Have The Relationship You Want

Here’s a comment from Renee I jumped right off of, because I felt so strongly I’m about as forceful as I’m ever going to get.  This is total tough love, totally hard to hear if you’re Renee, so Renee – please don’t read it if you don’t want to hear it this brutally…and let’s all help with getting Renee going in the right direction…Renee – you’ve had enough pain…I want you to be happy right now:

“Rori,  I have listened to your Toxic Men program and it has really taught me what have been doing wrong in relationships. I have been dealing with this toxic man for the last year. I have known this man for 12 years. We were involved 12 years ago for about 3 years. He was separated when we met and continued seeing each other after he went back to his wife, I know, bad mistake. I finally ended things after I moved out of state. He would still call and want to see me, but I felt that he had made his decision to be with his wife and it wasn’t right for him to continue to try to see me.

We lost touch for about 5 years, then I got a phone call about a year and a half ago, saying he was seperated “for real” and was sorry for how he had hurt me. I started things out as friends since I wanted to make sure the relationship with his wife was really over. When the divorce had been filed, I agreed to see him. I wanted to just be friends, but the chemistry between us is very strong and we developed a sexual relationship. We had an amazing time together and by the way he initially talked I thought we could finally be together as we had always dreamed.

Two months after we started seeing each other he told me about this other woman who he had been deeply involved with for the last year, and that was why he was getting divorced, his wife kicked him out of the house for having an affair. He told me he was trying to end things with her. I hung on for another 8 months, all the while he was “trying to end” the relationship with this other woman, seeing me and also seeing 2 other women. I did not expect a committent right off since he was going through a divorce.

He finally made a decision to move out of state to get away from this other woman. Initially I was so happy, I thought maybe he would change. He invited me to see him in his new town and when I arrived, he seemed nervous. It is a small town, and we went to dinner at one of the few restuarants and ran into a couple he knew. He immediately became uncomfortable and introduced me as “someone from out of state who is interviewing for a job”! I was devastated and when I confronted him after the fact, it came out that the woman in the couple was the sister of someone he had been seeing in a sexual relationship. He had told me he was only going out in groups, he hid the fact that he was in any kind of physical relationship with anyone.

When I asked him what he wanted out of our relationship he basically said he wanted a “stay home person” in the town, but a “travel companion” on the side, which would be me. He said he loved being with me and spending time with me, but could never be in a “one person” relationship. I really love this man, and after listening to your Toxic Man program, I realized I had been doing everything wrong. I told him I just wanted to be friends, that I did not want a physical relationship with him anymore. Even as a friend, he doesn’t call when he says he will, he does not answer my emails. I have been trying to use the feeling messages and have joined 2 online dating sites so I can start dating. I already have a lot I am doing on my own, I am in Karate, I go to the gym 6 days a week, hike and work insane hours.

I have always thought of myself as a very independent person, but my heart melts when I hear this man’s voice and he gets to me like no other. Is this a hopeless situation? He told me he and this other woman have been seeing each other quite a bit, he has even met her daughter and been on family functions. I feel like my heart is being ripped in two. I know I am probably “addicted” to the situation since I cant have him. I enjoy having this man as a friend, but I want more, but don’t know if it is even worth it anymore.

I am not very good with meeting other men, any suggestions on how I can put myself “out there” to start dating more? I am currently going through your modern siren program, I need all of the help I can get!

And here’s my very tough answer (and also very encouraging…) –

Renee  you’re not going to like this –it’s going to be tough love – PLEASE don’t read further if you don’t want to get hit in the head with my brick…I think this is what you need, because no one else in all this time who you trust at all has told you this…..

First – I want to say brava for going out, Circular Dating, going to the gym, taking care of yourself and at least reducing this man to “friend.” That said…I think you need an overview so your heart no longer melts when you think of him or hear his voice…or so that you can put that melting to good use – which is what Modern Siren will do for you -  to make yourself happy, instead of miserable.

SO..here it is:  I’m going to ask you – WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO YOURSELF??!!!

