Getting to TRUE Love

Finding your YOU that leads to TWO

You are here: Home / Archives for Finding Love

Finding Love

The posts in the Finding Love category relate to bringing love into your life, whether you are currently single, dating, or in a relationship. This category includes topics such as finding yourself, knowing what you want, living your life, etc.

Stop Trying To Be Something You're Not!

2 Comments

Don't hide your true personality
Don't hide your true personality

Bending and twisting yourself like a pretzel to fit what you think the person you're attracted to wants might get him interested, but here's why he won't stick around for long.

This is the eighth and final post in our series 8 Signs You Aren’t Ready for a Relationship.

If you often find that you're trying to change something about yourself thinking it will make you more attractive to the guy you just met, or just started dating, then you are, like I was, lacking in self-esteem and confidence. Don't be too hard on yourself, this is very common but it means that you need to work on finding and loving the real you before trying to love someone else.

This was my dating pitfall: I used to think it was all about showing a guy that I really was all that.  I felt that I had to show him just how wonderful I was, and make him realize that I was everything he had ever wanted in a woman.  And I mistakenly thought that I could do that by loving everything that he loved, by wanting to do everything that he wanted to do, and by showing him just how much we had in common (even when we really didn’t.)

What I didn’t realize back then was that it all just set the stage for a relationship that wasn’t authentic, wasn’t truly honest, and wasn’t about two real people bringing their own true selves into the relationship.  I also didn't understand that any potential the relationship might have had would come to a striking halt because I wasn’t being true to myself.  Ironically, it was the exact opposite of what I was hoping to get – a real relationship.

It was a pattern I repeated over and over again, and I just couldn't figure out how he could be so interested in the beginning and then suddenly not interested at all. What I didn’t understand then that I finally understood much later was that I was just fluff.  I was only giving him that part of me that I thought was what he wanted, what I thought that most guys wanted.  But the problem was that I really didn’t know how to be anything else after that.  I was so intent on being the perfect package, that I wasn’t my own person.  I was just a mirror of him.

While that might work in the beginning, and get him interested, it doesn't last because any true relationship requires both give and take. Both partners have to complement the other in order for each, and the relationship, to grow.

One of my favorite books from my dating years that helped me to understand this problem and to work through it was Marianne Williamson's A Woman's Worth. The copyright on it is 1993, making it now considered a classic, but her words are just as true today as they ever were. I still have my dog-eared copy with its yellowing, note-riddled pages on my bookshelf.

I think this excerpt makes the point very well:

"There is a difference between getting a partner and attracting a partner. Getting implies that our hooks work; attracting means that our light is bright and appears like a beacon to one who is meant to see it. When we try to get a partner, we increase our chances of getting the wrong one. Yes, we can hook one perhaps, but a hook in him is a hook in us. We either end up neurotically obsessed, or he figures out it's a hook and does his own casting off. When we attract love by an  intensified connection to the spirit inside, we take responsibility for the energy around us, harmonizing it in such a way that those who come forward – who we sense are meant to be with us – connect with us out of similarly pure intent."

Her words woke me up to the reality that by trying to be something I wasn't, trying to be something that I thought these guys wanted that I didn't have naturally, something that I'd have to fake, that this trying was exactly what was causing me to continue to have failing relationships! And this realization created such a calming, peaceful, zen-like feeling that washed over me, and for the first time in my dating life I felt like I could just relax. Stop trying so hard. Just be. Live. Love life.

It was then that I finally realized that I could just be the person I wanted to be, without worrying that I wasn't hip enough or wasn't into things that guys might like. It didn't matter. I would just be who I was, and do what I loved doing, and I trusted that there would be someone out there who would love me for everything that I really was (or at least love most of me, and tolerate the rest.)

So if you find yourself like I was, trying hard to get a guy to like you, trying to be what you think he wants, just stop. Breathe. Relax. Stop trying so hard. And then be yourself. If you don't know who she is, then go find her – that's what I had to do. It's understandable, after trying to be someone different for so long, probably even someone different for each guy, that you don't even know the real you anymore.

Spend some time getting to know that gorgeous, wonderful woman that is you. Let your light shine for the world to see, and let your light be a beacon so that equally gorgeous, wonderful guy can find you in this crazy ocean fog of modern life. You won't know what he looks like, in fact he might be completely different, physically, from what you expected, but you'll know him when you meet him.

And he'll know you because of your beautiful, bright, shining light.

Do You Have Too Much Emotional Baggage?

