I hear people all the time question themselves on why they’re single. I hear others often ask themselves why they continue to date the same type of person over and over again. I even hear those that complain and find fault with every single person they go out with.
The common factor in all of those situations is the person doing the questioning. And at varying points in my life, I have lived as all of them. At times in the past I know I was labeled a drama queen as I walked around with a ‘woe is me’ attitude when I felt everyone else had someone special to spend their lives with and I had no one. Often one might have heard me complain about someone I was dating regularly and how much that person was using me or abusing me in some fashion. There were even periods of time I went through when I found myself dating one person after another week after week and seeing something glaringly wrong with each of them. What I never realized in all of those cases was that I had some serious housecleaning I needed to do before I could ever meet that type of person I really wanted to be with. Until then, I continued to only attract those to me that were reminders of who I was inside and what I hadn’t faced.
I’ve been watching my roommate go through this a lot lately. I see him going out on date after date after date and not really being happy with any of the people he meets or vice versa. I’ve seen him want those that don’t want him and not want those that do want him. I’ve seen him sad and feeling lonely and in all of it, I’ve seen a mirror for myself on how I used to be. And when I used to live that way, the truth was, deep down I wasn’t happy with me. I wouldn’t have admitted that openly back then because I wasn’t aware of it. I wasn’t aware that I didn’t like me. I wasn’t aware that I was a seriously insecure individual. I wasn’t aware that there were many parts of my makeup that I despised. And I wasn’t aware that I had become the spitting image of the bad parts of my parents.
The result was that I either found fault in everyone I met, or I played the sad card around everyone that had someone, or I just continued to go hook up and be promiscuous telling myself that’s all that I deserved. All any of that did was further reinforce my sadness, negativity, and self-hatred. And the truth was, I wouldn’t have ever wanted to date someone like myself. Why would I have? I hated myself then and I didn’t like many of my own qualities and traits.
I’m a firm believer today that if anyone wants to have a life long lasting relationship, they first need to make sure they’ve healed themselves enough from all their past pain and traumas. Second, they need to make sure they’ve become much happier with their lives because of that healing. And third, they need to make sure that they absolutely, positively, and without a doubt, are really beginning to learn how to love who they are inside and out and would want to go out on a date with someone that had similar qualities as themselves. Until I reached a certain level in all of that, I continued to date people that were just like the toxic sides of my parents. I continued to date people who did nothing more than bring pain and hardship into my life. I continued to date people who ignored most of my own wants, needs, and desires. I continued to date people who always abandoned me. And I continued to always end up being single.
In the past few years, I have sought hard to heal within by first working on turning my entire will over to the care of God. The more I have turned my entire will over to the care of God, the more I’ve been guided to face those dark corners of my life that I was so very afraid to face. Through facing those dark corners of my life that I had always been so very afraid to face, I began to find the strength to make many difficult changes which helped me to like myself a whole heck of lot more. Through making those difficult changes and learning to like myself a whole heck of a lot more, a door finally opened in my life to allow a special person in. Through the door that finally opened allowing a special person in, came a partner who has loved me unconditionally and has done so since the first day we met…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
