Category Archives: Love

Why is love so hard to find?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Feeling of love

Looking for love.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Everyone looks for love but not many find it.

Of all the topics to write about why love? Nothing comes up more in therapy that the subject of love. Despite all the books on love, all the love songs, and the poems about love, few of us seem to be able to find the love we are looking for. Why?

Love is big business. There are dating sites devoted to finding your one true love and books on how to attract that love into your life, but still, so many people are starved for love.

The 1960s were full of expressions about love, love generation, summer of love, love child. One quote from long ago seemed, to sum up, the problem with a shortage of love.

“How come half the world is crying when the other half is crying too? Why can’t we get it together?” I remember hearing that, something close to that, from Janis Joplin shortly before she died.

One of the Jefferson Airplanes most remembered hits – Somebody to love. Despite all the looking for love there still seems to be a shortage.

There are several reasons we can’t seem to find enough love is this life.

If you don’t know what you are looking for how will you know it when you find it? Many of the things we say we want out of life are in short supply for just that reason. In psychology, they have a term for this phenomenon – The expert effect. Sometimes we don’t recognize we have something until it is gone.

Possible if we all worked harder on loving others, not the lusting kind but the real caring for other people sort of love, we might be less hungry for love.

Where do you find love?

The greater problem, the reason love may be so elusive is that we have been misled about where love could be found. When we are young we think love comes from someone else. Parents love, caretakers love and the love of friends and associates these things seem to make us “feel loved.”

For many out there that “love” was contingent on doing or saying what that other person wanted from us. We began a lifelong search for someone who could love us enough for us to feel lovable.

The problem is confounded for those who learned to substitute sex for love. If you just had the right kind of sexual partner then you might feel loved. So we look for lovers and friends that can make us feel loved.

Humans are social creatures; there is no denying we need other people. But finding someone who can love us so completely that we will never feel unloved and unlovable again, that is a futile search.

The place we need to look for that fullness of love is the last place most people would ever think to search. If you are to ever feel really loved, you need to begin by loving yourself. For if you are not able to love yourself no other person will ever be able to fill you with love.

What if you are so far down that you can’t even love yourself?

That is the time we need to look for that higher power, that thing beyond ourselves and those other failed human relationships. Look for someone greater than yourself and by that, I do not mean some earthly person.

Some find that unconditional love in a religious institution or in a recovery or 12 step group.

A saying around those tables is that other recovering people will love you until you are able to love yourself.

You can’t fill up that love-shaped hole in your being by rushing around looking for the right person to love you. First, you need to learn to love yourself and feel worthy of love, and then you will be able to accept other’s love into your life.

Just my thoughts. What have you found out about solving this love shortage?

“Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net”.

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

What do several failed relationships mean?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Family torn apart

Divorce.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Why do you have multiple failed relationships?

There are several things you should be looking at if you have repeated failed relationships.

Here are some possible reasons that this same thing keeps happening to you.

Take a look at this list and see if any of these applies to you. This may be your chance to learn a needed lesson.

It could be bad luck, maybe.

This to me is the least likely possibility. Sure it is possible that someone can have a bad outcome from an effort several times. But the more often things happen “again” the more we need to start looking at ourselves rather than blaming this recurrence on bad luck.

You get with people thinking you will change them.

This is a more common problem. You get with a new romantic partner thinking all they need is someone who cares about them and they will straighten up and go right.

Having a supportive person in your corner is wonderful, but if you have started thinking that this potential partner will suddenly change if you just love them enough you are headed for heartbreak.

Snakes remain snakes and addicts rarely give it up just because you want them to. Lots of us have capes hanging in the closet just waiting for the opportunity to become Captain-Save-a-bum.

Ladies if he cheated on his last partner or has multiple babies’ mama’s these are all bad signs.

Your incompatibility detector is not working.

In the early stages of courtship, we see what we want to see. The red flags and the bells and sirens are all there we just chose to ignore them.

If you do not invest a significant amount of time getting to know who this person is under normal, non-dating circumstances, you have no idea who you are getting. Despite having a host of bad experiences do you tend to keep doing it over and over? You know you do!

