Three reasons why your romantic relationships suck, have sucked, or will suck. I work with a lot of different clients in improving their relationships. I am talking “big R” Relationships. Relationships with themselves, with others (family, friends, romance), and with their chosen professions. I believe, and it is in my experience, that who we are being in these relationships makes the largest impact on our experience of life. For this conversation let’s talk about romantic relationships. I’ve identified patterns that seem to create breakdowns in our relationships and ultimately our experience of life and I’m going to share them with you now and a couple of tips to improve them. Ready? Let’s go!
1. Wait, but who am I?
You have no clue who you already are. Having a strong sense of self and understanding of who you are is critical if you are ever going to understand your partner. Ask yourself the question “who am I?” and don’t answer it with any doing or achievement related answer. Try it right now, I’ll wait…. Cool. What did you come up with? Most often when I ask this question of “who are you?” I’ll get the response describing what a person does. “Well I’m a lawyer, doctor, nurse, teacher and I like to work out.” But who are you? “Oh, I like to take vacations and go on hikes with my partner” But who are you? “I have an undergraduate degree in blah blah blah and I’m getting my masters in blah blah blah.” But who are you? Ad infinitum.
This back and forth can go on for quite some time and what I am really pointing to is that most of us assign who we are AND ultimately our value by what we do, achieve and accomplish. Now it’s not a terrible thing BUT the next thing we do, achieve, and accomplish has to always be in play otherwise we lose who we are. It’s always the next thing and it’s a very disempowered externally driven way to live life. Now one of the coolest things I get to do with my new clients is re-introduce them to themselves. Remind them who they are while connecting them to their life’s purpose. Alignment of your power, purpose, and possibility comes and hang on because your experience of life and relationship is going to change. Know yourself and your romantic relationship will improve.
2. You are a victim
Reason number two why your romantic relationship sucks is because you are a victim. Everything is hard and everything is an attack on you. You’re probably being a victim right now from reading that last sentence. “Not me, no way, screw you Bob” You have a number of tactics to control and manipulate your relationship and partner and when it doesn’t come off just right, you do your thing. Shut down, stone wall, get a whole bunch of feelings, and make yourself right and them wrong. It’s almost like a wounded animal backed into a corner, ready to lash out, defend, and deflect. I get it. It’s hard. It’s scary sometimes but you still get to choose in every moment who you want to be. So choose.
Your inner victim is killing your relationship. Take a deep breath and take an even deeper look inside of yourself. What’s the threat? What are you still holding on to after all these years? What is the armor and shell around you protecting you from? What are you afraid is going to happen? Successful, loving, fully expressed relationships require a choice AND a huge dose of vulnerability every day. Most of my clients connected to their inner victim are scared. Scared of hurt. I get this too but that fear is keeping you from trust, keeping you from vulnerability, keeping you from power, and keeping you from the level of intimacy and commitment that your heart has been screaming for. Stop it now. Your victim is tied to you not knowing who you are. Time to get responsible! I’m able to show my clients that this power from responsibility is in them and that they no longer need to protect themselves. Their hearts begin to crack wide open. Gives me chills.
3. You don’t know what you want.
So, you don’t know who you are, have been playing the victim card and now comes the icing on the cake. You don’t actually know what you want from your romantic relationship. From unknowing, safety and victim, you want, wait, NEED your partner to behave and act a certain way but you don’t actually know what you want. Like REALLY want. Likely, you don’t even allow yourself to dream here. Especially those of you in long-term relationships who have essentially resigned to having it go any other way than the way it has been going. Let’s take another deep breath and a whole heap of honesty here. Ready?
Take a look from pure possibility and creation. Not how its gone, how you think it’s gonna go or believing that you can’t have what you want. Stop that shit. Open heart, open mind, and pure possibility! OK, what is the experience of the relationship you want? How does your partner make you feel? What’s it like being with them? What’s it like being away from them and what it’s like coming home after a long day? How do they greet you? What do they look like? How do they smell, taste, and kiss? How’s the sex? What do they do for a living? How do they treat other people? What are you working on together? What is the experience of partnership in creating your life together? What are the combined goals? How do they make you a better person? How do you make them a better person? How will it go when things are hard, you fight, you get caught in a lie, or you need space? Write down all of the things, ALL OF THEM, on a piece of paper. All of the things that need to exist in your relationship for you to be satisfied, feeling loved, and ultimately THRIVING. Do whatever it takes to create that experience with your partner every day. Put something into action and create it. EVERY DAY.
So, to recap…
Know yourself. Your being, not your doing. Explore all of you and get to know all of you. Your upper and lower limits, your floor and your ceiling. The being of your humanness. The version of you from full expression, from love, the unique perfect you from power and heart.
Heal yourself. Your victim is the wounded version of yourself from survival. It is impacting all the relationships: the old, the current and the future. It takes courage to take this work on but heal yourself. Allow yourself to be with the unknown and the fear. Stop resisting and start allowing. Allow yourself to be.
Dream. Get clear on what you want. So clear it hurts. So clear that you may have to swallow some truth and realize that what you have is NOT what you want. You’ll need even more courage to do something about it. Create your present by pulling it from the future. Give yourself permission to dream, to desire, and to demand this experience of relationship and love in your life.
I support brave individuals in creating the relationship they want with courage and heart. I can help if you are willing. Hit me up for a complimentary coaching session and get to know a little bit about the real you and the relationship you want.
Big love and even bigger possibility,
Bob
