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Other Articles on this page.
*The Silent Destroyer in Relationships
*How Do I Handle Rejection?
Q.I have just found out that my boyfriend (now ex!) has been cheating on me with a friend. This bastard, who wasted a year of my life, has agreed to finish it. I am so upset I have asked all my friends to diss him. (CarmenH)
A. Can I ask you a special favour, Carmen? Don't go there! Please.
Blubbering, accusing, stalking and condemning will only vindicate why you were dumped. The only way to take revenge in such situations is to rise above it quickly and show the real love and respect he seems to be lacking. You were very happy in those 12 months and that's what you should focus on. People come into our lives for one of 4 reasons, only one of them permanent. But we burden every meeting with expectations of permanence and when that doesn't happen, we get angry and disappointed. We feel undervalued and used.
But that person has done their job and left. We should learn from it and move on, knowing someone even better is likely to be in the wings; not wallow in its negativity. You should not vilify others just because it has not worked out. That's immature. It only says more about you and your need to control than the other person. Often when we are hurt, we immediately forget what that person gave us or what they contributed to our lives. We focus just on the awful bits and seek revenge.
But what you should keep your eye on is this:
Just because he likes someone else doesn't make you any less appealing or wonderful. There will ALWAYS be someone else who appreciates you. He came into your life at a point when you needed him. He was there for you for 12 months of joy until you found out about him. You both decided to let it lie. Don't put him down now, otherwise, you also put yourself down in the process and that is not very attractive. Be generous and better than he was by thanking him for being there for you, while adding that you feel sad that he was not more honest. Tell him that you accept that, obviously, his standards are lower than you thought, which would make him incompatible with you, but that's life. He has only betrayed himself and his values, not yours. He merely disappointed your expectations. In this way, you also keep your dignity and respect.
Any relationship is an agreed acceptance that two strangers are TRYING to make it work between them, especially when they are likely to be very different personality and aspirations. By acknowledging the TRYING aspect, both parties also accept that the partnership might carry on forever, or it might break down tomorrow, but the element of a conclusion is ever present. It isn't removed just because one party wishes for something else to happen. So, best to just to enjoy every moment with few expectations and then be surprised, rather than expect permanence and be severely disappointed. Despite how rejected you might be feeling, you must try to be positive and resist the temptation to be vindictive because EVERYTHING we give out in life comes back to us in the future, as night follows day. If you carry on railing against him because of his actions, someone will come into your life later who will treat you even worse. It is called the Law of Attraction. You cannot attract positive people if you spend your time being negative. Your negative vibes will continue to keep good people away.
Carmen, it takes two for a relationship and each person has to be who they are. People cannot be who you want them to be. Just because he has violated your expectations does not make him any less of a person in deserving of some dignity. When we take up animosity against another it simply drags us down too, reduces our credibility and makes us no better than that person. He also did not waste any time in your life. You had the choice to move away from him at any point. You didn't, because you liked him too and what you were getting, so his love would have changed you in some way for the better.
What many people fail to realise with relationships is that life is a journey and every person we meet is designed to propel us forward on that journey to the next station, to fulfil our potential and aspirations in various ways. Very few are there to accompany us all the way. We LEARN through those relationships and there is ALWAYS a good reason why they don't last. We simply have to move on quickly to get what's waiting for us. If we learn from our mistakes, the new relationship is usually better because we are more experienced to know how to deal with it. It is always difficult to recover from betrayal. But if we keep an eye on the positive things we have, we move on much quicker instead of allowing our lives to be eaten up and destroyed by anger.
There are always two sides to a story, Carmen, and your friends are only hearing your side. It is very important that this side is seen to be fair. You seem a really intelligent woman, who lacks self-esteem and confidence just now. Please use that talent positively and you will rise above insecure guys like that. Give thanks for his attention, wallow in the negativity for just ONE day or one week, no more, wish him well and move on. You will be all the better for it. Better still, you will attract the kind of person you seek as you won't be tempted to bore them silly about your last bad experience.
