Have The Relationship You Want

Here’s a quick question-and-answer:

“Rori, I have read your “Have the Relationship You Want” book and it is ingrained in my thoughts when evaluating what to do to resolve issues with my relationship, however, I need help with this one…

I have a man who has some emotional issues that he’s told me and is having a tough time coping with all the stresses in his life at this time. I have leaned way back even withdrew for quite some time but it seems he is reaching out to me for some help emotionally and physically, we spoke about him moving in because he is going through some deep depression and despair. Some caused by me, some self induced through life situations.

Without going too much into detail, I believe I need to be a friend but not get too emotionally tied to into the result of me helping but I truly believe in this man and our relationship in the long term. I am not sure if leaning back and letting him step up is what will happen here since he has admittedly at a very weak time in his life and when I tried that he fell deeper into his own despair and seclusion.

I have faith in helping him and I will do it in a way that keeps my boundaries in place. Do I just stay back where there is little hope or do I help him but possibly overfunction. Thanks in advance, Shirley”

And here’s my answer:

Shirley –
Basically,  a man will never fall in love with a woman who “comes to his aid.”

A woman who “helps” is not seen as a romantic figure. He will stick with you until you see him through, and then dump you when he’s feeling better.

I’ve seen this over and over again.

You cannot be a man’s therapist – even if you’re married to him. He needs professional help, medication – Western or alternative, exercise – he has to help himself.

If all you want with him is friendship – I don’t think it’s a good use of your energy if what you’re looking for in life is a real partner…still – a friend is a witness. A person who doesn’t let another person go downhill by standing firm that they believe in the person sliding down. The person STILL has to do the work for him or herself.

It’s not possible to have any kind of “relationship” with a man in this situation. Please don’t try. Please Circular Date and fulfill your own life.

Okay, I know this sounds harsh.  And yet, this is what I’ve seen:

I’ve seen a “good woman” save her man. He was a Vietnam helicopter pilot veteran with serious emotional problems and drinking problems.  I knew him because I’d loved him before she met him…only I didn’t have the skills she had, and I didn’t love him as much as she did.

She didn’t save him by understanding and making excuses and letting him skate by on his charm and looks and sexiness and ignoring the rest — like all the other women before her, including me, had done.

She put her foot down!  She didn’t beg him or convince him or do those things that AA and Alanon KNOW don’t work with a person in trouble.  She just, when she realized how troubled he was…both loved him more than any woman ever had, respected him more than any woman had ever had, and had stronger boundaries than any other woman had ever had.

She cared more about him than he’d ever experienced - and yet she cared more about HERSELF than she did about him.

It was such a powerful combination, he cleaned up, got help and has been a stand-up, married man ever since.

The nightmares haven’t gone away…but his craziness and drinking have.  She still can’t follow him into his personal hell when it shows up for him, but she can be there when he’s ready to come out.  And.. she’s never just standing there waiting…he has to step out of his cave like any man and FIND her.

Even with this great story…this man, even with all his problems, was not in despair and depression and darkness most of the time.  He was highly functioning and happy much of the time.  He had ambitions and talent as an actor.  He never “crawled” to this great woman asking for help…he acted like a masculine-energy man who WANTED to be healthy, until she got close enough to see what was going on underneath the surface.

But Shirley’s man is not in that place.  He IS crawling toward her.  This is very, very different.  And yet, there’s always the possibility that he could finally get himself help and change his life, right in front of her eyes.

Only, like the “good” woman of my story…she has to love herself more than she loves him.  She has to RESPECT him enough to trust that he will get the help he needs.  she has to treat him the way she would any other man.

And Shirley, you have to SPEAK this to him.  You have to say…I care for you, I would love to be with you, and I’m not comfortable being your friend or helpmate.  I trust you and respect you to get the help you need, so that we can have a relationship that’s in a good place when you’re ready…”

Let me know if this helps you see men in a slightly different way.

Love, Rori

I love letters with what you and I might call “extreme” situations — where we all gasp and swear we’d never let that happen to us — but we KNOW, deep down, that it COULD happen to us, that we have, and may still be, tolerating things we don’t like and playing “small” when we are, in fact, HUGE goddesses — all of us.

Let’s see how we can use this to help you:

“Dear Rori,
.
I wanted to share with you the wall I’m up against.

Brief intro:

17 years of Bliss, 3 children, were very happy, we moved and all went pear shaped.

He broke up over email and its been texting and emailing and fighting for 3 years. He comes back, he leaves. He spends more time with us than away.

Recently he has said he loves me and ‘ maybe’ wants to come back. He wants total freedom to come and go as he pleases. Me to ask no questions, For starters we stay in separate houses, and take it slow, he can still flirt and go out with other woman, and if I get upset the that goes against me and him getting back together.

