love like I've never been hurt

Very, very difficult. Trying to forget all assumptions from the past? Even though every person is an individual: just because something happens that reminds me of something a previous jerk did doesn’t mean its the same. At least not yet. How do you do this?

i AM loving now and i am being loved.
we both have our scars and I think sometimes – especially me – those past ghosts are too present in our still new relationship.
I am thinking that time will help but I am also planning to get some professional help to deal with certain things that are TOO big for my new man to understand and even know.
I might not be able to love like i have never been hurt but i want to be able to live and love and not feel hurt anymore.

Sooooo yuh, that guy i was with that i mentioned in my last entry… it didn’t work out. Basically we were together 3 weeks, during which time i saw him once a week at the most, he never bothered to contact me or pay any attention to me. By this point i was growing tired of his lack of interest and was planning to dump him but he beat me to it stating that “things could have worked if it wasn’t for his job and that he really wanted to put 100% into his job which meant he had no time for anything else and felt that we were more like friends than anything else” (funny how it didn’t feel like a friendship when he wanted sex eh!) ... to my suprise i wasn’t actually all that bothered when he dumped me, i was more offended for sheer vanity reasons (like there was something wrong with me physically or personality wise).

Anyway, i’d decided that i was going to give up on the dating scene and just concerntrate on being single for a while. That’s when things took an unexpected turn. The night i got dumped (halloween, ironically just a few days after i wrote that first entry lol) i decided i wasn’t going to sit at home moping and went out to a local alternative rock club with my mates, even though i knew the guy who had just dumped me was going to be there. Unfortunately the night turned out to be bloody awful for many reasons and as i sat there feeling sorry for myself a friend who i had fancied several months earlier came over to see if i was alright, he too had recently been dumped so we started chatting, suddenly his psycho ex came over and dragged him away accusing him of flirting with me… to cut a long story short she continued to make wild accusations for days after, he and i got talking over msn and decided to meet up to discuss the situation and hang out as his ex would never let him hang out with me whilst he was still with her (she was very controlling and thought that even though she had dumped him he would still run around after her). Sooooo we met up and we hit it off straight away, the spark between us was amazing and before we knew it we were an item.

I can safely say i’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I always thought relationships weren’t meant to be easy and that finding someone completely perfect for you only happened in movies, especially as any previous relationships i had tried after my 3 year ex were bloody awful i was seriously starting to think there was something wrong with me.

I guess to summarise loving like you’ve never been hurt is easy when you find the right partner, it could take days, weeks, months even years but don’t give up. You’ve gotta kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince/princess.

Wow. I think this particular thing is going to be one of the hardest for me. it is an internal work, not an external doing. And I think it will require a good long look at my internal landscape and finding, then facing, my fears, pain and hurt from many years of living.
I imagine it will be kind of like a backpacking trip where I have to carry all that I’ll need with me, except that instead of a tent or food I have to inventory my coping skills and strategies. I know that my inventory is made up of coping skills and strategies that were developed due to unhealthy situations and I know I need to get rid of them and replace with appropriate management skills.

Then, once I have my kit together, I need to decide where I want to go. This is another area that I’ve been slacking as I haven’t been clear about my life path and just wandered around without a clear direction. I’m working on this one though and getting closer to determining a trail.

finally, I’ll have to use the map and my skills to assess where I am, triangulate how to get where I want to go from where I am and trust that I can and will handle everything that crosses my path with courage and strength and appropriate to this immediate instance. I will have to let go of the old thoughts and experiences and truly and deeply consider every circumstance that has me acting in anything but a most loving manner.

Gee, I’m tired just thinking about it. yet I know that living a reaction-based life is not right for me.

Also, I must say I take umbrage at the notation on the screen that this goal takes 1 day to complete. Really??? If you could just snap your fingers and start loving like you’d never been hurt, you must write a book because I would spend big bucks to get this over with. Or maybe I’m looking for too big of a life change.

Wow where to start?

I came out of a 3 year relationship 6 months ago as it just wasn’t working anymore, i felt as though not only had i lost grasp of who i was was due to his controlling manner and sarcy digs but mainly because i felt like i had really held back during our time together (partly due to depression, mainly because it was my first relationship and i was very young and completely inexperienced.)

Stupidly i got involved with another guy very shortly after breaking up with my ex, as crazy as it sounded i truely believed that all the lip service he was paying me about how he thought i was the one, how he would die for me, how he wanted me forever (after just 1 week of knowing me) was sincere… i guess deep down i knew it was ridiculous, but at the time it was exactly what i’d longed and craved to hear from a partner. Now, i don’t know if it was the rose tinted blinkers, the novelty of a man seemly completely open and at ease with his emotions/feelings or the Prozac messing with my common sense but i decided instantly “what the hey lets go for it!” so i threw myself into the first prongs of passion and romance which was great… for the first week… of course that was short lived as once he had got what he wanted he became cold and distant with me and ended things with me stating that he “was in love with me but wasn’t ready for a relationship.” Of course this hurt me deeply as i’d given myself over to him fully and sincerely, but naively i decided that if he loved me then he would see sense and come back to me. Oh, how wrong i was, it didn’t matter what i did whether it be trying to make him jealous, seduce him or burst into tears whilst rat arsed on vodka or be the perfect female he had no intention of ever coming back because i discovered that this guy was a player AND he had already moved onto his next victim; i wouldn’t have minded so much but after spouting out all this BS about not being ready and not being able to give me what i needed (which was just a little of his time, love and affection) he started dating AND shortly after got engaged to this woman (albeit amidst infidelity rumours… a last ditch attempt at saving his “good” rep perhaps?)

5 months later, i’d had minor flirtations but nothing of any substance, when suddenly a blast from the past comes back into my life (a man who i had shared feelings for but that never materialised into anything back then as we were ridiculously young and he already had a girlfriend at the time) and we begin to date which eventually materialised into a relationship. Which brings me to now; due to my apprehension to open myself fully to my current boyfriend and feeling unsure of how i felt especially as he too had a similar experience with his ex and neither of us wanting to get hurt yesterday i came very close to losing him due to my untrusting nature, he’s given me the chance to turn things around but i think that perhaps (despite the crossed wires) it’s too late for me to win him over fully again… i can only hope that someone up there gives me a break and allows me (and him) to be happy together because lord knows i desperately want to try and i could certainly use some divine intervention. I don’t want to be closed off anymore, and i don’t want him to be closed off to me due to some stupid f*ck that messed him around for years either.

I guess what i’m trying to say is that as easy as it sounds to love like you’ve never been hurt, it’s a lot harder than it looks.

Finally living my ‘happily ever after’! It’s awesome!

...and to be able to love without the baggage of the past – without second guessing and doubting…

because it would be an awesome feeling

And I’m loving others with my whole heart, not holding back due to the fear of being hurt. Isn’t that what Christ would want?

...All you have is today-
I wish I could make that happen. I seem to bring out my past relationships into my current one, including the distrust and codependency.