I Feel Like I'm Incapable of a Successful Relationship

The subject line of her email said it all. "I am incapable of a successful relationship."

I'm answering Tina's email on the blog today because I hear from so many of you who've come to the same conclusion and you've all but given up any hope of changing this. You're in the right place because I find hope out of hopelessness despite what you can't yet see, so stay with me here. If you've ever felt like this, I've got so much hope for you today!

Her Story:

Hi Jane,

I am a 41 year old woman and seem to always attract or go for the wrong men! I was married to a man who was a serial adulterer who had an affair when I was pregnant with our second child which was devastating.

I did meet a lovely man after that who was steady but I lost my passion for him. I've had two brief 4 month relationships where they were hot from day one and no real slow process then I met the man who I thought was the one!

I'd met him a year earlier - his brother was best friends with a guy I was seeing.

We bumped into each other and got chatting, he was married but we ended up kissing and chatting into the night. He told me he was unhappy in his marriage and that she was an alcoholic. He contacted me the next day saying he couldn't stop thinking a out me and we chatted on the phone.

I made it clear that I didn't want to be involved with a married man.

Over the next few days we talked and met for coffee and our attraction was clear. A week later on Christmas Day his wife got drunk in front of their son while this guy had popped out to see family.

He called her parents and they took her to their home and the next day he told her the relationship was over. That night he took me out!

We embarked on a relationship which had its ups and downs with them fighting over access to the son and sorting houses out. His wife said things accusing him of having an affair but went pretty quietly.

Our relationship was good however most of the time he was talking to me about their marriage, her drinking, how he did everything with the house and their son. He cried a lot and was needy and I was his brick.

There was a few times (like when my mom found out she had cancer and then had to get an operation) that I felt very alone.

There was a few occasions where I was thinking about finishing the relationship as I felt I was at the back of the line. He has a very bizarre relationship with his mother - she is the one who he confides in and it is a very mother and son relationship. She rules the roost! She didn't like me after some thing I apparently said but I think whatever I'd done she wouldn't like me.

The crux of the matter is we did argue about his inability to stand up for me when his mother was having a dig at me. At Christmas we argued about his mother and it didn't get back to normal after that he was distant. I feel like I supported him and was there for him.

When he had his son he was at his mothers but when he didn't he virtually lived with me and my kids. I fed him and he helped me out - dropping kids off at school etc., but I felt I did the majority in the relationship.

When we went out with my mother he always let her pay and even accepted money to go on holiday which I am fighting to get back from him!

In March he told me that his mother had organized a trip for all the family to go away for his dads 70th birthday - sons and partners and kids were going but I wasn't invited. When I asked him about this and told him I was hurt he said, "Well I didn't think you'd want to come anyway."

I would never have left him out of anything and felt so hurt that he didn't stand up for me.

He was always gushing saying he loved me and that he felt so lucky but when I asked about moving things forward he said we were on the same chapter but not the same page! I just said to him that I felt it was all talk and no action and said for him to get his things out of my house. He did and was in floods of tears.

He left then a few days later I got an email saying that he had strong feelings but felt the fact we kept bickering was alarming him - we bickered about his mother and his lack of manning up. His matrimonial home stood empty for months but rather than move back in with his son he chose to stay with mother!!

We met two weeks later and he said he felt his heart was saying it loved me but his head was saying there were issues and he was worried about the longevity of the relationship. He felt he had loads of unsorted issues and he was having counselling. I believed it.

I said well you've thought and made your mind up. He said he wouldn't believe that this was us as we had sorted so much out. He said he thought he would massively regret letting me go.

Three weeks later someone said they saw him with another girl!!! I don't think we overlapped but how easily was I replaced and how he lied! He did tell lies - only little ones but it bugged me within our relationship.

I am left feeling like crap. I feel so down, so lonely and used. Please please can you help me?

-Tina

My Response:

Dear Tina,

You are absolutely capable of a successful relationship, my sweet friend. You just haven't met someone yet who is ALSO capable of a successful relationship! These men you've been with have never been worthy of you, and I suspect you may not even know what you're worth yourself.

Take a break from dating and being involved with any man for awhile, and instead turn the focus to you, that beautiful woman who has so much to offer, so much to give, to someone who proves himself worthy of you!

The problem is, Tina, that when you settle for less than you deserve out of your own insecurities, your own neediness or your own unfinished business, you cannot help but attract someone who is also at that level. And that doesn't make for a very healthy relationship.

When you don't know where you end and someone else begins, when you don't know where your boundaries are and where they need to be to protect you and your beautiful heart, you can't expect to attract and be attracted to anything more than the relationships and the men you've been experiencing.

This is about baby steps. It's about relearning and starting over with the basics of what you need from someone as a bare minimum before you allow them to get to know you or even be in your life.

It's about eliminating the ones who are unhealthy for you before you let them get close to your heart. If they're married or involved with someone else, those are definite eliminations. If they are very recently getting over someone else, that's another temporary elimination until more time has passed. If they get jealous easily or are in any way violent or abusive or show any tendencies to do so, those are more reasons to not let them in. If they have cheated on anyone in their past, that's another pass.

Do you see what I'm saying here?

This isn't about what you've done wrong in the past, it's about learning to see what you cannot afford to allow in  your life for your own sake, Tina, and for the sake of your beautiful heart that deserves to know love and not heartache or betrayal! You are not your past, but it's because of your past that you can have some insight into what you need to be aware of.

I wrote some past posts about this that may resonate with you here...

Is Your Past Getting in the Way of Your Future?

