LOVE

My Boyfriend is Choosing His Career Over Our Love

Love or career image - a chalkboard showing a hand drawn balance with the words love and career. — Is your boyfriend choosing his career over love?

One of our beautiful readers, Emily, is in a relationship with a man who is choosing his career over her.

Here's her story:

I am a fifty-three (year old) single woman, never been married with no children. I have not had a relationship with a man for ten years.

I haven’t been attracted to a man in that time; that part of my life didn't exist.

Over eight months ago I met a man through my work that attracted me deeply. He is an executive of a global company and is committed to his work. I have been passionate about my work so find that part of him attractive as well. I have been independent for so long myself.

We work in similar fields so have a lot in common.

Due to his work, he mainly communicates with me by text and there was a time, I may not hear from him for weeks. He was very direct in contacting me and in saying how he feels.

Having a man find me attractive is new to me. When we meet it is wonderful. I love talking to him and feel overcome by how he makes me feel. He is a kind and intelligent man. Over the past year, I have changed.

He has changed me. I now recognize I am a sexual attractive woman.

Over the past few months we have become closer. He is in contact more and says he loves me. I can feel that when I see him. We also live in different cities, which makes it harder. However, as he lives in a city where my family live I visit often. It is usually his work that hinders us in meeting. He travels overseas regularly and works nights.

Last week I visited him to catch up before he traveled overseas again.

I hadn't seen him in months, although he sends me regular texts, recently saying he loves me. I began to feel deeply for him and that I could love him too.Continue Reading

What Love Really Is

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What is it really about?

What are we spending so much of our time and energy trying to find? We say it’s love, we’re looking for love, but what exactly does that mean? And as one reader asked me in her quest to understand this subject, how do you know you’re in love? How do you define the feeling?

For so many of us, we thought it was simple. You meet someone you feel all those excited feelings with, you’re attracted to them, you feel an attraction from them that tells you they feel something to, and you begin dating, getting to know each other better, and eventually commit to each other in an exclusive relationship which leads to marriage – if that’s what you’re looking for.

Except, if you’re like most of us here, that’s not how it went down. In fact, that’s not at all how it happened.

Instead, you had feelings, he had feelings, it felt like you were falling in love. You got to know each other better in this cultural thing we do called dating, and then suddenly – or so it seemed to you – something changed and he became emotionally distant.

He pulled away, created more distance and left you with a broken heart feeling like you still love him and the feelings are still there. For you, but not for him.

So what is it?

What is it about this picture of love that gets played over and over again regardless of who we are, regardless of who he is, regardless of how strong our feelings may be?Continue Reading

Everything But Love

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I often find inspiration for my articles and posts in unexpected ways from sources I don't always anticipate. Yes, I get tons and tons of inspiration from your comments, your letters, your facebook posts and messages and from the wonderful conversations within the community we've built here. But sometimes it comes right out of left field.

The inspiration for this post came the other day while I was on hold.

Instead of the usual "elevator" music, this time I found myself listening to a song I hadn't heard since my early single days (and it was considered an oldie even then).

"I want you (I want you...), I need you (I need you...), but there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you; Now don't be sad (don't be sad...), cause two out of three ain't bad."

With a bit of a jolt, it all came rushing back to me.

I used to love this song!

I'd belt it out at the top of my lungs in the car (with the windows up), in the shower, or whenever it came on the radio and I happened to be in a place where I felt free to sing out loud.

But now with all I knew and everything I'd learned and all the cultural programming – including songs just like this – behind all the ideals I used to hold onto, I listened to the words in disbelief.

Wait - what?Continue Reading

How We Heal

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In our culture, there's a predominant belief that in order to help people we need to be direct, to the point, and take off the kid gloves.

This method is often portrayed as a loving approach by using the phrase "Tough Love".

Many people believe that this approach is the only way to get through to someone, and to help them make positive changes in their lives.

I have to say that I respectfully disagree.

In fact, this was the whole reason I created this website in the first place. And it's also the same thing that allows my coaching clients to become free to create the lives of their choice out of a place of being accepted and loved for who they are, instead of a place of shame and guilt over what they "should" be or "shouldn't" have been.

