Options To Get Your Single Life Going And Growing

(c) Harlan Jacobsen

Options for the newly singled to get on with life:

OPTION A. Withdraw from the game, hang out on the couch watching TV and lick your emotional wounds from this death of a long term relationship. Duration:  6 months to the rest of your life. (We all know someone who has chosen this option.)

Very Common Result of a devastating split. These people never show up at any seminars or support groups on getting on with life, so perhaps this online method can turn your life around. You just need to take the time here to look into how you are wasting what can be the best years of your life. (Friends do not leave friends in this state.  For a start, send them here.)

OPTION B. Fill the void, get rid of the pain, initiate an all-stops program of MATE HUNTING. Night and day quest to escape from this terrible pain of being on my own. The need is immediate and anyone will do.  Even a mediocre relationship is better then no relationship at all.  (Never wanted to be single, do not like it.)  People always dislike change or what they know nothing about.

This is a relationship addict that can not stand the pain and will not go through withdrawal symptoms.  Like the alcoholic who can not pass a liquor store, they just have to find another fix. Some of these folks will not end a relationship or marriage until they have another one staked out. (Relationship hopping.) Some are like people constantly swapping cars, always trying to trade up, but often wind up with a lemon. If their partner splits first, unannounced, they are devastated and desperate.  

OPTION C. Just hang out, and see what happens...wait for fate to take its course. Become Super Mom or Disneyland Daddy or direct all your energies somewhere else so you do not have time to even notice you are single.  "Maybe lightning will strike in the meantime and I will wind up in a good place."  "My doctor has me on valium and I am getting along okay."   Duration:  Normally two years or more before starting to deal with reality...often much longer.

A single life adrift. Like a ship with no port they may wind up in a better place but not likely. This could be called the "bumble along system."   Those that postpone and delay going through the pain by being on valium, etc. seem to just put their life on hold and do not progress like those that have worked through real pain.  

OPTION D. Take charge of your life and destiny for the first time.  Your parents and your spouse had a say about your life.  Now, for the first time, your new life is totally up to you. Figure out where you are going and what you want to be. Don't say married.  Marriage is only frosting, when first we have a cake.  Right now we are baking a cake. Frosting comes automatically when we have an excellent cake.

Your number one goal right now is to learn how and practice living a happy single life. The key word here is "happy." Your goals in the past were "to be married," "to have a family," "to own a house," "to get a better job" or "make more money," etc. Your goal never was to lead a happy successful life. Now is your one great opportunity to take charge of your own destiny.  This can become the major turning point in your life. We will furnish the map.

*New articles and additional parts of serial series are posted on the web and appear in our Singles Monthly Newspapers.