Will I ever love again?

Last year, I broke up with my long-term partner because I found out that he was cheating on me, which left me devastated.  I thought he was 'the one' and that we would grow old together.  I haven't wanted to date until now because I can't imagine being with anyone else but, with the encouragement of friends, I am thinking maybe it's time to try.  But, trawling through profiles on dating apps, I'm not interested in anyone apart from the typical looking 'bad boy' and I'm worried that I'll forever find 'nice guys' boring. I've always thought that if love is meant to be then it will just find me but now I'm worried that I'm going to be alone forever.  

What should I do?

I'm really sorry to hear that you're not only going through a significant break-up but also the trauma of such a big betrayal.  That's an unbelievably difficult place to sit in.  I hope you're in full-blown self-care hibernation mode and just focusing on what you need to keep your body and mind in as balanced a state as possible.  My self-care strategy includes: hydration, running, reading, sleeping, nutrition, and loved ones. Sounds obvious, I know, but when we're hurting so much it can be hard to focus on the basic self-care things that we need.

If ever in doubt, refer to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a reference.

When we have decided that someone is 'the one,' we have adorned them with magical qualities and created meaning.  When something happens to distort that self-imposed meaning, it leaves us feeling confused and out of control internally - and deeply, deeply grieving. Essentially, the narrative that you've created has been smashed to pieces.

But if we think about this logically, surely, if someone is 'the one', then they don't cease to be that because the relationship no longer functions in a healthy enough way to continue (that is my polite way of referring to the cheating which I'm sure we both agree is utterly shitty and gross behaviour). 

Don't get me wrong, I know exactly what it feels like to go through the break-up of a relationship with someone who you believed you would spend the rest of your life with and who has betrayed you to the extent that it makes you question not only who they were but also who you are.  Was everything a lie? Your anxiety is that you have now lost the one person who you thought was right for you, and that brings a whole lot of extra anxiety gremlins, such as I'm going to die alone and be eaten by my cats. 

But if you face the anxiety that he is 'the one' and that he is now gone, then you're faced with three options -

1. You were wrong and 'the one' is still out there

2. You were right and now you have to live without him or forgive him

3. Neither is true and there is no 'one' person for you.

The fact that you have used the past tense (you 'thought' he was the one) tells me that deep down you believe in another narrative.  

For example, let's take your narrative and self-imposed belief that you don't like 'nice guys'. Close your eyes for a minute and imagine your perfect man, and now also imagine that he's kind, gentle, and nice (def: giving pleasure or satisfaction; pleasant or attractive). You still want him, right? So, it's nothing to do with not wanting a nice man in your life. You're viewing these men online and making judgements about them based on what they look like and how they present in a very short profile. You have no idea how nice they are, and I think we can both agree that even the nicest appearing people can do the most awful things.

When we start to categorise men into ‘good and bad’ we are using black-and-white thinking. This is something that you'll hear about in CBT. Still, I prefer Melanie Klein's work and the idea that we learn to split people into good and bad to keep us emotionally safe from the pain that comes with knowing and feeling that the people we love can cause us so much pain, as you've discovered.  

As Bob Marley once said: Everyone is going to hurt you. It’s about finding the people worth hurting for.  

I totally understand that you want to protect your heart from being hurt again. Of course you do. But I think this narrative about bad boys and nice men is another way to protect yourself. It sounds like you want the kind of connection that is magical because that is your idea of love and there's not a damn thing wrong with that. But magic doesn't happen overnight. 

Going on dating apps would not be letting fate take its course, would it?  One of the reasons dating apps don't work is because it is a catalogue of people and everyone is trying to find someone who fits what they're looking for, rather than focusing on the natural rapport and frisson between two strangers that can only really occur when they meet. 

You can't choose that in an app that is dodgier than the Argos catalogue of the late 90s. 

As a society, we have become afraid to approach each other and start conversations, or look someone in the eye and really smile. When you start to engage with people in real life, this is where you will begin to gain your confidence again and maintain faith that one day one of those conversations will turn into something - someone - magical and meaningful.

But they don't have to mean everything to still mean something.  

Your ex probably isn't a bad person deep down and (hopefully) is truly very sorry for what he did and has learned from it.

What are you going to learn about yourself from this?

You don't have to hang up your boots and stop believing that 'the one' is out there for you.  Maybe he is, maybe he isn't.  But it sounds like you're afraid of being alone and if you can control the narrative about falling in love then you can avoid this fear.

When you start to have faith in the idea that things will turn out exactly as they're intended to, you start to hold yourself differently.  

Life then responds to you differently.

Work on being the person you want to be so that when you meet him, you’re ready...or maybe you'll figure out along the way, that you're good, just as you are.