Relationships Can Be Hard If Your Seeking Love From Another
Relationships Can Be Hard If Your Seeking Love From Another. Are you finding it increasingly difficult for you and your partner to get along.
Is the communication is non existent? When you do try to talk it leads to constant fighting, tit for tat, attempts to pull up examples from the past to hurt each other?
Maybe it’s time to take an honest look at behaviors that are destroying your relationship. It may also be time to see that none of us were taught how to effectively communicate growing up. We are like children wearing blindfolds bumping into walls. And that is often on our best days. So maybe just maybe its time to cut each other a break.
Can you imagine a world where we all stayed in our own lanes and stopped imposing our “right views” upon others? We would see a more peaceful world. A world where we truly were operating from unconditional love and respect for ourselves and others.
Unfortunately many truly believe their way is the right way. How can there possibly be one right way. There are as many right ways to do any one thing as there are people on this planet. When you become so “righteous” you are no longer teachable.
To quote Socrates -“I know that I know nothing” To be wise is to admit to knowing nothing. Be humble and learn to appreciate the fact that you don’t know everything. That your partner may actually want the best for you.
Relationships Can Be Hard If Your Seeking Love From Another
Is it anger, inability to communicate your feelings, lack of patience or empathy keeping you blocked from one another? Be able to stay the student and learn. Ask questions. Stay open to hear honest feedback. It’s in this space of being open we start to master our emotions and learn that there’s never been a time we can blame others for our own emotional state and reactions. We learn that we can no longer play the role of the victim and blame others for our unhappiness.
Couples come together for all sorts of reasons. Some are seeking love, protection, financial security, fear of being alone,etc. Most don’t even know why. We have been so programmed by society and our families to believe that if we are not in a relationship and married by a certain age then we are a failure.
If we could just start to see our partners as a mirror reflecting back to us those areas inside of us that we have yet to masters. We can then see them not as the enemy but as a teacher. To do this requires awareness and a higher level of consciousness. You must be able to not personalize everything and become instantly defensive. When you get defensive your fighter comes out and you attack one another. This starts the cycle I refer to as the “crazy train”. A never ending loop of “I am right and you are wrong, You don’t get me, I don’t feel heard, you don’t appreciate me and so on.”
We only focus on those aspects that we find irritate us about one another. Once we do that the gloves come on and it is hard to get back to the place that I refer to as “flow”. The state of calmness, the ability to let things be as they are. We want the other to just conform to our way of doing things.
Where you used to be friends it seems now you’ve become enemies. Attacking each other unkindly, assassinating each other’s characters.
We must see that there is always some useful information our partner is sharing even if you don’t like their delivery. We get so caught up in the way a person says something and never hear the words they are saying. Before they are even done talking we are already thinking of our rebuttal and lining up for our attack.
Watch the ego as it wants to personalize everything. Here’s a news flash. It’s not about you. You are just asleep and unaware as to why your upset that another said something you don’t like. Why can’t you hear something about yourself that is unpleasant? Maybe the truth is that you do need to look at an area where your being unkind, selfish, obstinate, acting superior and demeaning. If you can allow your partner to give you feedback, then you can both grow together. It takes two mature and awakened individuals to hold the space to be able to do this work.
Relationships Can Be Hard If Your Seeking Love From Another
If you still have unresolved wounds from your childhood or past relationships, then you will play out those narratives with your partner. They don’t stand a chance to convince you that they are not your past experiences. And why should they. What a waste of time. Who wants to stick around in a relationship trying to be seen for who you are and not the person or narrative your partner has laid on you?
Each person comes into a relationship with their own set of belief systems that have been shaped by their childhood experiences and traumas.
These experiences have created a person’s own set of beliefs and agreements about this world. At a young age the blinders come on and we begin to have a narrow perspective about this world. This perspective is shaped by our parents, society, educational system, religion, and any other influencer a child may encounter. Each are unique to that child.
