Another excellent lesson from my extensive dating career (lol!), I mean my ex-relationships track record… is that just because someone sounds so definite or looks so emotional doesn’t mean that they are right and therefore you are wrong. Their feelings are as valid as yours. For them their feelings may be real and for you yours are real. Why do we doubt ourselves so much then? Because we don’t want to be the bad cop, we don’t want to have a conflict accusing someone, perhaps hurting them, or perhaps because again, we don’t want to wake up from our denial emotional trance (or the lack of it I should say!) and discover that the identity that we had built of our lives intertwined together with that person forever was built on sand and now the castle is not there anymore and we need to pick up the pieces.
Our bodies are talking to us constantly but sadly what do we do most? Numb their feelings, drinking their salary or eating crap, burying themselves in work, distracting themselves with our kids and / or meeting our needs elsewhere rather than with our partners, etc…. All wall papers covering the deep crack in the wall… as Matt often says. Listen to your body and watch for the facts.
When the facts challenge our denial survival mechanism
1- Your partner wants to do things with you only when it suits them because they don’t have anything else to do or because it may be somehow convenient, for example popping down to the shop next to your house or because they want to ask you for a favour! And after having been intimate in some way they may probably seek some separateness.
2- As soon as something more important for them comes along you stop being their priority in a way that they can change plans with you at the last second without much empathy or perhaps with a few cheap excuses.
3- For different reasons they don’t feel inspired to treat you with respect so you may feel diminished, disregarded or perhaps somehow abused. Bottom line: your opinion is important, your feelings don’t count and your needs are not their top priority☹ You may end up feeling unimportant or ignored and this can make the communication impossible and it is not because they don’t understand you but because they don’t have an interest to understand you. What’s even crazier? You may see this but you may not want to see it. Why? Either you may have some benefit from staying with that partner even though we can not call it “a loving relationship” or you may have a lot at stake to break up with them. Or both!
4- When they speak to you their tonality of voice shows disregard and rudeness, and their manners like the chosen words or way of animating their body is proof of what is going on inside their minds and hearts.
5- You may get to know from other people that your partner is meeting other people instead of spending more time with you and they may be doing this behind your back or openly without any concern about your feelings.
6- Your life may be hectic with a million things to juggle every day but when you care about your partner you make sure you make some time to meet. If your partner is not very invested in you this may not be reciprocated in the same way and this is a red flag. Spending time together is definitely not in the vortex of desires!
7- One of the biggest relationship reasons why people split up is because your partner is very good at taking, getting, asking for things, receiving… but not so good at giving, at helping, at sharing, at offering or volunteering. One of the things that I learnt in my dating past life was to say “yes” three times to whatever requests my partner made to me and a “no” to the 4th one, and start again and see whether the “no” was accepted with an understanding or with a resistance and a punishment.
8- There is no celebration or initiation from them to celebrate special dates like your birthday or your anniversary. Maybe they put some excuses or justifications as to why they forgot or they can’t make it for the special occasion.
9- They will pay for nothing nor buy you any gifts nor give you any surprises and if they do it you may have to ask. How does that make you feel?
10- You are always or most of the time the one who initiates the phone calls, the text messages or even some physical connection like holding hands or a kiss or a hug. Same with emotional connection in terms of saying nice things like compliments. It is mainly or always just one way, from you to them.
11- They may organise their plans without any consultation to you and they may not care whether you go out with your same sex friends. And by the way, if you ask them what their plans are you might get a bad reaction or they might ask you what about yours showing you that they are happy for you to do things separately. If you propose to do something together like organising some holidays or buying a house that may not be very welcomed. Why would they get more engaged with you if they are not that invested in you after all?
12- Your opinion is not welcome or at least not sought because they don’t see you as part of the team!
13- They don’t even want you to have sex with or that may be the only interest! Only when they feel like, by the way!
14- Whilst the two of you are separate it can be hard to get through to them as their phones may be on silent and on the other hand, when you are both together they might be on their phones more than what feels right and you may feel ignored.