You’ve been wasting your time, your life, your love, your energy on this BAD man who only wants you for a booty call, for a girl when he runs out of women he’s REALLY attracted to, a “friend” who’s there when he needs her.  And, though you’ve made amazing progress for yourself – here you are still thinking about him….giving your energy to trying to figure out what to do to GET him.

He’s clueless and narcissistic and totally toxic. BUT – you still have feelings for him.

I can’t make your feelings go away, and I wouldn’t WANT to!  Your feelings are precious, there yours, they feed your soul.  Just because you feel for the WRONG man doesn’t mean you need to throw away all the feelings ASSOCIATED with that man.

You can take your feelings WITH you, into the next experience, and the next, until you become a person FULL of feeling, afraid of NONE.

To be clear now, with the hardest part of my reply to hear:

*** If he WANTED you, he would have been with you LONG AGO.  He is not.  Therefore, he doesn’t want you.  Not only is there NOTHING you can do strategically or in any other way to GET this man, there is no reason on this earth why you would WANT him.  He lies, he cheats, he’s a player, he’s a total child and immediate gratification man, and he is clearly attracted to and hung up on a specific type of woman who is NOT you.  There.

I know you believe the physical chemistry and sex and attraction you feel between you is significant – but it’s NOT.  It’s what YOU perceive is going on…but if it truly was what HE perceived…YOU’D be in a completely different situation with him. (And, if I’m right about this guy – you’d be in a WORSE position.  You’d likely be married to him, and he’d be cheating on YOU!)

Now — REALLY , really work with Toxic Men to keep you working on what it is in YOU that’s keeping you drawn to unavailable, toxic men – and with Modern Siren, which will teach you how to USE all the emotions you’re righteously and gloriously feeling, and then get Targeting Mr. Right to teach you exactly HOW, nuts-and-bolts – to Circular Date to make it WORK for you.  Fast.

I want you out there Circular Dating, building your self-esteem, and never, ever again coming NEAR a man like this who is not falling all over himself to be with you.

That, from now on, is your one, non-negotiable criteria for a man…he must be crazy about you, so you have no doubt.  You must be RECEIVING all the time.  No giving.  No waiting.  He must be able to DO a lifelong relationship.  He must be able to give.  He must be able to take the good with the bad, to “catch” your feelings, to want to work through things with you.  He must be able to be there for the long haul – because he WANTS to.  He must be a GOOD man.

Love, Rori

Halloween has always been one of my favorite – perhaps my actual favorite – holidays.  I just find it such a combination of fun, scary, pretend, meaningful, going outside your comfort zone, parties that don’t have family significance, neighborhood, childhood, being a mom with a flashlight, candy I can’t eat but can collect and touch, carnivals, dress up, touching my inner “stranger.”

This is one of my traditional Halloween essays…let’s make this Halloween about taking off the masks…

Some days, it’s always Halloween.

It seems so much easier to stay hidden behind a mask. If I’m feeling grumpy, or ugly, or awkward or nervous, or really, really angry, or really, really embarrassed, I’d like to keep it to myself.

No one wants to see that, not even me. I’m much too strong for that, much too organized, smart, capable and high on the consciousness scale to go there, into Ickyfeelingsland. I’ll keep it to myself.

And the playing pieces — the red and blue wooden ones and the plastic houses and fake money all just keeping jumping around inside me in their own little world. Little do I know you can all see the action anyway.

If I’m angry, you can see it. If I’m upset, you can feel it. If I put a big smile on my face but you can actually feel my anger, yeah, you may think I’m a wondrously complex human being — but our relationship will suffer.

Carol Pearson, in her book The Hero Within, says “Being ladylike or gentlemanly and denying one’s anger simply results in the unconscious sabotage of relationships. Expressing one’s anger is transformative because it allows for a true and open, honest relationship. It makes way, therefore, for love.”

We have so many reasons for not expressing our feelings openly and in the moment: It’s not appropriate. I’m wrong about it. What I’m feeling is so childish. I’ve done much too much work on myself to be feeling like this. They all boil down to fear.

Fear of retribution — He’ll get mad at me. Fear of what will happen — He’ll leave me. Fear of what he’ll think of us — He already thinks I’m a drama queen, now he’ll think I’m needy.

