Getting to TRUE Love

Finding your YOU that leads to TWO

You are here: Home / Archives for 2012

Archives for 2012

Don't Spend All of Your Time Hunting

3 Comments

Are you on the hunt for love?Are you spending more time pursuing love than pursuing your own interests? 

This is the sixth post in our series 8 Signs You Aren't Ready for a Relationship.

Being Alone

I remember that feeling of subtle panic that would come over me as the weekend would approach.  I didn’t have any plans lined up, didn’t have anyone special in my life, and most of my friends were married, so I often found myself desperately trying to figure out what to do with my open Friday and Saturday night.

There I was again, calling around to co-workers and acquaintances, trying to find someone to head out on the town with, out to where the guys were. All the while quietly afraid that it would turn into another long lonely weekend in front of the TV; another weekend where I was yet again constantly reminded that I was single, when it seemed like everyone else had someone special to spend their weekend with.  Someone to be with.  Someone that wanted to be with them.  That someone that I was looking for.

Being alone never felt like something I was choosing; it always felt like a sentence I’d been given, some sort of twisted punishment for something I had done wrong, or didn't do right.  I found myself feeling like any time that I spent alone was just wasting precious time that could be spent meeting someone; someone that could be the one. There was always the feeling that he was out there, tonight, somewhere, and if I could only get out there (wherever there was) and be where he was we could meet, fall madly in love and I could finally get on with my life.

I realize now that while I was spending so much time and energy thinking about where I could meet him, what I could be doing to run into him, who I could be out with that could introduce me to him, just so caught up with this hypothetical him that I was completely missing out on me.  The me that was actually here, right now.

It's Time to Celebrate You

It seems so clear to me now. And it saddens me when I think of the life I could have been living back then versus the life I actually lived, all that time spent waiting – and wasting.  So much energy spent on the where, what, and how of making it happen.  That romanticized event of meeting the one; the event that turns out to have only existed in my head.  I completely missed the point that it wasn’t something that was ever going to happen while I was desperately chasing after it, trying to manipulate it into being.  When I was so focused on finding it, it didn't even occur to me that I really had no idea who I was or what I was all about.

Everyone else made it look so easy; they just went about their lives and seemed to meet their husbands and boyfriends almost effortlessly while I constantly struggled to figure out how to make it happen for me.  Not realizing they didn’t have some sort of special magic in them that I lacked.  I just hadn’t figured out that the most important thing I that could have done on those lonely evenings was to find something I loved doing and started doing it. Started living life.

Live Your Life

I don't know when I finally realized it, or if there was even some specific point in time that I realized it. It may have only been in hindsight, much later, that I looked back at my life and realized that it happened. It may have just been that I was so tired, so exhausted, from the hunt for my Mr. Right, that I just gave it up and started to do things that I enjoyed. I took modeling classes, started ice skating again. I made new friends; I started enjoying life.

And that's when things seemed like they were just falling into place. Within about a year or so I found that I was meeting people effortlessly. I was doing more and more things, meeting more and more people. And that's when I met my husband.

I don't know what the psychology or science behind it all is, but I'm sure my body language had changed. I'm sure I was more confident, more relaxed, more at ease with people. And I'm sure I was more interesting, because I was doing interesting things. And the thing is, it's not just the things that you're doing that make you more interesting, but it's the fact that you have more experiences – you meet more people, you're going to different places, you are putting yourself into different situations. All of these things lead to your growth as a human being, and that's what makes you interesting.

And it doesn't hurt that you now have more to talk about than just the plot twists of the latest TV drama.

So next time you find yourself with some free time while you're alone on a weekend night, remind yourself that it’s not about focusing on finding him. It's about focusing on living your life, and enjoying each and every beautiful moment of it. See that free time as the gift that it truly is – the gift of the opportunity to find something you love doing.

Then get out there and start doing it.

Next post in this series: Do You Have Too Much Emotional Baggage?

Are You Looking for Someone to Complete You?

5 Comments

Are you looking for someone to complete you?While those three words, "You Complete Me," are beautifully romantic, here's why actually feeling that way is just not healthy.

This is the fifth post in our series 8 Signs You Aren't Ready for a Relationship.

Ever since the mid 90's when the box office hit romantic comedy Jerry Maguire coined the phrase "You complete me," those three words have been bandied about by star struck lovers all over the world. And as much as I love the phrase and the romantic notions it evokes - the idea of two becoming one, the circle becoming complete, of two people so connected that they would be incomplete, broken, without the other - the truth is, well, it's just not healthy.

