My mom is my world; she’s been both my mom and dad for so long that I do not know any different. She’s such a strong, successful and independent woman, but women like her need love, too. I am a woman like her; in fact, I am a mirror image of everything she is. Even in the way of not knowing how to give love or be loved.
My mom gave me just about everything money could buy. The only thing missing was the example of love between a man and woman. I was never terribly bothered not having a man around the house at a young age, because every day was girls’ day. It wasn’t until I was much older and started having crushes on guys that I went to school with that I began to realize I didn’t know how to love a guy.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know what love is, I just don’t know how to show or receive love from men. There’s a difference believe me. I’m not overly affectionate, I hate holding hands in public and PDA is not an option. I push them away both mentally and physically. I mean, who can blame me? Growing up my mother and father never had a great relationship with one another, and unfortunately that cycle was just passed down to me. I always find some reason or way to make a relationship not work. Whether it’s distance, the fact that we may be spending too much time together or I just don’t feel connected to him anymore. In no way am I saying that all women that were raised by single mothers can’t find love or aren’t capable of showing affection towards men completely, but it definitely doesn’t come easy for me.
My family structure impacted the way I maneuver around love heavily. I’ve had several failed relationships because I failed to put trust in a guy. When you come from a family where your dad was married and had two kids outside of his marriage by another woman, who can blame me for not trusting so easily. There’s a lot of pain built up in me, which I bring into a lot of relationships. And no one wants to deal with someone who has a lot of baggage.
Most little girls find what they look for in a man in their father first. I know we’ve all heard at least once in our lives whether in was in a movie, magazine or TV show, I want to marry someone just like my dad. And you should, because that sets the foundation of what love should look and feel like. The little bits and pieces of mostly negative information came from my mother, a woman who didn’t love him anymore. So my expectations for men are very low. I don’t expect a man to stay around, or to even love me for very long and so I don’t even bother investing my feelings and emotions into someone. I strongly believed for much of my young adult life that, “if you don’t set expectations for people you’re never disappointed,” and that was especially true for all of the men in my life.
It didn’t give me much hope to have a fulfilling relationship in the future when I grew up hearing things like; “always have your own, and you’ll be fine,” “boys are nothing but trouble,” and “you’re young so focus on yourself.” This is all great advice, but what happens when I’m old and all alone? No one ever sat me down to stress the importance of finding someone who loves me just as much as I love him. That conversation would have been extremely beneficial. It would have saved me so much heartache, tears and wasted energy on things and people that just wouldn’t last. There where so many times I found myself dating or talking to someone just like my father and he was just like him in all the wrong ways. The guy would flake on important dates or events, wouldn’t show up to things that I needed support at or they just downright weren’t able to love me the way I needed to be loved.
It’s taken me 22 years of my life to figure out that being in love with someone else is important and all of the valuable lessons it teaches you about yourself are too. In short just know that you deserve love and one day you will find it.