I know you think you’re ready.
You’re ready to have a partner by your side, someone with whom you can share laughter and tears, ups and downs, good times and hard times. You’re really ready to have a companion, someone you can talk to, who will talk to you, someone you can whisper to who will listen close so as not to miss a word, who will as happily accompany you on a Sunday walk as to a Saturday night movie or your best friend’s daughter’s wedding.
Because isn’t that the point of being in a romantic relationship? It’s the companionship, right? It’s having someone to share your hopes and dreams and vision. It’s not having to do things alone ever again, forever and ever, amen!
Well, that and the sex. Having one person with whom you can be as physically intimate as you are emotionally.
And yet, it begs the question, how emotionally intimate are you with yourself? How closely do you listen when your own heart whispers? And if you do listen closely, what’s your response? It’s probably very much on the surface, and I’m asking you to dig underneath to a level where you can really take good care of yourself.
Are you ready to meet someone else’s needs in a romantic relationship?
Sharing laughter and tears, ups and downs, not being alone at your best friend’s daughter’s wedding … all of these are nice outcomes of being in a relationship, but none of them is exactly the purpose.
There is just so much you can do to facilitate your own personal growth alone. And the thing a romantic relationship will do for you in ways that nothing else can, is 10X your self-awareness, self-love and self-growth. But only if you let it.
The people who suffer in relationships, (and cause their partners to suffer alongside them), are the ones who think their partners are there to provide for their needs. They also think they can participate in one and remain the same as they were when they started. They’re the ones who spend a lot of time and energy trying to get their partner to change so they can feel better. It might sound like, “If you loved me you would…” or, “I need you to…”
I don’t believe for one minute that someone else is supposed to give me what I need – I actually don’t believe it’s even possible. Needs aren’t things, like phone calls or text messages or even attention, they’re how we feel, like cherished and respected and loved, and because our own feelings come from our own thoughts, nobody else can give us our feelings, only we can do that.
For you to thrive in a romantic relationship you need to figure out what you need and then how to provide it for yourself! And no, I’m not talking about taking actions like having intimate connections or sex outside of a committed partnership, I’m talking about learning exactly what the feelings are that you seek to feel that are driving those actions.
Do you believe that someone else ought to change their behavior in order for you to feel better? Okay, well then, tell me – how does that play out when someone else thinks you ought to change what you’re doing or saying so they can feel better? Yeah, I thought so.
Are you ready to make this the year you stop sabotaging your relationships?
Do so many of us sabotage our relationships because deep down inside we don’t want to be responsible for taking care of someone else’s needs?
The answer for me is, absolutely! And if you feel the same that’s an even better reason to get a handle on how your needs – and everyone else’s – really work so you can stop working against the thing you really want and make 2021 the year you create that committed, romantic relationship you’ve been seeking for so long.
If you’re someone who:
- Expects a man to call or text you every morning and evening when you’ve just met
- Wants to be introduced to his friends and family after only a couple of dates
- Decides you’re ‘in a relationship’ after only a couple of dates
Ask yourself how you think you’ll feel when that thing happens.
- How will you feel if a man calls or texts every morning and evening?
- How will you feel when you’re introduced to his family and friends?
- How will you feel when you’re really and truly in a relationship?
The feeling is what you’re after, fulfilling that feeling is your need – not whatever the thing is you think you want.
Let’s say you feel loved when someone calls or texts you. It’s not just because of the communication, it’s because of the importance you give to it. But … how will you feel if the calls and texts stop coming?
If you don’t figure out what you really need and how to provide it for yourself, you are going to be focusing on the actions someone is taking rather than on the only question you need to be asking at the very beginning – do you like him?