True love is unconditional. It accepts that person as is, not as we wish them to be. Give thanks for someone coming into your life to love you. Many people will never have that opportunity. However, if he is clearly not the right type for you because of his behaviour, then you are better off without him. Try to focus on the future now and leave him firmly in your past. You have done your bit for his journey and now deserve much better.
The Silent Destroyer in Relationships
Two people become attached. That is accepted. People change from infancy to adulthood. That is also accepted. When two people come together in marriage or a relationship they will change over time during that relationship and, depending on their perception and aspirations, the change could be dramatic. That fact is seldom acknowledged by society or the parties involved. Instead the couple are viewed, and also perceive themselves, as static robots who will remain almost the same as they are in behaviour and outlook, from the day they move in together until they part or die. We do accept some change in partners but, to maintain our comfort levels, we expect it to be minuscule, to be in a vacuum and entirely unrelated to anything else!
But human beings do not remain fixed at any given point. As we mature in life, our attitudes, values and character change too. We actually evolve with every moment of our existence. With life being a journey, ongoing personal exploration and development is inevitable, even if it is resisted. It follows that if someone marries young, the maturing process will ensure that their view of the world, their expectations of life and their feelings about themselves (which are all shaped by personal experience and impacted by the presence of others) will be different a few years later than when they first started out on their adult journey.
Thus making vows on our wedding day to live happily ever after, for better or for worse, to love each other no matter what, is sheer pie-in-the-sky which ignores life’s essential evolution! A fine pledge for that exciting and unreal moment in time, when hot love and the desire for perfection move us to make such promises, but it often becomes a meaningless, emotional straitjacket when applied to the rest of our lives. The two people making such rash commitment will be very different by the familiarisation stage of the relationship, especially if there has been significant personal development during that time, like acquiring new skills, or a higher qualification, which tends to change our perception.
So, when two people become an item, despite the unrealistic expectation of little change, any unfolding relationship actually speeds up the evolutionary process. This is because we do not stop in our tracks once we pass our teens or we meet someone. Adulthood actually defines our development. Significant experiences, like accidents, illnesses and career progression, shape our existence. They build a unique life story that is different for each adult but, like DNA, one which is related to everyone else through generations. But such experiences will also be influenced, on the micro level, by individual perception, so that what is stressful for one adult in any generation may actually be exciting and challenging for another.
Changing Expectations
All new partnerships along our journey bring consequences of adjustment which are bound to affect us in some way, often negatively, as we adapt to our environment and seek comfort in it. We also encounter different experiences at the various stops, or what I would label 'staging posts', along that journey. At each of these staging posts, which are dictated by age, personal development and sporadic crises, our expectations will either change or regress as we come to terms with who we are and what we seek as individuals. Much also depends on how successful we are in resolving the two key issues of personal identity and attainment. With life being fluid, change is thus guaranteed in order to do justice to our physical, emotional and intellectual growth.
So, when you set up home with someone, it is inevitable that the relationship itself will evolve, either positively or negatively, as the parties adjust to each other. The nature of that change is usually dependent upon how mutually validating and satisfying the union becomes. As we pass from one age to the next, often with some difficult periods of transition, we learn and mature in the process. If we acknowledge and work through the issues of each successive stage, or staging post, we are likely to become more confident and effective individuals further down the line. If we find it difficult to cope, we then get stuck at one stage, especially when we fixate on only one point in our life, perhaps sunk in a mire of regret, and find that we are unable to move forward on our individual journey.
Given the fickleness of human nature, to expect no change in emotions over time is highly unrealistic. It is far more sensible to have reaffirmation vows regularly, with limited objectives throughout the partnership, ones that are easier to manage and execute, than idealistic promises which won’t be kept and merely breed guilt and resentment. Otherwise there will follow a painful realisation that one cannot continue to have the same feelings for another when both parties have evolved into very different beings from the ones who took the vows.
The desire for security, stability and unchanging human emotions has been responsible for causing the most angst, disappointment and feelings of failure in many relationships because they ignore inevitable changes caused by that silent but deadly destroyer – adult evolution.
