Reflections On Valentine's Day

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. 

It's a day we celebrate love and relationships.  For many single people, though, it's a day that can drive a spear through the heart.

I am not bitter about Valentine's Day, I'm really not.  But some years it hits me harder than others.  It seems the older I get, the longer I'm alone, the less chance I have of finding love.  The older I get, the harder it gets to watch others in love, and I wonder if I'll ever find someone.  

I know it's largely my own fault that I'm not married.  The men are there.  They are asking.  I had a man beg me for ten years to marry him.  Ten years.  A decade. 

He finally asked me what he needed to change about himself to make me love him. 

I was glad we were chatting on instant messenger, because it gave me time to compose a truthful, yet not hurtful, answer to give him.  I finally told him that he couldn't change himself to please someone else.  He would be living a lie and the stress of maintaining that lie would cause him to resent me and eventually come to hate me.  He had to be himself, and he had to find someone who could love him just as he is.  He seemed satisfied with that answer, and I believe he has finally found someone with whom he could be happy. 

There are a couple of others at work who still remind me from time to time that they would like to pursue something other than friendship.  And I won't even mention all the married men who want me to be their little something on the side-- mainly because they aren't worth mentioning. 

The point is, it's not the men.  They are there.  It's just that I haven't found one yet who could touch my heart, much less capture it. 

Dr. James Dobson is credited with the saying:   You don't marry the one you think you can live with.  You marry the one you think you can't live without.

That was the mistake I made the first time.  I chose to marry the first man that came along that I thought I could stand to be around.  I didn't love him, and I knew it.  It wouldn't last, and I knew that, too.  I remember sitting in the bride's room the day of my wedding thinking, "What am I doing?  I don't want to marry this guy."  But I went through with it.  We'd spent so much money on the wedding, and people had driven so far...and I was pregnant.  So I went through with it. We all know that turned out.
  
I won't make that mistake again. 


I'll be content to wait until the one I can't live without comes along.  And if he never does, then I'll be content to be within God's will for my life.  I'm not saying there won't be difficult days. I'm not saying there won't be times I long for someone to take care of me.  I'm sure there will. 

But those moments will be few, and enduring them will be so much better than enduring a lifetime with the wrong man.