Hi there. Yes, you — with the childlike, pure, innocent heart. I see you. I see how hard you’re trying to make people feel loved. I know you want more from your relationships. You always did. It’s why you always broke up with your partners after two years, three if you tried extra hard.
I’m going to give you an informative post. Also, it’s a story-time post. I’m going to tell you something I’m in the process of learning about relationships. I hope I can give you a new lens to see things through, one that makes you see your worth.
If it wasn’t already clear, let me start by sharing the assumption my post is based on. I assume you don’t know your own worth. In fact, I assume you’re like me; you feel like something is wrong with you. Maybe you, like me, are shifting between not knowing what’s wrong and thinking YOU are what’s wrong. Or maybe you haven’t even gotten to a place where you’re aware that you believe something about you is wrong — the famous “you don’t know what you don’t know.” I honestly used to think I had a sense of worth. It wasn’t until later I learned I hated basically every aspect of myself.
I don’t know if it helps to hear, but I think most people don’t love themselves — not the way I mean when I talk about loving myself. I had to learn what it means, as well as what it requires of me, to love (in a way that makes the person I want to love actually feel loved). I didn’t know because it was never taught to me, which means my parents didn’t know, which means their parents didn’t know…
For most of my life, I believed a man would only be in a relationship with me if I gave him what he wanted. To make up for his lack of interest, I doubled mine. I also:
Tried making him want to open up.
Tried making him want to talk about his feelings.
Tried making him interested in me.
Tried making him want to do things together.
Tried making him put effort into the relationship.
Tried making him understand how his words and behavior impact me.
(My gravestone should say, “she died trying.”)
Now, here is where the story comes in…
The setting: A successful workplace. Employees are intelligent and knowledgeable, with a strong drive to continue developing their expertise. They are motivated, high-performing, and extremely attuned to what happens in the business.
Imagine they are hiring. The man they are interviewing is said to be really good at his job. The team is impressed by his resume, but they want to make sure. After all, a quality check is wise. So far, all they have is his word. So, the hiring team puts him on a six-week retainer. “This problem needs to be solved,” they say, and point to the report describing the problem. “We suggest you use the tools we are licensed to use and have made available.”
Weeks pass, and the problem is still a problem. The hiree has started googling ways to solve the problem and is spending hours talking to himself to brainstorm possible solutions, but for some reason, he refuses to interact with the tools offered to him.
When the hiring team intervenes and asks why he isn’t using the tools offered (after all, they want to see him succeed so they can hire him), the reasons he gives them leave them wondering whether he is some sort of genius or lives in a different reality altogether.
Here is what I’M doing as the hiring team: desperately trying to make him want to solve the problem so I can hire him.
If I were part of a hiring team in a highly successful workplace, I would say: “We’re looking for someone else.”
A successful workplace would not try to convince someone to want to work for them. They would hire someone who is qualified. They would also look for someone who is resourceful when it comes to tackling challenges.
Of course, there is a difference between a successful hiring team hiring and me trying to meet a partner. Although I can strive toward having the same objective mindset, wanting partnership sets in motion deep emotional mechanisms.
I haven’t been an objective hiring team, and maybe we’re not supposed to be. But for me personally, I would like not to play out all the dynamics I learned as a child (it has been really messy at times).
If you’re struggling with patterns from childhood, here are some thoughts I reflected on that helped:
Why is it bad that things are messy?
What if messy is not just a part of life, but in many ways life itself?
What if it’s supposed to be messy? What would be the reason? (I want you to find a selfish reason, something your soul can happily embrace.)
Think about a woman you admire. Has she gone through situations that were messy? What did she learn from those situations that made you look up to her even more? What is your messy situation helping YOU learn that other women will admire?
And for validation, in case you need it:
It’s okay not to want the messy, difficult, and painful parts of life.
Of course, you can want a relationship that’s safe and secure, and NOT messy.
You DON’T have to like repeating the same pattern or situation. Truly, it’s okay to be fed up with how deeply ingrained certain patterns are. For some of us, it was literally beaten into us. It’s going to take time and patience to unlearn and relearn.
Life will never be free from pain, but (1) you can be in less pain if you change your relationship to yourself, and (2) you can change your relationship to pain as well, which, weird but true, can make pain less painful.
AND, you can 100% meet someone you feel safe and secure with. Every messy situation is inviting you into a better relationship with yourself. That’s good because (1) it shows you what a real, safe, supportive, and caring relationship looks and feels like, (2) when you have created the relationship you dream of with yourself, life becomes easier, and (3) when you are able to be the kind of person you want to be toward yourself, you will organically set a similar standard for new people who enter your life.
Gunhild Archer, MD in Psychology and Counseling 