He doesn’t want a jealous wife. I am not to question his behavior or where he goes, if I have a complaint I should tell a girlfriend not him. that will go against me. Over the next few weeks, he will judge me and my behavior and attitude toward him as to whether he thinks he wants to come back to me and his kids…

So I will be on trial - and I will be judged on behavior, attitude. etc. There is no problem with physical attraction, for my age and 3 kids I look great…

He will be flirty and being smutty on facebook etc with other woman and if I complain that will go against me.

Here’s the great bit, If I use - I feel, I felt, I am feeling with him .. that will go against me. If I try to play him with all the junk he says he reads on these web sites. .. so he’s across all of this..

How do I deal with this. i am not good at playing games, and he’s onto all these methods…

What do I do ? No Bliss”

***Here’s my answer:

Basically, No Bliss – What are you DOING???? (This is going to be tough love – don’t read if you don’t want to hear it.)

If you think that by allowing yourself to “be on trial” and wait for him — you’ll get him back, you are dead wrong.

The only way you have a chance of getting this marriage back (and I can’t imagine why you’d WANT to now –there are all kinds of great men out there who’d want you 3 kids and all…) is to put your wedding ring on your right hand, and START DATING. Break up with him. Tell him this is a separation, and so that you will be dating also. Period. If you can’t do this, then, please, get some therapy to help your self-esteem –and get my Targeting Mr. Right program – it will help you date without all the weirdness attached…

AGREE with him. Tell him that you don’t want the marriage at this point while you’re both discovering what it is you really want (this is not a game – this is TRUE for YOU, if you’ll let yourself see this…).

Good luck! You can DO THIS!!!

***Okay, now let’s see how we can use this…

For most of this letter, it sounds like No Bliss is joking, doesn’t it? Like she sees the humor in his ridiculous demands and behavior, and is almost about to wipe her hands of him…but then…you know she’s not joking at all. No Bliss is really caught up in all this.

And it’s so easy for us to say “ewwww” - but after 17 years and 3 kids and “bliss” — any one of us would feel invested and, well, caught up.

And this brings me to the hard question: “What do you do when things change? Unexpectedly. Suddenly. Seemingly without warning. What do you do when your man goes berserk all of a sudden?”

And my answer is: Unless there’s instantaneous dementia from a physical accident or a drug reaction — there’s no such thing as “all of a sudden.” There’s no such thing as a surprise that’s this huge. No way.

This kind of thing has to be growing. Gathering steam. It could be underground, where you don’t want to look. It could be right in front of your face, where you still don’t want to look.

You could be feeling your reaction to it, and not know what that reaction’s about. This is where we women can get “tunnel vision” and just look at everything and everywhere except at the exact spot where everything’s going wrong.

So much is subconscious - where we can’t see it –so let’s say we go into a temporary state of being where we’re not aware of what’s going on around us.

So — let’s say that when we get “unaware,” it’s not our fault.  BUT — if we don’t choose to LEARN from that unaware experience — then we embark on the non-stop beating up of ourselves that I FORBID you to do!

So, along with everything else we’re going to do here, I want you to EMBRACE and LOVE even your passing unaware moments. Let’s just say that the unaware moments describe not seeing what’s right in front of us just because it’s hard to see.

Now…The man just up and walks, he runs around, he blames you, he puts you in a cage of behavior with one THREAT: He will get mad, and then he will walk even FURTHER away.

And this threat is the one that decks every single one of us.

Even if we don’t want a man anymore, the moment he threatens to GO - we want him back.

It’s like LOSING is worse than being unhappy.

Well - sometimes losing is “loosing” — just opening our iron grip and letting a man do whatever he wants to do.

Because I can tell you this — if a man doesn’t want to be with you –he’s nothing to you. Period. He’s a drain on your energy, your spirit, your heart, your health, and “loosing” a man like that is the only thing that will serve you.

(Also — it’s the only way to invite him to come and get you. (After he cleans up his act, of course –because who would want a dreadful man in the state that this one is in?)

Waiting around for a man who is acting like a single man, jerking you around and daring you to “start something” is hardly worth even a moment to “contemplate.”

The answer is NO.  No, I don’t care if you get mad. No, I don’t care what you think.  No, I no longer care what you do.

The only thing you have here to say YES to is shared parenthood.  That means you stay civil, you stay calm, you refrain from arguing.  You work only for the good of your children.

You consider yourself separated, tell him so, and go about building a new life for yourself.  Should he ever regain his senses and want to come back (and the fastest ticket to that is to forget about him and get a great new life), then you’l think about it.

This letter riled me up, and No Bliss, I hope I was able to give you a bit of a push to discover your own sense of being “done” with this man for now, except as the father of your children.

And while you’re creating this new, fabulous life (right NOW, please) - you will be working with my Tools to undo whatever your part is in this.  Even if the only thing you can put your finger on is “unawareness.”

You will be discovering how you got here, and how you can have something blissful again - even if it’s not with this same man.

Love, Rori