Depending on your childhood you may have become frightened and scared to confront others. Maybe you were silenced as a child and you desperately fight to be seen, heard, and validated. We bring these responses and needs into relationships and subconsciously play out our childhood perceived needs and wants with our partners. We feel abandoned if we are not the center of attention, resentful if talked over and so on.
In order to break these patterns and see our partner clearly, we must do the deeper work of first understanding why we react the way we do when certain buttons are pushed.
We are so quick to lash out at others and play the victim believing that if he or she had not done or said a certain thing then you would not be upset.
When these buttons are pressed, we must not react outwardly but rather go inside and ask yourself, “why did I feel so triggered, “did my partner’s comment hit upon some unresolved issue I have yet to look at?”
It’s better to seek to understand than to be understood. That is what it means to raise your awareness and have abstract thinking. To be able to try to see life through the eyes of another. This is where compassion stems from. We see that each were shaped and molded slightly different. When the need to be right and validated is no longer present we are now operating from our higher awareness.
To have the ability to remove yourself from your programming and truly seek to put yourself in another’s shoes is a true gift you give to yourself and others. You start to see that it has never been another’s job to “get you”. That is your job and your job alone.
Not only will you see it’s not about you. You will cease to blame your parents and others for your feelings of inadequacies and shortcomings. We are all here just trying to figure things out. Our ego or false sense of self is slick. It disguises itself as the fighter, the victim, the defensive one, the know it all. We wear mask that we are unaware of and lose the true sense of who we innately are.
Each take offense to everything because our ego is bruised, and we feel our partner has deliberately attacked us. We fear the world is out to get us. Then we make everything about ourselves. Everyone is getting into each other’s lanes trying to convince one another their way is the one and only way to see the world. We steal the moment from others and selfishly start telling our partner how much we have been affected by everything we perceive they do or don’t do right.
Resentment and feeling hurt sets in. We want the relationship to work out so we stuff our feelings and placate each other just to avoid the argument. We let these feelings boil and fester till we can no longer stand it and then explode over any little thing that happens usually totally unrelated to the original pain or perceived injustice.
Benefits of Seeking Counseling
Many coming into therapy know it’s over yet feel that if they can at least say they attended they gave it a shot. No one wants to be labeled as the bad one that ends the relationship. So, we stay together for years remaining in pain, fear and anger at each other. Be brave enough to tell your partner where you are in the process. If you can without the expectation that they “fix the problem or concede to your need then we can own our part and take 100% ownership for our actions.”
Contrary to what we have been taught, it is not your job to make the other happy. It is our own responsibility to find our own happiness within ourselves.
That’s a foreign concept to most. We were not raised that way by family and society. Who you think you are is just a collection of who others have told you that you are your entire life. That is a hard reality to hear but one you must see in order to leave the role of victim hood behind. When you become the victim, you give all of your personal power away.
We were programmed to believe that once we found a partner it was and is their job to “fill us up, and to make us happy. We are now living outside of our alignment trying to complete each other. This “Jerry Maguire” fantasy is so painful to watch as a therapist.
Everyone is running around trying to make the other not upset that we find ourselves constantly walking on eggshells. What kind of a relationship is that? What does any of that have to do with love? How is that even possible? Love does not require you to fix or do anything for another. Just to learn to accept that we each play our own unique music and seek to understand them.
Can anyone even define what these words love, trust and loyalty mean? No! They are personal to each person. We blindly walk into relationships expecting our partners to understand our definition. Yet no one has done the work on themselves to even know their own definition.
We are so far out of our own lane trying to desperately impose our definitions onto others. This is a never-ending battle and cycle. We go around placing unrealistic expectations onto each other than get hurt and offended when they don’t fit our paradigm.
We make assumptions without communicating them to each other and expect our partner to be a mind reader. Well we are not and unless your able to articulate yourself others will always be left missing the mark and in a state of constant frustration. You will just keep repeating this cycle in relationship after relationship.
And you wonder why people walk out on you in a relationship? Because no one can live up to your standards and expectations. If you don’t know yourself how in the world can we expect another to even try to see it from your point of view. Good luck with that. It’s not a mystery then when others leave you. They have given up and feel defeated.
