You love to socialize, your circle of friends is wide and various. You have female friends and guy friends but, you shy away from boyfriends. You just can’t see yourself intimately, romantically, or in any way ever involved with a man again. You’d rather be alone!
We get it, we really do, nothing is better than solo time. Coming home after a long day and slipping into sweatpants, flopping down on the couch with a nuked Lean Cuisine and a glass of wine while binge-watching your favorite Hulu obsession, we understand completely.
I mean, who would want to give all that up for a relationship with a man? Especially if that relationship is toxic, abusive, or simply unsatisfying. And, let’s face it, after divorce if there is one thing you know, it’s that relationships that began full of hope can end with you feeling hopeless.
So, instead of love, you focus on your children, your career, and mingling with your friends. And you have every right to shy away from dating and finding love again after divorce and a failed relationship. But, is that really how you feel? Is it really what you want? Are you tapping down a desire to love again and be loved again? Perhaps you’re simply afraid to fall in love again because of what happened in the past and the possibility of a bad outcome.
If you fall in love and become serious you also become vulnerable. Meaning, you could get your heartbroken, lose at love again and find yourself right back where you started from. We get it, we really do!
You can lie to yourself, tell yourself and others that you enjoy your independence, your alone time and not dealing with the hassles that come along with being in a relationship. Or, you can admit that maybe, just maybe it’s fear that is keeping you from loving again.
Below are 5 Reasons You’re Afraid to Love Again:
1. You Haven’t Left Your Past, in The Past
You are totally freaked out at the possibility of being in love because you’ve not let go and moved on from past heartache. When you think about the possibility of finding someone new to share your life with, your ex immediately pops into your head. Instead of focusing on the possibilities that come with new love, you focus on the negatives that took place with your old love.
We understand how hard it is to move on, especially when negative emotions from that old relationship are lingering. It’s difficult to figure out how to move on to something new but, it’s important to remember that the past is in the past and just because it happened once, does not mean it will happen again. To rid yourself of your fear of loving again, you have to be confident and hopeful. You can do that!
2. You’re Afraid of Being Left Again
Your marriage ended because he left. He left you holding the bag, with little money, children to raise and a broken heart to mend. There is one thought you can’t get past, “What if I fall in love and get left again?” And that is understandable.
Being left behind is paralyzing, there are no words to describe the pain. What you have to remember is, it was that guy who left you, you can’t judge all guys by one bad guy. If you do, you’re closing yourself off from many, many possible good guys. No one can give you guarantees but, we can guarantee you this, if you aren’t willing to take a chance again on a new guy, you’ll spend the rest of your life possibly missing out on the right guy, the guy who would never leave you.
3. You Have a Hard Time Trusting a Man
Trust in a relationship is a big thing. It becomes even bigger if your ex cheated with other women. After that, trusting a member of the opposite sex to stick around and not hurt you in the process is something else, altogether. The last thing you want is to fall in love with a man who will screw you over. You’ve been there, done that and don’t want to go back!
Here is the question we have, though. How do you know you can’t trust a man to not betray you again if you never give another man the chance to prove himself to you?
4. You Don’t Feel Lovable
Maybe you made the mistake of internalizing your ex’s bad behaviors and making them about how worthy you are of being loved. Did he reject you sexually? Did he abuse you emotionally? It’s easy to take how someone treated you and make it about your lovability. The bottom line, though, someone else’s actions toward you, do not define how much you deserve to be loved. It defines a problem within them, not a problem within you.
You’re strong, independent, successful, resourceful, and most of all, downright loveable – no matter what you say or think or how anyone else has treated you.
5. You Fear Being Vulnerable
There’s that word: vulnerable. So many people hate it and find it downright ugly. No one wants to feel like they’re on display or their emotions are up for grabs. It’s a scary thing to feel vulnerable, and when you’re in a relationship, chances are you find yourself feeling that way. You have to open yourself up completely in order for a relationship to work and that means you have to be vulnerable. But it’s not just when you are in a relationship. It’s in the beginning, too, when you first fall in love. You’re so unsure of your own feelings, let alone his feelings toward you, that it makes you stay up late at night freaking out. We know how scary it is to feel this way, to let yourself love and be loved, but feeling vulnerable isn’t a bad thing, and shouldn’t be feared.
Vulnerability is the path to true emotional and sexual connection with another person. Without allowing yourself to become vulnerable you can never experience true love with a man. So, don’t fear letting your walls down and opening your heart to love. It’s the only way to ever fully express love and it’s certainly the only way to ever feel fully and truly loved.
So, how do you move past your fear of falling in love again? According to Wikihow, “Work to develop positive thoughts about love. You might also benefit from some positive self-talk regarding love. Try using positive daily affirmations to develop more positive feelings about love. Positive daily affirmations can help you to deal with the negative emotions that may be part of your fears about love. Take a few moments each day to look at yourself in the mirror and say something positive about love. You can say something that you believe about love or something that you would like to believe about love.”
In other words, change your attitude toward love and your fear of love will disappear.
All very true Cathy! Good advice!