In our society, there are many programs regarding relationships and marriage that still “sit” in the minds of men and women.
These programs dictate how to behave with the opposite sex, when to get married and why, and what a partner should/should not do.
In this article, we will touch on several aspects around which relationships between a man and a woman are built, and we will talk about how to reconnect with yourself after a relationship breakup.
Programs and limitations in the topic of relationships
One common distortion in the topic of relationships is related to a woman’s biological age.
With their conviction that “the clock is ticking” and they won’t have time to have children, build relationships, and so on, many women themselves hinder their personal fulfillment.
I received this question from a female listener of the project: “After a divorce, it seems I will never be able to love again. And I am 35. I am afraid I won’t have time to give birth. How can I calm down?”
These attitudes need to be uprooted from within. The age from 35 to 40-something is the most creative, active, and interesting period.
This is precisely the period when you can rebuild your life the way you want, without conforming to your upbringing or what society demanded of you before the age of 30.
It is no coincidence that 33 years is the age of Christ, 36 years is the age of Buddha, when you can arrange everything the way you want.
See also 4 negative programs that prevent a woman from finding happiness
Finding yourself after a relationship breakup
Regardless of how good your relationship was, after a divorce you inevitably come out traumatized. Unfortunately, such are the realities of life in this society.
Therefore, after a breakup, the most important task is to heal everything within yourself that you have traumatized up to that point. It doesn’t matter how you do it: on your own, relying on your parents’ support, or with the help of your former partner.
Your task is to heal everything that was broken, destroyed, humiliated, and devalued.
You leave the relationship and immediately start working on this. Otherwise, you risk losing time, even years of your life.
If necessary, seek help from specialized professionals.
If you “weren’t hurt too badly” and are ready to figure things out on your own, study specialized literature, take special courses that will help you return to yourself after the “crash.”
In many cases, psychotherapy is indicated. If there is a need for it, find a specialist in their field with whom you resonate, and begin the work.
How you heal yourself doesn’t matter. Your goal—healing—is without delay or loss of time.
If something in a relationship doesn’t satisfy you, and you understand that it’s not what you want, you:
- either agree to a compromise, settle for what doesn’t satisfy you, try to preserve something that doesn’t exist;
- or you leave this game and find someone who is right for you.
Only a wild craving for stability and guarantees can keep you in a relationship that doesn’t satisfy you.
The most illusory scenario is when a woman thinks that while she is in a marriage, she can find a person who would suit her, and only then will she leave the failed relationship. That’s not how it works.
If you want honest relationships in your life, first you honestly put an end to those relationships that don’t satisfy you, and only then do you create something else.
See also When feelings for each other fade, should you separate or maintain the relationship [Answers to Questions]
The Main Relationship of Your Life
After healing, you move on to the next important stage – you begin to build the main relationship of your life – the relationship with yourself.
For the most part, people are “semi-finished products” who were raised by similar parents and who now also raise their children in the same way.
“Semi-finished products” do not know how to be free, but they know how to adapt to the norms and needs of society.
Instead of allowing their children to be free, to develop as they wish, and to learn from their example, “semi-finished products” continue out of habit to fit their children into the system.
In modern society, there are practically no adults who have not been broken by being fitted into the system.
That is why it is so important to build a relationship with yourself. To love another person, you must first love yourself.
In youth, you build relationships on the principle of “trauma to trauma.” In this way, you seek to fill the “holes” that exist inside you.
When you outgrow this stage, you build a relationship with yourself – you fill yourself, filling your former gaps.
See also Why it is important to maintain personal space in relationships. Dependent and healthy relationship models
Why You Need a Man/Partner
Many accomplished and self-sufficient women often ask themselves why they even need a man. This question highlights deeply ingrained ego-patterns in a woman’s consciousness.
By asking such a question, a woman unconsciously admits that she views a man solely as a breadwinner.
Breaking free from such patterns often costs a woman blood and sweat.
A common example: a young woman with two or three children is left alone after her partner leaves, completely unfulfilled, because since her youth she has only given birth, been on maternity leave, and amounted to nothing.
This is that crucial moment when you have to take your life into your own hands.
So, in the first stage after a breakup, you heal your traumas; in the second stage, you build a relationship with yourself.
Naturally, these stages have no starting point or final endpoint. They overlap and can run in parallel.
The question “why do I need a man” is very important. The older you are, the more important your personal definition of “why” becomes.
An objective definition of “why (a man/relationship is needed)” is often hindered by a tendency to romanticize everything.
Women’s favorite scenario about a “prince on a white horse” necessarily implies “so he would sing serenades and carry me in his arms.”
The stages of development mentioned above usually take three to four years.
