Dealing with Divorce, Still

Fighting off the world with insecurity is a tough thing to do. It’s impossible to ignore. There’s something in you that craves constant validation and reassurance because of the part of you that doesn’t believe that the truth could be happy. Imagine this: your parents divorce during your pubescent years, you go through middle school with everyone smelling your family’s dirty laundry. You ignore every bit of hurt, and pretend like it’s all “normal,” whatever that means.

Over a decade later, it still affects you, despite all your resistance. Some days, you feel on top of the world. People look at you like you’re someone to admire. You convince yourself you’re confident, and there are moments that you truly believe you are the person you’ve always wanted to be. Then something happens, you find old photos of when you were younger, you remember what your dad said that one holiday, and the pain comes back like a shot, coursing through your veins. You’re reassured what you really are: flawed.

These kids often present as being mature, but in truth they are emotionally and often socially immature. They are frequently more emotionally needy then they come across and they are behind their peers developmentally. They have spent a large portion of the lives learning how to please others without really learning how to master fulfilling themselves. This mask leads adults to misread the kid’s sense of self worth; thinking they are doing fine when in actuality, they are hurting inside.
How Children Cope with High Conflict Divorce: How are they harmed and what can parents do to help them? By Bob Livingstone

Growing up, you wanted nothing more than a normal family. You wanted a mom and dad who showed up to games or rehearsal together, and after you wanted to have dinner with them both without conflict. Then you grew up, you let the pain fade, tucking it away in the attic of your brain. You’re an adult now, you go to work and pay bills like everyone else. But you’re not like everyone else. You notice the difference between you and the peers around you who have parents that are still together. It doesn’t matter to you if they’re happy or good, what matters is that is something you never had.

Teenagers in single-parent families and in blended families are 300 percent more likely to need psychological help within any given year than teens from intact, nuclear families. Children from divorced homes may have more psychological problems than children who lost a parent to death.
Statistics About Children of Divorce By Wayne Parker

You have to help yourself.

Some days, the thought crosses your mind of your parents still being together, grieving over the figurative “death” of your first family. Doesn’t matter, everything that unfolded was necessary, and the way to heal is to recognize the feelings that have been ignored for so long. It’s a painful, ongoing process, but one that must be done in order to have successful relationships with others in the future.

If you can’t help yourself overcome your own demons, seek help in others. You have friends, family, professionals, etc. There is an endless support chain wanting to help you heal, because believe it or not, people want you to be happy. Your parents, even if they don’t say it, wish they could’ve been better to you. Yet there is no point in ruminating in the past, the thing to do is face the present and change the future.

It’s possible to trust, love, and share with others. It’s something you may have to spend a lifetime working on. You’re so used to “dealing” with your emotions yourself, it’s scary to open yourself to others. Ironically though, sharing your truest feelings in turn makes you more confident, comfortable, and relatable to others. So yes, you didn’t have the conventional idea of a childhood or parents, but you still have you. You have the ability to accept yourself, the parts that are bruised and scarred along with the shiny other bits.

Lifetime Happiness and Health

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Lifetime happiness is an elusive notion, one that has been discussed over generations. The answer to happiness has always been retold like folklore, but now there is scientific proof. A 75 year Harvard Study of Adult Development, revealed that the key to long term happiness, mental and physical health, is having healthy relationships.

[Close relationships] protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.
Harvard study, almost 80 years old, has proved that embracing community helps us live longer, and be happier By Liz Mineo

It’s not about the quantity of personal relationships that one may have, it’s about the quality of those relationships. Mending friendships, rekindling romance, and dissolving grudges are just as important forms of self care as hygiene or fitness. People are lonely creatures. It’s possible to feel lonely in a city of millions or lonely in a room filled with family. Loneliness is the largest, life-draining emotion a person can have. That’s why maintaining healthy relationships is important.

Psychiatry professor and current director of the Harvard study, Robert Waldinger, goes into depth in his Ted Talk, explaining the importance of quality relationships, its correlation to life’s longevity, and how even an unhappy relationship could be worse than not having one at all. Mental health has a direct correlation with physical health. There are many scientific studies that illustrate how poor mental health can affect blood pressure, mental deterioration, and an increased risk of cancer.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has categorized mental illness into two. Any mental illness (AMI) is “defined as a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder, [ranging from] mild, moderate, and even severe impairment.” This means that AMI could be how a person compartmentalizes things or how they may negatively treat others due to their own pain. Serious mental illness (SMI) “is defined as a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder resulting in serious functional impairment.”

The overall data concludes that 18.9% or an estimated 46.6 million US adults over 18 had prevalence of AMI. That’s a lot of people who are suffering from something. Even if it’s not serious or need of medical treatment, there are millions who are in a similar situation of loneliness and disconnect.

Connecting the statistics from NIMH and results from Harvard’s Study of Adult Development, it’s apparent that the seemingly obvious notion of maintaining relationships for health, happiness, and self care has gone unnoticed by many. Indeed, there are mental issues that need to be consulted with a professional. Some, however, can be resolved with self-awareness and essentially, love.

