How to create a beautiful intimate relationship – lessons for Starting Over

So many people assume that their relationships just happen to them, with little understanding that it will in fact unfold in direct reflection of their own thoughts and feelings about themselves. You see, we all take a certain amount of ‘baggage’ into our relationships with us in the form of conditioning from our past which creates our beliefs and sense of self-worth if we allow it to. Most of us are blissfully unaware of what these patterns of behaviour are, but they will all be subtly reflected in our behaviour towards our partner.

There are two facts which will help you understand how your relationships unfold; the first is that no one can love you more than you love yourself; the second is that you teach others how to treat you.

Loving Yourself and Putting Yourself First

Many of us continually put our own needs behind those of our partner, whilst secretly harbouring resentment about doing so. This in fact teaches our partner that we do not value ourselves, yet we are so surprised when they begin treating us in the same way. When we learn to love ourselves and fulfil our own needs, then we have an abundance to give and share with others. Remember too, that your partner will always be able to sense and feel your underlying energy or ‘state’, whether you have a smile on your face or not… What lies beneath your surface will show itself in seemingly subtle, yet powerful ways…

It’s vitally important for you to be aware of who you’re taking into the relationship with you. By this, I mean you… Understanding and loving yourself fully is the biggest gift you can give to yourself, to your partner and to your relationship. When you love yourself you take no neediness into the relationship with you. If instead, you make your partner responsible for creating your happiness and fulfilling your needs, a huge burden is placed upon them. Not only that, but you will always be in fear of what may happen if at any time they don’t fulfil those needs. It puts a great strain on both of you… When two partners behave like this it is known as a co-dependency.

Loving yourself brings many wonderful virtues into the partnership with you… Firstly, you enter into the relationship as your true self, without putting on any kind of act or mask to try and be what you think your partner expects you to be. You wouldn’t even entertain being anyone other than your true self, because you’d know without doubt that you are worth loving for who you are. You would also know that being single is far better than being in a fake relationship simply for the sake of it. When we put on this kind of mask, not only is it exhausting to keep up the act, but it builds a great deal of resentment beneath the surface because we feel we can never really be ourselves… ironically! Yet, so many of us do this sub-consciously. You will never feel truly loved for who you are when you’re not being yourself. Many enter into a game of ‘fake love’ by doing and being things that will gain us love and appreciation… Life becomes a game of acting so that we don’t experience rejection or disapproval… How different life would be though, if we didn’t fear either of these things in the first place. Well, this is exactly the essence of why loving yourself is so vital.

It’s hugely important to real-ise, that when two people hide behind a mask, the masks will eventually fall away, revealing two complete strangers. Most people call that initial stage the ‘honeymoon phase’… and then wonder why things are never as exciting as they were in the beginning, or they wonder what they ever saw in their partner and the ideal of the relationship.

When you love yourself, you will be able to gift your partner with a huge amount of freedom. You come into the relationship from a place of unattachment. By this I mean unattached to any outcome – you do not place the burden of “I expect you to be with me for the rest of my life, whether you like it or not!” on your partner… get the picture? This is what attachment looks like… You will not be fearful of them leaving you if they choose to because you’ll know that no matter what happens; you’ll handle everything just perfectly. Such fears often destroy relationships with ‘bad’ energy.

By simply choosing to be together, rather than needing to be together, this allows you to place a huge amount of trust in your partner. By also trusting in yourself to deal with anything, it allows you to ‘give’ yourself to the relationship from a place of vulnerability. The strange thing is, that if your partner senses this kind of vulnerable energy in you and sees it reflected in your behaviour, they are not likely to want to leave you or give you any reason to mistrust them… it’s amazing how it all unfolds. On the other hand, when you attempt to trap your partner through your mistrust of them because you couldn’t handle it if they ever left you… and you continually question them and take away their freedom, they are far more likely to respond with exactly the behaviour you’re most fearful of… by leaving you and/or by ending up in the arms of another…

So are you beginning to understand how we create our relationships…?

Where Is Your Focus?

