secret to a lasting marriage

A friend of mine was telling me of a woman, ninety years old, and married for over sixty-five years. When asked what  her secret for staying happily married for so many years was,  she replied, “There was never a time when one of us wasn’t in love”.  Love that! xo–K

What is your resistance to love?

So, last week I got one of those e-mail forwards, you know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that are somewhat funny but kind of a waste of time.  I usually just delete them because I don’t really find them funny or clever, but for some reason, I opened this one and wow was it ever a can of worms.

The subject was something like the “Next Survivor.”  It went on to say that the next season of Survivor should be fathers with three kids and challenged by all the  things moms have to do on a daily basis.  Each task was more exhausting than the one before!  I’m sure some of these things were spot on, but as I was reading it, I could feel myself getting annoyed and irritated.  It all just seemed like so much work. Don’t get me wrong, I am a single mom, and I do everything.  But the way it was written, I don’t know, it didn’t seem that appealing.  I guess on some level I thought when I had a partner, I would have a partner, someone to make my life easier, not harder.

I thought about it for a few days. What was it about that e-mail that just got to me?  I know that I’ve had resistance in the past to being in relationship, my stuff with my parent’s relationship, etc., but I thought I had dealt with that.  I talked to C about it on the phone a bit ago, it was right there, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.  There is still some part of me that is feeling a little, no, a lot of resistance around being in a relationship, especially if it’s going to be like that!

I have heard on more that one occasion that if there is something that you want and it is not showing up for you, then you have some resistance to it.  Sorry, but I know that is true.

We want to put the blame out there for our lack of  a boyfriend or husband. We say things like:  “All the good ones are taken.”  “I need to lose 10 pounds and then I will feel good enough to get out there.”  “I live in a small town.” “I live in a big city, it’s too hard to meet people.”  “All the men are gay.”  Shall I go on??

Now I am not trying to speak for anyone but myself, but it is worth just giving it a little bit of thought.  I know for me as much as I would love to share my life with someone, my life is pretty amazing right now. And I know that there is some part of me that feels, on some level, what if I lose myself? I’ve done that before, too.  What if I have to compromise, and things change and I don’t like it?

Well this is big for me, huge, and I’ve got some big work to do. So, I am going to pass you off to C.  Let’s see what she comes up with.  I’m sure this won’t be the last time we discuss this.  Wish me luck! xo-K

My two cents:  Remember when you pray for patience, a lot of things come in that require patience.  That’s how you learn.

***

Okay, we Two Girls have pretty much gone on record saying the universe is conspiring to give you what you want. “Oh yeah?” you say. “Then where’s my stuff?” Fair question.

Well, yes, the universe always says yes. But it’s complicated. It says yes to every thought you have. Studies have shown that we have in excess of 100,000 thoughts a day. Have you ever monitored the thoughts zipping through your head? Please! If all the mental chatter that goes on in our head was dollars, we’d all be millionaires!

Bottom line: not all of the thoughts we think are in alignment. Dude — some of the thoughts we think just out and out contradict each out.  And when you send out conflicting messages, guess what happens? They cancel each other out. How do you know if you’re sending out conflicting signals? Well, if you’re not getting what you want, the bottom line is, you have resistance to actually manifesting it. Ouch.

Maybe you’ve been single for a while and you’re ready to date. You join an online dating service, fill out the forms, upload a flattering photo. There are thousands of people online, looking for love! It’s a virtual date-fest! So why aren’t you finding The One? Okay, it’s time to get brutally honest with yourself. You have issues. Don’t take it personally, we all have issues. We’re human, we have issues. The problem is, if you really want to get what you want and be happy, you have to own your issues, and work to resolve them. Here are some examples of conflicting thoughts:

I really want to be married.

I’m afraid that if I get married, I’ll always have to do what he wants and I’ll never get to do what I want. Ever.

I want to fall in love.

The last time I fell in love, he left me. Just like the one before him, and the one before him, all the way back to my dad. All men leave.

I want to settle down.

Only losers settle. No one’s going to tell me what to do!

I want someone to share my life with.

He better not be a cheater. The last guy I dated cheated on me. All men cheat.

