Posted on: Friday, January 14, 2005
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KISSES AND MISSES
Come out of corner to live life
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By Tanya Bricking Leach
Advertiser Relationships Writer
Dear Tanya: My story is this: I never really got into many relationships in life. In my 20s, I had three relationships that lasted an average of two years each. The last one I married. I was in love, and felt she loved me also.
As a teenager, I used to pray that one day I would have a wife and child. Well, she became pregnant and we married. She did have a problem with wanting attention from other guys, though, but when I got upset, she reassured me that it was nothing and that it was all in my head. I believed her.
Well, after a few years, things got bad between us. She disappeared for days at a time. I was left with a toddler. At that point, I decided to seek a divorce.
I fought for custody because I didn't think she wanted him, and I consequently found out she had been having sex with my stepfather at the same time our son was conceived.
All this messed up my mind pretty good. I never married again. I'm 43, and I don't know if I will ever meet anyone else. I try to occupy myself with fitness and interesting hobbies.
However, for my love life, I guess some people have one and some just don't.
I may feel sad about it at times, but I just try to make up for it in other ways. Life goes on, so make the best of it, right? Tell that to the lonely people out there.
— FOR ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE
Insiders following the breakup of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston seem to think the stars were at odds over starting a family. Has that ever come between you and your significant other? Vote in our weekly poll. I always try to look on the bright side, and yours is that at least you're not still with the woman who slept with your stepfather.
But seeing as that happened two decades ago, I've got to say, you've got to lose the Eleanor Rigby attitude.
Friends and relationships, not just fitness and hobbies, are what life is all about.
So if you don't want to end up feeling that life has passed you by, wouldn't "making the best of it" really mean learning how to get what you don't have, if in fact that's really what you want?
Not everybody needs a relationship to have a full life.
But are hobbies enough?
Somehow you don't strike me as someone who is celebrating singledom. It sounds as if you are somehow unfulfilled, and cultivating friendships could be the challenge you need to take on.
Don't settle for a life that's just adequate if your heart seeks something more.
Need advice on a topic close to the heart? Write to relationships writer Tanya Bricking Leach at Kisses and Misses, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802; or e-mail kissesandmisses@honoluluadvertiser.com.
Wow, that is kind of a downer.
IN THE PITTS?