Most of you find yourselves here because you've seen enough of this kind of tough love to know it’s not working for you. You want more because you know you deserve more.

I know all about “tough love”.

I've seen first hand the damage that it can do and the ways it can adversely affect so many people who are given their share of tough love by some of the most well-intentioned and well-meaning people. It’s a concept that our culture has come to accept and expect from everyone dealing with those who they feel need to be taught, to be molded, to be shown, to be educated. To be "straightened out".

From the loving parent who takes a tough love stance with their children, to the teachers who believe this is the way human beings learn, to the counselors and the members of the clergy, to the court system and government, the tough love stance is everywhere. We've been so conditioned to believe it’s the only way to deal with the ones who “need it” in order to be put back on the "correct" path.

But the truth is that the exact opposite is true.

This isn't how we heal.

This isn't how we grow.

This isn't how we come to see what we need to see, to change our old ways and begin something new.

We're not going to grow because someone makes us feel like there’s something wrong with us for not being able to see what they can so clearly see from the outside. We're not going to heal when someone shames us because we’re so mired in what we've been through and what we still struggle with that we can’t get past the shame and guilt of being who we are. That’s not going to help us see what we otherwise can’t see.

In fact, the opposite is true. We don’t heal by being made to feel that there’s something wrong with us, no matter how well intentioned that person practicing tough love with us may be.

Because no matter how much we should be able to see the truth for ourselves, no matter how much we should be able to understand the results of our actions, when we’re going through it, the fact is we just can't see it, no matter how clear it is to others. When we’re in that place, it's so difficult to see the reality of what is instead of the fairy tale that we so want something to be, and being told we’re wrong, being denied our feelings and our perception that are so real to us only makes us feel worse about ourselves.

It doesn't help.

And what do we do when we feel bad about ourselves? Do we rise up and become that person that someone believes we should be? Or does their tough love stance toward us tap into a different time and place and only reinforce our own long internalized beliefs that there is indeed something wrong with us, that we are inherently “bad”, and so we deserve to be treated this way?

It’s so familiar that of course it jolts us into reality and leaves us saying whatever the person practicing tough love with us wants to hear.

And so we agree that they’re right and we’re wrong. We add them to the list of those we place on that familiar pedestal while we, in contrast, dig ourselves deeper into that pit. We beat ourselves up even more.

Unworthy, unlovable, and now feeling stupid, foolish, and ashamed.

These are just some of the gentler words we use to describe ourselves once it’s pointed out to us so obviously what is wrong with us – again.

For how could we not see it coming? How could we really believe it was going to be different with him? How could we not see the signs that were oh so clear for what seems like everyone else? How could we have been so blind, so foolish to believe it could be different this time? How could we not see the writing on the wall so clearly like everyone else could? With examples like this, we have such a hard time believing there isn't something so very wrong with us.

The ways we guilt and shame ourselves are endless, it’s a wonder we can even hold our heads up at all.

And then is it any wonder that we stop reaching out for any help? Is it really surprising that we eventually stop trying to get help and simply resign ourselves to the life of a stupid, shameful, foolish person who will never see this for herself?

And so we keep finding the ones who treat us this way, who reinforce the bad, and refuse to acknowledge that there might even be another side of these qualities worth something, worth salvaging at all.

You see, it takes so little for so many of us to pick up on what isn't said. The underlying feeling we sense from someone who can’t believe we can’t see what is so obvious to them.

So then what happens when we feel attacked in this way is that we can no longer hear what they have to say beyond this feeling we sense from them, even if they say so much more. We don't hear them anymore.

Instead, we shut down and our progress slows to a stop as we go into defense mode – it’s survival mode to us.

It’s how our story gets so strong. It’s how it gets so deeply embedded in our consciousness. It’s how it becomes our reality. We've got to do something – anything – to get a little piece of ourselves back.

This isn't how we heal.

This isn't how we come to see what we need to see. This isn't how we become motivated to get up, to take that first step, to try to do something different again. This is the opposite of how it’s done.