If any of this resistance stuff rings a bell, don’t be sad, pookie. It’s good news! Once you can be honest enough with yourself to own what’s holding you back, you can heal it and move on with your life. You can have what you want. You just have to decide what’s holding you back and do something about it. This is our work. Love, C

My two cents: you don’t have to believe everything you think.

 

 

happy together

My first example of a happy marriage started off, well at the beginning.  My parents, married right out of high school, first love, still married and in love 47+ years later.  Great example right, so. . . what the heck happened to me?

Here I am at 46, still trying to figure this all out.  I didn’t come from a horrible, broken family.  My family was small but solid.  So why at the age when hormones were raging did I basically proclaim to God, Universe, Angels, or whoever was up there listening, “I’m never getting married!”

I’ve been close  a few times, but because of the whole self fulfilling prophecy thing, I’ve always managed to pick the guys who I seemed to want to marry but for some reason knew on some subconscious level, were safe to get close to, but no cigar.  What the heck was I so afraid of?  I did want to get married right?  I did want to share my life with someone.

I had totally forgot about my teenage proclamation until just a few years ago.  I remember feeling it, and I do mean feeling it.  At that point in time I swore I was never going to get married and there was a lot of emotion and steam behind it.

So I have been trying to figure this out for the last few years and I have come up with a few things that  I thought I’d share.  I think that I was under the impression that all marriages are created equal,  there  is really just one kind:  he gets his way all the time, she has to sacrifice, and so do the kids. (So is it any surprise that I became a single parent and not a wife?  Just asking.)

Thinking about it now, it just seems crazy. It is amazing the impressions made on you as a young child, and how you just take them on without ever questioning them.  I watched my mom all those years and even now,  she doesn’t seem to mind giving my dad his way, catering to him, she even seems to enjoy it.  So what I see as a sacrifice is not for her.  Wait, so there is not just one kind of marriage?  I think that the sacrifice version of marriage is what I’ve been carrying around with me all these years and it didn’t seem fun to me so I wasn’t going to do it.  Wow, that’s quite a revelation.

So after much thought, reading, studying and just talking to my friends and clients, I finally got that all marriages are not the same.  I don’t have to have my parent’s marriage.  OMG, really? It seems so simple but most people go through life on auto- pilot not really knowing that there are choices and options about the way their life plays out. I think this is enlightening.

So now I know that I get to pick, what kind of marriage I want to have.  The way I want to live. I am sure there will be compromises just like with anything but I don’t have to have my parents marriage.  I can find someone who I will be happy with, just like my mom did.  Now, isn’t that  ironic.  xo-K

My two cents:  You can’t look at someone else’s life from your vantage point and get the true picture.

***

I was the first one to get divorced in my family. No wait, that’s not true. My uncle got divorced. Three times. But he was disreputable. He gambled and smoked and told dirty jokes. I wasn’t disreputable, just unhappy. When my marriage was splitting up, my soon-to-be-ex told me, “I would have stuck it out with you.” Gosh, I thought. That’s what every girl wants to hear. But then, I thought I’d already be married again by now. My ex was married within a year of our divorce. To a woman he went to grad school with while we were still together.  I’m happy for them. I hope he sticks it out with her.

I had never been a little girl who dreamed of having a Barbie wedding and marrying Ken. I just assumed it would happen and things would work out, and we’d have a life. My parents have been married forever, and I can’t imagine them apart. My sister has left her husband, but she won’t divorce him. She doesn’t love him, but she won’t defile the sanctity of marriage even though he’s a devil dog and abusive and hurtful.

The thing is, I don’t want to settle for what anyone else thinks is the “right” path. I don’t believe that there’s only one perfect mate out there. I think there are perfect people who are perfect for us at certain points in our life.  This means that you don’t just get one perfect One. You get several perfect ones. And since we don’t know how long we get on this spin around the planet, why not just enjoy the ride and stop worrying about who’s married for how long, and to whom? It will happen when it’s right. And if “forever” means five years or fifty, it’s perfect in its own way. A very smart friend told me recently, “what’s forever in the span of eternity?” I like that perspective, because as it turns out, I’m in it for the long haul. Love, C

My two cents: I’m adopting Abraham-Hicks’ philosophy on love: “I like you pretty good, let’s see how it goes.”