The Best Way to Build Confidence

Yes, You Can

You Deserve to be Loved!

Why You Keep Attracting The Wrong Guys

Use this time to get to know you, to separate from all these past relationships that weren't you. They had no place being in your life in the first place, but they have given you a very valuable gift in that now you have a far clearer picture of what you don't want.

Now, from here, you can begin to figure out what you do want!

What qualities really matter to you? It's time to slow down and be alone with yourself for awhile, apart from any romantic relationship until you've created enough of a life for yourself that you don't need someone to be in your life, but to complement it as an equal partner, on the same page as you.

I have learned many things about loving yourself, Tina; this didn't come easy for me, either. It can be such a foreign concept, and self-loathing is a more accurate picture of what we're so used to doing!

A post I wrote about this, It's Time to Be Selfish, also speaks to this topic, but here's what I've discovered about the journey to loving yourself more.

It's first and foremost about surrounding yourself with supportive people who love and accept you the way you are and make you feel good about yourself.

At the same time, it's about letting go of those people who have the opposite affect on you, who try to change you, who make comments that tell you they don't really accept you, and who in one way or another, send the message that you're not okay the way you are. You don't need people who give you reason to believe you'd be better off being the way they think you should be, and ultimately give you the feeling that there's something wrong with you even though they don't know anything about what they're talking about! They don't!

Now if these people are members of your family, while it's not possible to change our families of origin, we can choose to limit our interactions with them and set clear strong boundaries with them when we do need to be around them to limit the amount of control they're able to have over us and the way we feel.

The point here, is that by surrounding ourselves with supportive, positive people, it's much easier to be loving to ourselves than if we're always left feeling like we need to defend or explain ourselves.

Get involved in hobbies, passions, activities and projects that you're passionate about and enjoy doing. There's nothing that sends a clearer message to ourselves that we're special and worthy and have so much to offer than doing things that give us proof of that. From the small things like being kind to people when we talk to them, to causes we support or volunteer for where we can genuinely make a difference in the world, it's doing these types of things that give us a whole person to love in ourselves - and reminds us of even more reasons why we're special and can make a difference in a way that's unique to us!

Only say yes to those things you really mean to say yes to, and remember it's okay to say no to the things you really don't want to do! So often we get so caught up in that pleasing mentality where we feel guilty if we say no, and we feel like we always have to say yes if we want people to like us, that we miss out on a wonderful opportunity to show our beautiful selves just how much we're worth and how loving we can be to ourselves.

We becomes so much less authentic when we give up being true to ourselves in exchange for giving people what we think they want from us, and in the process, we send ourselves the very unloving message that we don't have the right to stand up for ourselves and let our yes's simply be yes's, and our no's simply be no's, without long, apologetic defensive explanations.

Responses like this only make you feel worse about yourself and reinforce the belief that you don't have the right to make your own decision that are best for you!

This one can be especially difficult to do if you received the message that saying no was selfish and being agreeable made you a "good little girl". But it's also one of the most important things you can do to honor and respect that beautiful woman you truly are!

Stretch yourself to do things that are out of your comfort zone. Ask yourself what you believe isn't your strong point or your personality strength. Go back in time to think of those things that others told you you couldn't do or thought you'd never be able to do. Whether the messages you received were subtle or not so subtle, chances are you got the clear message that there were some things you were better at than others, and some things you shouldn't even attempt to try.

The reality is, those messages you received were based on other people's perception of you, and even though they may have had the best of intentions, such as not wanting you to fail, the end result is always the same. You end up with far too many "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" that hold you back, give you a feeling of incompetence, and leave you much more likely to loathe yourself for all the things you can't do, rather than love yourself for all the things you CAN do!

Show yourself you can do whatever you put your mind to - this isn't about proving anything to anyone else, but yourself! And know that if there is something you fail at, it's never a failure but a learning experience that puts you more in touch with yourself as you learn even more about who you really are and what you're all about!

Give yourself a fresh makeover. Not that you need to change yourself in any kind of a drastic way, but sometimes just treating yourself to a new updated hairstyle, some new makeup, a new wardrobe, a fresh manicure or pedicure or whatever else is within your budget and fits your lifestyle can do wonders for how you feel about yourself.

Don't do any of this for anyone else but yourself, and make sure it reflects who you are and not some hairstylist's or makeover artist's latest trend, but just some small steps to make you feel your best.

Becoming your healthiest self by joining a fun exercise class, finding someone to run or bike with, taking up yoga or dance classes, and finding your own path to healthy living by learning to nourish yourself with healthy food, are all ways that you send yourself the message that you're worth taking care of in healthy ways!

Finally, daily affirmations can make such a difference if you start each and every day with your favorite inspirational sayings that you post as a reminder on your bathroom mirror or fridge reminding you of all that you are, all that you have to offer someone truly deserving of you, and all that is beautiful and loveable about yourself!

Find those sayings that inspire you and write them out so that they become that much more real in your own handwriting, etching them in your mind.

Most of all, Tina, remember that there is no one like you, no one who can do what you were created to do, and there is no one you ever need to prove your worthiness to of all that is wonderful and beautiful and loving in the world. You deserve nothing less than all that love and life have to offer you, my beautiful friend. The irony is that it's only when we eventually come to believe this that we finally find that's exactly what we end up with!

Much love to you - I hope this helps get you started on believing in yourself enough to know that you are completely capable of a successful relationship!

Love,
Jane

It's your turn. If this resonated with you or you have something you want to say to Tina, let her know here. And if you've ever felt this way yourself, I want you to know today that it's never too late for you. You're capable of a healthy, relationship, too!