Can you spot the “perfect partner” across a crowded room? They never look or act so good when you get to know them up close. Make sure you checked this person out well.  You always need to allow for shrinkage and spoilage. Guys – expect her perfect figure to disappear in the light of reality.

You expect relationships to be easy or 50 -50.

No, 50-50 relationships do not work. It takes something like 80-80, to make it work. If both of you do not think you are doing more than your partner you will never meet in the middle.

If you are keeping score that is a bad sign also.

So very often we think we need to do all the work on the front end to catch that great person. Great partners are not caught. You do that and they keep trying to get away. They have to be nurtured and that means it takes more effort to maintain a relationship than to get one started.

You keep looking in the wrong places.

A very common scenario in counseling. The woman has been abused; he is an alcoholic or addict. She may have had a father who came from that mold. So she gets loose from this abusive man.

What do you think happens the day after the divorce?

Her girlfriends take her out to celebrate and they hit the club. That very night she meets this new – wonderful guy. A year later, now pregnant – again- she finds he is an alcoholic abusive cheater. What went wrong?

If you meet them in crack houses the chances are they are drug users. If you meet them over alcohol they may be already married to their bottle.

Where you meet people often tells you a whole lot about who they are and who they will become. I know there are exceptions but not every plant in the weed patch turns into a rose.

The problem is you-you need to work on yourself.

When you are sick, emotionally, or mentally, you tend to attract other people who have those same problems. Two people who have a mental illness can meet and have a great relationship.

What they need to do, for that to happen, is for both of them to work on themselves. As you get healthier you attract healthier people into your life.

You do not expect relationships to work.

You got into this relationship thinking it would be OK for now. If it didn’t work out you could always get a divorce. Start out thinking that way and you are highly likely to create those situations. This is extra messy if you thought this might end but you went ahead and had children with this person anyway.

Remember the rule, you can break up with a romantic partner but baby’s mothers and fathers are in your life one way or the other, for the rest of your life and beyond. How have you been doing in the romantic relationship department? Do you keep making the same mistakes – getting the same result over and over?

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Model for unconditional love – your pet

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Dog and cat playing

True friends.
Photo courtesy of pixabay.

What your pet can teach you about love.

Lovers and partners may come and go, a faithful pet is always there. Pets hear our tales of love lost and wait patiently for a pat on the head or a bowl of food. There is something about the way we love and are loved by our pets that transcends the turmoil of human existence.

Love from another human can be so conditional. Parents love their children when they are good, partners when they get what they want, but that dog or cat by your feet, they go on loving you in good times and bad.

Pets are role models for the way we should love because they love unconditionally. Notwithstanding an occasional poorly behaved pet, most of the creatures that share our lives continue to love us in sickness and health for richer or poorer even after the humans who had promised to do so have come and gone.

Pets are remarkably adaptable and accepting. They adjust to living in mansions and keeping company with their homeless human companions. They never threaten to stop loving us if they do not get a designer food or a certain toy that all the neighbor pets have. They patiently, or not so patiently, wait by the door for our return each and every time we leave.

There are of course great differences in the way pets show their affection for their humans. I have had the good fortune to share my life with more creatures than most. In my early years, I had several dogs as family members. Calling them family members may seem strange to some of you, but they deserved that designation, having been more reliable in their friendship than most of my human friends and family members from those days.

In recent years several cats have agreed to share my home and life. The switch from dogs to cats was quite accidental. A cat somehow finagled her way into the family and gained first the acceptance of the family dog and then later my acceptance.

While the cats and dogs have certainly had different personalities, each and every dog or cat had some particular characteristics that made them unique. For the sake of brevity here I will leave out other creatures, though many other species also exhibit a fondness for their human family members.

Occasional a non-human family member has been poorly behaved, torn something up or used an inappropriate place for a bathroom. But all in all, pets have been consistently more dependable and affectionate than many a human acquaintance.

There were some studies, way back when, which showed that having a pet in your life reduced loneliness and improved mental health.

One of life’s great tragedies is that our pets can be torn from us way too soon. Many a child’s first loss is a beloved pet.  How that child responds to that event can set up a pattern of dealing with loss for the rest of their life. For many, the first time death touches us is when a beloved pet passes away.

