has anyone got any advice about living without love?

[patriciapractical]

NC as I'm ashamed. I don't know how to live without love. I don't have a partner. I have been on my own for a long time. Can anyone tell me what to do? I just can't handle it any more. I am looking for some advice in addition to: have you tried online dating, joined a hobby group, made sure you keep in contact with friends, volunteer, exercise, help others, try something new. I know all those things. They are great and help get through the day but doing those things does not make up for a loveless life. Has anyone come to terms with this condition and can tell me something useful? I just don't know what to do anymore. I had some therapy this year and specifically raised the subject of loneliness with the therapist. In fact that was my "presenting" issue. This is killing me. Maybe someone here at least found peace with it and can tell me how to do the same.

I have no idea. Maybe someone wise will come along.

Sending hugs, I don't know the answer, but someone wise may come along soon xx

Do you have dc? I felt like you I'd for 4 years after I broke up with ex. Then I spent a year realising I could deal with it. It wasn't perfect but I could cope. When I'd reached this point, I then met dh.....

My ds kept me going bough all of this.

Well I can cope on the outside but it doesn't get any easier - it gets worse. I have children at secondary school. Been on my own for years. It really didn't bother me for a long time. Now it really does and I just can't see how I can live the rest of my life on my own. Sometimes I am the worst parent immaginable. Sometimes I just ignore my children and of course that makes things worse because I can add guilt to the list.

Is your life completely loveless, OP? Are you loved by friends, family, kids and it is just romantic love that is missing? Or are you completely alone?
I say this because I think the first situation is probably easier to cope with than the second.
I have learned that there are lots of kinds of love other than the romantic kind you get from a partner. And even though it's very hard, it is possible to flourish in a life where love, friendship and companionship comes from sources other than a spouse.
I don't think it's easy by any means. It can be very lonely. This might sound harsh but a large part of life is about acceptance. Taking the hand you've been dealt and learning to live with it. Really taking pleasure in the good and positive things that happen to you and learning to brush off the tricky stuff and not let it get you down.
I don't have the answers for you I'm afraid OP, but I do think it's possible.

Loneliness is horrible. What did the therapist do to help you with it? I'm curious about what the 'problem' is. Are you not able to find suitable partners? Or do you not feel love for them? Or they for you? Or something else?

Thank you for replying. I am talking about adult to adult grown up partnership supportive style love. Every day I come home from work and I cannot share the difficulties or triumphs with anyone and cannot support them either. There is one thing in life I have always, always, always wanted, it has been love. But it has always, always, always been just out of reach.

Why - I have tried lots of online dating and met many people but have not found someone right for me. I am late 40s and to be honest I think there are quite a few out there, with the divorce rate and everything, just hasn't worked for me.

You can be in marriage and be living without love too.

Is that your situation demented? That could be worse maybe?

If you have children, friends and other close and supportive relationships then you aren't living without love.

I don't have a partner either. I thought I would never find love again after my marriage ended and then I realised I was looking in all the wrong places and wasn't recognising what I've got. I remembered that i've never been lonelier than when I was married or in other poor quality relationships, including unsatisfactory friendships. Another person can't fill that chasm, only you can. And when you stop looking, you'll feel differently and think differently. You won't feel less than. You'll feel complete. Do more therapy if you feel it wasn't hitting the spot, try a different kind of therapist.

Pat, I've been in a horribly lonely marriage for 7 years. I don't have friends or family around me and I sit every evening by myself. I've never been so lonely in my life.
Suffice to say, making plans to exit because I just want to be on my own but not at someone else's expense, if that makes sense?
I going to go and live closer to family now.
I'm not sure about love. I think we'd all be surprised at how many of us n so called 'relationships' don't have love.

And I didn't mean that AT ALL ?n a 'my is worse than you' way.
I just wanted to share it from another lonely perspective.

I cope very well most of the time. And my life is reasonably successful. However, I think there is a part of the human psyche that needs the closeness of another human to feel totally human. I have never told my friends how I feel. I am too ashamed. Perhaps that would be good for me. I will try. And I will pick the wrong people to tell.

Do you have children freckles?

I know what you mean. It's a yearning to just be embraced for exactly who you are. To be in the comfort of somebody who cares and to feel totally at ease in their presence.
I have 3 young ones Pat under 6 yrs who I love to bits. It's not quite the same but with children, at least you know (at least at this age) they love you as their mum without judgement.

Sorry to hear about your lonely evenings freckles. I hope everything gets better for you.

loneliness...the modern plague?
Being alone is different from being lonely I think?

I break my aloneness down into little bits...it helps me to see all the things I need...but may be try to solve each with a different answer rather than waiting for romantic love (which may or may not happen) to give all the answers (which might be too big a need to fill for one person anyway).

1. the need to be needed/valued
2. the need for touch
3. the need to be heard
4. the need for self expression
5. the need for a role
6. the need for hope
7. the need to be challenged

I am also in late 40s with DC...

I have not sorted all the answers even for myself but hereis what I have got to....your answers and even question might be very different

1. Not just by children...I need to be needed/useful outside the home. For me returning to a different career is my plan though it will take a while
2. going to have to be trivial incidental touch for me...manicure, aromatherapy massage etc
3. therapy/good friends/MN.........
4. my artistic side needs to be channelled. Not sorted but art class/music/singing would be my choice. 5)...other than mother/daughter/sister. Work probably....
5. the future can look very scary as DC grow up and away...plans and things to look forward to irrespective of relationships. dreams to make come true....
6. I need to find people who are not just nice to me...people who challenge my beliefs, my ways and my thinking about external subjects.

Meeting someone special may or may not happen but I believe that even if it does I cannot expect or ask them to meet all m y needs. By looking after myself and filling my empty lonnely self up I hope to be able to be happy either alone or together and to be a better partner if it does go that way.

sorry....so long. Think you just turned into my therapist!

And you!! Hehe, I hope I don't have to spend the rest of my life like his either.
Pat, I used to write poetry. Sometimes get up in the middle of the night with a thought. I wrote down all my feelings and experiences and put them into poems which, on the surface, did not really make sense unless you dug deeper iyswim?
I'm not a great talker and I'm fairly introvert but I found this is a good way to maybe help someone get to know you a bit in the future.
My current h had no interest whatsoever and I felt like an idiot showing him. But nother old flame was intrigued.

fool - I think that's brilliant, you have amazing insight. Did you just write that off the top of your head? Very good. It makes sense to me. Number 6 is kind of the big one I guess.

How old are you broken?

You're not middle aged though are you broken? Just saying you might have time to make things different?

You're in a spiral of negative thinking. I can relate to it; I've been there too. Of course you feel hopeless when you fixate on what you lack! But I can only echo what Wisey said: you do have love in your life. Focus on what you have, and on what actions you can take. Only you can fill that void you feel.

It's a tough one, but it's doable.