One of the most magical things about sharing yourself with another is that what you focus on in your partner is what will transpire. If you focus on all the good, you will see more of it. You partner will sense that you are seeing the best in them and their behaviour towards you will reflect that. If on the other hand, you’re focusing on everything your partner does wrong, or are expecting negative behaviour from them, they will also sense this and reflect it straight back to you with exactly what you’re expecting.

One of the most beautiful things you can gift your partner with is a list of all the wonderful things they do for you, letting them know just how much you appreciate them. This creates a beautiful loving bond between you both. Not only that, but it opens your heart to true love lets them know just how valid they are in your life. In doing so, please don’t demand that they reply with a counter-list, because this is not giving from a place of authenticity… this is giving in order to receive, which will also leave you in a fearful energy. So many of us tend to work on a hidden barter system when we give; a great example of this is to ask yourself how you felt the last time you sent your partner a loving text or e-mail and didn’t receive a reply? If you were disappointed by their lack of response, then was your gesture truly authentic, or simply because you needed to hear their reply? Giving with no expectation of how or if they should respond according to your rules is indeed a very loving thing to do.

Dangerous Assumptions

Another biggie in terms of relationships is to learn never to make assumptions about anything…ever! When your partner says or does something, their patterns of behaviour and ‘model of the world’ won’t necessarily match yours. Whatever the assumption has been made about has been transferred from their beliefs and perception of the world into yours, which will of course be entirely different. But instead of always assuming the best, we tend to make negative assumptions about what’s just happened, then either don’t say a word and resent it, or launch into an argument.

The best way to make assumptions if you must make them and want a loving, committed relationship, is to always make the best possible ones about your partner’s behaviour and intentions. If he or she says something that has hurt you, express your feelings in a loving way immediately and without blame. Andy and I agreed from day one that if either of us said anything which hurt the other, we would say “Ouch” and explain what had hurt us. We were staggered by the number of times we found ourselves saying “Ouch” when in fact, the other meant something entirely different from the way it was perceived and most certainly not intended to hurt. You might be surprised to find that you make far more negative assumptions that you’d ever imagine… Be aware that if these build up without resolution, they will create a huge amount of tension, resentment and animosity between you…

We often feel infatuated during the early stages of a relationship. This is generally the case when we don’t love ourselves fully and feel that burst of love and appreciation from a new partner which takes our ‘love score’ up to a 10 out of 10. These are the times when we usually become the person we think they want us to be, purely to ensure that we keep receiving that burst of love. This is the mask I mentioned earlier, and it can become an addiction. This is also unfortunately very fearful behaviour, because if they don’t provide the love we need in order to feel great about ourselves, we tend to take an emotional dive into the depths of despair. If, on the other hand, you have genuine love for yourself to begin with, then rather than thinking “Thank goodness someone loves me”, you can remain more realistic and evaluate whether that person is indeed right for you. It may seem unromantic… how romantic is a 46% divorce rate, rises sharply second and third time around?

The Big Differences Between Men and Women

Most people don’t have a clue how differently men and women think, feel and communicate. Women tend to imagine that men think in a very similar way to them… a very mistaken assumption indeed. On the whole, men are more logical, whereas women are more emotional and much of their respective communication will stem from these two different viewpoints. Men focus on one thing at a time, while women can multi-task. While women need to talk to reduce stress, men will want to find a solution to your problems – this often drives women crazy. Simply telling a man that you want him to listen and not provide a solution will appeal to his logical mind and allow the woman to talk… something this simple is sure to reduce arguments and frustration.

Many women aren’t aware that men generally feel emasculated when their woman points out a solution, yet in today’s society, women have high powered jobs, are often the main bread-winner in the house and it can be difficult to know how to maintain the right balance. So you see, learning about the differences between men and women’s thinking, behaviour and methods of communication is a powerful key to learning how to create an ideal relationship…

The Languages of Love

Another wonderful recipe to creating a fantastic bond between you is to know and understand your and your partner’s ‘love languages’. People give and receive love in one or more of five main ways – words of affirmation, touch, quality time, acts of service and gifts. If you know what your love languages are, then communicate them clearly to your partner so they know what makes you feel loved… then leave space for them to fill that gap without placing demands on them to do so. It’s vital too, to learn what your partner’s languages of love are, so that you in turn can also fulfil their needs and create a beautiful relationship.