15- The whole responsibility to keep the show running falls on you since they have not much investment rather than some convenient interest if anything at all!
16- You may be the only one apologising and saying sorry and that may feel unbalanced and if they ever apologise you may not feel it but rather they may be saying the right things just to keep the show running for some kind of interest but not real love and care for you.
17- When you need their encouragement or support you may realise that it’s not there and they don’t show any interest in your values so if you attempt to share anything with them you may end up feeling empty and uncared for.
18- They are not bothered at all if other men get flirtatious with you, in fact they may like it as that could be a reason to break up soon or to cause an argument as an attempt of looking for some separateness.
19- Your partner has no interest in working together doing couple therapy being prepared to look at themselves with an attitude of curiosity and humility to see what the root cause is for the challenges between you both or for the things that make you unhappy, unsafe, uncomfortable, that prevents you from trusting them, etc. This to many people is the biggest dealbreaker! If this happens to you don’t make the same mistake that I made myself years ago and that most people do which is to leave their partners at this point. It takes two to tango and your partner may have their own issues just like you have yours. We work a lot with individuals whose partners don’t want to work on the relationships and the change that they make as individuals after doing the inner work has a profound effect on the relationship dynamic and how they influence their partners. What happens most of the time is that their partners end up joining them to do that work together or on themselves separately and they end up very happy. In small cases it also happens that the partner who did the inner work realises that after upgrading themselves as individuals they are not a match for their partners any more and they want to move on with no regrets and with no insecurity but all the opposite, with total confidence and real self-worth! Yaaaiiii!!
20- They don’t express their feelings with you nor allow themselves to be vulnerable with you as that means to get emotionally closer and that is not important for them.
21- They may cross your boundaries without caring and you may not realise or may be way too allowing and forgiving. Again, how are you training your partner?
What to do about it
Do the Influence test: show your worth maximise the chances to influence your partner in the way you want through the power of Influence. In the Relationship Breakthrough Programme we show you how to do this! It takes two to tango and attracts like so if your self-worth is not in place and you have some fears that are causing you to force someone who doesn’t value you to be with you or you have to manipulate them so they don’t leave you something is not right. What are you focusing on? Can you control whether they value you or not? But what you could do is to use your power of Influence and we can show you how. The Influence test can tell you whether you had any chances or you were wasting your precious time. By working on yourself you will either get closer in a magical and powerful way or you will end up attracting to you your DREAM partner realising that it was not the one you have right now!
Do the authenticity test: by having the wisdom and courage necessary to to allow yourself to be vulnerable with your partner expressing your fears, your feelings and showing up with authenticity without having to be someone else who you are not, pretty soon you will realise whether this is the partner that is going to take care of you when you get sick or when you get old (if you make it by then!).
Decide being aligned with Love rather than being aligned with fear
Ask us for guidance so you don’t regret it. How would you feel if one day you wake up in your bed and realise that you miss them and you wish you hadn’t broken up. Perhaps it wasn’t that bad and you were focusing on the negative areas but there were some positives there to cultivate. Perhaps you had more things in common that you realised but you were afraid of getting hurt as in other past relationships or as with your parents when you were a child. You may also have children or assets so you may want to take things seriously before you jump out too quickly and regret. Besides, you can always go your separate ways but doing it feeling total confidence and honour feels very different than doing it with a lot of self-doubt, guilt and maybe even regret. Just saying!
Decide by yourself after having grabbed the tools for transformation that will empower you to make the right decision for yourself and for your loved ones. They also will cause you to be your best version of yourself which if it doesn’t transform your relationship with your partner it will free you not only from them but also from other future break ups, as you will have dropped all those unconscious loyalties and beliefs that keep you being a magnet for the wrong partners!
Grieving is the missing critical piece that changes the game for good. So many partners end up quitting their relationships without doing the right ritual to say goodbye and what happens? That can stop money, success and love from entering their lives until they do it. Same happens with moving countries unwillingly or with the loss of our loved ones including abortions or miscarriages. Finishing a relationship in the correct way could be the difference between a successful life in all areas or what people call bad fate. Now you know!
