‘Damaged goods’ or not, we are all worthy of love

From my observations, I have found that most people (men and women) who have been in serious relationships in the past and are over 40 and alone have been hurt, abused or neglected at some point in their lives. One man referred to this type of person as "damaged goods."

What do you feel these people need to do to become worthy of dating and eventually in a relationship again?

How do they know when the time is right to start dating again? How long should they wait before they consider whether the person they date is worthy of opening up to?

How much should they divulge about their past relationships? Doesn't truly opening up to someone involve showing your vulnerabilities as well as your strengths and taking the chance that they will not abuse that knowledge?

Last but definitely not least, how do you know when the time is right to have sex again?

After being in a serious, loving relationship and finding that powerful, emotionally soul-filling lovemaking that takes you over, body and soul, I can't seem to get into casual sex anymore.

-- V.B., Las Vegas

You and I have exactly the same observation regarding people 40ish and older who have been in serious relationships in the past. Damaged goods. Indeed. Hurt, abused, neglected. For people dating over 40, it's near impossible to meet someone on "even ground."

No, you're meeting a person and all the people who have hurt them. You're meeting a person and the myriad, mostly unconscious ways this person is protecting themselves from ever being hurt again.

Failed relationships leave real scars. Psychic adhesions. And, invariably, the deepest wound we sustain when serious, committed love relationships fail is revealed in the voices inside of us saying that something is just plain wrong with us. Broken. Something about us just doesn't know how to be in a great relationship. We want quality, thriving couplehood. But we see ourselves as crippled. This guarantees a terrible collision in our psyche: the locomotive of our deep desire and deep belief for great love collides with the historical fact that we have thus far been unable to realize our desire and deepest belief.

When is it time to start dating again? You know the answer. We start dating again when our deepest human need -- intimacy -- decides to ignore our ego's strident insistence upon cynicism, self-protection and the painful yet comforting certainty that there will never be a loving, cherishing partner for you.

What do we need to do to feel worthy of this? Not a damn thing. Everyone is worthy of intimacy. Our struggle is not a question of worthiness; rather, it is a question of courage.

How much to divulge about past relationships? You answer this question in the next sentence, V.B., saying, "Doesn't truly opening up to someone involve showing your vulnerabilities as well as your strengths and taking the chance that they will not abuse that knowledge?" Of course you're right. Simply put, I would not consider an intimate couplehood to be truly intimate if my partner was not willing to know all of me. The light and the dark. The good and the bad. How else can a great midlife love relationship be great if it's not redemptive of my past follies? And how can it be redemptive if it's unaware of what needs redeeming?

You ask when it's time to have sex again. Then, you answer your own question when you say emphatically you can't "get into casual sex anymore." There's your answer! It is time to have sex again when sex is not casual. When it "takes you over, body and soul."

V.B., tons and tons of people decide they are "damaged goods." How can we be surprised, then, when they live out their worst nightmares of themselves over and over in a parade of relationships that disappoint them?

The alternative is an act of uncommon courage. To wit: that, while it's true we're damaged, we decide it's a waste of our lives to live out of that damaged place. We decide that whatever damage we have sustained or perpetrated does not have the final say about our Best Self and our highest ideals.

We decide we deserve to be loved and cherished and that we likewise want to love and cherish. Or we give up and mail it in.

Originally published in View News, Dec. 21, 2010.