Global One Magazine

By the time women reach the age of fifty-five, 46 percent live alone in the United States. Thirty-five million women are the head of their households. At least eighteen million women in the United States live alone. An additional twelve million women are single mothers. Uncounted other women head households while their husbands are away.

PHOTO BY COTTONBRO

I am a woman who lived alone for only four years of my life and during that time, I encountered numerous incidents that left me bewildered, unsure and afraid. And even though I had five brothers they could not protect me while I was trying to grow-up and live away from home…alone.

       I have been married for over twenty years now and sometimes I find myself alone even more. I travel on a regular basis to book signings, workshops, seminars, and I often stay at hotels and in strange cities.

      I am compelled to write this book because of several reasons: One, my mother at the age of sixty-three was assaulted and raped in her home as she lies in her bed. Two, one of my sorority sisters, Jacqueline Patrick was assaulted, stabbed, and murdered in her home. Three, I have two daughters that have now moved in their own apartments and are trying to live a happy and safe life alone, therefore I am urged to write this book for personal and practical reasons. Most of the incidents in this book were inflicted by people that the victims knew. As a matter of fact, the people that assaulted my mother and my friend were their neighbors.

      There is a major concern for women to protect themselves. Burying your head in the sand and hoping that something will not happen to you is not the intelligent way to prepare for your safety. If crime has not happened to you, then it probably has happened to someone you know: a friend, relative, neighbor, or co-worker. Rape, robbery, and assault, in the last ten years have doubled. The President has named the war against crime the nation’s priority.

      Unfortunately, women are not given a large arsenal to fight with. More women than ever are buying guns, but that haven’t slowed down the crime rate. Weapon toting Americans even think that crime has increased since doing so. Personal safety classes are multiplying, and more parents are enrolling their children in self-defense classes than ever before. Most people obtain their safety from the information given on talk shows, women’s magazines, and office gossip.

      There is a great deal of women who are alone and are not counted when their husbands are away. Salesmen, military men, night shift workers, church mission executives, entertainers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, taxi drivers, athletes, pilots, politicians, truck drivers, incarcerated, police officers, and corporate executives. Then there are the wives of loner’s men who are physically there but are

SAFETY

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emotionally and socially home alone. The lives of wives alone are much like that of women who are widowed, married, and divorced with an additional twist: invisibility. Few women realize just how much they are alone.

      For Women Who Live Alone will provide simple, sound, and well-founded information and advice about personal safety. I am often asked by women what they should do if stranded, how they can best educate themselves while living alone, at home or away from home? How do I they handle harassment, what should they do if faced with an armed attacker? In this book you will find answers to these questions and much more.

      The aim of this book is to help women who live or spend a great deal of time alone: It will help women cope with difficulties, conquer frustrations, and celebrate being alone. I suggests ways a woman who lives alone single or married can make confident decisions, overcome loneliness, avoid emotional traps, build a family team, deal with medical emergencies, stay safe at all times, manage money wisely, make minor house and car repairs and build various networks of support. Being alone does not mean you have to settle for being lonely.

      Thinking smarter and taking precaution will give other a wider range of safety and freedom in life. This book will help prepare women who live alone, and it will open the eyes of those who someday plan to live alone. It will also help women thrive as they move forward in life and it will give them answers to the many questions they have had for a long time. Single, widowed, divorced, or married women who at home alone have many similar concerns:

1.  Isolation. Nobody is there in times of crisis. Equally, nobody is round to share little joys and understand special moments. This isolation is intensified for married women alone at home. While single, divorce or widow women may seek one another out, married women are alone erratically and hate to bother other women.

2.   Inconvenience.  When you are alone you might feel that the solitary life you lead without your husband is very inconvenient. You might feel that nobody lends a hand, or gets the door for you, or holds up the other end, or checks out the strange noises you hear at night, or helps with the children, or answers the phone when your hands are full, or gets the mail or whatever.

3.   Indecision. You probably hate all the decision you have to make on your own now. Since our society trains us that financial matters and home/auto maintenance are men’s business, women alone must decide how to invest money, what to repair and what to replace. You have to decide when a child is ill enough to go to the doctor, secure the home, make repairs, and whom to call in an emergency.

4.   Lack of respect. Decision-making is complicated by lack of respect. On a day-to-day basis single woman say they deal with a world geared toward couples and families.

5.   Loneliness. Loneliness is one of the hardest parts about being alone. Mothers at home with preschoolers suffer just as much as women with no children. With widows there are no sides to take. With divorced friends, people think they must choose sides of the use to be couples.6.         Burnout. Almost every woman alone comes to a frightening point where she feels overwhelmed by having primary responsibility for her financial, social, and domestic life. This is very hard on women who have envisioned a future shared with a strong mate. Among women I interviewed, widows seemed to have less burnout than other women did. However, any woman home alone must do all the cooking, cleaning, repairs, driving, and childcare and often hold down a job as well. No wonder so many women admit “I’m just worn out.”

