Love After a Long Season of Being Single — What Nobody Tells You

Similarly Different

In this deeply personal episode of Similarly Different, the host shares her journey of falling in love after a decade of being single and two

Key takeaways

• Love after a long season of solitude brings both excitement and emotional complexity, especially when identity has been built through independence.
• Rediscovering simple moments—like celebrating New Year's or Valentine's Day with someone—can reveal how much one has normalized loneliness over time.

Main topics

• Love after long-term singlehood
• Celibacy and self-growth

Notable quotes

I didn't realize how much I had normalized not being celebrated.

This was the first Valentine's Day in 10 years that I experienced with someone.

Conclusion

The host concludes that love after deep personal growth is not about returning to past versions of

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:12) Welcome to Simility Different. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Simility Different. On today's episode, I'm gonna get a little personal. You guys know I am all about boundaries and how much I let in about my relationships on this podcast. I've shared with you guys things I've gone through for sure and all the things, but something I haven't talked about. this season is love after a long season of being single now last season we did tap into a little bit about getting ourselves out there putting ourselves out there what that felt like and the importance of just exploring and giving things a chance in that same sentence i will add a run-on that i did kind of like sprinkle in there that I was dating and that I was getting to know mystery man. We're going to call him Mr. Speaker 1 (1:09) We're just gonna call him mystery man. I was gonna give a little hint and I probably should it so We're gonna call him mystery man I think it's really important to talk about when love comes back into your life after years of being on your own No, I feel like I'm kind of aging myself in the sense of like 82 years later, but that's honestly what it felt like because while I technically haven't been single for 10 years I haven't been in a committed relationship for 10 years. So now tapping into that not only 10 years later but also truly going through different processes in those 10 years now i do want to clarify i definitely have dated people i have even been in what i thought were relationships that were transparently not looking in hindsight below what i should have accepted but i experienced it i learned from it I got trauma from it and I healed from it. But I've also gone through two years of abstinence celibacy where I just really committed to no one and just really looked at my faith, really looked at myself and really took time to be with self to truly be able to get to the place where I'm now. Now, that doesn't mean that I am perfect. I am Barbara perfect right now. I am actually. I'm going to therapy right now around bi-weekly or every two weeks because of this particular topic. Love after a long season of being single. I am 10 years older. My shift in the way I think about things, the way I process things. are so much better, but also identities have been created from the last experiences that I had. And I have said this before on the pod. I am a firm believer that you can only heal up to a certain point and you will be able to put that healing into account when getting into a new relationship, but also they can trigger you and they can trigger you because you have this idea. that you've created of what something could be. And sometimes that idea, I actually learned yesterday in therapy, isn't even a healthy one. So. What it feels like when love enters your life again after a really long season of being your own, being on your own. Not the kind of single where you casually dating every few months. I mean the kind when years go by, where you grow into yourself, where you build your life, your independence, your routines, your identity. And then one day, I wouldn't say unexpectedly for me because I really did allow the door after. maybe like two and a half years of them trying to get my attention someone enters your life again and suddenly you're experiencing things that you haven't experienced in a really long time for me like i said it was almost 10 years 10 years of focusing on myself of yes dating not the best people but Speaker 1 (4:15) what I did building my career learning about who I am healing growing and evolving now stepping into a relationship again after that much time away from it is a completely different experience but it has also showed me that there's some things I need to work on because the person you are now isn't the person that you were back then. Now today I want to talk about what it feels like to open your heart again, to get to know yourself in a relationship form at this age, whether that means that you are my age, which I'm 34, or you are going through the phase of abstinence, celibacy, and time to self to really plant the seeds and blossom into the new version of yourself. When you've been single for a really long time, life becomes very self-contained. You build routines that are just yours. You get used to making decisions of your own. You learn how to take care of yourself emotionally. But this is why I say that healing has two parts and evolving into the version of who you are in a dating setting also has two parts. At that point, you have to take care and you have to be mindful of other people's routines. You have to be mindful. That some decisions that you make affect your partner as well. And you have to learn how to communicate and move not only maturely, but in a way that emotionally will also be received correctly by your partner so that you guys can understand yourselves better. This doesn't mean diminish yourself and the way what you need and how you say things. but more in the sense of figuring out what works best for you guys to communicate properly. Then there's a certain piece that comes with that independence when you are single that kind of doesn't leave, but it does shift. And I think for myself, one of the biggest things I realized from being single to actually being in a relationship is that I started getting really used to my independence, like a little too much, I think. But when someone new enters your life, it disrupts the rhythm of it. And you kind of have to find the