many answers also, and do not be afraid to ask for his input. Just make sure that your questions are not baited. He will see through the insincerity and it will come back to bite you.

A good indicator of how your son sees you, your situation and how you deal with it, is in your relationship.

Don’t be quick to lay blame. All good relationships should be 50/50. In any relationship that fails we must be prepared to take some of the responsibility, even if it is just for your son. This is not a judgement against you, but if all your responses to your sons questions are ‘It was Dad’s fault.’ he will lose respect for you over time. A better answer would be ‘At that time I thought that was the best way to deal with the situation.’

You see, as your son gets older and begins making choices of his own, he will remember ways that you dealt with situations and he will replicate those. So remember that blaming another is a good excuse for not taking responsibility.

As far as the love list, If you were not at the top of that list, then it would be diffcult to love others. Write your list again and put yourself at the top. After writing that list, write another with all the reasons why you love yourself.

Also another thing to think about. What is your opinion of yourself?

On your mother, I have often wondered about how marriage vows affect people. I am guessing that your mother would be at least 5o if not older. Those generations were very literal in all things. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.

In the marriage vows it says ‘ Do you, ‘Name’, take ‘Name’ to love and to cherish, through sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer till death do you part? ‘ YES

I have found that partners of your mothers and previous generations find it very difficult when their partner passes. So I ask these questions, ‘Why should your love stop at death?’ ‘Why should you stop cherishing your partner when they have passed? ‘ You see they may only be words, but older generations believed those words with all their heart. They just didn’t stop to think about how they might be affected by them.

Tim

And you’re absolutely right – my father would not want me to be feeling this guilt. The guilt is largely felt for my mother.

My fears are deep. My fears about the future…about losing someone else. About how my son will judge our situation in the future. How do you come to terms with your fears?

I wrote the lists. The fears came quickly. The people I loved the most were harder. Does it matter if they’re not in a ranking order? Or is it just a list?

I love what you’ve written – it’s beautiful, thought provoking and comforting.