A much better catch phrase would have been "You complement me," but I'm guessing that would not have brought in as many millions at the box office, been plastered on everything from greeting cards to posters to puzzles, or have been the title of many hit singles from country to R&B.

But at least it would have been a good description of what a healthy relationship looks like.

So, when you're in a relationship, feel free to continue to use the phrase as a modern day equivalent of "I love you." Scribble it on a love note you leave in your partners luggage when he goes away on a business trip, text it to him while he's in a meeting, or leave it on a post-it note on his bathroom mirror so he thinks of how wonderful you are while he's shaving.

Just don't actually live those words.

Do You Have an Empty Life?

So how do you know if you just like the romantic ideals and feelings that these words evoke or you actually have an emotional emptiness inside that you're looking for a partner to fill?

Ask yourself the following questions, and answer yourself honestly:

Do you feel like your life has no direction or purpose when you are not in a relationship?

Do you typically take on the viewpoints, opinions, beliefs and values of your partner instead of thinking through difficult issues yourself?

Do you typically find that all of your friends are those that you have had mutually with a partner, and that you don't have any close friends as an individual?

Do you find that you don't have any activities or interests that you are passionate about, other than those that you share with your partner?

When in a relationship, do you find it very uncomfortable or unpleasant to do things or socialize without your partner?

If you answered yes to any of these, you may be on an unhealthy path looking for (or currently in a relationship with) a partner that is there to fill your life with what you are lacking.

Never Good Enough

It's not uncommon. Many of us have parts of our lives, parts of ourselves, that we just don't think are good enough, maybe that we don't believe we're good at, that we subconsciously look to fill by finding a partner who is good at those things.

Where does this come from? Mostly from those seemingly harmless and well-intentioned childhood messages we’re so often given of "No, don't do it that way, that way's wrong, " or "You’re not good at that, you’re better at this," that eventually chip away at our confidence and  lead us to believe there really is something wrong with us, and that we really do need someone outside of ourselves to handle these things we find difficult.

If we believe we are inferior, that there really is inherently something lacking within us, we’re going to be looking for a completer instead of an equal.  Someone who we need rather than someone who we want to share our lives with.  Do you see the difference?  Needing someone doesn't equate to loving someone, or being loved.

Too often we spend our time focused on finding someone who we hope will magically step into our lives and make everything better for us, rather than looking within ourselves at what it is we believe we’re lacking and working on finding that within ourselves first.

When I finally figured this out and embarked on a mission to become within myself what I had been looking for outside of myself, I was finally able to raise the level of my self-esteem and build up my own inner strength. I then no longer found myself attracted to, or attracting, the same type of unhealthy men that I had been so drawn to before.

Of course we all long for love, for someone to share the beautiful (and not so beautiful) moments in life with, for someone to share our love with, and that's totally normal and healthy. The difference is that when you are healthy, you are feeling full of life and full of love to start with, and you are only looking for someone to share in that life and love romantically. You're not looking for someone to fill empty spaces in your life, or empty spaces in your personality, or empty spaces in your schedule, you're only looking for someone to fill that empty space in your heart.

Fill Your Cup

A real relationship, a great relationship, is about two people who are already complete, in and of themselves, joining to form something tremendous, and mutually beneficial to both. The masculine is complete in his masculinity, and the feminine is complete in her femininity, and together they complement each other to form something even better.

In any healthy relationship you need to give as much as you take. When you are full of life and love you have a lot of love to give to the relationship, you have a full cup to pour from, to add energy into the relationship.  When you are not full you are looking to take from the relationship, and you are drawing off of the other person's cup, taking that energy away.

There is always that give and take, but if your cup is nearly empty to start with you won't be able to add to the relationship, and you will only be drawing off of the cup of your partner, eventually draining it as well. At that point the relationship cannot sustain itself, and it crumbles.

The interesting thing is that when you bring a lot of love to the relationship, you will attract a partner who is full also, and you will both have more love than you started with.

So if you're feeling like you need a relationship to fill up some voids in your life, step back, take a break from the seeking, and look within. Understand what it is that you're lacking in your own life – whether it be socializing, someone to discuss your thoughts and philosophies with, someone to laugh with – and fill those need by finding friends, confidants, and connecting with family or other social groups. Fill that need now, yourself, outside of a romantic relationship.