Hugging is a physical acknowledgment of the presence of another with the intention of expressing affection. Sometimes hugging is meant to also express reunion after separation and in that case, it represents “affection beyond words.” Over the years though, hugging has assumed many uncomfortable forms, some of which I mention below to indicate how complex the phenomenon can be. Also, for each hug there is a picture to more clearly illustrate the hug that I am referring to. Funny enough, when you look up hugs on “Google images”, there are an extraordinary number of hugs from political figures.

PHOTO BY TAMMY MOSLEY

(1) The Sideways Hug: This hug is commonly seen when two (often heterosexual) men move toward each other to hug. As they approach each other, the thought of their bodies colliding becomes a higher priority than the politeness of the hug, and the sideways hug is the end-result. Both people feel slightly uncomfortable, but the completion of the usually short hug leaves both people feeling very relieved.

(2) The Back Pat: This hug signifies the confusion that results when the bodies of two people meet, but there is no idea what to do after this. The back pat becomes the metronome action behind the silence, counting the beats until the music of the speaking begins again. If you are someone who likes to hug, the back pat can be a total disappointment as it sometimes is curiously dismissive. It may inadvertently convey “yes, yes” or “that’s okay” when you have no experience that warrants that response.

(3) The Full-On Hug: This hug has many complex scenarios. It is best performed unselfconsciously without much thought. This ideal is often thwarted if one of the people has breasts, or if the crotch becomes inadvertently part of the hug. Then, the notion of un-self-consciousness usually goes out the window. This hug is also best executed with pleasurable sounds (ahhhh! Being an example), but the sounds need to be congruent to the situation (hmmm! For example, does not work in the breast or crotch situation).

(4) The “Pleased to Meet You Belly Button” (PYMBB) hug: You know from afar, that when someone is 6’3″ and over, and if you are an average height, that you will likely encounter some strange part of their bodies in the course of the intended hug. Your lips may land on their neck, or in more extreme cases, their chest or belly button. The height difference makes for significant discomfort, so this is one of the fastest hugs out there. Imagine if you lingered on at someone’s neck or belly button!

(5) The Shoulder Hug: This hug starts with an appraisal of the other person’s face (“Look at you”) but never quite makes it to the full hug stage. It may transition to a shoulder pat with one hand accompanied by a smile, but a definitive indication that there will be no point in the communication outside of eye contact.

(6) The Tearful Hug: When this hug is awkward, it is usually because your tears and nasal secretions are covering the clothes of another person. This should be avoided at all costs. Tearful hugs only really work in real intimacy, and even then, people often have to use some effort to overlook the slimy mess on their neck or clothes.

(7) The Elbow Hug: This hug is best executed with an approaching smile, back arched, and then hands to the other person’s elbows. It is also well suited to the “look at you” exclamation, but it often involves two people who have a mutual understanding that they do not want to wrinkle each other’s clothes. Other stilted gestures can accompany this-such as a cheek squeeze, or a “you look great!” exclamation.

It’s about 6:00 p.m. on Friday and you realize you just put in another fifty-hour workweek. You grab a bottle of wine on your way home, open the door and head straight for the couch. You grab the remote control in one hand and your junk mail in the other. While shuffling through the mail you suddenly notice a letter from him. You wonder what he’s sent and why. After all you’ve dated for more than a year and you’ve never received a letter from him

You tear the letter open and began to frantically read it. The words, “It’s over, I’ve found someone else,” causes your heart to skip a beat and your legs begin to feel like jelly. You tell yourself, “This couldn’t be true.” But it is. It feels like an explosion has went off in your brain, so it has to be true. You’ve never felt like this before.

It’s not like him to tell you something of this magnitude in a letter. You’ve always been able to discuss problems or bad news face to face.  You sit back down and you realize the person you’ve invested all your time, energy, and emotions into has just ended your relationship. This was the relationship you hoped would last forever. After you think for a moment and try to get over the initial shock, you check your call notes to see if there are any messages telling you to disregard the letter. Surely there has to be something about reconsidering or at least something he said to soften the blow. But there’s nothing.  You feel hurt, rejected and alone.

       Several weeks pass, and for some strange reason things aren’t getting any better and you don’t feel any better. In fact, you still feel emotionally torn, just like you did the day you got the letter.  As you try to work through the pain, you reminisce about your relationship repeatedly. You begin to talk to yourself, and then you ask, “What happened?”  “What did I do?”  “Why didn’t I see it coming?”  “Why did it have to happen this way?”

       Finally, the truth begins to emerge, and you realize why your relationship with this person fizzled: you simply did not have your own life. This person was your life.  Your entire lifestyle was wrapped up in someone else. You see now – that all the time you were dating, your life was on hold. Any free time you had was spent with him. Your career, interests, friends, and even your relationship with God was placed on hold. Now that your relationship has ended you have nothing to sustain you. Without your sweetheart you have no life.