Not all losses of pets come by way of death. My first experience was a cross-country move when my childhood dog was left behind. So were my friends.

I know that some of these losses are unavoidable, sometimes we move into a living situation where our pet family members are not welcome. Divorces can sheer away the family pet along with a parent, a school, and friends. Like all losses in life sometimes they need to happen. But we shouldn’t minimize the pain the child feels.

If you open your heart to a pet and let them love you, they stay with you forever in the places of your mind where you remember happy things. If only we could hold lost human relationships in that same place.

That person you loved and had children with, may not be in your life now, but there was something that led you to make a child with them. If only we could hold that memory of our child’s parent fast, separate it from the ex we are now rid of, we might find some of that unconditional love that our pets display.

The cruelest loss of all for many a person is when we reach old age. Partners are lost, along with friends. Children may move away or connections with family are lost. The one thing that remains is their pet. That pet may be a way to maintain a memory of their lost partner or children.

Unknowing or uncaring people have separated that senior from the last creature that regularly shows them affection. More enlightened agencies and providers sometimes see the benefits of keeping that person connected to the emotional benefits that come from sharing your life with an animal.

If only humans could love as constantly and unconditionally as our animal companions do then the world would be a better place.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Valentine’s Day and the search for love

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Feeling of love

Looking for love.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Today is the official day to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

There is some dispute about how Saint Valentine and the idea of love got connected in the first place. The most reasonable explanation appears to be that Chaucer noted that on Saint Valentine’s Day, falling in the spring as it does, the doves were commencing to mate. His poem connected that matting with the idea of romantic love and we have been chasing that connection ever since.

Eric Fromm in The Art of Loving made note that there is no other human activity that is so regularly begun with great hopes and expectations and yet so often fails. He also tells us that we take the intensity of this new infatuation as a reflection of our intensity of love when it is only a reflection of our previous loneliness.

No, I don’t mean to disparage those of you who have or are about to fall in love on or about this annual springtime holiday. Undeniably, there is no other human emotion that is so exciting, so rewarding, or as crazy-making as falling in love.

There have been those couples who have spent their entire lives together in a great love. What many of those couples will tell us is that those initial feelings of romance and attraction were not enough to sustain the relationship and that staying in love is a much greater task than falling in love in the first place.

Having one significant person in your life, most often a primary love and sexual partner has a profound influence on your mental health. A seriously mentally ill person who has that one person, they perceive as loving, living in the home with them is half as likely to end up in a psychiatric hospital. Love has its advantages.

If only love lasted. If only it had a slightly better shelf life.

With more marriages ending in divorce than those staying together these days, it is easy to be cynical about marriage. I fear the out of love spouse who has just found out their partner has been cheating more than the paranoid schizophrenic. Especially if that jilted lover has a gun.

Living together without marrying is even less secure. Unmarried couples are more likely to dissolve the relationship than married ones, particularly within the first year after the birth of a child. Something about not sleeping while being up all night to care for a sick child and the resulting irritability takes the bloom off any flowering love.

There is also an incredible disconnect between those wonderful romantic things that couples say about each other in that first bloom of love and the hurtful things they say about each other in mediation and family court appearances when the relationship comes unraveled.

Most of the time that person we fall in love with is less real than the cartoon characters on the Saturday morning show. We see in this other the reflection of what we want and need and we project back who we think we need to be in order to have them love us. The masks do not come off until the crying child and the stress of earning a living deter us from keeping up pretenses.

Beware listening to that siren sound that tells you, if you could just find that one person who has the things you lack, that person who could complete you, then you two will live happily ever after. Two partial people are not able to create a whole relationship.

Recognize on this day devoted to another love quest that no one will be able to love you more than you love yourself and if you feel empty and incomplete alone you will feel equally lacking when you are with someone.

Those people who like themselves and feel good alone have something to give to another. Two complete and happy people have a chance that two wounded and suffering people never will. If you want a happy relationship, get happy first and get relationshiped second.

Having said all this about caution in the matters of love, I know what is about to transpire. The days are getting warmer. The flowers are blooming. The birds are falling in love and mating and the hormones in we humans are on the rise.

Let the illogical falling in love begin.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

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