Yep, we don’t know what’ll happen. The risks, however, of speaking our feelings in bits and pieces and in words men can hear are minuscule compared to the risks of not speaking our feelings.

When we stuff them in, hold them down, try to refashion them through affirmations or being “our best selves,” we may think we’re being successful at it, but sooner or later one or all of three things will happen:

One, the pressure and energy will build up until it explodes and you come out swinging, screaming, crying, attacking, throwing things, slamming doors, pleading, apologizing, cowering, melting down, folding up, giving up and giving in. A relationship in which this goes on all the time is not fun for anybody in it.

Two, the pressure and energy will be ignored and allowed to build up until it explodes inside you and you get depressed or sick. A relationship in which this happens may seem safe, because everyone here avoids real connection and real love, but it doesn’t feel very good.

Three, you are able to hold in, cover up, and transform the pressure and energy until you become locked into a personality and state of being that is not your own. Everything may seem okay here until you get a glimpse that you’re living someone else’s life – and the way back to yourself seems overwhelming.

In Rori Raye terms, Saying how you feel in the moment is taking care of yourself and your relationships in the best way possible. Every time you say only “I feel disconnected,” or “I feel sad,” or “I feel soooo goood!” and then let your man come up with the next sentence, you are creating alchemy. Magic happens inside your body. The energy that’s been built up trying to keep the feeling hidden suddenly is released.

Both the feeling and the energy fighting it suddenly start flowing thorough you and become a part of you. It’s like reclaiming lost energy. Like reclaiming lost bits of ourselves. Like turning hay into gold.

The more we reclaim, the more we change and grow. We become new people – chemically. Our relationships are the culture, the medium in which we can grow ourselves. Staying frozen in the patterns of behavior we’ve known since childhood, even if our thinking and philosophies have changed and expanded, is still staying frozen.

Devoting our lives to constantly tracking, guessing, analyzing, measuring, trying to change what’s going on in our men’s minds, hearts and bodies is a sad waste of our considerable, wonderful energies. Making him our project is us dismissing who we are — as if who we are is helplessly linked to who he is.

How much more fun and satisfying it would be to like what we like and just simply not like what we don’t like. To love ourselves for who we are — even if we’re not quite sure at any given moment who that is — Halloween mask and all.

It takes courage to risk what we know to have what we don’t know. It takes faith to risk what we’re comfortable with to have what we yearn for. It takes a new belief to trust the person in front of you with your heart, little by little, until you both see that both of you are worthy.

Stand up for yourself. Be for yourself. Be for love. Receive love. Accept or reject what is in front of you. Tolerate nothing.

Love, Rori

If you sometimes feel like your man has all the Power in your relationship, and you feel almost desperate to get your strong sense of yourself back, I learned something very valuable (the hard way) this weekend that I know will help you, too.

If you’re at all like me, you value being “nice,” being “liked,” and being “well thought of.”

So, if you’re like me – being a “Drama Queen” is just out of the question.

Well, that’s all nice and good, wanting to be “mature” and “well spoken” and “thoughtful,” but for most of us, all that “carefulness” and “political correctness” gets us to the same place – pushing our men away!

How can that be?

How can we push a man away by being “nice” and “mature”?

Well, as I’ve known since the moment I turned my marriage around years ago, and as I teach my clients and write and create programs about for you, valuing “nice” and “mature” over AUTHENTIC can just kill a man’s love for you.

And it’s not because there’s something so wrong with “nice.”.

It’s because sometimes our “nice” is just not REAL.

Because we value being liked more than being Authentic, we can stuff down our feelings.

I still struggle with this – and as aware as I am about it, it still always surprises me when I choose the “high road” – choose to let something that’s bothering me go rather than speaking up about it.

These are the moments when my inner Drama Queen can actually HELP!

So – what does YOUR inner Drama Queen look like?

Is she so not welcome inside you that you’d do almost anything to not let her out?

Are you so afraid she’ll turn you into a raging Drama Queen out there in the world that you push her down and try to keep her covered up?