It’s never too late to practice self-care. In addition to doctor’s recommendations to eating healthier and exercising more, working on maintaining the spark in marital relationships can reduce the affects from the pains of aging. There are also those who believe that their life expectancy is based on family generations before them. According to Harvard’s study, “the role of genetics and long-lived ancestors proved less important to longevity than the level of satisfaction with relationships in midlife, now recognized as a good predictor of healthy aging.”

There are some mental and physical conditions that are unpreventable, and the effects of one’s previous experiences can impact a person’s life for decades. Rather than being a statistic, there are ways to alter the outcome of your situation. If it’s one thing that science and belief has proven to be true is that love for yourself and those in your positive relationships will bring with it, good health.

Unconditional, pure, and good love within romance, friendship, and family will lead a longer, happier life. So when you’re feeling depressed, or out of control of your thoughts and emotions, take a moment and do something new with someone you love, reconnect with a friend or family member. Create and nurture positive relationships because the key to a rich life is love.

The Relationship’s Emotional Rock

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Love relies on compromise and nurture. Through the lifetime of any relationship, there’s give and take between the parties involved romantically. Emotions are a touchy subject, particularly between two people. One person may feel like they’re putting in all the effort, supporting their partner emotionally. The other may feel like the connection is lost all together.

Over time, two people can disconnect because they feel the love and attachment fades within a marriage or relationship. We are human. We feel emotion. Still, so many of us ignore that part of ourselves, and in turn, disregard it in others. Romance is more than lust and attraction, it’s support and intimacy, emotionally and physically. Here are a few tips to emotional stability within relationships:

The important thing is that you gently communicate your feelings, so you both know where you stand and so you can figure out how best to help one another deal with the situation.
Emotionally Supporting Your Partner by Barton Goldsmith Ph.D.

Touch Each Other: People need human touch, and in certain circumstances, a loving embrace works better to communicate than words. When your partner is upset and frustrated, even touching their hand or arm could put them at ease.
Communicate and Listen: Both men and women want to be heard. We all want to express ourselves and have our feelings validated. It’s hard to remember, as a partner, that we don’t have to give our opinion in every situation, rather we should provide our support in whatever our loved ones are going through.
Deal with Stress Together: Stress is a catalyst for negative emotions. When one thing goes wrong, so does everything else, as it would seem. This takes a toll on everyone involved and is completely unavoidable. The best way to handle it is together, with open lines of communication and compassion.
Take Care of Yourself: In a relationship, both parties have to work on fixing each other’s issues together. Yet, sometimes we get so involved with helping those around us, we forget to take care of our needs. Love and partnership helps in making yourself a better person, but self-care is still necessary for long term mental health.
Emotions are Handled Differently: Depending on how a person was raised and their genetic make-up, humans all express themselves in their own ways. As you spend more time with someone, you’ll notice what their ticks are, based on what they’re feeling. Through observation before action, a person can infer a situation by a person’s body language.

Men release less Oxycontin than women when they are stressed, meaning they have a stronger reaction from both cortisol and epinephrine. [Women nurture] those around them in an effort to both protect themselves and their young. Men [are] more likely to have the “fight or flight” response when it comes to stress – either repressing their emotions and trying to escape the situation, or fighting back.
HOW TO HANDLE YOUR PARTNER’S STRESS Posted by: Team Tony

We are flawed, imperfect beings with irrational emotions, and intellectual minds. The emotional rock in a relationship is handed back and forth. Sometimes, you’ll be the one that needs a shoulder to lean on. Other times, you’ll be the shoulder that is leaned upon. Beyond physical pleasure, the joy and beauty in being with another person is having someone to go through it all, together.

Finding Friends in 2019

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In growing older, moving away, and entering relationships, developing friendships becomes increasingly more difficult. The workplace is an excellent path to meeting new people, and so is being outgoing and attending local events. Yet, what about people we aren’t as antiquated with the social nuances of simple small talk?

Even being surrounded by so many others, a person can feel lonely. I’ve struggled to maintain the relationships I’ve had with current friends while also finding couples that can work my marriage. With adulthood encroaching and the daily stress of responsibility, it’s easy to get swept into the mundane.

As I’ve aged, I’ve found myself reaching out to those I’ve disconnected with and abandoned for selfish reasons. Misinterpretation of betrayal and the guilt of being a bad friend had led me to distance myself from those who cared. The only thing I could do was apologize and hope for some understanding.

When meeting new people, I’ve found the harder you search, the less you’ll find. There have been women I’ve met who I thought we could be friends, and yet nothing came of that. There have been others who I assume like me, but I can’t find the energy to get out of the house. I’m constantly between wanting to run away and finding myself craving the social company of someone I can be around. It’s a frustrating matter.

Finding friends doesn’t always mean searching. Sometimes, you’ll go to an event and met a complete stranger that you click with. Sometimes, you need to make the first step. I’ve overwhelmed others with the way I want to get in there 100%. In my experience, it’s a lot like dating, without the romance. Like some, I waited for people to come to me. Now, I try to engage in conversation with anyone who’s willing to converse.

