Object of Affection

Long ago a favorite expression to define a difficult search was to describe it as "looking for a needle in a haystack."  Envision the process of doing just that.  What would be your first action?  Perhaps if you knew where the needle entered that may be a good start.  Some may even imagine using a metal detector or even a blower to level the stack.  No matter the method, the process of finding the needle could prove a very time consuming act. The time it would take to make the discovery could only be afforded by a few tenacious people who are also extremely patient.

Some people think love is as difficult to find as that needle.  Love is easy to find and even easier to bestow.  The difficulty rests in what is viewed as the object of affection.  Previously on this blog it was stated that before you can shower anyone else with love, you must first love yourself. Said before and now again, to love self does not render you as selfish or self absorbed.  To love oneself denotes that you find confidence in your being, you are secure in the thought that you have the power to execute changes in your life if changes are needed and you elect to do it.  

ometimes a person assess their state of being and find that areas of their lives need to be re-engineered.  So what do they do?  Many leave the assessment while hoping and wishing for change to come. Many others take the first step on a journey of change and cause the change that's needed because they know with every action there is a reaction.  You are the first object of your affection and this love too requires your attention and care.

To be content with who you are, knowing that you are capable of adjusting yourself if need be  equips you for interaction with others.  Discontented relationships are the way they are because discontented people are involved.  Such relationships harbor many ills.  To name a few you will find frequent disconnects in communication, anger, deception, feelings of inferiority.  Remember, one's behavior is a mirror of one's thinking.  Keep focused on  respecting and loving self and you will begin to see respect and love of/from others.  Why?  Because the object of affection is like bright lights to a moth - the glow attracts.

Many would never give a second thought to searching for a needle in a haystack.  If one were to consider doing it the first action would be the decision to carry out such a search.  It can be done, may not be so easy, but it can be done.  It all starts with you.

Restore Love.

 

Communication

An email from a reader states he placed a profile on a dating site searching for someone special. He asked to meet an intelligent woman who could be trusted and someone that he could spend some time with in hopes of it becoming long term. He received a reply to his profile from a woman who stated she is an intelligent woman and in search of an intelligent man who knows what he wants and is not afraid to express his feelings.

Ten months into the developing relationship the woman's personality took a 180 degree change from what he knew it to be. They met, began spending time together and exchanged plans they would carry out as they agreed to continue the relationship. He says they were pleased with each other initially. Suddenly without warning he could no longer understand her behavior. She complained that he was not greeting her in a manner that pleased her. She complained that he was making her cautious about him and each time they spoke she never failed to mention that she would abandon him. When he asked why was he making her cautious, she would tell him because I see you from a dbroad scope and you cannot see yourself or she would not answer the question. She told him at one point that if he could not keep up with her point of view that she would find someone who could.

He said the reason she gave for all these "requirements" is that she wanted the relationship to be better than other couples. She wanted everyone to see that they were happy when they appear in public. She began to ridicule him. She criticized him for not agreeing with her. If he disagreed with her she would get angry and result to insults of his character and the caliber of person he is.
He says she would yell, hang up the phone, close out their chat window or tell him suddenly she had something important to do.

After many such examples of her demands, he says he stopped for a moment to think it through.
It seemed she wanted to have the appearance of being in a loving relationship for public approval regardless of how miserable they were behind closed doors. He wrote, "she did not care that I wanted to offer her perpetual love and to bring her into my life as my partner where she could fulfill her fantasy. What she cared about was how other people would view our relationship." He states, " she abandoned me but I already knew she would because she threatened to do so in every conversation we had." He closed with he was glad that he had hidden the fact of his wealth or she may have revealed another personality to be with him because of the money.
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The response here is so simple and I use an adage to summarize:
"...CANNOT SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES."

Also, to this reader, when meeting other people there is no certainty of true character (so few people reveal true characters initially). Communication is perhaps the best way to explore the vast geography of another persons mental makeup thus helping you to identify who they are and why they do what they do. In this scenario, it may have been a good action for her to go away. Being abandoned may not feel good to you now but from what you describe you may have gotten the better end of this chaos. You may have wanted to make her the object of love but what did she have in mind for you?

Restore Love

Goodbye to A Married Man

A reader emailed to tell of ending her relationship with a married man; actually he left her. She said she loved him and he just walked away from her. She reasoned with herself that she did not want him to leave his wife nor did she want to ruin his status in the community. She went on to say that she was feeling such pain after the breakup. She stated that in her thoughts she hears that she should end everything and at the same time she hears that she should hang on. She referred to them as voices.

The email was extremely sad. To know that someone rejects the love within themselves because they have been rejected by another is always a sad state. The negativeness that is created when one feels rejected can sometimes cloud the thinking. But to this young reader and others in similar circumstances Rise Up. In order to love anyone at all there must first be love for yourself. Who are You? What is your worth? think of the love within you. It is more precious than all the gold and valuables in this world.

In spending time with the married man, you were honest in your commitment to him, perhaps your intentions were to show him how much you loved him by "excusing or dismissing" the marriage, his family and his "community status" in order to spend a little time with him. And trust that a little time is all you will ever spend in situations such as this. He may say he loves you. He may give you a gift or two, he may provide a place for you to live and transportation, take you shopping, he may take you out to dinner and even feed you from his fork. But the bottom line is he can never offer you what you really desire. That is to be by his side, to walk proudly as the man who loves you and the one you love.

There will always be excuses, reasons why he must stay with his wife, there will always be sneaking about as a rat that scurries in the night pinching crumbs; hiding for fear of being caught. Some men have been known to go as far as meetings in far away places to safeguard not being discovered by wife or relatives or someone from the community.
To put the perverbial icing on this cake, this man will cause you to hate the wife for the way she treats him. He will cause you to feel how you are the woman he wished he had wait to marry. You- being faithful - explain to your friends and relatives, how he really does not love his wife, or how the wife mistreats him, or how he and the wife maintain a presence for the child/children.
Then comes the trickey portion when he has to escape from you because remember your love is genuine and commited. You are in love with him so he must escape this before he gets in too deep.

In this getaway, all the compassion he may have expressed is no longer there. All the little nothings he whispered in your ears are probably screams or a stern voice unfamiliar to you now.
He finds fault with all you do and no matter how stressed you may become about it, he isn't the least bit concerned about your "feelings". His heart becomes rigid and cold. His actions toward you filled with contempt, where he may have smiled upon seeing you he now shows a grimace. He may say something such as " I do love you but..." or "I want you to be happy" or "its best for us both that I go". Sometimes, given the character, he could even blame you or your lack of "something" to please him for breaking the two of you apart.

Truth be told, what abuse by you to yourself and by him to you. First of all this type of relationship is based on lies. Secondly, it is primarily a relationship where the man in this case and (this includes the married women) are impelled to further their "happiness" through genital eroticism. This affords him his greatest gratification. The underlying idea here is sex is love.

Again, if you find yourself in such a relationship Rise up. You owe it to yourself to discover the goodness within you. You owe it to yourself to love without irrational behavior that lends itself when you are programmed by that bleeding heart that tells you, "I Love You...".
If a man cannot totally commit to his wife and family then he is a liar and thief. He lies to you and robs you of time, your values and your love.

Today, stand before your mirror, look yourself in the eyes and say I Love You.
Say to yourself, I will discover within my life genuine love and not crumbs thrown to me by someone rotely telling me they love me.
Say, I seek genuine love of another person rooted in my own capacity to love.
repeat each day as you smile , appreciating the face you see there. Someday soon you
will be very surprised at what you discover.

Restore Love,
MJ