Women Who Love Too Much

A book that has resonated with me more than any other is called, "Women Who Love Too Much," by Robin Norwood.  I downloaded the book on my kindle just weeks before I made the decision to leave my ex-husband.  I started reading it and it felt like the book was written for me.

For the length of my very short marriage, year engagement, and one year of dating-I loved my husband too much.  I loved him to the point of losing myself.  In ways I did, but I am now reclaiming my new life and new beginning.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

"When being in love means being in pain we are loving too much.  When most of our conversations with intimate friends are about him, his problems, his thoughts, his feelings-and nearly all of our sentences begin with "he...", we are loving too much.

When we excuse his moodiness, bad temper, indifference, or put-downs as problems due to an unhappy childhood and we try to become his therapist, we are loving too much.

When we read a self-help book and underline all the passages we think would help him, we are loving too much.

When we don't like many of his basic characteristics, values, and behaviors but we put up with them thinking that if we are only attractive and loving enough he'll want to change for us, we are loving too much."

I am a women who has forever loved to much.  A person like me often comes from the same type of childhood I grew up in.  I took on the caretaker role and only dated men with issues that I thought I could change or fix.  I had no idea that I was even doing this until I began to recognize a pattern in my life.  You see for a women who loves too much it is much easier to wait patiently for the person they love to change than to do the work to change themselves.

I had waited for 3 years for my ex to change.  The whole time I was deeply unhappy but I still thought I saw "so much potential."  See the irony of being a women who loves too much is we don't even fall in love with that actual person.  We fall in love with who they could be. 

Looking back I feel so unintelligent for the decisions I made but I have forgiven myself.  I will no longer let myself feel guilty.  I know I have a big heart, and I know that I went about my life with the best intentions but what I've come to realize is those intentions only led to hurting myself.

People don't change.  The inner core of who a person is, that does not change.  I think we can become more self-aware, more mindful of the choices and decisions we make but our true values and beliefs are buried within us.

I wanted so bad for my ex to change.  I thought if I was skinner, prettier, more attractive, kept the house spotless, met his every need...he would change.  But he didn't.  Day after day there were always the same issues and day after day I lost pieces of myself.  Pieces I gave away to fix his brokenness.

I can remember feeling like I was drowning.  He never met my needs intellectually, physically, emotionally.  I just kept trying and trying.  Giving and giving. 

The worst part about all of it is, I actually thought that type of marriage is what I deserved.  I didn't know enough then to think any different.

The day I left my ex and our home he sent a text message at work asking when I was going to work on our marriage or if that didn't matter to me anymore.

I cried in my office.  Had a complete meltdown.  It was in that very moment I knew.  I knew what I had known all along but was afraid to admit to myself...because it was easier continuing on the path I was on. 

I had been trying.  Exerting all of my energy into something that was a whole bunch of nothing.  Into someone who was manipulative, controlling, abusive, and emotionally draining.  He was poisonous.  A toxic being that thrived off of my existence.

No more.

I would not allow one more moment, not one more second.  I was done.

Reading the book, "Women Who Love Too Much," opened my eyes.  Gave me a clear view of what was right in front of me.  It reiterated what I had already known for so long. 

Ending my marriage is the best decision I have ever made in my life.  It was the first step in loving myself and becoming a better mommy because taking care of myself is the only way I can raise my beautiful son with the parent he deserves.