Soul-Mate Relationships

I truly believe that a soul-mate relationship is something that is created between two people who share a genuine love, respect and truth with each other. Two people who choose to be committed to being together in a loving, trusting and unattached way, and who implement the key points I’ve mentioned above, will learn to love, respect and admire their differences.

You can become each other’s greatest teacher simply by allowing your partner to be exactly who they are and learning from them, rather than demanding they change to fit in with your model of the world. When we try to fix or change our partner, they will never feel good about themselves in the relationship – how could they, when you keep reminding them how they need to be more like you, because who they are simply isn’t good enough for you…

In essence, real love is created when a relationship becomes stronger, deeper and more fulfilling through time… it doesn’t wear off or become less exciting than it was in the beginning… quite the opposite.

It’s certainly food for thought…

By Diane MacDowall

http://www.dimacdowall-lifecoaching.co.uk

Some and see us and listen to us talk at the Starting Over Show, London Sunday March 7th.

http://www.startingovershow.co.uk/

Do You Find Love and Relationships Painful and Difficult?

Do you find yourself compromising who you are for someone you ‘love’?

I’m going to speak DIRECTLY from my heart here….because we women really need to get out of pain and get with it!

If you answered ‘yes’, then my second question is why?  Do you think you can change him so that you no longer have to compromise being who you are?  OK, if that’s the case, then why were you attracted to him in the first place?  Surely it’s not your job to change anyone – is this not a purely selfish act that can make only you feel good?  After all, who made ‘you’ right and ‘him’ wrong?

Really think about this for a second…. Will he ever really feel good about himself within the relationship, or will he ever feel good enough for you if you spend your life trying to change him?    How would you feel being with a man who constantly made you feel not good enough by trying to change and fix you?  Does this not make you feel awful, useless and literally not good enough? Arghhhh!  Personally, I’d be asking why on earth he wasn’t with someone more like the person he was trying to change you into….

So, if you’re compromising who you are, then again, why? Let’s look at this from another perspective. If you’re keeping up an act of trying to be who you think he wants you to be,  then who is he really in the relationship with?  You’re likely to feel permanently exhausted and very resentful for not feeling that you’re allowed to be yourself?  So let’s get this right…. you’re being fake, then resenting him for it….. because you think this is what he wants….. and you’d rather be in a painful, fake relationship than no relationship at all… and all because that occasional feeling of love between the bouts of pain is so pleasurable…. arrrrggghhhhh!

How utterly exhausting for everyone…..not least of all, you…..

So, how about this instead?  You just be yourself (and love who you are!) and allow him to be himself (and love him for it!)… and accept that if neither of you can feel this way in a relationship, then it simply isn’t right for either of you anyway. So wouldn’t you be better  moving on rather than trying to change who you are for the sake of being in a relationship?  But no, we cling on for dear life hoping and praying that someday he’ll change (and he may be doing exactly the same with you!)…

It’s all so painful isn’t it?  So why do we always associate love with pain?

It’s not always easy to accept that we often love our partners far too much in our relationships.  We’ve all heard the songs like ‘I can’t live, if living is without you’.  OK, well, if you say so, but WOW, how much pain is that! I hear this pain in most love songs nowadays and quite frankly, it’s totally debilitating to listen to, never mind to live out in real life…

True love is not meant to be associated with pain – it’s easy and comfortable to be yourself in a truly loving relationship – you are never second best, nor do you have to fight to be loved, nor do you ever wonder if you’re loved, nor do you ever feel out of love with yourself, or feel like you have to explain yourself away or put your own needs last. In a loving relationship with a man, believe it or not, your job is to love YOURSELF! …. the missing bits, or pain, in our relationships tend to appear when we don’t love ourselves enough, and this attracts exactly the kind of men who will hurt us or want to fix us.   In not loving ourselves enough, we actually teach any prospective partner that we need and want to be fixed, and then we spend our lives wondering why we keep attracting exactly the same kind of partners over and over again….. and the answer is, because they are generally the kind of man who will be attracted to us in the first place!  Bah humbug!