Well, the one thing I know is that if you don’t love your inner Drama Queen, and instead resist her as much as you can – that’s when you actually DO turn INTO a Drama Queen.

It’s as though the fight to keep her from taking over makes her squeak by you so you end up acting like a Drama Queen anyway.

Only – instead of YOU GUIDING her, so that her words come out THROUGH YOU, in Feeling Messages instead of attacks, and so her feelings inspire a man to HELP you instead of run from you – she comes out without your consent and without your control.

Your inner Drama Queen just jumps out and splatters all over everything. It’s those moments when we do or say something we wish we hadn’t.

And then you remember the moment when you first felt angry or upset and didn’t say anything about it when it happened – and you KNOW that if you’d just spoken out – authentically and truthfully in that moment, you wouldn’t have turned into a Drama Queen just now.

So – love your inner Drama Queen.

Loving her and embracing her will make it possible for you to avoid ACTING like a drama queen.

Let her speak to you.

Let her say what’s on her mind.

Let her into your heart, feel her feelings and use YOUR WORDS to say what’s going on inside you.

You can do this.

Your Drama Queen on the inside can make you calmer and easier on the outside.

Your Drama Queen on the inside can help you stand up for yourself and be stronger.

So – talk to her.

Ask her what her name is.

Ask her if she’ll help you be stronger, more direct, authentic, and VULNERABLE.

Try this Tool and see if you feel a little lighter, a little more in step with yourself – I know that I did.

In my Toxic Men program, I have a whole section on getting to know and embracing your inner “Stranger” – this will help you so much to stop attracting and being attracted to toxic and difficult men. You can take a look at it (and all my programs) on the “Rori’s Catalog” page here…For now, just listen to your inner Drama Queen instead of shutting her up, and see what she has to offer you – and let me know how she helps you.

Love, Rori

Here’s a letter I got from Jennifer…a very universal situation if you’ve ever been in the business of attracting and being attracted to unavailable, perhaps even Toxic men:

“Rori…I have been listening to you for about a year. My name is Jennifer….I am a 35 year old single woman who has had 3 long term toxic relationships in her whole life. (One was 7 years, one was 4 years and resulted in a broken engagement, which I broke off, and the last was a 1 year Long distance imaginary relationship).

Your programs helped me get out ofthat last one, the one year, passionate (albeit emotionally unavailable man scenario) relationship with a man that devastated me. We broke up in August 2008.

After that, in the span of 7 months, I lost my job, foreclosed on a house, and moved from Las Vegas, (I hated Vegas). I felt renewed, confident, scared, cried a lot, moved on, got stronger, and ordered “Targeting Mr. Right.”….which brings you up to speed…

I have been circular dating since early May of this year. I cannot tell you the difference that I felt at first….sexy, confident, attractive, alive….ready to take on the world! I was open and ready to experience whatever the universe brought me in the form of MEN!! I went out on about 7-8 wine/coffee dates, practiced all of your tools, listening with an open heart, open body language, trying not to judge, etc…

…I met one man I was REALLY crazy about…..he was the ONLY one who got past the first date….we have been out over 9 times, had great dinners, hikes, romantic kisses near the Golden Gate Bridge…awesome chemistry. He is 40, never married, very handsome, has had several long term relationships, even lived with 2 women in the past…..even admitted to commitment phobia in the past, but I refused to judge and decided to just have fun and enjoy him.

BUT to be safe and smart, I was communicating to him, that I JUST moved, that I was actively dating and seeking to meet lots of people, and that was were I was at, even though I really loved being with him,(which I communicated to him) all of which he supported and even applauded me for…at first…

…now it seems like he is backing away because I haven’t changed my stance, and I really haven’t…… I had been STILL going out on coffee dates, although I must admit, as we got closer and closer I stopped for about 3 weeks, even though I didn’t tell him I stopped, because I didn’t want to lose my sense of power for myself or to have him sense that I was trying to CAPTURE……….