2 Comments

Unpack your bags - don't let the memory of your ex get in the way of a new healthy relationship
Don't bring too much baggage to your next relationship

Don't let the memory of your ex be the "third wheel" in your new relationship.

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

We all have unpacked emotional baggage from our past relationships, and it's difficult, if not impossible, to completely get rid of it; that's just being human. But if you find yourself still pining for, very angry with, or otherwise consumed with emotion over your ex, you need to get past it before you'll be able to be in a new healthy relationship.

It's totally normal to take time to heal from a major heartbreak, and the greater the love there once was, the longer it takes. Make sure that you are treating yourself right by giving yourself that time.

If you're not sure that you're over your ex, ask yourself the following questions and be completely honest with your answers (after all, you're the only one that will hear them):

Too Much Emotional Baggage

Do you find yourself wanting to call (or actually calling) your ex just to see how he's doing?

When you see your ex out at a social event, do you find yourself drawn towards him and wanting to flirt with him?

When you're out with others, including on a date, do you often find yourself talking about your ex, either in a good or bad way?

Do you find that you are still feeling emotionally fragile from your breakup?

Are you still angry or do you still cry when you think about how you were treated or how you were rejected?

Are you going out of your way to remain "friends" with your ex in order to maintain contact with him?

If you answered yes to any of these, as difficult as it may be, you need to make a clean break from your ex and let your heart heal so that you'll be able to move on to the relationship that you are meant to have.

The Rebound Relationship

I remember it all too well. Even though all of the advice I was reading said the same thing: don’t get into a new relationship until you’re over the last one; avoid the rebound; take your time to get over the one you’re getting over; it didn't matter. I just wanted the pain of the heartbreak to go away, and it seemed like the only thing that could make me feel any better was finding someone else to replace the last one, as quickly as possible.

And so each time it would end, sometimes even before it actually ended (but I could see that the end was coming), I would put all my effort into meeting someone else who could get my mind off of it and make the pain and hurt go away. Then I could tell myself (and maybe even tell my ex if I was really feeling hurt) that it didn't matter because there was already someone else. Somehow I felt like that would validate me, my worth, and show him just how insane he was for letting me go, because, see! Someone else wants me!

Of course the problem was that the replacement guy wasn't really the guy I wanted to be with. The guy I wanted to be with was the guy that broke my heart. So instead of taking my mind off of the sadness and heartbreak of the relationship that had ended, the new guy just made me think about all of the things that I missed about my ex.

When the new guy failed to measure up to what I felt the other one was, it would just confirm to me that I really had missed out and messed up a relationship that, at least in my mind, could have been the one. But of course the truth was that the previous relationship wasn't really all that, and I was just romanticizing the good times (as often happens when we feel something has been taken from us) and only remembering the positives in an idealistic way. (Yes, I'm very guilty of being idealistic, as my husband gently reminds me of even now when I was going on and on about how wonderful my childhood home was. That is, until we recently visited there and I found it was not quite what I remembered!)

Eventually I’d see that the new guy wasn’t what I really wanted either, and that would bring an end to something that really should never have started in the first place.  And then I would be all alone once again, feeling even worse than before, particularly if I had broken the new guy's heart in the process.

Change The Behavior

I finally got it, that this wasn’t working.  This was no way to live.  I wish I could say I figured it out early on, but I didn’t.  So take comfort if you’re still stuck in that place of looking for a rebound relationship to feel better.  It takes a while to learn new healthy behaviors, especially when it’s been a routine temporary bandage to help quell the pain that only another woman with a breaking heart can know.  So don’t beat yourself up, but do your best to change this unhealthy behavior.

So what do you do?

Just know that if you're trying to get your ex out of your head, make a clean break from him. If you can't completely break from him, for example if you work together, then set boundaries so that you are only interacting with him on a level that's as limited as possible. Then focus on your own needs until you feel that you're: a.) Not wanting to get back together with him and b.) You're no longer angry about what happened.

Take a break from any kind of relationship or dating until you get to this point. It usually helps to realize that the fact that the relationship ended means that it was not the right relationship for you to be in, and it means that you saved yourself greater heartache down the road.

Of course if you meet a guy during this time that has real potential, and you find that he not only takes your mind off of your ex but he completely makes you forget about your ex or even makes you happy that the relationship ended, then by all means go for it! Just make sure that you're starting the relationship for the right reasons, and that you're not getting into it to try to forget about your ex, because it just doesn't work that way.

Next post in this series: Stop Trying To Be Something You're Not?

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?

Latest Tweets

Recent Comments

Calendar

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