How many people spend their lives devoted to a relationship only to end up either alone, divorced, bored, resentful, or lost? How many of us choose relationships without having a clue of what relationships require of us? Or what we desire of our relationships and lovers?
Do we have any idea of our partner’s perspective on relationships? Do we ask them what they desire? Or do we ask questions like: What would an ideal relationship look like for us as a couple? What kind of relationships did we both see growing up? Do we have the same definition of relationship?
If you have read The Five Love Languages, it is clear that across the world, we have various meanings of love, and within the love languages are preferred forms of communication and endless possibilities of how we choose to show affection. How many relationships fail because we assume we have the same definitions of love when we might not even be speaking the same language?
Instead of asking any questions or being honest with ourselves about what we mean when we say love, marriage, or relationships, we get swept away with our feelings, jump into relationships with blinders on, and make them the most significant, and the most difficult, part of our lives. There is nothing that creates more pain and sorrow, or thrill and joy, than falling in and out of love. We decide that relationships are worth suffering for, and are more valuable than being alone. So somewhere we were taught that there is something we can have in a romantic relationship that we cannot have without one.
When we struggle with our relationships we assume we must be wrong, or that our partner is wrong, or something is wrong with our relationship. We devote our lives to solving our problems and fixing ourselves so we can then be worthy of a “healthy, happy relationship.” Have you decided that some part of you needs fixing before you can have a relationship? And what have you decided it takes to fix it? What if there is nothing wrong with you, even if you feel like shit? And what if there is nothing wrong with your partner either, even when he hurts your feelings or how annoys you.
Ah yes, good old feelings. They never let us down! Ok, so this might sound very strange, but what if our feelings are not what they seem? They “feel” real, they certainly have a huge significance in most people’s lives, we have been told time and time again to be in touch with our feelings, and we have even been taught how we can control others with our feelings, especially if we feel sad or hurt. Our emotions are very important, or so we are told. But have you ever started feeling sad out of nowhere? Or angry? What if we pick up on each other’s emotions, and because we care for each other, share their thoughts, feelings and emotions or try to match them?
Do you ever watch a sad movie that makes you cry? Is that actually your emotion or a psychological response to understand the story being told? Do you ever feel emotional when a movie ends with a confession of love? Do you ever feel like you are in a great mood and then someone’s attitude weighs you down? If you are going to know what you truly desire to create for yourself as a life, a body, a business, or a relationship, you have to be totally clear with what feelings are yours and what feelings you have been desperately trying to make real and true for you. What if your feelings have nothing to do with your desires?
Feelings confuse us and trick us into thinking we need or want something, instead of choosing whatever works for us. With feelings, judgment follows. When we feel sad we are justified in claiming that we have been wronged, when we feel glad we are justified in judging someone or something as good. Of course most of us are quick to turn our parents’ feelings into judgements against ourselves, or against them, or against everyone! Either way, judgements based on feelings are destructive lies.
It may not surprise you that how we are judged as children, especially by our parents, has an effect on our relationships as adults. And it is not only how we were judged by our parents as good or bad that comes up again and again in our love lives, but however they showed or did not show affection will also either comfort, confuse, or haunt us. And a lot of us would rather avoid looking at the past. We especially don’t want to think about our parents or childhood when it comes to our romantic relationships.
Isn’t it easier to go with the flow and just wait and see what happens? Or are you waiting for someone to rescue you from your judgments of yourself? I realize now that I absolutely expected my husband to care enough about me to prove my judgments wrong or make them magically disappear. And that was definitely not the easy way to start a marriage.
How many of us even as young children try to save our parents from the pain of their own judgements?
If we wait for anything to happen to us, or if we depend on someone else to love us when we refuse to, we are denying that we have anything to do with creating our lives and futures. What if we are actually creating everything in our lives including our bodies and relationships? Including our money flows and orgasms? The choices we make create our lives.
If you are in a relationship or if you are alone, if you are happy or sad, if you have given up or if you are having a more phenomenal life than you ever thought possible, you are choosing everything that is showing up.
So before we begin to talk about what we truly desire for our lives, we actually have to acknowledge that we desire to be alive, or if we have given up on life? If we do not claim, own, and acknowledge that we value our lives, we will not choose or invite things or people into our lives that will make our lives more valuable.
If we admit to ourselves that we are committed to living, we can also begin to admit that we have desires including sexual, financial, future, and “naughty” desires that we have kept secret because we are terrified of receiving that much judgement. We likely judge most of our desires as naughty or wrong, selfish or perverted, etc from the time we are young and can feel everyone judging us, each other, and themselves.
Have you been taught to deny your desires? Were you made wrong for being sexual? Or for turning someone on? Or are you just aware of how wrong everybody feels when it comes to desire? Or were you made for asking for too much?
And please do not be so hard on yourself if you do not know what you actually desire in life or if you have spent your life trying to make other people happy. No one pulls us aside and reminds us to make sure we are choosing what works best for us.
And if those questions brought up any feelings of wrongness, will you let all of that go now? Even by asking questions we can begin to acknowledge and change where we are making ourselves wrong.
This is also the first step to acknowledging what you desire. We cannot be honest with what is true for us if we are holding onto any judgements that we are right or wrong. I completely understand that the very idea of not being right or wrong may sound impossible, and I lived in the land of judgment and drove through the tunnel of wrongness every day for a very long time, but it is possible if you are willing to ask questions instead of stewing in judgment.
What if you asked:
- What do I know is truly important to me?
- If I wasn’t wrong, and could never be right, what would I choose?
- Who would I choose?
- Is this truly what I desire and would like to have in my life?
- Is there anywhere I am being dishonest with myself?
Whether you keep a list on your phone, write in a journal, or ask yourself questions every day, begin acknowledging what you desire, big or small, such as :
- I would love to have a boyfriend that makes me laugh every day
- I would like to go on dates around the world
- I would like to meet a man that desires to have children one day
- I desire to have a relationship with lots of pleasure and fun
- I would like to meet a woman who turns my body on and likes to play
- I would like a partner who enjoys being with me but doesn’t need me to be happy
As you ask yourself these questions and begin to acknowledge your list of desires, go through them often and check if they still feel true to you. You can ask, truth, is this desire mine? Who does it belong to? I know it sounds strange, of course the desire is yours because it’s on your list, right? But are you chasing a dream that is not yours? Are you trying to force affection with someone who’s just not interested?
