Lost and Trapped, part 4: lesson 3

Lesson 3: A relationship is not a cure for what we lack within ourselves

I can remember the thought in my mind after the proposal, "And now, I will never again be alone."


Being alone.  At one time in my life it was my greatest fear.  I thought that if I could just find someone who loved me so much he never wanted to leave me, then I would be content.  The feeling I'd had for so many years that I didn't belong, that I was an outsider, would go away.  I thought all it took was finding that person who wanted to be committed to me forever.  


It took me nearly a decade to learn that what I struggled with - my insecurities, my loneliness, my fear of growing up and standing on my own - were all issues that I had to confront myself, sort through myself.  It took experience and soul searching to fill in the voids.  It took time confronting head on the things I had most sought to avoid.  I did not know when I was 22 that to feel better, to learn to appreciate life and feel true happiness, I had to sort through and banish my demons myself.  No one could do it for me.  And asking anyone else to take care of me - depending on anyone else for my sanity, the security of my soul - was dooming myself and that person to failure and misery.


So, why have I called all these posts "lost and trapped"?  Because I went into my first marriage too quickly and for all the wrong reasons.  And once I had committed myself, I thought there was no way out.  But I didn't understand why.


The first few years, as I tried anti-depressant after anti-depressant, as my anxiety and sense that all was lost grew, I thought I was falling apart despite having found what I most wanted (a husband).  I thought I was simply losing my mind.  The years took their toll on X as well and at a certain point (perhaps two years in) he too started changing.  There was very little semblance left of the man I had imagined marrying.  We stopped laughing.  He had always made me laugh, but as he drank more and became zealously religious and his behavior became increasingly erratic, I was finally able to see what had been evident all along.  My depression was not a chemical fault in brain... it was my environment, including (and mostly) X.


But getting divorced only started my recovery.