the elf in my head makes breadsticks

With my credentials of being a pseudo-scientist, I now declare myself a quack health practitioner. As my first act under this vague and highly questionable title, I would like to identify a disease I have observed in the local area:

Phantom Wife Syndrome: an affliction of the male population that is brought about by feelings of insecurity, isolation, desperation, and despair. Generally these feelings are dependent on two factors. First, the patient will usually be living in an area in which males greatly outnumber females. The ensuing difficulty of finding a mate, much less a suitable mate, will create feelings of frustration and self-doubt, leading to desperation and despair. This on its own, however is not enough to qualify as PWS, and would be better classified as an inadequacy of self-esteem. Secondly, the patient will usually already have multiple responsibilities such as owning a house, being a parent, having a steady job, or owning his own business. In many cases, these will be remnants of a former serious relationship that has recently ended. In a few cases the patient will be relatively unburdened, but long for these "traditional" responsibilities because of a Security Illusion Complex (often a precursor to Phantom Wife Syndrome) wherein the patient believes that a certain possession (i.e. house, car, etc…) or lifestyle (i.e. living behind a white picket fence) is all that is necessary to protect him from emotional or financial hardships. 

When a patient develops PWS, he will become immediately infatuated with any woman who crosses his path and seems even the slightest bit suitable for marriage. He will use a string of logical fallacies to justify the depth of his premature emotional attachment, for example: She's been married before, therefore she must be a good wife. She has nice hair, therefore she must be a nice person. She doesn't have a criminal record, therefore she must love children. And so on. If the syndrome goes untreated for even a short amount of time, the patient will build up an entirely imaginary person in his mind and superimpose it on his mate. Anytime the real woman acts in a way which conflicts with the man's imaginary ideal, he will simply ignore it, choosing instead to amplify the significance of incidences where the real and imaginary coincide. In extreme cases where the imagined ideal and actual person conflict excessively, the man may become resentful, even violent, feeling he has somehow been tricked by the woman when actually he has only been fooling himself. 

The treatment for Phantom Wife Syndrome is a combination of Reality and Self-Esteem. The patient must come to terms with the fact that there is no absolute security. No matter how much material wealth a person may acquire, that person can still be stripped of any or all of his possessions at any moment. No matter how happy or loved a person is, that person will still have to grapple with emotional turmoil sooner or later. The patient must also cultivate and learn to rely on his own strength. He must come to the understanding that he has to be able to depend on himself before he can ask another person to depend on him and before he can  responsibly and reasonably become dependent on another.

I am absolutely certain that a similar syndrome involving feelings of inadequacy and desperation and the false belief in absolute stability afflicts women (as Phantom Husband Syndrome) and homosexuals. However, being a woman living in a population with an overwhelming male majority, I have only had personal experience with PWS and feel unqualified to satisfactorily explain the exact causes behind these alternate syndromes. Perhaps after more and better research into these areas I will further my mock career by describing them as well. In any case, they are all diseases of the spirit born out of loneliness and loneliness is something that affects us all. So, as my second act as an unspecified practitioner of hooey I would like to prescribe a series of preventative treatments:

First, know yourself, respect yourself, be yourself. This isn't always easy and people don't actually always admire you for your self-confidence as countless grade school teachers would have you believe, but feeling comfortable in your own skin is priceless and well worth any ridicule. Secondly, make as many friends as you can. Having a network of like-minded (or sometimes different-minded) and sympathetic people offers far more stability than a spouse, no matter how loving, ever could. And, in my experience at least, friendships tend to last longer than romantic relationships or even marriages. Finally, abandon the materialistic attitude. Having nice things can make life easier and more enjoyable, but that hole in your heart isn't there for want of a new car. Accurately identify your troubles before you go indiscriminately throwing money at them. Many problems cannot be solved by money, some can. Know the difference and act accordingly.