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What does your home mean to you? Is your relationship/marriage holding you back? Try our RELATIONSHIP QUIZ to test how you feel about your partnership. A bad relationship robs you of a life because it has a domino effect on everything else. Find out the state of yours now.
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Elaine specialises in answering questions relating to DATING, RELATIONSHIPS, DIVERSITY, CAREERS, CONFIDENCE and SELF-ESTEEM, AGEING.
How Do I Handle Rejection?
Q. "Lately I've just been depressed and the thought of suicide is something that comforts me instead of scaring me. All these thoughts have happened cos me and my girlfriend split up (she dumped me). We had such a good thing (even though we were together for only a month) and I just can't seem to pull myself out of my depressed state. She's now got someone else and it drives me insane with jealousy. I want her soooooo much but I can't have her and it really hurts. Another thing that hurts is I've been dumped twice this year. This has destroyed my confidence as both girls have gone on about how 'nice' I am but have then still dumped me. If you have any words or advice for me it would be much appreciated thank you." Roger
A. First of all, I am really sorry to hear how you feel because life is such a precious thing. It is all we have, no rehearsal. But many of us find it difficult to deal with rejection. We think so low of ourself, we put our whole life in the hands of one person to get 'happiness' and then when it is withdrawn, the pain of losing it is too much to bear.
Let's start with some brutal truths. You got dumped because you expect other people to love you for you. You don't really love yourself, Roger, and that emotional state is very clear to the women you seek. They sense your constant need for approval and they don't like people who depend on them too much for love. They value some detachment. So they walk over you like a door mat. Your desire for external love allows you to accept that bad behaviour towards you (hence being labelled 'nice'). You gradually cease to become attractive in your passivity. And then you're dumped.
First thing to remember, Roger, is that any kind of love we seek from another starts with self-love and the acknowledgement that you are the most gorgeous man on the planet! If you do not accept that fact this minute, who is going to value you? You are a wonderful, unique, loveable person. BUT YOU HAVE TO LOVE YOURSELF FIRST TO SEE IT and also to get that love from another!
Lacking Personal value
A desire for suicide is about lacking value in yourself. Rejection only confirms what you already believe about yourself and suicide seems appropriate for such a 'useless', unlovable person. But just because someone is not keen on you does not mean your value is any less in everyone else's eyes. In fact, that is the time to bid that person a firm goodbye and loudly say "NEXT!". If you kill yourself today, she will still be shagging her new fellow, and you will be gone, depriving yourself of a life and some deserving woman waiting elsewhere of your love and company. Is that the best you can do with the life you have been granted when many others are dead? There are millions of women out there, Roger. Our life is a journey, not based on one event. Do you value yourself so little that you can take just one or two people's opinion and put yourself down? So what if some woman said no? There is ALWAYS a good reason behind why someone isn't right for us. It's just that we cannot see it at the time. Use rejection as a lesson in finding the right people for you and move on to a more fulfilling experience.
You are only 23 and your life is a journey, not based on one event. You are learning every day of your life. That's how we have so much knowledge, resilience and courage by the time we reach 40 or 50. Life is also about PLEASURE and PAIN. You cannot have one without the other. Something has to die first before something else begins. So accept that pain as part of your growth and increasing wisdom.
I know that this is very difficult for you, Roger, but you need to stop focusing on that girl now and start putting the spotlight on yourself. Begin to tell yourself DAILY that she wasn't right for you and you accept that, because you deserve BETTER.That her opinion is only one of millions. Rejoice that you had an enjoyable month with her and move on, wiser but more loving towards yourself. When you love yourself you will appreciate how special you are. Women are likely to find you more appealing because you won't need to cling to them. You'll love yourself first and seem even more attractive.
Most important, relationships come and go, but you have to be with yourself 24/7. If you matter the most, you won't give a damn about another person's actions. You will chalk it up to experience, look ahead and move on without living in regrets or the past - an much better for it too. I hope you have a better day tomorrow because you are a wonderful human being given a precious gift of life. Don't let someone else dictate its course, or devalue your worth.
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