by Margaret Paul
Most people cite a number of reasons for why a relationship didn’t work out.
Do any of these sound familiar:
“We fought all the time.”
“He cheated.”
“She was too possessive.”
“We didn’t know how to communicate.”
“We were incompatible.”
“We just grew apart.”
After working with couples for over 50 years, I’ve heard all these. And the majority of these people go on to be unhappy in their next relationship.
That’s why, if you’re in a relationship now and things have gotten so bad that you think you might be better off with someone else, you need to pay close attention to what I’m about to tell you.
The Common Denominator In All Your Relationships
The statistics are pretty grim:
About 41% of first marriages end in divorce. So do 60% of second marriages and 73% of third marriages.
Why is this?
Shouldn’t people get better at picking someone who is better for them?
The answer is that it’s not about the partner you choose. It’s about the person you take with you.
And that’s you.
You bring your issues from relationship to relationship, which means you’ll go on to recreate unhappy circumstances with someone else.
And the biggest issue we all bring—and the one that can and will bring a relationship down—is self-abandonment.
What Self-Abandonment Is And How It Starts
Self-abandonment is what happens when you make someone else responsible for your feelings and sense of self worth.
You’re essentially looking to someone outside you to take away your uncomfortable feelings and make you feel okay.
We are all prone to this, and it starts in childhood.
See, you came into life expecting to be loved. But if your parents or caregivers didn’t know how to love, or see who you are in your beautiful essence, then one of two things happened:
1. You realized these people didn’t know how to love you. You understood that they were just limited in their ability, but you knew this didn’t mean anything about you. You were aware that whether or not someone loved you and cared for you was no reflection of your worth. You were confident in yourself, even in the face of rejection.
More than likely, however, this didn’t happen. Instead, like most of us, this happened:
2. You concluded that there must be something wrong with you.
And So We Search For Love And Acceptance
Even if you had very loving parents, you would have experienced some amount of pain. We all have, because no human being can provide 100% love for us all the time.
And if, when you didn’t feel the love, you decided there was something wrong with you, then you started feeling very uncomfortable feelings—depression, anxiety, emptiness, and anger.
These are big feelings your little body didn’t know how to handle. Back then, you coped by doing what kids and teenagers do: either rebelling or conforming as a way to get attention and love.
Then you grew up and discovered something amazing called romantic love. “Aha!” the little child inside you thought, “THIS person will give me the love I didn’t get.”
How Trying To Control Is Wrecking Your Love Life
In searching for the perfect partner, what you’re really doing is looking for someone to give you the perfect love your parents never could. You think that if you can just get your partner to give you this perfect love, you’ll always feel okay.
And this belief causes you to behave in destructive ways.
Because you’ve self-abandoned and abdicated personal responsibility for your feelings, you feel an urgency to make sure your partner gives you what you’re not giving yourself.
So you go into control, and not always in the ways you might think. Control can show up in the form of being overly nice and accommodating, or in being possessive and hyper vigilant. You can control by being overly compliant and by caretaking.
In each of these cases, you’re trying to make sure the other person doesn’t reject you. You think that by doing all these things, you won’t experience all the feelings that go along with believing you’re not lovable.
When Two People Haven’t Healed Their Self-Abandonment
You attract according to your level of self-abandonment and self-love.
Therefore, in a troubled relationship BOTH people have unhealed self-abandonment, and their problems stem out of control—on BOTH sides.
In trying to get love and avoid pain, both partners will engage in a variety of controlling behaviors that can inevitably lead to fighting, disconnection, and infidelity.
As each partner tries to get love from the other, they end up pushing each other away, creating even more anxiety, emptiness, and anger.
So it’s very important to learn how to create our own sense of worth rather than giving that power to your partner.
When you make your partner responsible for making you feel okay, you’re going to “pull” on your partner. You will place an impossible burden on them to take away all your uncomfortable feelings. As a result, they will feel pressured, smothered, and controlled.
And even if your partner does try to love you, there’s nowhere for that love to land. Because if you don’t love yourself first, you will not be able to fully receive someone else’s love. You won’t feel worthy of the love you so desperately want.
Your love for yourself provides the foundation for their love to land in your heart and soul.
Healing Self-Abandonment And Finally Finding The True Expression Of Love
We cannot connect with others when we’re disconnected from ourselves.
And we cannot share love with others when we’re not loving ourselves.
But when you realize that you’re the only person who can truly make you feel okay, you welcome the opportunity to take responsibility for your feelings. You make it your job to feel good, which in turn takes the pressure off your partner to make everything right.
As if by magic, even long-standing problems melt away as your need for control disappears.
This is my life’s work, and it’s the work that has helped couples in crisis completely transform their relationships where traditional therapy has failed.
And it’s why I’ve partnered with Flourish: so I can reach as many people as possible, and help them let go of the destructive controlling behavior they are using to get love.
When you subscribe to receive our FREE Relationship Advice Newsletter, you’ll learn all about Inner Bonding—a six-step process that has brought healing to thousands. Through this process, you’ll be able to take responsibility for feelings of shame, emptiness, anxiety, and anger so you don’t pull on your partner to do this for you. Remember, your partner can’t possibly soothe all your feelings and make you feel okay, no matter how much he or she loves you.
You’ll learn how to define your own worth so you’re not depending on other people to determine you’re okay. That means you’ll no longer be trying to get others to pay attention to you or make you feel better.
Once you learn the process in this program, it becomes a lifestyle—a wonderful habit where you take care of yourself and create a better relationship simply through the act of taking responsibility for your feelings.
I’ll teach you how to identify when you’re operating out of neediness and control, and ultimately how to give yourself all the love and validation you need. From this place of total self love, you’ll finally be able to share love and create a healthy relationship.
You’ll also learn:
- How to transform your marriage from the inside-out, and feel loved, supported and seen again, even if your relationship has been strained for years.
- Specific things you can do to strengthen your relationship, even if your partner is not on board, or you can’t seem to be able to discuss your needs or concerns with them right now.
- Get specific tips on how to improve your connection with your partner without having to engage in long, drawn-out discussions or even couples’ therapy.
- What to do if you feel you’ve grown apart, lost passion, or have been together but living separate lives, and how to feel “in love” again using tools and techniques that will bring you close again.
- A secret that will change everything you thought you know about men, women, and how relationships “work”
- How to have more passion and connection… inside and outside of the bedroom.
Simply enter your name and email address in the box at the upper left or at the bottom of this page, and you’ll get all this plus much, much more.
It’s free, it’s easy, and you’ll be amazed at what a difference the tips and insights will make in your relationship!
When you learn to fill yourself up with love and you create your own sense of worth, something magical happens—you naturally want to share this love with your partner. No longer in a state of neediness, you just want to give. When two people come to a relationship like this, it’s the greatest joy in life.
Blessings,