Stop blaming others for leaving you. That is on you. I see relationships where a couple will stay together for years in a constant state of anger, bitterness, complacency and just “going through the motions”. What a horrible way to live.
Relationships Can Be Hard If Your Seeking Love From Another
Give your partner accurate information so that they can make an informed decision. Don’t let guilt hold you back and allow the other partner to think you’re invested when you’re not. Your partner knows when you have withdrawn, and the energy or flow is no longer there. Can you hold the space for each other? Not making it about yourself. Can you just be present to listen to another without trying to fix them, have an agenda or instantly feel they are intentionally trying to hurt you? Why do we feel the need to give our advice when no one asked for it in the first place?
We don’t even allow others to finish what they are saying before we start to think of our next attack move in attempts to lash out and hurt one another because our pride and ego feels bruised. We close ourselves off from really hearing one another. Everyone is running with their own interpretations and making up assumptions. Why does it have to be about you? Allow others to be where they are.
To unconditionally love another means you don’t need to fix, manipulate, squeeze, push, pull or change anything about that other person. It is the total allowance to let others do their dance. Seeing that we all bring in a different and unique perspective about this world.
There is never the need to impose your truth onto anyone. When you feel the need to do this then you are operating out of fear. Fear that if your paradigm of how you see the world is shaken in anyway then you will lose control and this is just to scary for most.
Why are we all running around trying to be right? We want others to get us. We say, “you aren’t understanding me or you don’t get me”.
Where was it written that others had to get us? It’s our job to get ourselves. How arrogant of us to think that others outside of ourselves must devote the time to get us and figure us out. Do you even get yourself?
Stop trying to get others to see your point. If they choose to then great but drop the expectation that they must. Why do we seek to gain water from another’s well? It’s always going to be dried up and empty. That’s because the idea that another can fill you up is a false narrative from our past conditioning.
This idea that another is supposed to “fill us up, love us, complete us is impossible. That’s your job. You came into this world alone and are going out alone. Start to be comfortable in your own skin. Learn to love spending time with yourself. We are all running around trying to stay busy believing we have so much to get done. Just admit that you don’t want to be still. To sit still means you must be left alone with your mind. Is it mastering you or are you mastering your mind?
You could never in a million years expect another to carry that weight. You would always be let down. It was never their job in the first place. When we hold sand gently in our hands it stays. When we squeeze, it starts to slip through our hands. This is what we are doing to each other constantly.
We claim to love our partner unconditionally, yet we want them to conform to our way of thinking and behaving. Hold others lightly and they will stay. Squeeze and they will push back and leave.
Why is it when we want something we grasp to keep it? By being still all things naturally come to us. We need to take a different view of these things called wedding vows. Promising to love and protect and honor and cherish. They sound like great concepts but what do any of them really mean? Is there one standard definition? Have we discussed them with our partner before we say them? No! We go into relationships and marriages in a fog of dissolution.
Can you be still long enough to let your sand settle? Are you such a creature of habit that you create chaos and drama wherever you go? Your not used to things being calm that you have to seek out drama. You pick unnecessary fights with your partner.
You create waves of energy that are felt by your children and loved ones. The act of not doing is doing. It’s in sitting still and not grasping that all things naturally fall into place. The best relationships are the ones that seek to honor and respect each other’s perspectives and unique qualities.
Love does not want or desire another to compromise their own morals and set of nonnegotiables. We should at least know what those are and communicate clearly with each other, so each is informed. Yet if we don’t know ourselves well enough, how can we even start to explain to others our perspective.
Do The Work On Yourself
Go to a higher state of consciousness where there isn’t the need to be “needed and supported in order to feel loved.” Work on yourself as an individual to become whole and happy in yourself. Once this is achieved you will find that being with another comes naturally. When you don’t need them to “fill you up” you can truly start to enjoy and appreciate each other’s uniqueness. Now we are living truly in a state of unconditional love, for ourselves and others.