And it’s this opposite approach that is the only one I employ in my coaching practice.

That's how we heal.

It’s how most of my clients find themselves able to see things differently, to connect the dots for themselves, because I accept and love them unconditionally to a point where there is no need to defend, only to do the most loving things they can do for themselves.

We need our feelings – our very real feelings – acknowledged. We need to be heard and understood. We need our reality accepted as our reality and not our fantasy right now. We’ll get there, in our own time, in our way. We’ll get there.

But love us until we get there.

Accept us where we are right now. Not tomorrow, not when you start to see a change in us, not when we start to show some progress, not when we stop being such a disappointment to you. Love us now. Love us right where we are.

Are we really that unlovable? Are we really that bad? Do we really not deserve to be loved for who we are?

We know all too well just how human we are. We know we’re not perfect. Oh how we know! But we’re doing the best with where we’re at right now.

We’re feelers, we’re dreamers, we’re lovers. We see the potential in someone that only we can see. We see the story in something that only we can see. Can’t anyone see the beauty in us? The beauty in the other side of everything that we've been shown is so wrong with us?

Call it tough love, defend it as much as you like. But the way that you chart a path of hope to our hearts and souls has nothing to do with anything to do with “tough”, and especially not that kind of love.

It can only come through love.

The unconditional kind. The kind that acknowledges that you’re OK just as you are, right now, today.

Yes, I have hopes and dreams and plans for you that I can’t wait for you to discover for yourself. But they won’t mean anything if they don’t come from you, if you don’t discover them in your own way and time. It doesn't matter what that looks like to me, it only matters that you see the love and acceptance that is always there for you. That’s how you’ll get there.

And I know you will.

What do you need to be accepted for, acknowledged about, and loved through? I’d love to hear from you if this resonated with you. Share whatever you’d like in the comments. I read them all.

I Know I Should Run and Never Look Back, But I Still Love Him

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Our beautiful friend, Crystal, knows that she should run from her relationship and never look back, but she still loves him and wants him to fight for their relationship to prove her wrong. She needs our help!

Here's her story:

Good morning Jane,

I need your help! I'm devastated!

I've been with my boyfriend for 6 months and at first things were fine when I first met him. We came across the, "have you ever been married" and the "do you have any kids" question - I told him no to both and he told me he had a daughter but that he never had been married.

About two months in he went missing for like 3 days and I began to get worried so my best friend said well look him up and see what you can find out because this doesn't seem right. So I did and low and behold I found out he was married!

I was crushed I was heartbroken!

I later got in touch with him that night and I questioned him about it and he continued to lie until I told him if he told me the truth we could work it out. He finally confessed that he had been married and that he was going through a tough divorce but he's getting one.

He began to say that he loved me and he wanted to be with me.

He promised that, that weekend we would go out of town on a much needed get away to work on our relationship and I agreed to it because I liked him a lot. We were supposed to leave that Saturday and then that Friday he called me and said that a family member had passed, so we couldn't go.

When we first met he told me that he was a regional manager so he would have to go on site sometimes where work was being done and he would be gone at the most 2 weeks and then he would come back home.

Well Jane, he was always gone and it became a long distance relationship that I didn't sign up for. He started being gone a lot and just recently I hadn't seen him in a little over a month.

His jobs were going slow and he switched companies a lot because he couldn't get along with the people he worked for so money got low and then I started sending him money because I wanted to show him I was there for him.

Well this past Saturday was his birthday but he said he would have to "work" so he came back Friday 10/10. Just so happen funds were really low for me after bills but I was going to buy him an outfit and some shoes for his b-day.

Well he called me back Friday and said, "You're not going to believe what happened...man I'm mad."

I asked what happened and he says, "Some transaction hit my account and wiped my account out so now I have no money." He then said, "You didn't buy me anything for my birthday yet did you?" I told him that I hadn't picked it up yet but that I would after I got off. He told me, "Good well don't, you don't get a man gifts he should spoil you with gifts...give you money," so I got dressed for us going out that night and I just didn't feel right Jane!