Once your emotional cup is full you will be ready to have a healthy, romantic relationship that's simply overflowing...with love.

Next post in this series: Don't Spend All of Your Time Hunting

Are You Waiting to be Rescued?

2 Comments

Are You Waiting to be Rescued?While it may sound romantic to be rescued by the strong, handsome man, the reality isn't at all like the fantasy.

This is the fourth post in our series 8 Signs You Aren't Ready for a Relationship.

We'll be delving into each of these more deeply, one by one, to make sure that you areready for a relationship when your Mr. Right comes along.

Are You Waiting for Your Knight in Shining Armor?

  • Does your self-talk sound like "I'm such a mess", or "why am I so insecure?", or other similarly self-deprecating statements?
  • Do you think that someday you will meet a guy who will pull you out of the funk that you're in and make you happy?
  • Do you think a guy will come along and solve all of your problems – whether it be financial, emotional or physical?
  • Do you find yourself typically looking up to your partner? Do you find yourself falling for the professor in college, your boss at work, or someone that you feel has authority over you?
  • Do you often get starry eyed over a guy who shows interest in you that you think is out of your league?
  • Do you find yourself feeling like your partner is all that, and you really can't understand why he'd even be with someone like you?
  • Are you looking for someone to make it all better?

If you answered yes to one or more of these, it's a sign that you may be looking for a man to come along and save you from the life that you're currently living. The truth is that this is a very bad reason to get into a relationship, and it will almost inevitably fail.

The Good News

Nobody is coming to save you.

Why is this good news? Because once we realize that no one is coming to save us, there's a kind of ethereal calming of the soul; a relief, a release of anxiety. Because now you know it's not going to happen, and you can stop waiting and move on with your life.

Self-Rescue

You can now get to work on making it happen for yourself. You're now in control. Because waiting for someone else to rescue you from your current reality is handing over the reins to fate, and sitting and waiting for something external to happen to you. While this may seem easier, it's actually more stressful, because deep inside we feel stressed when we feel like our lives are out of our control. Taking it on yourself is to take control of your life, accept responsibility for yourself and your actions, and recognize that things don't just happen – you make them happen.

You can now freely let go of the idea that something outside of yourself, something that you have no control over, must happen or change before you can be happy. You can let go of the idea that someday things will be better, and you can start making things better today.

Because the reality is we don't ever really need saving.  We may think we do; we may have been brought up amid messages that convinced us to believe we are damsels in distress in need of a wonderful knight in shining armor to come and slay the dragons for us – and that may make for an exciting fantasy, but it's not the stuff of reality.  The price we pay for turning over that much control of our lives to someone who may or may not have our best interests at heart is always too high.

I remember all too well when this reality became clear to me.  Yet another man, another relationship had let me down, or so it seemed, when in reality, it was just another lesson sent to nudge me closer to embracing my true self, to stop looking outside of myself and start realizing I had it all right here inside me.  I was enough!  I didn't need anyone to save me.  I was no damsel in distress. I didn't need anyone to slay my dragons.

I only needed to find myself to discover that I was enough.  In and of myself.   And to learn the difference between finding someone to join me as my equal in this adventure we call life versus someone I'd always be looking up to, putting up on a pedestal, losing myself in the process.  And that's more real than any superficial knight coming to save me could ever be.

Do The Work

If you want your life to be different, it's time to know that you're in control and that you're fully capable of making the changes that are necessary to make your life different. The first step is in building up your self-esteem and realizing your true worth, your value.

It's in this process of raising your self-esteem and getting healthy for yourself that you change the patterns of your past. Instead of ending up just as unhappy in the next relationship as you've been in prior relationships, with a healthier you, you'll attract a relationship that's both a happier and healthier one.  Remember, you need to be healthy before you can be in a healthy relationship.

In the last post I said that you want a partner, not a patient. This time I'll say the reverse – you want a partner, not a therapist. If you have debilitating self-doubt, get the help that you need before you're in a relationship. If you're already in a relationship, get the help that you need outside of your relationship.

Sure, you can rely on your partner for support and encouragement, as you well should, but get the help you need from a professional. If seeking professional help is not practical, due to financial or other reasons, then get yourself some good books to study, and do the work (reading about it alone won't do anything – you need to do the deep work on yourself).

