I think I’ll take my foolish heart, my friend and head right for the door, there’ll be a better world awaiting if I do…I won’t be blue, with dreams that can’t come true. I’ll take my heart, and head right for the door.
A number of you have arrived at my blog by searching for information about knowing when to leave a relationship that isn’t right for you anymore. When these words speak to you, it’s time to leave.
I kept a journal of the time after my own separation and divorce. Reading through it in the past few days, I was surprised that even a couple years later I still felt depressed and damaged by staying so long in an abusive marriage. Fully two years after the divorce I wrote:
“The two beliefs I gained from spending too much time with [my ex] are: Men are all jerks, and no one would ever want to be with me because I’m too much trouble…I’m flawed.”
I felt so angry because I had let him have so much influence over me, and how I felt about myself.
Going through a major break up is devastating, even if you have no love left for your ex. I spent a few years kicking myself for staying with such a jerk. Only then did I realize that he was moving on and it was high time for me to do the same. I needed to find a way to let go of all of the false assumptions I had gained by spending far too much time with a jerk.
Finding self-love is the only solution to feeling flawed and unloveable. For me this required spending quite a bit of time alone, getting reacquainted with myself. Not the self that had stayed in a bad marriage too long, but the self that loved to walk her dogs along the river, and do watercolors and remodel her house into a place she could love. The self that was strong and resilient and ready to find love and happiness again. I had to love myself into believing in future love.
Then I had to convince myself that all men were not jerks. My dating service worked well for this. I met and interviewed many men, a few of whom I really liked. I remember one day in the summer of 2004, when I interviewed three different men. On the way home, a line from a James Taylor song came through loud and clear: “And my heart came back alive.”
Being around good friends convinced me to try again, and I’m so glad I did! Feeling loved and appreciated is an incredible gift worth working for.
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