Oh God! You sound very naive - no offence - I just want to say that you know that love exists, - one just have to choose a sensible person and to choose right onw has to become a sensible person otherwise we cannot see well... One has to work the steps of recovery and then that will give us the ability to be "happy" (with the normal ups and downs that a recovering person might have in her life). If we are ok with our lives we do not need to run after disfuntional men to distract us from the mess.

These are mere questions.......seeking feedback from other women. Do not assume I don't believe in love or happiness. I do not lack experience or knowledge.

I have never been married...but I think you should expect happiness! However, I don't think true love and romance are the same as what is portrayed by TV.
This is what I think (based on my healing journey so far)

The bottom line in that for a marriage to work the two people MUST respect each other AS THEY ARE. I tend to agree with Plato that "True Love is Admiration" because I've read in several books that disrespect is the soil in which abusive relationships grow.

So a lot of this is first becoming someone who others admire. I think we are all worthy of being TREATED WITH respect...however...whether we admire ourselves is a different matter. We need to work on ourselves and our lives to become people we admire.

When I think of true love, I think of marie and pierre curie, who were both equals intellectually and in character and respected and admired each other a great deal.

Our happiness is so precious to leave in the hands of someone else. We have to be responsible for it. If we leave it in someone's hands they take it with them! Others can enhance our happiness but too risky to let others be completely responsible for it!

Yes we should expect happiness, but the happiness needs to come from within. We cannot expect someone else to fulfil us to make us happy because that's a lot of pressure for someone. Love brings happiness through shared goals, direction, companionship, respect and empathy for each other.

Sometimes when one of those ingredients is missing the marriage isn't happy. I was married and there was a lack of shared goals toward the end of the marriage, the friendship was there but we weren't going in the same direction.

To love another fully we must love ourselves, warts and all. If we don't we make poor choices in love, as I did. I chose men who excited me and I took that for love because it distracted me from disliking myself and gave me a buzz almost like a drug. I didn't make choices from a solid foundation of love, respect and empathy for myself.

I do believe that love exists and that people are happily married, I know plenty of people who are miserable in marriage though. Often I notice these people are prepared to put up with a lot of disrespect and lack of care to be with the other person which isn't right. Sometimes it takes balls to be single and remain that way until the right person presents themselves, being single is not so bad.

I agree about being single. Too often people rush into marriage and don't take the time to really test the relationship. I tend to think lately that if I met someone, my condition would be that before marriage I would have to live with them a minimum of 2 years first. That way, no surprises.