gladlee wrote:

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Curious what you tell the sponcee who's boohoo-ing about not being in a relationship then...? I've ALWAYS been told this is an "exciting" time in my life, even though it's feeling far less than exciting... and yes, by sponsors who are already in relationships... wth ?!

My al-anon sponsor always wanted me to join her and her husband on events... they would hold hands and cuddle... she told me I had to be around the things I wanted to manifest in my life. Still mourning the loss of my 26-year marriage, I disagreed. Yea, sometimes I don't take the suggestions.

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What I tell my sponsees that are single and whinging about wanting to be in a relationship?

Renounce the garment of the Lord and recieve it back as your gift

I tell them that as long as they are "lonely" and wanting a relationship to "complete them" that they aren't "whole" and if they aren't whole they are broken and incomplete, and broken people are attracted to broken people, and that until they get not only comfortable but HAPPY being single their relationships will based on being incomplete, two "D" students don't make an "A" relationship, sorry that's just how that is, learn how to be happy being alone and then maybe you can get a fish, if the fish doesn't die, maybe we can work up to a dog, being in a relationship is as much work as having a puppy except it's not your partner you are trying to potty train but your own brain, relationships are like crack for character defects, don't know what your character defects are? get in a relationship too soon.

I have spent plenty of time in my life being single, my experience (and advice) is the exact opposite of your alanon cuddler, my experience is get comfortable being single, because if you aren't comfortable being single you have no business being in a relationship, because then it's just one more addiction, one more way to change the way you feel, and getting in a relationship that's based on me being lonely is doomed to failure

However, in my experience, the -moment- I stop feeling lonely and address my -insides- to such a degree that I no longer -need- someone to fill that hole inside me, to fill that void, someone appears in my life, I have tried to fake it, that doesn't work

being in a relationship is like being a cop or a politician, if you want it you have no business being (in) one because you aren't qualified

I don't listen to a word from chronic -relationshippers- because I believe they are as sick as overeaters, alkies, and every other ISM that uses outside stuff to try to fix how we feel on the inside, Society as a whole has bombarded us with this whole white picket fence codependent illness we think is "love", listen to the lyrics of ANY pop song, watch ANY television show, read ANY of these romance books, we are fed codependent mental illness CRAP and told it's nourishing food

The truth of the matter is I stopped going to AA or Alanon for relationship advice decades ago because those people don't have what I want, just as rarely as we see people fail that follow our path, even more rarely did I meet sober/Alanon couples who had what I wanted, as in a healthy relationship, and I searched for a relationship sponsor for years, every time I thought I found one I'd hang out for awhile with them watching closely, and their relationships were un-health-y, eww ick codie passive aggressive based on a lie unhealthy

So what I did was a few things, one I went to the pros, I went to therapy, couples counseling, and relationship books, such as facing love addiction by pia mellody, I learned about fighting fair, I -STUDIED-, I mean I studied HARD

Another thing I did was make friends with the opposite sex to fill that emotional need, and that worked, I mean really worked, I got adopted by a group of girls that made me an honorary girlfriend and they taught me -everything-, I also had "casual" sex (blue jeans allowed) with them at differing times when the hormones and testosterone buildup got nearly fatal to everybodies benefit, but I got my emotional and physical needs met while I worked on myself, that also had the benefit of allowing total honesty both physically and emotionally, intimacy wise, since we had nothing to lose, no relationship to mess up if we were too honest, it allowed greater intimacy then I had ever experienced previously as well as some other things I learned during that time that seem helpful today sexually

Now agreed this brought it's own special set of difficulties, dating someone and then trying to explain why I have so many really close female friends and that I slept with them definately weeds out the insecure ones, but the truth is that "heyday" of bachannalian revelry was a long time ago, but when she is lying there with a glazed expression and she looks like she was just run over by a truck and she can't can't stop giggling, drooling and saying wow wow wow I am forgiven

another thing I learned, and this was -critical- was I stopped thinking of women as -them- or -they- as Micael Crichton put it:

• What's really wrong with making them the problem is that you abdicate your own responsibility. Once you say some mysterious they is in charge, then you're able to sit back comfortably and complain about how they are doing it.

• The biggest problem between the sexes was the tendency to objectify the opposite sex and ultimately become powerless before them. Both men and women did this about the opposite sex. They were this way or that way. They had this tendency. There was nothing we could do about the way they behaved.

• I had thought that women were inherently different from men. And in formulating that difference, I had also objectified women. They were different. They didn't have the same feelings I did. They were they.

Men and women who do this make my skin crawl, women who "they and them" men, and men who "they and them" women make me literally feel ill in my stomach, to me it's no different then racism or homophobia, this is sexism in it's most disgusting and insidious form, and totally -objectifies- the opposite sex, this HAD to be jettisoned and I had to learn how to say and think "We"

As long as "they" are the problem I don't have to look at myself, it's no different then any other bullshit justification in continuing unhealthy behaviors, and any relationship that is based on someone else changing their behavior is doomed to make me go completely batshit crazy, that is non negotiable

So ultimately my bottom line is to get myself happy, healthy, and complete while I am single, then make the right choices, walk away immediately from red flag behavior, then work on myself

People tell us who they are but we don't listen because we want them to be who we want them to be, not who they are, and that, to me, is the biggest underlying cause of unhealthy relationships and failed relationships, so learning who I actually am and how to listen, and how to communicate that is one of the ways I pass the time when I am single, between that and working on my own character defects takes up so much of my "free" time I don't have time to be lonely, then one day I notice I'm happy, then the "come hither" looks start coming my way and it's game on

Truthfully though, this is why I don't have much in common with many people and even find them tedious if they haven't worked the steps thoroughly a few times or done some other really deep work to rid themselves of at least their grosser self delusions, for me it's like talking to a third grader that still thinks the world is flat, the next thing i know I am putting lipstick on a pig and trying to teach it to sing, then the pig gets mad and I get frustrated, to try to have a relationship with said Pig because I have convinced myself it's Sarah Brightman is insanity at it's finest

That's just me though, and according to my track record I aint the wise man and never will be