SAY, “NO’ TO ONE-WAY LOVE
You’ve loved him from the depths of your heart. You’ve given him love unconditionally. You’ve bared your vulnerabilities like the open sea. You’ve held him in your arms to suckle your breasts like bees gathering honey—and then he’s gone. Just like that. The relationship failed because he didn’t love you in the same way. Sadly, you realized it was a one-sided love.
And oh, how that hurt. The rejection poisoned your soul. Oh, he might have cared to an extent; but not enough. What was missing? The missing element was mutual love. Mutual love means he loves you to the same extent that you love him.
So next time, you must love smarter. Look for … No, INSIST on mutual love. You must learn how to establish reciprocal love based on loving one each others core being. Only mutual love matters. Otherwise, at the end of the day, after months or years of loving him and not receiving the same love in return, the sorrow of his departure will be worse than sucking on a poison pill.
Understanding Your Core Being
It starts with mutual love. It means respect for your core being. As you open up your heart to your partner, you will discover what’s in his heart toward you. Let me explain. You give heartfelt love—you deserve heartfelt love in return.
However, that love must be based on mutual outlooks on life, varied concerns, future goals and sexual chemistry. As your partner gets to know you better, he must embrace and respect your core being.
It means attaining a two-way balance in your relationship. Your partner extends mutual respect to you upon appreciating your uniqueness; your ideals; your vision; your goals and he appreciates your right to free expression in an atmosphere of respect and acceptance.
He learns to love your openness. He will never attack or withdraw from your openness. It means you can talk to him from the depth of your heart and he will listen respectfully. He learns to love your soul. By his response to the essence of your core being, he gives clues whether he feels the same. Is he developing the same soulful love for you? Watch and listen attentively to his responses.
Does He Respect Your Core Being?
Does he love and respect you for who you really are, or does he, by his actions, think he can mold you into his dream image—what he wants you to be. Does he want to change certain aspects of your core? He may want you to be like someone else.
Or to embrace a persona you don’t want to accept. Maybe he wants you to dress differently, change your hair style. Become a blond. Get breast implants. Or get tattoos—whatever. That’s fine if that’s you, but not fine if that isn’t you.
Or, let’s say you want to lead a simple life—to marry, have children, and become a stay-at-home mom. You want to join the PTA, and Girl Scouts. You want to take the kids to dancing classes, baseball games, school track races, music lessons, trips to the zoo and the like.
Nothing wrong with that—except if your partner wants you to be, instead, a career woman like the women he works with. That would be defeating your own dreams of full-time motherhood. So he begins to berate you. Prompting you to complete a college education, or for not doing anything with a college diploma you may already have—even though you’ve expressed desire for motherhood and family life as most important.
In that case would he be accepting you and your desires? Would his actions be showing mutual respect? Mutual love cannot grow in a negative environment in which one partner berates the other to conform to his/her own desire. Mutual respect demands that our partner accept our individuality.
For whatever reason, if your partner does not accept your core being, in time initial love could become one-way love. And he begins to draw away.
Why It’s Okay if He Pulls Away
But that’s okay. Because with an attitude that doesn’t parallel your own would a toxic relationship ensue? That’s not what you want. You want to love smart by establishing reciprocal appreciation with a man who will show you mutual love based upon mutual respect.
This man will encourage you to reach out, even beyond your own center, to express yourself in ways you never expected you could, even with greater confidence. Enthusiastically, because you have something valuable to share which is YOU, your ideas and dreams and he appreciates that. That’s mutual love and respect. That’s smart love!
And it goes both ways. Women sometimes, too, think they can make a man over—that by her encouragement, he can be a better man and she attempts to change him, in her mind, for the better. No. Don’t do this. Change comes from within. If what you see of him isn’t what you desire in a man, keep moving to find the man you can love with all his shortcomings and idiosyncrasies. The same courtesy you wish extended to you.
Remember, no one wants to be changed to be who you think they should be. Love accepts the person for who they ARE. Right now. Without pretense. Without façade. But with open arms of acceptance of their core being.
You are Special
In conclusion: There will never be another you. You have so much to give and share. Stop wasting it on anyone who would not appreciate your uniqueness and talents. You are too special to give in to one-way love. Move forward with a higher estimate of self and into a world ready to embrace your core being.
There are other posts on this blog that can help you grow in understanding of how to establish a mutually loving relationship. See the four-part series on Defining Relationships. Below are some links to help you explore.
Until next time,
Grandma-D
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