It also helps to find someone outside of the relationship that you can talk to & bounce ideas off of. Maybe it's a friend, coworker, or family member.  The important thing is that it be someone who is non-judgmental and trustworthy.

And remember that I'm always here for you also – I'm just an email away.

Next post in this series: Are You Looking for Someone to Complete You?

Are You a Rescuer?

Leave a Comment

Remember, he's your boyfriend, not your patient.
Remember, he's your boyfriend, not your patient.

You may be falling in love with the guy you want him to be instead of the guy he really is.

This is the third post in our series 8 Signs You Aren’t Ready for a Relationship. I’m going to spend the next week or two delving into each of these more deeply, one by one, and discussing what you can do to make sure that you are ready for a relationship when your Mr. Right comes along.

Are You Looking for Someone to Save?

Do you find yourself very often inexplicably drawn to a project guy – a guy with some serious personal problems, emotional, financial, or physical, that you think you can help? Maybe it's the guy that just can't seem to hold a job, or the guy who drinks too much or has drug dependencies. The end result is that you typically find yourself in a relationship where you are care taking for a partner, and feeling responsible for his well being in one or more areas of his life. You may even be enabling his dependencies without even realizing it.

Take an honest look at your past relationships, and see if any of these sound familiar:

  • You have often felt sorry for your past partners in one or more areas of his life.
  • You often find yourself minimizing your own needs and focusing excessively on your partner's needs.
  • You believe that people that have been hurt in one way or another deserve love more than people that haven't suffered any serious hurts in their past.
  • You have often been drawn to men that you feel need your help in pulling their life together.
  • You often feel and act like a parent in the relationship, guiding your partner and feeling the need to give advice or point him in the right direction.
  • You have found yourself in a position where you feel like his life would crumble if you weren't there to help him with your support and love.

If any of the above sound like what you’ve experienced in your past relationships, you may be prone to being the rescuer. Instead of seeking a partner to have a deep, meaningful mutually supportive relationship, you are driven by a need to get into relationships where you can be in the position of feeling needed.

This is fairly common and can be caused by several issues, such as:

  • You may be focusing on someone else's issues to avoid facing your own.
  • You may not feel valuable or worthy on your own account, so you have a need to find value in yourself by feeling as though you are helping other people.
  • You may have some serious personal issues yourself, and you find that being with someone with personal issues that are worse than your own makes you feel better about yourself.
  • You may feel that if you get a fixer upper and then fix him up that he'll be so indebted to you that he'll never leave.
  • As a child you may have been made to feel that you weren't competent enough, and now helping someone with serious problems may make you feel capable.
  • You may be trying to make up for something in your childhood that you weren't able to save. If you lost someone close to you to a drug or alcohol addiction, you may be trying to find men with the same problems so that you can relive that part of your life and save them this time. Or you may be trying to save your brother or mother from the pain of being picked on or belittled. If anyone from your childhood was mistreated, abused, abandoned, or otherwise not accepted, you may be trying to save that person subconsciously by finding a partner with the same issues and trying to save them.

As you can see, it's critical to get to the root cause of the reason that you have a pattern of consistently attracting these men into your life.

How Do You Break the Cycle?

The important thing to remember here is that if you find yourself starting to be attracted to someone with some serious personal or financial issues, make sure that you are acutely aware of his issue and consciously consider whether or not you are subconsciously trying to fix him or save him from his problem.

The best thing to do in this type of situation is to help him help himself, but put the relationship on hold until he does.

For example, if he's drinking excessively, make it clear that you are interested in a relationship but only if he can first get his problem under control by seeking professional help. Then support him and help  him to seek out professional help with his problem.

That way you are separating the help he's getting for his problem from your relationship. Let him know that you'll support him during the time that he's getting help, and you will gladly be his friend during that time, but that you will not be romantically involved with him until he gets the help that he needs on his own.

For yourself, when you enter a relationship with someone, make sure that the relationship feels equal – that is, you are getting just as much out of the relationship that you feel you are giving. You should be complementing each other – you should both be supporting and valuing each other in relatively equal amounts. Of course, you will both have your strong suits, and that's what complementing means. In order to have one healthy relationship, both partners must be healthy to begin with.

