More Stranger at My Door

I won’t be done getting lessons from yesterday’s visitation for a long time (click here).
In her desperation and confusion she kept repeating, “I do everything to make him happy and he ruins everything! I just want to be loved.”

Too many of the things she said were things I've said aloud to others or to myself about my various situations (mostly situations with men). The "he ruins everything" is a personal favorite.

I scream it like Hermione Granger did in my favorite Harry Potter film (Goblet of Fire) when Ron just didn't get it. In his cluelessness he didn't ask her to the winter ball. She wound up going with the popular hottie, but she really wanted Ron to ask her. At the end of the night she explodes on him, telling him that next time he should ask her like a real date and not at the last minute as a Plan B.
She finishes her tirade with
"YOU RUIN EVERYTHING!"
then plops down on the stairs in her pink ball gown,
exasperated.

Oh, Hermione.
Poor Ron was just doing what guys do: walking around clueless fulfilling their needs and taking care of themselves. Ron wasn't a bad guy. He was just clueless. Sometimes screaming helps. It wakes them up.

Sometimes saving your breath is what's best.

Sometimes moving on is what's best.
Real life guys don't come through like Ron Weasely.

But, back to my visitation and her he-ruins-everything complaint.

My neighbor went on and on about how hard she worked to make her husband happy.
"I cook for him.
I clean.
I dress the way he wants me to.
I talk the way he wants me to.
I stopped smoking.
I stopped drinking.
I love to cook for him but he just comes home with this face and wants to go into the corner in the dark away from me.
I give him sex but what I really want is love.
He says he's restless when he's around me.
I feel so alone when I'm with him.
I do everything for him but he resents me.
He says I ruined his life
but he ruins everything for me."

Wow.
She gave and gave and gave
and when he recoiled from her she stepped up her game and gave more.
This is what women are conditioned to do and what gets us a whole lotta nothing, or worse, it gets us criticism, abuse, neglect, and break ups.

We're conditioned to be good wives, caretakers, self-sacrificers.
We think that working so hard to make our significant other happy will get us the love that we want. We think that the more we do and the better we do it the better they'll treat us.

Catering to men, doing everything for them, anticipating their needs, trying so very hard to make them happy doesn't work.
That behavior turns us into their mother.
Men cannot be romantic with their mother.
The more we do for them in a motherly way the more we'll be treated like and feel like an unsexy hag.

She lost her Self in her desire to please him,
but women aren't taught to be self-ish.
We're taught to be self sacrificing and that's exactly what happens. We sacrifice self, the self shrivels up and suffers, and we don't get loved.

So, why do we behave this way?
Why is this poor girl trying so hard at something that 's just not making her happy?

John McMullin says that we learn these behaviors as children.
In order to get love and attention we act out.
Girls try to please their daddies by being cute, or making them proud, and being Daddy's girls.
We work hard for our parents' approval. When we're little it comes easier. Anything we do is cute and Daddy scoops us up and gives us love and kisses.

As we get older we have to do other appeasing things. We might bring him his newspaper or his coffee. We might prepare food for him. We do more grown up things to get love, attention, approval, and affection.

When we go out into the social world we re-enact these same patterns, but those patterns don't work. We can't treat our lovers like Daddy and expect them to behave as lovers.
We give and give at the expense of our own wants and needs.
We lose self-respect.
We lose our love-interest's respect.
We aren't cute and loveable, we're seen as needy and controlling.
After all, our attempts to garner approval from Daddy were a form of control.
Men in romantic situations don't want to be controlled.
All the doing, giving, and conforming she did just made him resent her more.

I tried to explain this to her.
I'm not sure she was in the condition to understand.

She did ask the next good question,
"What should I do??"

Take care of yourself.
Make yourself happy.
Be a fully formed person on your own.

"I was a fully formed person but I gave up everything for him."

Good! Now you know what doesn't work!
Stop doing that. Stop trying to please him.
Go out into the world, the community, heck, sit under a tree and read a book.
Do anything for yourself that makes you happy.
You put that man on such a pedestal you can't even reach him any longer.
Walk away.
If you can't walk away from the marriage then walk away from him when he shuts you out.
Don't be angry and resentful, just go do something on your own.
Being angry and resentful is still a form of control. It's being angry about being owed something.
Give freely, but not as much.

She stared off into the distance.
The idea of being her own person was alien to her.
She had forgotten what it was like to be single and free.
She forgot how to enjoy life.

She looked around my apartment at all my religious artifacts, books, my cats, my decor and asked why I wasn't married.

Well, not finding anyone good enough was true,
but it's more about not having learned to love myself.

I was speaking with a few of my adult students today after my psychology class about this dynamic. You know what they said to me? They said that surely I didn't have this problem because I was so beautiful, sexy, and smart.

Of course they see me that way. I'm "on" when I'm in the classroom.
I'm confident in myself and the material I teach.
I am there to be a guiding light to them and to be joyful in their learning.
It's a dynamic exchange of energy.
It doesn't surprise me that they find me "attractive".
I am
and when I'm with my students I'm not lying down like a doormat hoping they'll appreciate me.
I fill and am fulfilled.
It's dynamically harmonious
and I come across as beautiful, sexy, and smart...attractive.

So, how do we begin to love ourselves?
Take a lesson from this girl.
My Qi Gong master shared this video on Facebook.
Let's learn from her!!
Click here or click below

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