Three Steps to a
Perfect Relationship by Wes Penre, Saturday, July 9, 2011
Abstract
This paper is
written with a romantic relationship in mind, but it works just as
well in a friend's relationship.
What people
on this planet have the most problem with is in relationships
with others, and how to maintain a good marriage. Way too many
people are staying in unhealthy relationships, sometimes until
they die, thinking this is what they are supposed to do.
You are not.
Our reason for being incarnated here is to learn and grow, and
support others to do the same. If you are in a relationship
where both of you are held back, where it's abusive, non-caring,
one-sided etc., it's considered unhealthy. We all can come to a
short period in our relationship when things are not working as
they are supposed to, but then perhaps we can sort things out,
it the relationship was created for the right reasons to begin
with.
Very few
people on Earth know how to build and maintain a relationship,
and they are starting them for all the wrong reasons--the most
common being physical attraction. It's nothing wrong with
physical attraction and to feel passion, but it's getting old
after a while, and then what's left?
Both men and
women have a tendency to choose partners who reminds them of
their mother or their father--especially if s/he was dominant. A
man normally chosen a woman who is similar to his mother and
vice versa, and they are often not aware of it. If there was
trauma involved in the childhood, then it's almost certain the
child is choosing a partner similar to the perpetrator, or
becomes a perpetrator him/herself.
Why is this?
Basically it's a form of survival. We may seek a dominant
partner because we were never allowed to make our own decisions
as children, so we subconsciously think that we need someone who
seems to know what they're doing to make decisions for us. This
way, it's very hard to learn and grow properly--we place our
power somewhere else. This seems to be generational because of
this pattern of ours.
Let's take an
example: Joe has had a dominant mother who wasn't necessarily
physically abusive--she may even have meant well, but was in her
turn affected by her childhood. She always made all the
decisions for little Joe, and if Joe once in a while tried to be
"clever" and come up with his own ideas and solutions, his mom
invalidated his decisions by correcting him and giving him her
own solutions, which she considered better. She may even have
snarled at him, saying he should know better. Joe becomes very
uncertain about himself and thinks he needs his mother for his
survival.
Eventually,
as he grows older and becomes interested in girls, he has the
tendency to subconsciously choose girls who have strong
personalities, just like his mother, so he doesn't have to make
his own decisions, something he considers himself incapable of.
He may want to make them, but he doesn't trust
them. So he ends up marrying a copy of his mother.
When he and
his wife go to the store to buy shirts for Joe, he is always
indecisive. He looks through the long isle of shirts, seemingly
checking them out, without really making any decisions. His wife
comes along and asks him if there are any shirts he likes, and
he says, "Well, I am not sure. There are so many shirts. What do
you think?" His wife picks out a few shirts right away
and asks him what he thinks about them. Joe says they look
pretty good and tries them on. Again, he is asking his wife how
she thinks they look on him, and if she doesn't like a
particular one, Joe agrees. When his wife finally has approved a
few, Joe seems happy and agrees that these are the shirts he
wants, although his taste may be totally different. By agreeing,
he makes it look like he is making the decision. He is now
confident that others will like his shirts as well, because his
wife does. Also, Joe is never (or very rarely) arguing with his
strong-headed wife, because he knows his wife will always win
the argument and he doesn't want to feel stupid (which he
probably isn't, but thinks he is). So again he agrees to what
his wife is saying, but in fact, his wife has no idea what Joe
really thinks, and perhaps at one point later in their
relationship she realizes that she doesn't know her husband at
all.
People like
Joe also often have a tendency to be passive-aggressive and let
their anger out on something insignificant that doesn't seem to
be an issue to others, but to him it looks big. What is
happening is that Joe feels he needs to let his built-up
repressed feelings he carried all his life have an outlet. This
outlet can be the cat or a material thing. In worst cases, it
can be another human being whom he bursts out at suddenly,
without any forewarning.
Unfortunately, both Joe and his wife have unhandled issues in
their childhood. His wife may have lived in an unhealthy
environment where she had to take charge over the family already
as a child and is now transferring this dominant behavior to her
love relationship. Or her mother may have left the family to a
submissive husband (or died early) so Joe's wife felt she needed
to play the role of the mother. She could even have had a
dominant father, whom she is now dramatizing.
This is just
one example of many, but my point is, we humans are clueless how
to support and assist each other. We are bringing our baggage
with us and are not even aware of it and therefore, we are more
often than not addressing our own issues when we grow up.
Instead we blame the partner for not being the way we want
him/her to be.
The reason
this is happening over and over is because we are not taught why
we're here on Earth, what our goals are, how our minds work, and
that other people are just mirrors of ourselves. What we see in
others exist within ourselves as well. If we all had a better
grasp of this, we as a humanity would immediately transfer to a
higher frequency.
Another
issue, which I bet 95-98% of the population has is that we feel
we need to solve other peoples problems. If we are kind, caring
people (which most of us are), we want to help, and we think we
can help by getting involved in other peoples issues and try to
use our own abilities to either change that person "to the
better", or solve his/her problem all together.
In fact, by
doing so, we are doing that person a huge disfavor, albeit
unwittingly so.
We are here
to learn our lessons and are sometimes pulling in energies which
are uncomfortable for us--we seem to get what we don't want and
we call that a problem. In reality, it's often the best thing
that can happen at the moment, because we attract energies in
areas we need to improve. If we ignore them, the energies will
come back and hit us even harder next time until we learn how to
deal with our own issues.