Sadly, I have witnessed far too many scenarios like this one. Thousands of people are trapped in their relationships that should have never begun in the first place. Thousands of women are in relationships where they are trying to get to know the man, before they know about  themselves. They simply ignored the number one rule: Get a life!

One of the most important things a person can learn from being dumped is — you have to always maintain a separate life in your relationships. A real life so to speak! When you invest all of your energy and self-worth in trying to get and keep a mate or simply have a relationship where everything you do and say is in reference to the relationship – you don’t have a life.

Before you met your mate, plenty was probably happening in your life. For most women it usually is. Once you got to know him better did he became your biggest priority? Have you given up all the things you enjoyed doing because you’re doing so much for your mate?  Do you find yourself waiting by the telephone? Has your life really become your partner’s life?  Once a person gets into a heavy relationship, they are not only consumed they also get caught up in their partner’s agenda. You even forget your friends and family until you’re caught on the short end of the relationship and your partner decides to move on. This doesn’t have to happen to you. You can show your love and still have a life of your own while you do it. Before you go out again or say, “I do,” please follow these simple steps.  They detail why you should keep your agenda as full as possible when a new person enters your life.

1.       Become More Interesting. A person will become immediately attracted to you if you carry yourself in a more interesting way. Maintain a wide laugh and a deep smile. Anyone you’re interested in you will soon recognize after going out with you a few times whether your life is good or bad. If you only know things about the neighborhood you live in he’ll know you’re not well versed in going to exciting places. If you eat at the little restaurant down the street all the time your date will think you lack skills in different foods or restaurants.  If you appear to be boring or unknowing, he’ll try other things to remain excited, maybe even other dates. 

2.       Don’t Make Yourself Too Available. Most people love a challenge, even though they won’t admit it openly.  When you aren’t so accessible it makes him want you more. When you receive a call to go on a date, be sure to let your date know that you’ll have to check your calendar. Mutter not so quietly… dinner with Carla, meeting with Bobbie, workout with Alberta, and drinks with Georgia.  Be incredibly sweet all the while you’re speaking to him.  Remember, the trick is to always cordially act as if you want to go out again, but you just don’t know when you can fit it in your schedule. We all want to believe that we matter. So being busy and still making your date feel needed is a great way not to appear anxious. It’s man’s nature to desire those things and people who aren’t so available.  It’s a turn on for him.  If you hold back a little — (a lot easier to do when you have a full life) he will immediately become more attracted to you. “Don’t just do your date, do other things too.”

3.       Show Your Independence. Independence is great for romance. The busier you are, the better it is for the both of you. When you show your independence, you’re also able to show that you can really take care of yourself.  No one wants to be involved with a whiner or insecure person, and you don’t want to feel like you’re at the bottom of his list. Don’t insist on filling up all his time – it’s a turn-off.  Putting to many demands on his time will turn you into a nervous wreck and neither of you will feel god about being in the relationship. Having your own life makes you less resentful of his life. Besides, your independence won’t allow you to worry about the amount of time he spends with you.  What a relief to know that you won’t make a big deal out of it. By taking a break each of you will respect the times that space is needed from one another.  In a healthy relationship, it’s okay for a couple to have mutual needs that they can fulfill together, but it’s always smart to have separate needs. Here’s a simple quiz designed to help you become more aware and recognize if you are headed for problems in the relationship.  Circle your answer

1.      Do you often cancel previous plans because he said he would call you?

         Yes                            NO

2.      Do you rush off the phone just because he’s supposed to call?

         Yes                            NO

3.      Do you go on diets because he likes women more fit and trim than you?

         Yes                            NO

4.      Do you avoid your friends because he says he doesn’t like them?

         Yes                            NO

5.    Do you miss doing things with your friends because you’re missing out on doing something with him?

         Yes                            NO

6.      Do you wear only the clothes that he says he likes to see you in?

         Yes                            NO

7.      Do you spend the entire weekend at home just because he’s out of town?

         Yes                            NO

8.      Do you get rid of your favorite pet just because he doesn’t like the way it looks?

         Yes                            NO

9.      Does he decide he’s going to relocate to a better paying job in another state and when he asks you to come along you start packing right away and hope to find a job when you get there?

    Yes                             NO

10.    Have you ever caught him having an affair and you blame the person you caught him with?

         Yes                            NO

If you feel that your answer should be yes to these questions then you have unwisely placed yourself at your mate’s beck and call by having your life revolve around his life. Start making a change today! Begin self-appreciation by setting your own individual goals. Find out more about yourself and what you want out of life apart from your partner. Pursue your own interests. Don’t erode your self-esteem by giving your power away. Your partner may not even be asking you to do this, but when you think and do things only as a couple you are becoming the dependent party in the relationship. Your mate will value, respect and appreciate you more if you continue to have a life…  Your Own Life!