Source: Simple Reminders
Tag: respect
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A Lasting Romance Is Built on Flaws: 6 Tips for a Strong Relationship
“Let our scars fall in love.” ~Galway Kinnell
We all bring our own baggage to any relationship. I know that my past relationships have shaped my approach to love and romance. When we seek out that special someone to share our life, the disappointments of our past relationships tend to get in the way of new discoveries.
It’s human nature to size up a potential partner by drawing from past experience.
There are so many ways to catalog the possible flaws: He’s too short. She’s too tall. Too fat. Too thin. Not enough education. Too much education. Or you become judgmental about how much your date eats or drinks or how they interact with other people.
The perceived flaws get in the way of making a connection.
It’s like the three bears’ approach to dating, looking for that partner who is “just right.” Too often we make the mistake of looking for a mirror of ourselves in a partner.
After a while, I realized that the perfect mate doesn’t exist. There is no “right” person who has everything on my perfect mate checklist. And even if I found someone with everything I was looking for, wouldn’t that relationship become dull with time? They’d be too much like me.
I finally figured out that it’s better to seek out a partner who understands and shares my failings; someone who would complement my worst characteristics. To find my soul mate, I first needed to be able to look inside, examine my character defects, and change them or embrace them.
As I got older, I stopped trying so hard. I started to relax, be myself, and invite women to accept me for who I am, flaws and all.
I can be geeky. I can be arrogant. I can be aloof. I can be a real know-it-all. I can be selfish. I have any number of character defects. But by taking my own inventory and laying my faults on the table for all to see, I could invite someone to accept me for me.
I finally married at age fifty. It took me that long to figure out that I had to be true to myself in order to be true to a partner. And now I have a beautiful wife and two terrific stepchildren who love me for me—flaws and all.
Like any family, we have our fights. When we forget how to tolerate the other’s defects, my wife and I can get into a real shouting match. It’s at those moments that I have to remind myself to embrace our flaws and follow some simple rules:
1. Communicate.
I tend to live too much in my head, and when I listen to my own inner voices too long, I lose touch with what’s real and start imagining the worst. Good communication solves that problem.
My wife and I share our feelings, our anxieties, our hopes, and our dreams. We communicate, but we try not to take on each other’s problems as our own. Just simply saying “I’m having a bad day,” or “I don’t really want to talk about that now,” we can stay connected and leave the doors of communication open without getting into a fight.
2. Respect each other.
Even when we disagree I always try to give my wife the respect she deserves. When we do fight, we try to practice fair fighting, being respectful of the other party and hearing their side. If you are considerate of your partner, it’s easier to find a middle ground.
3. Respect each other’s space.
And we make sure we give each other space. We each have friends and activities we pursue on our own.
My wife will go out with her girlfriends to hear a local band or see a ballgame, and it’s understood that I’m not welcome. I also work at home and we have set ground rules around my hours and my workspace. For example, my wife keeps our house spotless and she knows that, even though I am a slob, my office is off-limits; it’s my space.
4. Rely on each other.
No matter what we are doing or how busy we get, we know we can count on each other for support.
I try to call on that support when I really need it, so I don’t take it for granted. And if my wife needs help with a technical problem or is worried about the kids, I make time to assist or lend a sympathetic ear.
As we have grown together we have become better at triaging crises; if a problem can wait, we set a time aside to deal with it when we can both give it our full attention.
5. Take your own pulse.
I try to stay in tune with my own moods and feelings to make sure my inner demons don’t affect my family.
When my inner voices start to whisper to me, I can start blaming my family for my own failings. It’s then that I pause, take a deep breath, and try to distinguish what is real and what is imagined. It eliminates a lot of family drama.
6. Keep the romance alive.
Despite busy schedules, my wife and I take time out for each other. Friday is date night and it’s sacrosanct. We go to dinner, take in a movie, or find some activity we can share and enjoy together. We also work to make time on weekends for joint activities, even if it’s grocery shopping or a trip the hardware store together.