Usually I would go without and give my last for him because I did it in the past but something wasn't right. He took me on this drive to the north side because his friend told him about this movie dinner place.

Here's a side note: every time we go somewhere someone recommends we should go and which are normally expensive places he always complains about the food and he ends up eating and getting his meal for free so Friday it was no different except for it was much worse - he caused a scene and I was so embarrassed we couldn't watch the whole movie because the uproar he caused. He's lucky he didn't go to jail - his profanity was out of this world - he cursed and cursed and cursed and when we got back in my car he said, "So you not gonna say anything and they just talked to your man like that?"

I told him I was very embarrassed and in mid sentence he said, "Shut the f--- up and let me talk."

Jane I was so hurt and outdone that he had talked to me like this and on the way back to drop him off at some random building I picked him up at he told me he was sorry and that he loved me.

I still had this feeling that something wasn't right with him.

I drop him off at the building where his "homeboy" is supposed to pick him up at and I made a circle just to see. Well as soon as I turned the corner he power walks back into the building at 11 PM and when he enters he looks behind him to see if I saw him.
I just drove off he called me and I talked to him on my way home.

The next day for his birthday I never heard from him and it's not like I could call him because his friends phone number shows up no caller ID and he never gave me the number - how convenient.

Sunday morning I wake up crying because I know he didn't call me because maybe he was with someone else like his wife or some other girlfriend. He calls me Sunday around 5:40 pm and he kept calling until 9 because I wouldn't answer him.

My Mom and sister said that I should leave him alone because he is a gamer and that he doesn't care for me, so Sunday when he called at 9 I picked up and then he told me another family member passed and I definitely didn't believe him this time because almost every time he knows I'm mad someone dies.

Well because I didn't give him the response he wanted he said that he thought we should put our relationship on pause because he has a lot going on mentally and family wise. He said that he needs to be a better man for me so he wanted to get off the phone with me to "pray" and he'd call me back...he hasn't called me back..

I'm so hurt Jane because I know something isn't right but he made me feel Sunday before he said we should take a pause that somehow this was my fault...after he lied to me and I found out it was never the same because when he would be out of town I just felt like a man isn't going to stay away from a woman he loves this long.

I know I should run and never look back but I feel so weird and crazy for still loving him and wanting him to fight for our relationship and to prove me wrong.

What really hurts Jane is that he is supposed to "move" back to Houston on 10/17 and my birthday is 10/22 - how convenient does he put a pause in our relationship when it's time for us to be together for good and when my birthday is coming up?

I admit I complained about him not spending time with me but am I wrong for that? Should I have kept my mouth closed?

Please help me because I feel like a crazy woman on Lifetime movie network who I would normally yell at and say she was stupid.

Help me Jane! Help me!

Thank you,

Chrystal

My Response:

You answered this one yourself, Chrystal.

There's a reason you feel like a crazy woman on Lifetime movie network who you would normally yell at! It's because when it happens to us, when we see all the warning signs and refuse to see them for exactly that, when we have such a strong sense as you did so many times here that something "isn't right", it's so hard for us to see just how crazy it really is.

You're not stupid - you're just blinded by what you think is love.

And you're in good company - some of the most intelligent women in the world have been involved with men who were never right for them!

It's about the way you see yourself. And it's what you don't see about how you deserve to be treated. It's how you can't see that the fact that this man is essentially still married and that means he's just not available for you - at least not in the way you want him to be.

I know you have the most beautiful of intentions.

I know you have such a capacity to overlook, to excuse, to understand, to look past all the glaring red flags and warning signs that tell you everything you could possibly need to know about whether this man is someone you really want to be with.

I know you see so much more of his potential than the reality of what you have in front of you right now.

Here's the reality: he's still married, regardless of where he is in his divorce. And even if he wasn't, does he really have what you're looking for to offer you? When you look at what you're really looking for, what you know you deserve, does he have that? When you say you didn't sign up for the long distance relationship it turned into, what does that tell you about how little say you have in this?