Before you get into, or re-engage with, a romantic relationship with him, you also need to make sure that you feel happy with how he is today, not just the vision of what you think he'll be in the future once he has his problem in check. Don't fall in love with his potential. If you are not absolutely happy with being in a relationship with this man the way he is right now, then step back from the relationship until it really does look like what you want out of a relationship.

The only kind of relationship that will ever work well is the kind where you feel that the person is enough for you just the way they are. Then, if there's any improvement, it's wonderful and something you can both celebrate, but it's not something that's required to make you feel happy with your partner.

Remember, you're looking for a boyfriend, not a patient. Leave the therapy to the professionals, and find yourself a man that adds as much to the relationship as you do.

To learn more about breaking free of the tendency to try to rescue others in your relationships, check out Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattie.

Next post in this series: Are You Waiting to be Rescued?

Do You Need a Man in Your Life to Feel Happy?

39 Comments

Forming deep connections with other people is a very real human need.
Make the most of your precious solo time by deepening and strengthening your connections with friends and family.

Your anxiety may be causing you to waste something very precious.

This is the second post in our series 8 Signs You Aren't Ready for a Relationship. I'm going to spend the next week or two delving into each of these more deeply, one by one, and discussing what you can do to make sure that you are ready for a relationship when your Mr. Right comes along.

Do You Need a Man to Feel Happy?

Do you find yourself turning down invitations to social functions because you don't have a date to bring? Are you the type of woman who needs to know you have a new boyfriend lined up before you will break it off with your current guy? When you find yourself single do you spend all of your time on the hunt for your next boyfriend that hopefully will lift you out of your depressed funk?

Of course most women, including me, are just much happier when in a relationship than when single. I mean, who doesn’t want to have someone with whom to watch the sunset, curl up on the couch and watch a movie, or share a home cooked meal? That’s totally understandable, totally normal, and totally human. We’re programmed for connection; we’re social creatures.

The problem arises when you find being single so depressing, so lonely, so, well, awful that you fall into the trap of getting into a relationship that’s not what you really want just to avoid feeling lonely. The problem with getting in (and worse, staying in) a relationship because you feel that it’s better than being alone is that you've just thrown a major roadblock in the way of finding true happiness.

You've basically locked yourself into a less than satisfying situation just to avoid what might, right now, feel like a worse situation. The risk is that you may find that you've locked yourself into this mediocre situation possibly for life. And that’s a long time.

So it’s time for you to break free of the chains of feeling like you need to be with a guy in order to feel good about yourself. The key is to learn to enjoy these alone times and stop wasting this valuable, precious time that could be well spent in discovering your true self, pursuing your own interests, and making new connections. Look at this time that you are unencumbered by a relationship as the gift that it truly is – the gift of time to do everything that you've wanted to do without being tied down by a relationship.

Find Your Community

One reason many women find it depressing to be single is because they don’t have anyone that they feel deeply connected to. It’s very important to have a sense of connection with other people and to know that there are others out there that care about you, support you, and love you. If you have this in your life in the form of family and friends, you won’t need to rely quite so heavily on a boyfriend to fill that very real human need. If you feel that you desperately need a boyfriend then chances are you don’t currently have this type of deep connection in your life. It’s time to build some.

An excellent goal is to have three to five people in your life that you feel deeply connected to; people that you can rely on to be there for you when you need to cry, scream, vent or just talk. Unfortunately, in our modern times with all of the theoretical connection that we have via email, Facebook, and the like, the reality is that most of us don’t feel deeply connected to anyone. While having three to five people is an excellent long term goal, it’s critically important to have at least one.

Be a Friend to Have a Friend

If you find yourself with no one to share your feelings with, and share in their feelings, then you need to start developing a friendship like this. The best way to build friendships is by being a friend. Reach out to others, find people that are in need of help and help them. If you have some old friends that you haven’t talked to in a while, pick up the phone and give them a call. Set up a time to meet them for coffee or to drop by their house for a visit. Go out of your way to meet them where they are.

I know this personally from when I was single and many of my long time girlfriends got married and started families. I felt deserted. I felt as though they had just disappeared on me, but the truth is that having a new family can be very overwhelming. I found that when I went out of my way to make it easy for them to see me, by stopping by their house and playing with their kids while we visited, we were able to connect and talk fairly easily. And the best part was that they loved me for it, because it provided a welcome distraction for their kids and some time for them to talk to another adult for a change.