After many years of self-examination and soul-searching I understand that I am the only constant in any relationship. When I found a partner willing to love me for my flaws as well as my good points, I knew I had found the right mate.
Even when I screw up, the foundation we have built tolerating and even celebrating each other’s faults and foibles, our humanness, is strong enough to withstand anything.
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You Have to Know What Kind of Love You Deserve to Attract It
“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi
My ex used to stomp out of the house every time we had an argument.
Literally, he would leave. And usually before he left he’d smash something. One time it was a lamp; another time it was a cast iron skillet and the tile floor it landed on.
He would stay away for about an hour, driving his sports car really fast to let off steam.
I know this because when he returned, he’d tell me that his sports car helped him deal with the frustrations I caused him.
I frustrated him.
I didn’t mean to frustrate him. I certainly didn’t mean to make him angry.
All I wanted to do was talk. I was having a problem and I was under the impression that people in a relationship were supposed to solve problems by discussing them.
But somehow, our discussions would turn into arguments.
And maybe a third of the way through the argument, I would have no idea what the initial discussion was about. The conversation would have turned so many corners that I’d need a map to get out. And the argument would usually end by me not understanding his feelings.
It was very confusing to me.
I found it hard to maintain a civil conversation when I wasn’t even sure what we were talking about. (more…)
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Stay Safe or Risk Opening Your Heart?
“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless.” ~Pema Chodron
As a child I learned boundaries. I learned what I wasn’t allowed to talk about outside of the family. I learned how far I could go with my parents before I faced their disapproval. I also learned that this boundary was unpredictable.
Because it was unpredictable, I honed the ability to sense when it seemed safe to do something, and when I couldn’t, based on the emotions of those around me. It kept me safe for the most part. And, I learned to always be on guard around certain people.
As a result of some of these experiences, I was reluctant to let people into my inner world for fear that I would get hurt.
I used this ability to read others throughout my life, especially in my career. I could walk into a room and read the mood of the group or individual to ensure that I understood how far I could go.
For a few people in my life, these boundaries were appropriate. But I used them almost all the time.
Setting these boundaries also cost me.
It cost me because I didn’t trust others.
It cost me because I learned not to expect things from others or I would end up disappointed.
It cost me because I thought I needed to only rely on and trust myself.
What I saw in other people was really a reflection of my own lack of trust in myself.
All the time that I held firm boundaries, I thought they were about respecting myself. But they were really about fear.
I was afraid of letting others in. I was afraid of letting myself in. And, I discovered that I was main person who didn’t treat myself with respect. This was a difficult lesson.
It is a lesson I am still learning.
On the one hand, the skills that I honed in childhood served me well. They kept me safe. They kept me in what little control I had over my life. I couldn’t control much, but I could control what I let others see about me. I could control whether or not I let people in. (more…)
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How to Ask for Help from People You Respect
I’m in the middle of self-publishing my first book. Ever since college, I dreamed of publishing my work and now I’m enjoying the reality of going for it.
For weeks, I’ve gathered testimonials. As you may know, they are powerful tools, especially when the people providing them are recognizable to the target reader.
My challenge: how do I get testimonials from all these people I respect? Well, I’ll tell you what I did and how I failed before I understood what worked best.
Asking
The first answer to how one gets help is “by asking.” Yes, some people miss that part by never trying.
Why is that? Why do we hold back from asking?
For me, there’s a lot of fear that comes up when I’m about to ask for help.
- What if they say “no” to my request?
- What if they ignore my request?
- What if they see my request as a waste of time?
And those are just my conscious thoughts. There’s a good chance my subconscious replaced the words “my request” in the statements above with “me.”
- What if they say “no” to me?
- What if they ignore me?
- What if they see me as a waste of time?
Sort of slaps the ego a bit harder—makes sense why we wouldn’t want to see it that way. Feels more painful, huh? (more…)
