It’s weird. I graduated from Towson and I’m about to buy a house. I have a good job, even though I feel that I’m not using all of my abilities to do the manual labor, I’m not too sad about where I work.

My main problem is that I need a woman in my life. All my life I’ve had girlfriends that I was happy with, but about 4 years ago I went through a terrible time that, looking back, has cursed me. I was dating this beautiful girl named Jen from Australia. We dated for over a year and we were very happy together, but when I came back from Australia and she stayed, I cheated on her. I told her about it and when she wanted to stay together, I said that I wanted to be single.

This is the reason I feel cursed. The girl I cheated on her with gave me genital warts and didn’t tell me she had it and she was really messed up in the head. She cheated on me numerous times and just caused so much pain in my life that I was very depressed and took the illness straight to heart, vowing not to give it to someone else in the hurtful way it was given to me. I didn’t have sex for two years.

Then after two years of no sex, I turned into a huge pot head until someone poisoned my pot and I almost died. After that happened I went to church and I tried to be a better person, or what I saw as a better person (healthy, productive, etc.). Now two years have passed and I haven’t had any signs of the STD so I tried to go back into the dating world. The only problem is that all the sudden, I’m shy and don’t know how to act around a pretty woman. I mess up every opportunity and just feel completely empty inside.

It seems like I wont let myself be happy. I’m drinking too much on the weekends, smoking cigs and it feels like I’m starting to get depressed again, or lovesick may be the better word. I don’t know what to do with myself and I don’t know how I can get out of this rut. I understand a rolling stone gathers no moss, so I keep doing positive things in my life and in my career, but at the end of the day I’m still so lonely. I haven’t felt love in over four years.

How can I change back into the man I was? How can I get the girlfriend I know I deserve and want so bad? How do I forgive myself for the terrible decision I made (cheating) that caused a chain reaction to me being at this low point in my life. How can I be happy when I’m so alone? I understand that this is an impossible question to answer, but maybe you could just point me in the right direction. I feel like I should move to a different state and start all over.

-Jason

Hey Jason,

Thanks so much for taking the time to write about the problem you’re having and I understand how tough it can be to go through difficult seasons of life.

A couple things stood out to me as I read your question. First of all, I think it would be wise for you to use this time to work on you and I don’t mean career wise. I’m talking about soul work here. You said you want to get back to the man you used to be, but I would ask, why would you want to be him? A guy that would cheat on the girl he loved and then hook up with someone that was obviously of questionable character. Do you really want to be that guy?

Of course not, you want to be the guy who loves and respects his woman with all his heart and would never think of cheating. So what inside of you caused you to destroy or sabotage that relationship?

Secondly, I believe that part of you depends on external things for your happiness. First, it seemed that you were happy when you were with a girlfriend, then you turned to pot, then a stint at church, and now you are turning to alcohol. What part of you prevents you from loving yourself, and being happy with yourself? Don’t get me wrong, relationships can bring a lot of joy to our lives, but they can’t be ultimate. Otherwise we put too much pressure on the other person and on ourselves to have a relationship.

This pressure is probably what’s tripping you up around women, you have too much riding on this.  So my advice would be to take this time and do some soul work. This might involve some counseling, some reading of good books, connecting with God in a personal way, and/or do some more traveling. You are young, don’t have  a lot of commitments so take advantage of your freedom. Trust me, some soul work now will  give you a much better chance of having a great, well functioning relationship later on that will bring both you and your partner much joy.

Your future is bright so hang in there and keep striving to be the man you know you can be and for the life you dream of having, trust me you will get through this rough patch and you’ll be thankful for the lessons learned.

Sincerely,

Ted