People in our
environment often work as our catalysts, and we would gain from
learning from them, even when the experience is perceived by us
as negative. Instead of processing the experience and pick out
the gems from it to use as a catapult in our evolvement, we
often choose to either try to forget about it, or blame someone
else for the opportunity that just came our way and thus we
missed it.
By solving
someone else's problem, that other person doesn't grow as much
as s/he would if we'd let them solve their own problem. This
doesn't mean we should avoid or abandon people who have
problems--after all, we're here to be of service. But all help
we give to others is better served if it's help to self-help.
It's appropriate to give advice when needed, because sometimes a
person can be so involved in a certain situation and problem
that they don't see a solution. You, as an outside source, may
have a better grasp of the situation and find it necessary to
give a hint. It's then up to the other person to either reject
or accept the idea or suggestion. But always let the
person come to their own conclusion. Even if you don't like it,
or if you would have decided differently, it's not your path.
The other person has other goals and other lessons to learn than
you, and it's not for you to interfere with them, other than
give suggestions if the person is "stuck". The best help is to
be supportive and accepting to the other person's decisions.
What may seem like a strange conclusion may in fact be the
correct one for this person, because in the long run it fills a
certain purpose on their journey.
Of course,
one has to use discernment in all this. If a person lies
bleeding on the road after a car accident, you just don't leave
them there to bleed, giving them advice how to recover. You dial
911 and do hands-on CPR to the best of your abilities until you
get professional help.
Step 1:
Self Awareness
You can't
have a perfect relationship if you don't know what you want in
life. What are your goals, what is your purpose? Do you have
something that interests you that you want to learn more about?
What are your strengths and what are your weaknesses? Which
strengths and which weaknesses are you planning on enhancing?
Before you
even consider having a serious relationship with somebody, it's
imperative to sit down and think these things out. If not, there
is a great possibility you unwittingly end up with somebody who
is just like your parent. I am not trying to say that parents
are bad--most parents do the best they can with the situation
they have, but our life partner is not our parent.
Once you have
gotten a good grasp of who you are and what you want, and are
determined to accomplish these goals, you will start attracting
these kind of energies into your life. Now, let's say you are a
woman looking for a man. You have already taken the steps above
and have a clear picture of yourself and your needs. All of a
sudden you meet this man and you start talking. After a while
you perhaps find him quite interesting and both of you begin to
feel attracted to each other.
First lesson
would be not to move in with somebody before you really know him
well. Once you've come to know each other, step 2 would apply:
Step 2:
Are You Willing to Support Your Partner's Growth and Can He
Support Yours?
Ask yourself
after you've come to know this new person: can he support me and
be accepting when comes to my growth in this lifetime? Is he the
kind of person who may even be able to come up with some ideas
once in a while if you get stuck?
If the answer
to these questions is "yes", you may have found your perfect
partner. Now you need to ask yourself if you are willing to
support and accept his growth in the areas he has decided to
develop himself? Are you willing to accept his decisions and be
supportive of them? Again, if the answer is "yes", step 2 is
completed.
Step 3: Ask Your Partner
These Same Questions
Now it's time
to ask your partner the same questions as in Step 2--this time
he needs to look at it from his perspective. Is he willing to do
the same for you as you are willing to do for him? If he says
"yes" and you feel it's genuine, your chances of having a
wonderful relationship are great.
These three
steps are all that's needed to break the old generational
patterns. The hard part, of course, is to stick to it, but
that's where Step 1 on Self Awareness is so important for both
partners. These steps can also be used in a relationship that
has been lasting for a long time and has come to a low point. If
one or both partners are unwilling to do these steps, they will
both bring each other down. If only one person is willing, both
will be brought down even if the willing person is doing his/her
best to make Steps 1-3 happen. Maybe then it's time to
reconsider that particular relationship. This can also be tested
in friends relationships, as you can see.
People who
can't even get through Step 1 (and I am not judging them,
because it requires a great deal of responsibility to do any of
these steps and stick to them), will automatically fall into old
patterns and chances to get a functional relationship where both
are happy are slim. If a person has gone through too much trauma
during childhood and/or adolescence, s/he may need a lot of
counseling to get through it. Not until we are willing to
forgive those who did us wrong and love them unconditionally
will we heal ourselves. As long as we're holding grudges and
blaming each other for our own condition, whatever it may be, we
are giving our power away and will not heal. Anyone can do it,
but it requires a lot of responsibility and willingness to see
ones own weaknesses played out and sign responsibility to them.
Some people,
due to upbringing, religious beliefs, or for other reasons,
believe they have to stick to a relationship at any cost. The
expression "I made my bed and now I have to lay in it"
comes to mind. This is very sad and has destroyed many lives.
Not only does a person with this thinking destroy his/her own
life, but also the life of the partner. Both will decline
instead of building each other up. Relationships are there to
help each other grow--if that can't happen because two people
are on totally different paths which clash with each other, it's
time to break up.
Marriage is a
custom as well. It's not a Universal Law. It's an idea, which is
good for some and not so good for others. There are other ways
to grow than in a strict marriage, if a person feels marriage is
not for them. Experiment with your goals and purposes and have
fun, but without hurting others.
If every
person in this planet only did these three steps, and took
appropriate actions if they feel they can't accomplish this with
anybody, and forgive and love their "enemies", this planet would
heal tremendously.
