One comment that’s plagued me since my marriage ended was made by my ex-husband. “I’m tired of validating you.” Had he been validating me? It sure didn’t feel like it. I didn’t see it that way. But, did he see it that way? Was I projecting a need for validation without realizing it? Was it really a contributing factor in my marriage ending?

It had given me sleepless nights, and I had given it more consideration than I like to admit to you. I knew I had to confront the topic, but I’ve always been one hell of a procrastinator. Let’s be honest, who really wants to dissect their shortcomings, insecurities, or failures. But, to heal, I knew it had to be done. So, I thought about it. And I thought about it and thought about it then thought about watching tv, surfing the web, foraging the pantry. Procrastination 101. That did nothing but waste a bunch of years (yes, years) and mess with my bathroom scale. So, I finally took a hard look. Damn it, my ex was right (sort of). I was looking for validation, but I wasn’t consciously intending to. It was a just pattern that developed over time as my self-esteem dropped. Sometimes, when we’re so lost, we don’t see how it manifest in our behavior. Apparently, I was lost, blind and deaf.

Over decades, my self-esteem had taken hit after hit after hit. I hated to look in the mirror, hated who I was as a person, hated who I wasn’t as a person. There wasn’t anything on the inside, or outside I deemed worthy. And, with issues in my marriage, the chances of my self-esteem and self-worth building weren’t favorable odds. And, the worst part, I didn’t realize how it was affecting my marriage or relationships with other people in my life. By no means does my lack of self-esteem justify my ex-husband’s behaviors, but, about validation, he may have a point. The funny thing was he wasn’t actually validating me. He was, in fact, doing the complete opposite. He just didn’t see it that way (or chose not to see it that way).

That’s water under the bridge…sort of. The reason I bring this up is that that nagging statement got me to a turning point in my healing. I was looking for validation, and it was actually ruining my life. Since being given up for adoption, I had been searching for proof that I was, in fact, loveable and not expendable. Lots of adoptees feel this way. We’re discarded from birth. At least, that’s how we feel. When my birth parents rejected me again, 27 years later, it drove the point home. Multiple that with a husband who asked for a divorce on more than one occasion and well, you probably get the point. My life was a series of rejections, betrayals, infidelities, and even abuse. Not, all were from my marriage, but they all played a role in breaking me. Completely breaking me. By the time my ex-husband had moved out and was visiting his girlfriend in another state, I was nothing. At least that’s what I thought. I don’t know if anyone knew how bad I was at this point because I had learned to hide it well. I still took care of my children, our home, the finances, went to work, went to my kids’ sporting events and performances, even socialized. But, it wasn’t me. I was broken. I was existing. I was living as a fraud. I had no clue who the real me was because I kept morphing into someone I wasn’t all in the hopes of feeling accepted, loved, wanted. And, that made for some of the worst mistakes in my life.

Loss of one’s self, the loss of a relationship, the loss of a dream, the loss of trust. Loss wreaks havoc on a person’s life. So much becomes affected. Health. Finances. Behavior. Identity. And, still more. There have been so many studies on what loss and the stress of loss do to the human body and mind. For me, loss and the need for validation created a pattern of behavior that nearly killed me.

To make my postings fairly quick reads, I am breaking down these behaviors and dealing with them individually. In the coming weeks, I will be writing about my addictions, dating the wrong…not quirky….WRONG men, putting my family in danger, the rapid decline of my health, and a few more topics that make up the dysfunctional behavior of over a decade and more. I hope that it will give a raw picture of what self-loathing and denial can do to a person and how it’s possible to overcome the dark and finally see the sun. From a sham of a life to genuinely living, the road is windy and long, but it can be traveled. I did. I walked it, even crawled it at times, but the destination was and continues to be worth it.