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I Am Afraid Of Never Being Truly Loved

I won't lie. I do have this fear. Fear of abandonment and never being loved.

My mom was an alcoholic and drug addict. She was always leaving me for drugs. She was never worried about me My husband because she said I had a good head of my shoulders. Doesn't mean I wasn't harmed.

My husband I feel like the more he got to know me, the more he hated me. And I never really got to show him all of me because I didn't feel safe with it.

I wasn't married for too long before he started on going on trips. Hes always happy on these trips. Even in the beginning he was never happy with me, but was always happy when he was away from me.

And some of these trips ...... at least one of them he wasn't going where he said he was.

So yes I'm afraid I may never be loved. The only people who've ever made me feel loved are my children. But I feel like I'm choking. Sometimes I feel like I'm dying inside. I see everyone but me experiencing romantic love. Everyone but me.

So...... I don't know if I really do believe in love. Not that kind anyways. I'm not sure if I'll ever experience it.

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Mettamomma

An easy lovingkindess meditation is to spend a few minutes saying to yourself, "May I be happy, peaceful, well and safe." Your mind will wander. That's normal and expected. When you realize it has wandered, you can GENTLY bring your mind back to the meditation. Your noticing your mind has wandered and then kindly bringing it back is what helps change your mind and way of treating yourself. Even doing the meditation for 1-5 minutes can help.

From an article a Stanford research scientist wrote about the benefits of lovingkindness meditation. The article includes a link to a free audio lovingkindness meditation.

"1. Increases Positive Emotions & Decreases Negative Emotions

In a landmark study, Barbara Frederickson and her colleagues found that practicing seven weeks of loving-kindness meditation increased love, joy, contentment, gratitude, pride, hope, interest, amusement, and awe. These positive emotions then produced increases in a wide range of personal resources (e.g., increased mindfulness, purpose in life, social support, decreased illness symptoms), which, in turn, predicted increased life satisfaction and reduced depressive symptoms.....

Curbs self-criticism

A study by Shahar et al (2014) found that loving-kindness meditation was effective for self-critical individuals in reducing self-criticism and depressive symptoms, and improving self-compassion and positive emotions. These changes were maintained three months post-intervention.

Immediate and Long-term Impact

The nice thing about loving-kindness meditation is that it has been shown to be effective in both immediate and small doses (i.e. instant gratification) but that it also has long-lasting and enduring effects.

17. Is effective even in small doses

Our study—Hutcherson, Seppala and Gross (2008)—found an effect of a small dose of loving-kindness meditation (practiced in a single short session lasting less than 10 minutes). Compared with a closely matched control task, even just a few minutes of loving-kindness meditation increased feelings of social connection and positivity toward strangers.

18. Has long-term impact.

A study by Cohn et al (2011) found that 35 percent of participants of a loving-kindness meditation intervention who continued to meditate and experience enhanced positive emotions 15 months after the intervention. Positive emotions correlated positively with the number of minutes spent meditating daily."
http://www.mindful.org/18-science-based-reasons-to-try-loving-kindness-meditation/