I know so many people who want to attract a wonderful, loving partner into their lives, and yet they don’t love themselves.  But here’s the thing – a person who loves themselves at a 10 will gain absolutely no satisfaction from being with someone who needs fixing – they will want to be with a partner who also loves themselves at a 10.

And ladies, I’m not talking about becoming a completely selfish monster here – all relationships are about understanding, compromise and giving from both sides…. but think about this for a second…. why do most women I know think that loving themselves last and putting their own needs behind everyone else’s is a good and selfless thing to do? Speaking my complete truth here with regard to ALL relationships, not just intimate ones, personally I find it exhausting to be around people who care only about my needs rather than their own and who slave after me as if I can’t take care of myself. It’s really exhausting – there are no other words for it. On the other hand, I adore being in the company of people who love and respect themselves – I know they will always speak their truth with me, always state their preferences, there is no false behaviour – it is a pleasure to be with them.  I know they are happy to begin with, that it’s not my responsibility to make them that way, and I know exactly where I stand with them. Always!

So, let’s have a look at your beliefs…. Do you expect to get hurt in your next relationship?  Do men always let you down? They really are all useless, aren’t they!!  In our line of work as relationship coaches, we hear this every day.  Unfortunately, if this is your belief, then this is exactly what your experience of men and relationships will be – I’d even go so far as to say that it will be impossible for you to accept a man who will not hurt you, because YOU will reject him, you really will.  Acccepting that kind of love will not fit in with your beliefs about you – this is a fact!  To you, he will appear boring because he is not hurting you – there is no pain and no challenge. Sound at all familiar?

A man will only treat you according to how you teach him he can…. if you do not love yourself 10 out of 10 (and many women I know only love themselves at around a 4 or less)…  then they need the man to ‘fill them up to a 10′ in order to experience love….  this is why the ‘infatuation’ stages of first falling in love are so mind-blowing, because we feel like a 10 for the first time in a long while, and it feels wonderful!!  It becomes an addiction…

This creates so many problems. Firstly, what a burden to place on him!  He becomes responsible for YOUR happiness!  When did he ever agree to taking that challenge on board?  If you have problems loving yourself, then how on earth do you expect him to love you more than you can?  You don’t come with a set of rules and instructions. So if you don’t love yourself, know your own needs and are able to fill them, then how can you expect him to, AND make him totally responsible for it? This is tantamount to suffocation… it really is….

In doing this, you’re also always living the entire experience of your relationship in fear – because what happens if and when he doesn’t fill you up to 10?  Those arguments really rip you apart, don’t they….?

Not only that, but to him, you’ll always come across as needy, because you’re always relying on him to make you feel good, worthy and loved rather than taking responsibility for that yourself… so your fear will come through very subconsciously in many of your actions, and certainly in terms of trusting him and in believing he loves you. Just think about it for a second – if you’re expecting to get hurt because all men are awful, then you will seek evidence for it everywhere, because if you don’t love you, then you’ll automatically have difficulty believing that he can – you simply can’t understand what on earth he’s actually in love with!  So, will you ever REALLY trust him?

And of course, if the relationship ends…. bang!  We hit 4 again, or even way below, and it feels utterly terrible – like the world has ended, like we can’t go on, even worse than we felt before he came into our life! And then of course we listen to those love songs that reaffirm how utterly worthless we are without him, causing so much pain……all because we placed so much meaning and expectation on that ‘feeling’ of being filled to a 10…. AND because we took no responsibility for creating it within ourselves…

Is the vicious circle becoming clear?….

It gets worse!

We then really, really begin to believe that we’re not worthy of love because everyone we meet treats us this way, and then…. (yes, there’s even more!)…. we take all this baggage into our next relationship with us (it accumulates!) along with an even stronger belief that all men are bad and will hurt us….

Now of course you know that you literally create your life through your beliefs and expectations. No?  Gosh!  I thought everyone knew that!

Believe it or not, a person who truly loves themselves at a full blown 10 is unlikely to feel the initial stages of ‘infatuation’ that most people go through when entering into a new relationship (well, certainly not to the same degree)….. simply because they feel this way about themselves most of the time (nice thought huh?) So it’s nothing new for them to experience love, they are not surprised that someone else can love them, they do not place responsibility for their happiness in the other person’s hands, because quite simply, they create this for themselves….

