Sad to say, I find myself to be a bit of an expert on divorce.  It certainly wasn’t my intention to know so much about it, but there it is.  The first thing I learned from my own experience and from speaking with hundreds of others is that divorce is always traumatic.

When my husband of six years and I decided to call it quits, we went about it in the most civilized way.  We both agreed that we were making each other miserable.

We were simply too different in our goals and interests to stay together.  In other words, it was a purely rational decision.

Unfortunately, my emotions didn’t agree.  While it seemed easy for my soon-to-be-ex to cruise through this difficult time in our lives, I was crushed and  emotionally disabled.  I felt like the biggest failure in the history of womankind, and his apparent inability to feel anything just made things worse.

I quickly launched into a midlife crisis of astronomical proportions, asking myself all the tough questions: “Why can’t I ‘do’ marriage?  What is it about me that makes me unable to be with others emotionally?  Do I have to live alone forever?  Why doesn’t love last?”

As luck would have it, I lost my job soon after the separation and divorce, intensifying the depth and drama of my ongoing crisis.  Thus began even more difficult questions like: “What am I doing here?  Will I ever find meaning in my life?  How do I want the rest of my life to be different?”  I felt a strong need to understand the first half of my life, so I could make the second half better.

I got so wrapped up in this quest, I decided to start my own matchmaking service to explore the simple question, “Do I still believe in love?”   Although it wasn’t a conscious choice at the time, it turned out to be the best therapy to help me understand my own feelings about love and rejection.

First of all I learned that I most certainly was not alone in my disillusionment with love.  There are millions of us out there who have our doubts about love and relationships.  Interviewing scores of disillusioned divorcees showed me that we all have a lot to learn.

I  slowly realized that we learn much more about a person by divorcing them, than we could ever have learned by staying married.  While married, we are always “playing nice” to some extent.  We still have a lot invested in the relationship and its future.

When divorce becomes real, and it takes varying amounts of time for each of us to register this disturbing reality, the gloves come off and we become more honest with our soon-to-be-ex.  There is no more relationship to protect, so we naturally begin protecting ourselves and our own interests.  In short, we say what we’ve been thinking all along!

A post-divorce workshop I offered to my dating clients a few years ago, provided a moment of true epiphany for me.  We were involved in a discussion about the distance between the simple rational decision to get a divorce, and the contradictory deep emotional emptiness that can ensue after it all sinks in.

A short, elderly gentleman who looked a bit like Sigmund Freud and spoke with a heavy German accent stood up and said,

“Divorce is not about the loss of a relationship, it’s about the loss of the dream.”

Truer words were never spoken.  I had not only lost a significant human connection in my life, but, more importantly, I had lost faith in love and the beauty it can bring to an otherwise difficult existence.

For what is life, if we fear that we will never feel love again?

I think too often we confuse romantic love with living a life full of passion, because we seek both.

The place to begin in your search for a life full of love, is to create a life full of passion.

What does that mean?   It means waking up each day feeling a passion for everything: the amazing new day given to you, the exciting things you plan to do with it, and the passion you feel for life itself.

I know the alternative to this way of life, because I lived it for decades.  The drudgery of doing a job you rarely get any excitement from.    The dead end relationships that slowly sap all of your energy and passion, never giving any genuine love or appreciation in return.

How do you escape this 9-5 way of dying?   By saying to yourself you are finally through with settling and mean it this time.  By sitting alone with yourself for a time, and allowing  yourself to feel all of the anger that comes from seeing your  life EXACTLY the way it is.

By having the courage to say, “I’m going to change this or die trying!”

Most will say this sounds far too risky.  They will say “Get real!”   But I have found that there is no excellence without taking the risk of feeling true love and passion for your life and your goals.

Take the leap today and build your wings on the way down!

The study sought to determine whether long-term romantic love was a rare phenomenon, and the researchers were surprised to find just the opposite. Even for the longest marriages — three decades or more — 40 percent of women and 35 percent of men said they were still madly in love.

Learn more over at MSNBC.

More than a Hallmark holiday, Valentine’s Day, like Halloween, is rooted in pagan partying.

This lovers’ holiday traces its roots to raucous annual Roman festivals where men stripped naked, grabbed goat- or dog-skin whips, and spanked young maidens in hopes of increasing their fertility, so says classics professor Noel Lenski at Univ. of Colorado, Boulder.

The annual pagan celebration, called Lupercalia, was held every year from February 13th to the 15th, and remained wildly popular well into the fifth century A.D.—at least 150 years after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Lupercalia was “clearly a very popular thing, even in an environment where the [ancient] Christians are trying to close it down,” Lenski said. “So there’s reason to think that the Christians might instead have said, OK, we’ll just call this a Christian festival.”

The church pegged the festival to the legend of St. Valentine.   The story goes that in the third century A.D., Roman Emperor Claudius II, seeking to bolster his army, forbade young men to marry.   Valentine, flouted the ban, performing marriages in secret.   For his defiance, Valentine was executed in A.D. 270—on February 14.

Today’s relatively tame Valentine’s Day celebration is big business—with the 2012 holiday expected to generate $17.6 billion in retail sales in the United States.   That’s up from last year’s $15.7 billion, according to an annual survey by the U.S. National Retail Federation.

There they looked at whether using algorithms like E-Harmony and Match.com use to match customers, work any better than dumb luck.

First of all, contrary to urban legend, only 20% of new relationships begin from online dating services at present, even though there are now more than 1,000 different kinds.