Release Your Anxiety

Many times the entire reason for feeling depressed when you’re single is because of the underlying anxiety that you just might not find anyone. But what would being single feel like if you knew that you were guaranteed to find the man of your dreams within a year or so? Would that change how you view being single? You’d probably then be able to relax and really enjoy your single time. You’d find things that are pleasurable and fun for you that you could either do on your own or with your friends and family.

That’s exactly what being single should feel like. Look at it as a vacation from a relationship, and know in your heart that the man of your dreams is waiting for you just around the corner. Because if you can relax, release your anxiety, and really start enjoying your life and your current freedom you’ll be happier, more fun, more interesting and more social. And all of these can only help you to find the love you’re looking for.

Next post in this series: Are You a Rescuer?

Why You Keep Attracting The Wrong Guys

42 Comments

Do you keep attracting the wrong type of men?
Your relationship compass may need a calibration

Is your relationship compass pointing you in the wrong direction? Here's how you can correct it.

Last week I wrote an article for YourTango about 8 Signs You Aren’t Ready for a Relationship. If you haven’t read it yet, check it out. I’m going to spend the next week or two delving into each of these more deeply, one by one, and discussing what you can do to make sure that you are ready for a relationship when your Mr. Right comes along.

Is Your Great Guy Compass Accurate?

Is your relationship compass off?  Do you find yourself attracting the wrong type of guy over and over again?  If this sounds familiar, then your relationship compass might be in need of a calibration.

Just as a compass points North due to the internal magnet that aligns itself to the natural magnetic field of the earth, your relationship compass works off of magnetic attraction – and I know you know what I mean here. You are just magnetically drawn to him – the way he looks at you, the way he talks, the way he moves. You were drawn to him the first time you saw him, and your heart started beating faster the first time he talked to you. We’ve all been there.

Of course, the magnetic attraction part isn’t the problem – in fact it’s wonderful! The problem is when we find that we’re consistently magnetically attracted to a guy that’s not right for us; he could be emotionally unavailable, have alcohol or drug addictions, or an explosive temper. You may find yourself, like many women, drawn to the bad boy, always thinking that you’re going to be the one to tame his wild ways. But after a string of these, you’re starting to realize that bad boys might actually be bad for you.

So what is it that causes you to be drawn to these specific types of men? Well, it really comes down to the early programming of your delicate childhood brain (doesn’t it always?) Everything you know about relationships and love, and what they’re supposed to look like and feel like, you learned in childhood from your parents (or whoever your primary caregivers were.)

The good news? While it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to change your internal programming, it is possible to become aware of this programming, and recognize when it’s leading you to make bad choices. Once you understand why you’re making the choices that you’re making, you can learn to be aware of these motivators, and you can then use that awareness to change the way you make choices in the future.

So let’s get started.

Know What You Don’t Want

Yes, it’s time for lists.  Get out your pen and paper or open up a blank Word doc. List out all of your past partners that you were in a serious relationship with (don’t bother including guys that you only went out with for a short time.)

Underneath each name, write out who broke off the relationship, and why. Then list out the qualities that you disliked about your ex, in order of priority, starting with the worst. Was he controlling and/or manipulative? Emotionally unavailable? Unfaithful? Did he have an explosive temper? Was he moody? Get them all down on paper.

If you find that as you’re making your lists, you still have some feelings of hurt and anger over these past relationships, which is very common, take some time to really examine those feelings. Feel them. Let yourself cry.

Forgive Him

Then, once you’re done feeling, crying, and grieving, dig deep and find it in you to genuinely forgive each one. For each, try to understand what may have made him the way he was, and realize that he was broken also. Then, in a forgiving and loving way, release those feelings so that you can truly move on. Holding on to these past hurts only makes them continue to hurt – and they’re only hurting you. If you release the negative feelings, you will free yourself to completely heal, which needs to be done before you can be truly healthy in a new relationship.

Understand Yourself

Take a look at your lists and see which of the bad qualities that you listed are the most common. Typically you will see some that pop up in many, if not all, of your relationships.  Maybe all of the guys in your past were heavy drinkers or wound up cheating on you. Make a note of these by circling them, putting a check mark next to them, or using a highlighter (my personal preference.) These are your negative attractors, and are what we will be examining next.