While you heal yourself (often this happens through healing relationships), you begin to work on yourself (replenish yourself, engage in self-development, etc.). Over time, you may have a question about how to find a man.
Create your portrait of an ideal man. Write down the qualities that a woman who is next to such a man should possess. Start “raising” yourself to that level.
If you matched all the listed qualities, your ideal man would already be present in your life.
If such a man is not yet in your life, this may be hindered, among other things, by your idealized, romanticized idea of him, whereas the prose of life is quite different.
See also Why self-sufficient men and women need relationships. Family budget of two accomplished people
On a woman’s fulfillment and self-sufficiency
Only you determine what your own fulfillment in life means to you, what stands behind it.
You can be an amazing fulfilled mother of five children.
Women often choose to stay in relationships that do not satisfy them solely because of personal lack of fulfillment and fear of an independent life.
There are women who have children in order to stay home and not go to work, because it is scary.
Another example of a common thinking pattern: self-sufficient women are a priori not needed by anyone. In this pattern, self-sufficiency and “why a man is needed” are mutually exclusive concepts.
Do you not want to change your life for the better and become self-sufficient because you are afraid that then you will not need anyone?
Another example of a limiting program is “it is hard to find a man.” The “difficulty” is in your head. It is hard to find a man because you do not measure up.
If you want to meet society’s expectations, you will be disappointed, as you can never “perfectly” meet them.
Instead, when you leave life, you will regret how much time you lost trying to meet someone else’s ideas.
See also How to break up with a man when the time comes [answers to questions]
Relationship with a married man
If you are in a relationship with a married man, the sooner you allow yourself to leave this relationship (and thus love yourself), the better.
When you hope that this relationship might develop into something else (he will leave her for you), ask yourself: why do you love yourself so little?
Why are you wasting your precious years on a “half-finished product” that does not and will not appreciate your sacrifices?
If you value yourself so little and hold yourself in such low regard, it is unclear how you can be part of the Keys project. The entire project is dedicated to the theme of self-worth and self-love as a starting point for further progress.
If you are stuck in a relationship with a married man, it means you are driven by the program “I am afraid of normal relationships.”
You consider yourself unworthy of a normal relationship, so you are ready to hope in vain, waste time, and count on something.
The faster you get rid of this program, the easier it will be for you to create something else.
Relationships for Comfort
Many young people enter relationships to maintain comfort.
For example, a man is in a relationship with a woman to have a housekeeper who cooks and does laundry. Such relationships can drag on for years and never reach the “cherished goal” of marriage.
In such relationships, a man and a woman fulfill their desire for greater comfort.
The woman wants the man to take on all responsibility and earn money while she does whatever she pleases.
The man, through the woman, seeks to obtain a free maid, mistress, and servant.
This is a normal mode of interaction provided it suits both parties.
What Needs to Be Done Before Entering a Relationship
Before entering a serious relationship, you and your partner discuss a wide variety of issues – from the frequency of sex per week to the division of responsibilities and financial obligations.
In life, as a rule, the opposite happens. Young people first fall in love, enter a relationship, and only then try to build a shared dynamic.
As for people of a more conscious age, in this case, the issue of preliminary agreements becomes paramount.
You either make agreements “on the shore” [from the start], or you doom yourself to suffering.
See also: Three basic concepts on which relationships are built
Is fulfillment financial security?
The concepts of self-sufficiency and finances are not related to each other. A self-sufficient person can be either with money or without it.
If you have financial fears, you work through them.
A fulfilled person is a realized person. A fulfilled man/woman is literally what a person represents without a partner.
As a rule, men cope with this task more easily.
Unlike women, men perfectly imagine themselves (realize themselves) without a wife and children and feel great doing so.
Manifestation of self-betrayal in relationships
Many women and men do not even realize that they are betraying themselves.
For example, when a woman gives the last tasty piece to her husband or spends her last bit of money on a treat for her child.
Many women carry through life the program that “I am the last letter of the alphabet.” Such women doom themselves to the last place in the family.
If you trace the family hierarchy, often the husband is in first place, children in second, parents in third, and where is the woman?
But it should be the opposite. A woman should always be in first place.
Only a fulfilled woman in a resourceful state has what she can give to her husband, children, and parents.
If you are an energy bankrupt, unhappy, exhausted, empty, and drained, you have nothing to give your husband — he will stray; your children — they will be traumatized; your parents — they will constantly make demands of you.
You are capable of radiating love and sharing with others only from a state of fulfillment and resource.
See also: What does self-betrayal look like and how to change it
Which of the discussed programs and beliefs are familiar to you? Which ideas from the article were new to you?
The article is based on a broadcast from the #couch_conversation section “Main Relationships”