So, instead of going into a new relationship filled with immense grattitude that at least someone likes them…. they concentrate on how the relationship works for them, how real they can be within it, and how good it feels… because they know that being happy and single is better than being in a relationship that’s wrong.  In this way, the craving for the feeling of love does not form into an addiction.

This kind of relationship is easy…. it feels easy, it happens naturally, it’s not challenging…. it just slips into place….. perfectly!  No drama, no hurt, no pain, no neediness…. No changing each other, just a beautiful, pure acceptance and love of who the other person is… (and yes, he may well come across as boring compared to what you’re used to… what an incredible catch 22!)….

When a woman loves a man too much by either trying to fix him, change him, allowing him to fix or change her, by putting her own needs and happiness last and certainly after his…. then she is teaching him not to value her…. full stop!…. it isn’t even all his fault that he treats her that way, because this is what she teaches him is acceptable because it’s how she treats herself…..(it’s so important to really understand that no one can love you more than you love yourself)….

Only YOU can change this, but you have to fall in love with yourself first.

• You have to love, know and value who you are to take that ‘whole’ person into the relationship – YOU!

• You have to know your own needs, then communicate them to him so that he can share in fulfilling them. (PS. he’s not psychic!)  A man will love fulfilling his woman’s needs, because it will make him feel fantastic as a guy.  After all, men love being with a happy woman, and if they know they make you happy, then they will be drawn to you like a bee to honey and will want to make you even happier – quite the opposite of how he’s likely to feel if you’re telling him how broken he is by trying to fix him huh!

• You have to completely believe that you are worth loving, but YOU HAVE TO KNOW AND BELIEVE THAT BEFORE YOU CAN EXPECT ANY MAN TO…..

If your man doesn’t feel good about himself, what do you generally do?  Do you join him there, worry about him and then spend the day walking on egg-shells?  Do you spend your time giving him false compliments in an attempt to buff him up so that he feels better about himself?  Ask yourself – is this not actually manipulation, similar to emotional blackmail?  Anything that isn’t ‘real’ which is said or done in order to make your partner behave differently is actually manipulation.  In doing this, you’re effectively telling him that you feel he’s broken, or not capable of taking responsibility for his own emotions and well-being….

I always hated it when Andy used to walk on egg-shells around me if I was having a bad day… and I hated it even more if he used to join me in my ‘bad’ mood, taking it personally if I felt this way – this made it so much harder for me to come out of, plus it also used to make me feel guilty and responsible for putting him there too!…..arrrghhhh!  Sometimes all I wanted was to have an ‘off’ day without affecting anyone else!

Then I realised that if he chose to join me in my mood, it was actually nothing to do with me, it was in fact his choice…  so, I’d concentrate only on my own happiness and well-being, and like a weight was lifted, magic and miracles began to happen. Now if I go into a bad mood, he simply lets me get on with it and it lasts minutes – no longer does he join me there or feel responsible for me!  YAY.. FREEDOM!!!….I now find myself in great energy a vast majority of the time – we both do – because we allow each other to ‘be’…and it feels GREAT!  It took some practise though – when you’re living and working together 24/7 then you absolutely have to understand how successful relationships work and take responsibility for your own emotions, or you’d end up wanting to throttle each other!

I realised that if I was happy and took care of loving myself, and Andy did exactly the same, then it gave us both permission to be ourselves.  If he wakes up in a bad mood nowadays, I just let him know that I love him, that I’m here if he needs me (he really loves that, because it gives him so much space)… and I just ‘let him be’ whilst I get on with creating my own happiness…. Phew!  What an incredible relief for both of us….

So, after really ‘getting it’ and truly living it…. there is no pretending, no falseness, no attachment, no neediness, no resentment, no drama, no challenge, no mistrust, no fixing, no acting….. just two people being exactly who they are, and loving ‘being it’ together… all the while, being each other’s greatest teachers in self and life…. and bringing out the very best in the other…. Now THAT’S what a relationship is meant to be like!……

And all because two people love themselves…. as well as each other….

Andy and Di through their journey together