Now think about your childhood. Did one or both of your parents have these traits that you highlighted? Did your father drink a lot or cheat on your mother? Or maybe your parents were very heavy-handed or controlling when it came to alcohol or who you could date, and now you’re rebelling. As children we all wanted to be loved by our parents, and our minds firmly believe our parents loved each other, so how we were treated as children by our parents and how they loved and treated each other become our model for what love is supposed to look like.  And since much of this was absorbed sub-consciously, we often don’t even realize this is what’s been going on.

I remember the epiphany I  experienced when, after coming off of yet another devastating break-up, I suddenly realized that what I had really been looking for - and finding – in each of these failed relationships, was someone similar to my father who I could finally win over to give me the love I had been looking for my whole life.  But I was always seeking it from someone as emotionally unavailable and distant to me as he was.  And getting to the root of that was the beginning of attracting something different into my life, as difficult as it was to get to that point in the first place.

Know What You Do Want

Now make a list of all of the qualities of your perfect partner. Note that we’re not talking about superficial things like “tall, dark and handsome”; we’re looking for things more along the lines of responsible, hard-working, funny, affectionate, etc. It may help to go back to your earlier lists and add all of the good qualities that each of your former long term partners possessed (after all, there must have been some reasons you stayed with them so long.) Add these good qualities to your “perfect guy” list.

Picture It

Now that you have a good picture painted of what you actually want in a guy, and a relationship, try to visualize what it would be like to be in a relationship with this perfect man. Again, you’re not visualizing the physical characteristics – try to keep his physical appearance kind of vague right now. Just picture his values, behaviors and personal traits – how he treats you, how he makes you feel, how you interact with each other, and how you interact as a couple with friends and family. Remember, this is your ideal relationship so go for it – if you want flowers every Friday, go ahead and picture that. If you want steamy passion, don’t hold back. Take some time to picture yourself in as many real-life scenarios as you can think of; the better you can picture it, the more likely it is that you will find it.

Time For Some Self-Reflection

Now for one of the toughest parts, and you need to be completely honest with yourself here – after all, you’re doing this for yourself. Take a look at your negative list – do you see any of these qualities in yourself? If so, make a note of these and take the steps needed to work on them. This is not easy to do, but it’s one of the best things you can do to attract healthy love, in fact it’s critical. Knowing that you’re in a healthy state, physically, mentally, and emotionally will raise your confidence levels and in turn your self-esteem, which will in turn attract confident, healthy men with high self-esteem.

Now compare the list of what you do want in a guy to how you view yourself – do you see each of these qualities in yourself? If not, then once again you know where your areas of improvement lie. We really do attract what we are, so it’s all about being the type of person, with the same values, beliefs, and character traits that you’re looking for in a partner. If you want someone who’s kind, be kind. If you want someone who’s trustworthy, make sure that you’re trustworthy yourself.

Great! I know what I want. Now what?

Congratulations - you now have a detailed vision of what you want in a relationship, and that’s probably more than you’ve ever had before. Typically people spend more time thinking about what kind of television they’re going to buy than what they’re really looking for in a partner, so you’re way ahead of the game!

So the next time you start dating a guy (which will be soon, since you’re radiant, confident, and beautiful – and you know what you want), really try to see if he has any of the negative qualities that you have been drawn to so magnetically in the past. But this time don’t overlook them or make excuses for him.  Even if you’re tempted to.  Because I know firsthand just how easy it is to make someone appear to have more potential than he does, simply because we’re feeling that magnetism again.

I’m not necessarily saying to cut him loose right at the first sign, but really try to be aware of the behavior, and if it looks like what has caused you heartache in the past, make sure that you see it for the red flag that it is. It’s about being very deliberate in your choices, and not allowing yourself to fall in love with the feeling of love; most of the time that feeling is really just your insecurity surfacing, causing you to feel happy that you’ve been chosen. Remember, we’re doing the choosing now.

Know that this will not be easy. Going against your true nature will always be uncomfortable – especially when it’s so subconsciously ingrained. If in doubt, when you meet a guy that you like, but you’re not sure if he could be more of the same, ask yourself right away, does dating this man feel like it could result in a long term, happy, healthy relationship like the one I’ve been visualizing? Then you’ll have your answer.  It’ll get easier with time.

At some point you’ll find the guy that you’re both attracted to and is safe for you. And that’s when you know your compass is working well.

Next post in this series: Do You Need a Man in Your Life to Feel Happy?

Latest Tweets

Recent Comments

Calendar

May 2025
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031