A loveless marriage and a huge loss of self-esteem from constant mental abuse about not being good enough.

Loneliness is a weapon many divorced people use against themselves, making them vulnerable to being taken advantage of by users and manipulators, and this can cause severe depression. To prevent this from happening to you (or if you have already suffered such a fate), let me tell you the story of two women who came to me to help them overcome their needs. I say story because, amazingly, although they are not connected to each other in any way except their home circumstances, their stories are almost identical, with different characters.

Dina and Maggie are 2 respectable, educated women with enough money to live comfortable lives. They both got divorced 2 years ago. Dina was 47 at the time of her divorce and Maggie was 42. Both women have a boy and a girl. One day, they decided they couldn’t continue with the men they lived with for 20 years, because there was no love or feelings of any kind left in their relationships, especially now that the children were older.

Both Dina and Maggie got married to escape a loveless home to what they imagined would be a home filled with love and happiness with the man of their choice; handsome, from a good family, had a good job and could keep them living a life they were accustomed to. Little did they realize that a home filled with love needs to be built by people who have experienced love at home and have taken the time to understand the person they intend to share their life with, if the relationship was to have a chance of working at all. Instead, they built their relationships on the image drawn in their minds of how it will be.

Dina met her husband at work and ‘fell in love with him’ the minute she saw him walk past her to get help from her colleague. She took over from her colleague, because she decided that he was the one for her. She even put the idea of marriage in his head and pursued it until it happened. Even when her mother refused, she developed an autoimmune disease, insisting that he will be the only man she marries and suddenly recovered when she finally did.

Maggie decided to marry her ex-husband after a failed relationship that was doomed because of her excessive need to be loved, which caused her to be so demanding that it drove her lover away. When a family friend introduced her ex in the traditional manner, she saw the ‘man of her dreams and fell for him’. She knew, because he fit the image in her mind, that he will give her the life she wanted.

The result for both was a loveless marriage and a huge loss of self-esteem from constant mental abuse about not being good enough. As it turned out, the image they created in their minds was not real and, even worse, they discovered that the men they chose picked them because they, too, fitted the image of the woman they wanted. When Maggie and Dina decided they could no longer take the mental abuse and the dryness of the relationship, they opted for divorce.

Luckily for both ladies, they had an amicable divorce. The children were grown-up and could see that this was for the best, although the boys turned out to be kinder to them than the girls. They were closer to their fathers but both gave support when they had the time. So, what’s the problem? The problem is after the euphoric numbness, after divorce, reality hit!

Both ladies were in their 40s and on their own. Children have no time for them, and still no love! Loneliness caused desperation to rear its ugly head in the form of need for male company and consumed them, not for the physical need, ‘but to have a man to talk to and feel that they are desirable women’. Although official statistics say that the divorce rate in 2015 was 9.4%, meeting a man the normal way was difficult, so they took to social media where they met the men they felt wanted them and were respectable enough. In the beginning, they felt these men, although younger, were the answer to their needs. The reality was, they felt good that a younger man showed interest in a woman older than them. They chatted and texted all day, every day, just like 2 teenagers who have just met and have fallen for each other. They started to feel happy and experience feelings they have never experienced before; they were women again!

Both women said the same thing; he was perfectly honest, he said that he was divorced and had 2 young children, his work took up most of his time and he and his money went to support his children, who were living with their mothers, but he saw them every afternoon and on weekends. When they met, he took her to places that were cheap and that she wouldn’t have chosen, like a coffee shop, with the excuse that it was near his work and, although she thought it was strange, accepted it because he cared for her. Then he tried to visit her at home at night when he finished work. Being a woman with grown up children, she refused his request, at which point he started to use mental games. It didn’t take long before he made his final move and pretended to have lost money and hysterically asked for help to make up the loss, and they both refused!

Dina and Maggie knew that these men were not for them and that they were using them, but they had convinced themselves that they loved them, even after such a short time, and that these men really cared for them. For a long time after the money incident, they found it difficult to end all ties, as there was still hope that these men will turn out as they want them to be. When I asked them why they were finding it hard to cut the ties despite all they have experienced, without a doubt, they both gave the same reply; because they were there and we don’t want to be alone. How do we know if we will find someone else, especially someone who is younger, who will want to be with us and make us feel like women?

Dina and Maggie took the step to ask for help in improving the quality of their lives and are working hard to succeed. We are currently working on their self-esteem so that they can learn to truly love themselves first and accept themselves for who they are and what they are capable of being and doing. They now understand that, as humans, we tend to attract people as per our perceptions of ourselves. If the belief is worthless and not deserving of good, capable people around us, the only ones we attract will be losers and opportunists.

Once Dina and Maggie started to change their belief from ‘I’m not good enough’, to ‘I’m enough’, they began to do more things with their lives to give it meaning, like painting, exercising, meeting friends, etc. They moved on and became complete people. Once they start enjoying what life can offer them and what choices they have, each moment, their strength will conquer their needs and allow them to deal with the loneliness and the love issue in the correct manner, thus allowing them to choose the right partner, when he comes along.

What do you think? Are we victims of our own needs?

Sanaa Sabet,

Founder of Dare To

Facebook@DareToEG

N.B: This is a true account of events, written with the permission of both ladies, but although the events are real, the names have been changed, for privacy reasons.