BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Self Development Confidence

If you meet failure, do you lose your confidence?
No. confidence is different.
One can be confident that one is good at something and can still fail.

"Well, AF... you are good for me. \:\) You help me learn and you are kind and encouraging... you are a good person!"

Dear Hollyelise, you are good for me too! I am so happy that I met you.

We will forge ahead against all odds - together, supporting eachother.

I thank CD and others too, who have been a strength to me.

We all have our ups and downs, but we are all still hanging in there, and not giving in to those who would hurt us.

THEY are the losers really, aren't they? Not us!

AF.

Why think of those who hurt you?
We can never know what they think because most of them are barbarians.

I know what they think alright! Heard it so many times!

I try not to think about them, but it's hard when you are newly divorced and still hurting.

He might be a barbarian, but I loved him enough to marry him, and in some ways I still love him. At least, I love the person he was when I married him, - or perhaps I should say, the person I THOUGHT he was!

I'm getting there though - slow but sure.

AF.

Yes. we get confused when we find that somebody changes or looks changed? alls sorts of thoughts and doubts enter our mind.

Do you love him as much as before?

Just because you love someone, doesn't mean you should be with them. Some people are not good for us.

I have a question. Did you really love the person as much as you thought you did or was it actually the person you thought they were that you loved so much? When reality strikes, a dream dies and with it, the person you loved. When you realize this, it's much easier to let go.

I don't know how AF will answer that question... but i can say in my own case and in the cases of many people, that yes you still love them.

I was thinking, for example, of when people in our family become addicted to drugs or alcohol. It may be impossible for us to live with them anymore, because being with them will damage us. But if it's our mother or our child or our brother... they may have changed but yes, we still love them. I have a good friend, for instance, who's brother is a heroine addict. That's tough. He's abusive. She still loves him. But no one should live with him... he'll steal or do anything to get money for a fix. So she has to let go of trying to be with him, even let go of trying to help him (as he does not want help), but that doesn't mean she has to let go of her love for him. That is not a requirement of letting go.

I can also think of my ex-husband, who had a psychotic break and changed radically in personality. He became unsafe for me to be near... both mentally and also there was concern he'd cause me bodily harm. But i don't think, "i only loved the person i thought he was," ...for he was that person i knew once. But yes, i did not know everything about him. Not even HE knew everything about him. That is not uncommon. Doesn't everybody make discoveries about themself that they never knew before? If we don't know ourselves 100%... how can we know another that way?

I think sometimes it may help to realize we didn't know all about a person, but i think saying we didn't know them and only loved an illusion, often only leads us to distrusting our own judgment.

I had known my ex 23 years, and i never would have guessed he would have been capable of some of the things he did. Once in a while i come across a person who doesn't really know me, but who judges me and thinks i can't see danger and should have seen it in him before i married him. But i'm lucky... i know conclusively that no one could have predicted my ex's mental illness... he worked among psychologists for over a decade, in a field where he was screened to qualify, and if none of the psychologists or psychiatrists he worked with suspected a serious mental illness lurking underneath, why should i have?

I guess what i'm trying to say is, sometimes a relationship goes sour and yes we still love them, and sometimes turning off the faucet of love is not an option. I have found what helps me to move on, is realizing what i stated previously... that just because you love someone, doesn't mean it is healthy to be with them. And that has let me still love them... sometimes with no contact with them... and yet STILL be able to close the book with finality and move on. Loving someone, and wanting to be with someone as they currently are is not the same thing. You can love someone, but love yourself and care for your own welfare and happiness and be committed to that. I can recognize that it is not healthy for me to have any association with my ex, and choose my own safety. I can also still love him and wish him well in life.... I DO! And somehow, being at peace with that, i am able to dream of a happy future without his presence, and look for someone with whom i CAN have a healthy, happy relationship.

I understand holly. Thanks.