Some use complicated mathematical formulas to help match you with just the right person, but according to a new study, online dating is only number two in  matchmaking America-style.   Meeting through mutual friends is still the number one most popular way to meet a mate.

The scientists, whose research is slated for publication in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, reviewed over 400 psychology studies and public interest surveys.   In one study, they found that in a single month in 2011, nearly 25 million unique users around the world were online dating.

If you are truly serious about meeting someone wonderful this year, perhaps you should consider investing more of your time and money in an old fashioned, one-on-one matchmaker.   Ann Wood, age 79, has been doing this kind of work in the Washington, D.C. area for decades.   She charges $1000/year, and her only caveat is, “I can’t help stupid people.”

Of course, it always helps if you BELIEVE IN LOVE to begin with!

HOW MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE IN LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT?             48% said YES                 49% said NO

Going only on my crazy desire to try something completely different, I started my own dating service.

There I spent months learning from hundreds of singles what it feels like to know that you are too young to give up on love, but also afraid that you may be too disillusioned to ever believe in love again.  What I discovered is that there are quite a few of us who have lost our faith in love, and that included me.

So I got busy and figured out how to change. With my natural stubborn streak and a solid background in counseling psychology, I used decades of personal experience with love and disappointment to turn my attitude around.  I first began to fully value my mysterious intuitive personal guidance system, and stopped interrupting it with more “rational” assessments. I also acknowledged how important it was for me to forgive myself for everything in my past.

Slowly I created a formula which included finding compassion and self-respect for where I was at.  Then I found some creative ways to love myself into believing in love again.  I saw that I felt afraid of love for many good reasons, so I began searching out those experiences in my past that were keeping me stuck in my old way of thinking.  I began to focus on my own unique shame and trust issues, and then slowly forgave myself for past mistakes, utilizing cathartic techniques to change my beliefs about what love might have to offer me now.

I knew I was on the right track when I met the love of my life a few months later! Eight months after that fateful meeting I married again for keeps, and six years after that I completed my book:  How To Believe In Love Again: Opening to Forgiveness, Trust, and Your Own Inner Wisdom.  

Pick it up when you are ready to acknowledge that you have lost your faith in love, and getting it back it your highest priority!

* People feel closer when they do new things together.

* Emotional bonds are strengthened when people do physical activities together.

* People tend to bond when they’re in frightening situations together.

* Feelings of love grow when total strangers simply gaze into each other’s eyes for two minutes.

Emotional bonds often get stronger when people feel vulnerable, and this works for two reasons.   First, when you see someone who is in a weak and vulnerable state, you often feel like comforting or protecting that person; those tendencies make you feel close to them, and they often bring you physically closer, too.   Second, when you are feeling vulnerable yourself, you could interpret your emotional state as a loving one—especially if someone nearby happens to reach out to comfort you.  If two people feel vulnerable simultaneously, these two tendencies can interlock and increase synergistically.

Most of the experiences that lead to increases in emotional intimacy produce this kind of dynamic.   Strong sexual attraction, scary situations, vigorous exercise and novel situations all make people feel vulnerable to some extent.   And, yes, even gazing can have this effect.  The difference between mutual gazing and staring is consent; people are giving each other permission to invade their privacy in a way that is normally quite threatening.

Learn more over at Scientific American!

What is the secret to keeping love alive?

How do you keep getting excited about your husband all over again?   How do you keep him excited about you, when half of the time you feel like there should be steam coming out of your ears?   Or your mood is swinging in ways that even scare you at times?   Not to mention hormonal changes with andropause and menopause that make romance much less likely to happen.

Should you simply give up on romance for this lifetime?

I say NO!   Just because most of your conversations center around the kids, getting the bills paid, or appliance repairs now, doesn’t mean romance has disappeared completely.   It just means that romance will require some effort on both of your parts.  Just like when you have felt disillusioned with love before, you need to ask yourself:

“Do I still believe in the power of love to change my life?”

You are not disillusioned with love now, just with how routine your relationship has become over the years.      Just because you have been married for years, doesn’t mean you don’t still have the same fears and intimacy issues you entered this relationship with. Is it worth it to you to work on yourself at this late date?   Could you still believe in love?

The most basic theme of my book: How to Believe in LOVE Again: Opening to Forgiveness, Trust and Your Own Inner Wisdom, is to help you realize that you have a choice.   You can make the decision to embark on your own journey back to self-love and self-acceptance.   For what is life without love?  Perhaps if you worked your way through my book WITH your life partner, the magic would return even better than before!

Whether married, divorced or single, self-love and self-respect is the source of all trust in others, closeness and true intimacy.

Find real love this time!

While I was putting together our latest Boomers’ Blog Carnival yesterday, I happened to begin reading one of my journals from my early thirties (I’m 56 now).  There I was reminded of how BAD I was at choosing appropriate love partners in my twenties and thirties.  BTW, my forties weren’t great either!

What did I finally learn to change this disturbing trend in my life?  In one word, an unwavering new sense of  SELF-RESPECT.  My standards were so low for so long when it came to expecting to be treated well by others.  I let far too many people walk all over me, without a clue of how badly I was treating myself!

To change this bad habit you need to stop and think about what you expect from those who care about you.  How do you expect to be treated?  Begin from how you treat yourself.  Do you love yourself and respect your own judgment?  Or do you constantly criticize and second-guess yourself?  One book I found extremely helpful in this regard is: How To Be An Adult in Relationships by David Richo.

Spend time reflecting on how you have been treating yourself all of your life, and where those behavior patterns came from.  Learn what it feels like to finally love and accept yourself, and then you will be so much closer to believing in love again, and finding it this time!