How convenient is exactly the point, Chrystal. This isn't about your birthday, his "moving back" or anything else about you. This is about him and what's working for him.

Trust yourself - you know! When you say "something doesn't feel right", you know it doesn't feel right, because something isn't right.

You second guess yourself and question whether you had the right to complain about him not spending time with you, and then you wonder if you should have just kept your mouth shut, because you know something isn't right with not saying something, but you don't trust yourself to know because of how conflicted you feel.

Of course you're hurt, of course some of this "really hurts", because you can't be with this person without being hurt. It hurts that he turns the tables on you and is blaming you for what happened because you know in your heart of hearts it's not your fault.

It has to be put on you to get it off him. He knows what he's doing, he knows what he's getting for putting out so little in return. And he knows he can because you're letting him. He has no reason to do anything differently because this is working so well – you are working so well – for him.

What more does he need? Obviously, nothing.

That's the point of this, Chrystal. No one needs to tell you what to do here, because you already know. You just need to listen to your own instincts, to your own true voice that keeps trying to show you that something isn't right so that you'll listen to yourself and see what this is really about.

It's not about him, it's about you seeing this for yourself so clearly this time so that you don't have to go through this again. That's why people show up in our lives, to mirror what's really going on within ourselves.

Would that strong, confident version of yourself who's just biding her time waiting to be seen, allow herself to brush aside all these red flags, all these feelings of something not being right, just for the chance to be with someone like this? Would she accept such crumbs, tell herself the stories you're telling yourself to keep on keeping on with someone who treats you like this? Would she give her "last" to someone who would never give her his?

I know you know the answer, but before you answer, I want you to know it's OK. There's no shame in falling in love with all of your heart for the wrong man - like I said, this happens to the very best of us.

This is about real life - your life. The kind of life that comes with feelings, and beliefs, and self-esteem, and cultural programming. The kind of life that falls in love and falls hard.

But behind that person who can't see, who doesn't see, is a better life. It's a life that deserves to be held compassionately and lovingly and treated gently for only being able to see up to the light that she knows.

It is OK, because it's you - a real, live human being. A beautiful soul with feelings, and dreams, and hopes, and plans.

You're human, Chrystal. And as much as it may feel like it, you're not alone. No matter who we are on the outside, we're not so different in what we'll do for love, if we're willing to admit it to ourselves. What others see so clearly, we can rarely see ourselves when we're so enmeshed and caught up in our own unmet needs that we can't see beyond this chance to finally get what we so desperately long for – to be loved.

That's why we call it love even though it hurts. If it's what we're used to. If it's all that we think we deserve. It doesn't matter how intelligent our minds may be, if we hold such a gaping need within us, how can we possibly see?

Tread gently with yourself here. Love yourself enough to allow yourself to see. Yes, it's clear to me and to others who share an outside perspective, but it has to be clear to you, too.

You run, Chrystal, into your own arms, into your own life. No matter who you are or what you've been through, it doesn't have to be such a long road back to learning to love yourself and create a life that's worth living, with only the people in it that are right for you.

But it has to be the choice that you make, not one that anyone else can make for you.

It always seems so obvious to everyone but the one asking the questions. Do you have any advice or thoughts for our beautiful friend, Chrystal? Please share them with her in the comments!

Why There's Never, Ever Anything Wrong With You!

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A beautiful woman is in a field with her arms outstretched facing the sunshine realizing that there's nothing wrong with her. — I'm afraid he won't want me if he knew the truth about me.

We say or do something we regret. We long for the chance to have a second chance to do it differently. We feel like we missed out on some amazing opportunity.

And then the worst damage we can ever do to ourselves begins; we beat ourselves up and label ourselves as damaged goods.

Oh we might come across on the surface like everything's OK, but only because we've learned over so many years how to play that part so well.

But inside, it's a different story.

We're mortified that we didn't handle the situation better, that we didn't listen to what we knew we should have done differently.

What's wrong with me? You wonder.

Why can't I ever get this right?

Why can't I be more like her [insert name of friend you secretly wish you were]?Continue Reading