I have been a marriage and family counselor for over fifty years. It was beyond embarrassing to help others but find my own love life in constant crisis. When people visit me on MenAlive, you’ll see my welcome video, “Confessions of a Divorced Marriage Counselor.”
It took me a long time to take my own advice and ask for help. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I finally found a good therapist and found the right life partner. Carlin and I have been happily married for 46 years and more in love now than ever. The even better news is that I can help you if you want to find one your right partner and stop looking for love in all the wrong places, the title of one of my most popular and popular books.
If you are interested in working with me on these topics, please drop me a note (Jed@Menalive.com).
Keep reading if you want to know more about why we get stuck in relationships that are bad for us.
The truth is, things have changed a lot since when I was looking for love. With the advent of social media and an online world of endless possibilities alongside a real world of broken promises, dating has become more difficult than ever. Most people act like hedgehogs in the snow who are hungry for love and affection. However, as soon as they get close their thorns hurt each other and move away.
According to a recent Forbes article by Emily Phares,
“Most single men and women between the ages of 18 and 34 (53% and 68%, respectively) say they want a romantic relationship, according to a 2024 study commissioned by dating platform Tinder, which surveyed 8,000 heterosexual participants in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. However, almost all respondents – including 91% of men and 94% of women – say they believe the current dating environment is more difficult than ever.”
There are unique challenges that people face, regardless of age, but I’ve found that we never stop wanting love, and often the dating difficulties faced by men and women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond can be even more stressful.
In my book, The Illuminated Marriage: The 5 Transformational Stages of Relationships and Why the Best Are Yet to Comesharing what Carlin and I learned. Iyanla Vanzant author and former host Iyanla Fix My Life on the Oprah Winfred Network (OWN) had this to say after reading my book:
“There are certain skills you must have, certain ways you must be, and certain things you must learn or unlearn if you want to have a healthy, fulfilling and loving relationship. Jed Diamond’s work at The Illuminated Wedding it covers all the “shoulds” and then some. What a blessing!”
Looking for love in all the wrong places?
Here are some questions that I have had to answer in my life and that I help my clients explore in their lives:
- Am I really satisfied with my love life?
- Do I find that the people I’m attracted to later turn out to be wrong for me?
- Even when I tell myself, “I won’t make that mistake again,” am I in another bad situation?
- If I look at my dating history and honestly look at the ones I’ve been attracted to, is there a pattern?
- What role models did I have growing up? What kind of marriage did my parents have and how might that have affected my love life?
- Did I have “adverse childhood experiences” growing up that included physical, emotional, or sexual abuse or neglect?
- Was my father physically or emotionally absent when I was growing up?
- Was my relationship with my father too distant or inappropriately close?
- Was my mother physically or emotionally absent when I was growing up?
- Was my relationship with my mother too distant or inappropriately close?
- Deep down, how safe do I feel to be vulnerable and intimate with a partner?
- How much love do I feel for myself? How comfortable am I with my physical, emotional and sexual self?
Some important things I’ve learned over the years
- It’s never too early or too late to improve your mental, emotional and relational love life.
- At the end of our lives, people rarely feel regret that they didn’t make enough money or achieve much success in their professional lives. Most people wish they had learned to love more deeply and well.
- Even those of us who grew up in a healthy family with parents who loved us and loved each other, we all suffer wounds in our love lives.
- Since much trauma comes when we are young and affects all of us to some degree, we often block out the painful memories that slip into our subconscious.
- What remains unconscious tends to rule our lives since we keep repeating old patterns without recognizing their subconscious origin.
- Every dysfunctional dating, relationship, or marriage adds a little to our addictive behavior of repeating old patterns.
- The opposite of addiction is healthy connection.
- We are not stupid or crazy, although sometimes our behavior makes us feel like we have lost our minds. There is actually a positive desire behind our dysfunctional love lives.
- I think we unconsciously hope that by recreating the dysfunctional relationships from our past, we believe that this time things will be different. This time I’m going to make things right and get the love I’ve been missing all my life.
- Sometimes we can do the healing ourselves and fix things ourselves. Most of the time we can benefit from working with a healer, counselor or guide who knows the area, has been there themselves and helped themselves and others heal.
- It’s never too late to heal old wounds and have the relationship of your dreams.
I hope you find my articles useful. Drop me a note (Jed@MenAlive.com) and let me know. I read every personal email I get from people. If I can help you, I’ll be happy to connect.
