To leave him or not??
If you are concerned about whether you are in the right relationship or are thinking that perhaps your partner is not 'enough' for you then I urge you to read on.
Sometimes relationships run their course. I would always advise someone in an abusive relationship to leave along with anyone who's most important values are being dishonoured time and time again.
However.....!
Far too many people leave otherwise healthy relationships. They do not give themselves or their partner a chance to experience what I call an Extraordinary Love, where you get to enjoy the ultimate freedom in a relationship, which in my experience means to be loved for ALL of who you are.
Fear and anxiety about whether someone is 'right' often persuades many people to jump ship when in fact they could be on the verge of experiencing the next level in their romantic life. Such fear is usually fueled by all those occasions when they feel let down by their partner. You know all those times when you feel frustrated and annoyed that he is not seeing you or hearing you, loving you enough, engaging with you enough, talkative enough, funny enough, present enough! The list goes on. The trouble is, every time you see your partner through this lens you close a door to receiving the love you really want.
Beware the Inner Bully in your relationship!
In these moments you give fuel to your inner bully who only sees lack and problems in your relationship. This is the part (some call it the ego) that is overcome with fear in relation to opening up to more love. This is because your ego is still hooked to replaying past situations where loving people equates to being rejected and feeling hurt. As a result, the ego will do anything and everything to keep you from feeling this pain and thus stop you from embracing your own vulnerability and the true emotions that make you a human being and that actually make you more attractive. You then continue to keep yourself at a safe distance and you don’t let him in, in the way he needs to be let in (i.e. shouting, blaming and pointing out where he is going wrong are NOT the way to bring him closer). You do not do any of this intentionally of course, but by hanging on to the ego’s expectations, your thinking and behaviour says that he is the one that needs to step up and prove to you how much he loves you. I mean that is what you see in the movies and on Instagram, right?
The Hard Truth in Love!
Unfortunately, the hard truth here is that no-one, no situation, and no man especially, is going to save you! Women must learn to save themselves first and foremost. Learning how to love and embrace the parts of you that feel the pain and the rejection, rather than resisting them and projecting them onto your partner, is the key to receiving the love you have always wanted.
The problem is many women are constantly comparing their man against their own ideal of what a perfect woman looks like. I have been guilty of this too. As women we are given the ridiculous job of trying to look and be perfect, juggling different roles and still expected to have a handle on things. The result? We give ourselves and our man a hard time when things do not match up to these standards.
Many women come to me saying that they have done a lot of work on themselves and work hard at loving and accepting themselves fully, yet they still focus on their partner’s faults, because they do not meet the needs of this inner perfectionist. When they realise that they have been comparing their man in this way and as a result been using controlling and victim-like behaviour my clients are usually sad and bereft. It is sad that in so many ways we keep our men at arms length.
I say this not to make you feel guilty, but to make you aware of your own projections. Anywhere where we are criticising our partner for not being enough, there is a finger pointing back at us. It is showing us where we need to look more closely as ourselves. For example, if think your partner needs to be more passionate, there may well be some truth in this, but it is still a projection. Ask yourself instead ‘where could I be more passionate in my life?’ It may not be in the same area as your partner, but you will find some evidence if you look closely enough.
It is much easier to point the finger at someone else than it is to take responsibility for those areas where we could also step up to achieve our desires and act in accordance with our values.
The Impact of our shadow selves on our relationship!
The parts of ourselves that do not want to take full and radical responsibility are often called our shadow selves. These parts act out of fear and lack. They stifle, smother, are needy, whiny, and argumentative. They certainly do not encourage you to let go of your conditioning that says the right man is the one who is going to meet your needs in the click of a finger and you are going to live happily ever after!
Yet, if we can step back and see the lies of our shadow, which keep us living in fear, we give our man the opportunity to show up in his own unique way that is continually delights us and ‘fills us up’.
If you want more love from your man, more connection, and more intimacy, you have to see the lies every time they appear. It is far too easy to think that another man will meet your needs, when in all likelihood you will attract someone who brings out the same responses and feelings in you. You must work on surrendering your desire to control him and all your efforts to get him to behave in the ways you want, or think are appropriate. Letting go of our desire to control is a very scary thing for women, it feels like a big risk and a big jump into the unknown. All those what if’s!!
Start to take some risks and you will be rewarded!
However, the thing I can tell you about letting go of your control and your attachments to your man being a certain way, is that in doing so you surrender to a trust that life will support you and you will be okay whatever happens. The chances are if your partner is a good man, he will step up, not always in the way you had in mind but often in surprising ways that can simply take your breath away and make you realise that this journey of letting go is completely worth it.
Creating something extraordinary in your relationship requires some risk taking in terms of speaking up, putting healthy boundaries in for yourself and being able to embrace your full emotional self without playing the victim card. This means radical responsibility for your own well-being on all accounts. We have to be able to stand by ourselves and love ourselves first before we can receive the kind of accepting love we want from our partner.
If you would like to learn how to take more responsibility for your own well-being and thus put yourself in the perfect position for creating a beautiful and very rewarding romantic life I highly recommend my free PDF 'How to Save Your Marriage & Radically Transform Your Relationship', this will help you see exactly where your ego or shadows are not allowing you to go to that next level.