Rori, you would be soooo proud of me, because this whole time, even though I have felt my feelings deepen, I have done everything possible to RELAX and RESIST the urge to THROW him into the CAGE, as you call it! And its the one thing that I instinctively feel that is making him back away from me….I have NEVER talked about wanting to be a girlfriend, or in wanting ANY of that, even AFTER we had sex for the first and only time, two weeks ago!!

( He knew I had only had sex with 3 other men my whole life) I think that he is used to all of the women in his life and THEIR CRAP and THEIR urges to CAPTURE, (he has said things like he felt like a sperm donor, or someone that was supposed to fit into their TIMELINES etc., so I KNOW he is used to women and their pressures) He has sent me messages that he really likes me, even holding my hand saying that he would love to be a father, etc.

So….. I deliberately DO NOT do any of those old behaviors, no matter what was happening and as we got closer, I feel like the stronger I got THEN he starts in the last 2 weeks or so backing away, esp since our sexual encounter which was very passionate and fabulous, by the way. Since then, he tells me things like…”HE Is not emotionally ready for a relationship, but he has deep feelings for me, that its not me, but his crap” and he want to take some time for himself….WHAT? I haven’t pressured one bit!

And despite him saying that, He still calls me or texts me everyday ( I NEVER initiate calls,which was one of your tools which I could always do easily).  So in the last two weeks his mood seems a little down, some of his texts went something like….”I wanted to take some time for myself..I am not ignoring you, just wanted you to know..how are you?” He hasn’t made any plans to see me in almost 2 weeks, all the while, phones and texts like this almost every day……

Last night he showed up at my apt here in the City, He lives 20 miles outside the city, and this is the first time I had seen him (since the last time we saw each other and had sex which was at his house, and he asked me to stay the night) So last night in my apt……….we kissed, talked a bit (his behavior was sooooo confusing..it seems like he is waiting for me to say that I don’t want to see other guys..I FEEL that…like, he won’t say anything until I do…all this looks like he can’t man up, so. …I looked into his eyes, and opened my heart and said….”What is going on? (I know…. mistake, but I said it with a feeling message right after which was…I’m here, I like you so much, and I’m confused and feeling a bit anxious about this..what do you think?”

He said he didn’t come over to talk, he just HAD to see me, kiss me, etc. So I dropped it, gave him a huge open heart smile and a deep hug, and said I was so glad to see him and that I missed him, he returned the sentiment, Then after 15 min he left. No plans for any future dates, nothing. I smiled and let him go, even though I was so hurt and angry at that moment………

I don’t have 3 men in my rotation yet…so I won’t let him go just yet….I am not “efforting” at all outwardly, but inside I feel myself becoming a bit obsessed with this…in your experience…what is going on? Is this how some men act when they know you are dating around? I refuse to abandon myself, Although its making me miserable and sad..every date I want the chemistry I feel with him and havent found it yet….is he just being a baby, like you said in T Mr. Right? Can he man up? And should I even give a damn??? Jennifer”

***Here’s my answer:

Jennifer, This was EXACTLY right – NO MISTAKE!!! -

You must ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH…That’s what keeps fear from taking over….and that’s where attraction can grow.

Some men are simply not able to do real relationship.  You know you attract these men and are attracted to them because of your history with Toxic Men.

Circular Dating will smoke those guys out!

He’s not backing away because you’re a free spirit…he’s backing away either because the attraction is not deepening for him, or because you’re not as EASY as he’d hoped, or because he’s a Toxic man and somewhere inside he KNOWS he can’t do this, or he just doesn’t ever WANT to do this, he’s just fighting his attraction to you.  Or, he just wants sex.

He may have felt the pressure from you after sex, and he may feel it from inside himself…but it makes no difference…

Sex is meaningful to a woman, no matter how much of a rock star you aim to be…you can’t help but put out stronger vibes after sex – and if you don’t, you wouldn’t be authentic . That’s why sex should only happen when you know exactly what’s going on with you and you can speak it first.

Let him back off, and if he shows up again, try not having sex. Just tell him that you could feel the pressure, and you’d rather wait and just have fun with him. From what you say about his coming over…sounds more like a booty call to me, too…let’s see what the other women on the blog can offer you…

Love, Rori