I’m still not as good as I should be in keeping up with communicating with people from the past. But I’ll always have fond memories of my personal encounters, and I hope that they will too.

Falling in Love Online

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I grew up in the generation of emerging internet and uninformed parents. My parents were going through a divorce when I entered middle school. With emotion and hormones coursing through my veins, I sought love and understanding from an outside source: the internet.

Nowadays, it’s the norm to converse, flirt, and engage with complete strangers. Phone apps and websites make these interactions appear “safe.” What exactly is safe about it? I’ve used such means of meeting potential lovers, and for me, they all ended in disappointment.

From the age thirteen to twenty, I always had an “internet relationship.” In fact, I didn’t have a real boyfriend until I met my husband, which happened in our Rhetoric Composition class at college (not online). In many ways, my formative years with online lovers hindered me in meeting someone real.

Of course, I had many other person issues that I had to overcome, but I was also stuck believing that the internet was a real place to fall in love. The problem with meeting someone online before you meet them in real life is that you fall for the idea you have of a person, not the actual person.

With a medium of text and photos, your mind forms an ideal image of what this person is, rather than who they are. Often, when you meet said person from the internet, they’re almost always not what you expected. You give them a try anyway, because otherwise all that time and energy you spent on them was for nothing.

I’m sure there are success stories out there, and I don’t discount the possibility to find your “perfect match” online, but meeting someone first, in real life, triumphs over imagination on an LCD screen. When you meet someone in person, there are countless, subconscious signals that come into play: body language, pheromones, chemistry, and gut reaction.

People need people in person. Dating apps and websites aren’t a free service, they are monetized and made to profit. If you’re lonely and want to find love, deactivate those accounts, and go meet someone doing an activity you enjoy. Love cannot be mimicked by a phone, it’s only masked.

Although I sometimes wonder what my life would be like had I not engaged with faceless strangers on the internet, it’s important for me to not regret my past decisions. What matters most to me is that the love I have now is real. We met at a physical place in time, knowing immediately we were meant to be without anything between.

3 Tips in Making a Marriage

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Consider myself a newlywed with a classic story. Met husband in college, moved in together, got married. Despite everyone claiming we were “too young,” we took the leap and haven’t regretted it since. There were other things to marriage, however, I wasn’t fully prepared to handle and had to figure out on the way. Things such as family, in-laws, career changes, and the basic responsibilities needed to be an adult.

Like any couple, we had our ups-and-downs, but through it all, we stayed in constant support of one another. For those of you out there trying to figure each other out, here’s some observational tips that may seem obvious, but as someone married, are often forgotten.

1. Communication is key.

We’ve all heard this one before, and somehow we forget to use it. I found myself trying to “let go” of a situation in order to keep the peace, if you will. Holding it in always backfires in the long run. Confronting an issue at hand, in a respectful way, is the only way to maintain a relationship.

Do: Express how you’re feeling, whether it’s good or bad. Compliment with an emotion when your partner goes out of their way to express their love. Allow space for your partner to process their thoughts, keep the conversation concise and to the point. Listen and validate how they feel. Say, “Thank you.”

Don’t: Become defensive, the other person’s emotion may be centralized around something else. Argue in the presence of others, keep the critique for pillow talk. Bring up past events, move past something that was previously discussed.

2. Support both of your needs.

Compromise doesn’t mean giving up what you love, it’s about learning to love what your partner does. You won’t always like the same things. There will always be the little things that bother you. That’s what makes being with someone else interesting.

Do: Express interest in what your partner is interested in. Ask questions, learn more. Share what you love and accept that they may not have the same appreciate as you do. Rotate between shared activities and communicate what you appeals to you most about what they like.

Don’t: Act disinterested, looking at your phone or off into the distant when someone is trying to explain something to you. Mock what the other person finds entertaining, even if you’re only “teasing.” Be jealous if sometimes, their hobbies aren’t involving you completely.

3. Take care of yourself.

We get wrapped up in the ones we love. We support their career goals, life goals, and provide emotional reassurance. In all of this, we can get stuck in thinking that this is not just for them, it’s for the both of us. Supporting your partner and their life goals is important, but it’s also important to not lose your aspirations along the way, otherwise you’ll end up bitter and resentful that you never got the chance to achieve your dream.

Do: Focus on your health, both mentally and physically. Talk to your partner about your dreams, working with them. Schedule a time to work on yourself, especially when they’re away, this is precious you time. Treat yourself when needed.

Don’t: Be afraid of being alone. Make excuses to avoid going for your dream, there will always be something. Rely on your partner to solve your problems, they can’t fix you, but they can work with you to figure out what steps you need to take. Let anyone let you feel like you deserve to be where you’re at, you can always do better.

Joining yourself in a binding union with someone else is exciting, scary, unfamiliar, and fun. The most important thing is that you enjoy every moment you have together, between the mundane to the adventurous. Remember why you fell in love and how you fell in love. Together, you are a one person. Love is an evolving concept that needs constant nurture.