FEAR OF LOVE



 

What many of us want most in life is love. What many of us are most afraid of,   is love. What many of us envy in others, is when they have a lover and we do not and what many of us most bitch about, is often our lover. It seems that - sometimes - we are never happy with love.  Sad but true. Millions of us  are plagued by the ambivalence: You want it and  yet you push it away -  playing hard to get and uninterested.  So often when you find someone who does love you,  you sabotage the relationship in some way.

Are you single and longing for love but somehow can’t find a partner? Have you ever experienced having to choose between a person who is available and loves you – and someone who is not willing to commit, or unable to give adult love – and you choose the one who cannot love you? The one who is the hardest tomlove and the one you just know will cause you to break your own heart.
Are you always in love with the person you are not with, and unable to accept the love available to you in your present relationship?  Are you always dreaming of Mr. Wonderful and yet not giving your current relationship 100% because of this fantasy - non existant man in your dreams ?  Have you had serial partnerships always leaving when the romance dies away and the going gets tough? Have you lost your sexual desire for someone you love even though, otherwise, it’s a good relationship? Or perhaps your sexual responses are great but you do not open your heart to love? If you answer yes to any of these, you are probably  longing for - and fearful of -  intimacy, -  carrying a fear of true love.

If, that is, you know what true love is.

So often this  is because the child in you has been wounded in the past; so deeply and painful that you, as a child, had to stop that pain in whatever way you could: cutting off feelings,  tensing your body, and by living a fantasy life. Maybe a parent didn't have time for us,  or a crush on a boy at school who didn't even know we existed.  As adults we still use these means to protect ourselves from our childhood wounds and the people who wounded us. Only this time we look at our lover and see Mother or  Father figure -  good or bad.

If we don’t choose people who are like our parents, we make them like our parents. Ultimately we do this so that we can heal the pain of our past, grow up and get on with life.   It takes work and most of us want to quit before it’s done, expecting the easy option.  We fantasize that it would be so much easier with someone else. Possible, but hardly ever true because it’s us making it hard, and we bring ourselves along to the next relationship.

We are often our own worst enemies.

Meanwhile, we numb our feelings to avoid unhappiness. We really do want love. Our primary struggle is for happiness, but because of our past wounds and fears, our aim becomes the avoidance of unhappiness. Our conclusion: “If I do not feel, then I will not be unhappy.” The unhappiness we seem to avoid will come back to us in more painful indirect ways; the bitter hurt of isolation, loneliness, the feeling of missing or having missed the true goodness of life, and without being the most and best we can be. We also believe that if we isolate, stay alone, that we can avoid our pain. This is a solution we used as children so we try it again and fight against giving it up.

Our fear of recreating our original pain will not allow us to have love now. What once was our protector now becomes our saboteur. Our distorted Lower Self’s feelings fight to keep us from having what we truly want – love. Our self-created demon kicks up the most when we get closest to having love now. “You can’t have it; you’re too bad, stupid, worthless.” The demon may change your vision so that your love partner looks like the worst monster in the world. “Get far away from him/her.” Status quo, isolation, no feeling, is better, less frightening – in the short run; less soulful and less satisfying in the long run. But we feel trapped and stuck in our old ways, and we must work like hell with the assistance of heaven to get unstuck.

Maybe - the only time we may feel happy and free is when we’re single. Maybe true for many of us. It’s easier. We only have ourselves to be with, but ultimately not as satisfying and without the growth potential of partnering. We are born to connect with others – our biological, emotional urges move us constantly along toward connection with others. Our spiritual desire is toward that of union with another human being; it is the closest we usually get to experiencing Oneness on earth.

It was always a little different for me - as being an identical twin, I even shared my Mothers womb with another living being and have - basically - never lived alone -  whether with a lover or for the last few decades, with friends and staff. 

Maybe we need to look at the challenges of partnership as the next great adventure of life. Take risks – open up. Feel everything we can possibly feel. And remember, we have choice at every moment. We can choose love over fear every time (well, as much as we dare). We can create love in our life. This is today and we’re adults. Most of us don’t really live with our parents anymore and we just have them internalized. It’s time to let them go and embrace the possibility of now.

I know I chose my last lover on  some levels, as maddening as it was for us all,  because he reminded me dearly of my Mother, a women who I loved dearly but GOD - she could make the angels cry, and he was exactly the same and it turned into a relationahip from hell,  and I was aware all through that I was not about to give in, walk away and give up - and as long as we humanly could, I wanted to MAKE IT WORK,  but sometimes, like with your parent or guardian figure,  it just doesn't and no amount of inner work and help can change things,  and it really is up to you to grasp that realization and be the one to accept and change,  as with my Mother and with my past lover, they were so locked - so blocked,  they would never in  a Month of Sundays accept that anything was ever their fault and that they needed to grow, and so as I  could not cope with my Mother being my lover, it split us up.

Being on my own is wonderful. Lonely sometimes and sex starved but then,  you can be lonely and sex starved inside a relationship as well,  and at least I have no one to answer to if I wish to create a new life for myself.

Love is hard,  but is the best thing in all the world. Even better than Marmite Sandwiches.