Have The Relationship You Want

Here’s a letter from J – and I had very strong feelings when I read it, because I know J’s history with this man. And also – most truthfully – because this is exactly the way I was, this is exactly the kind of question I would have asked of Rori Raye long ago, and I do NOT want you to have to go to this awful place.

“Hi Rori,

A guy who essentially disappeared from dating me…due to family issues, etc. had recently been contacting me, mostly via text. It’s brought up some feelings for me (i.e., hurt, anger, sadness, and frustration). It is good to hear from him, since i did care about him and we loved each other, however I feel he is truly clueless to the effect of his actions, since he contacts me in a very casual manner…as if he’s being friendly. I’ve texted back that if it’s his intention to contact me that I would prefer to speak with him.

He’s been texting, trying to figure out a time we could chat., which may be tonight, if I’m not busy doing other things.

My question: Even though I took your advice about this guy and acknowledged his lack of contact, etc by telling him I realize your feelings are not there anymore and this is over, but to let me know if there was something that pushed him away, for the next time. He didn’t respond to that….we planned to meet to discuss but that never panned out.

So here is my question: What if he calls to simply chat about how I am, etc…I feel this is a good opportunity to express my anger and frustration that he’s caused me. I don’t know how to bring it up, because I honestly think he will not bring anything up. Thank you. J.”

And here’s my answer:

J – This is where you ask yourself some hard questions – And the first question is “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!???? Why are you letting this guy come in and rake you over the coals again???!!!” (You can see I got excited, with all the heavy punctuation.)

I’m just going to say this straight out, because we’ve talked before and I know I can be tough with you — DUMP HIM.

Stop talking to him. You don’t need another friend, especially not a MALE friend, and that’s all he wants. Make that crystal clear — “Hi, it feels great to be in contact again, and yet I know that I still have feelings, so if what you’re looking for here is friendship, I just don’t wish to pursue friendships with men right now, so I wish you well and will not be staying in contact.”

If you were ready to ask him a question that would be helpful to you…you wouldn’t be feeling all this anger, hurt, etc. Do NOT give in and spew it on him. It will make you feel humiliated. Stay away from him if you feel all these things.

Now – let’s take this out into all our experience. This is about being so attached to any one man that you cut off the possibilities of other great men finding you. It’s like putting a fence around yourself that’s marked with the man-you’re- zeroed-in-on’s name. It’s like he’s peed on you, and marked you as his territory, and you’re showing his urine stain to the world.

I know that was a really harsh metaphor – but I want to really drive this home. Even just THINKING about a man is letting him “mark” you – and I don’t want you to do that!

I hear you making up all kinds of reasons for staying in contact with this man, like –

1. It seems harmless.
2. Perhaps you can get information from him about what happened (and I know I suggested this long ago – but that was long ago, when you were hurting anyway and it wouldn’t have hurt you more, or it might work if you were TRULY OVER HIM, but you’re clearly not.)

If you’re hurt over a man, you’re not over him. I don’t care how long ago it was. And talking to him again will only re-open the wound.

Let it heal. Forget him, or let him be your “muse,” or carry him with you on your horse into the rest of your life – but don’t let him have any control over you…

How you “use” him and the memory of him to HELP you and get you what you want is YOUR choice, and you should feel totally okay and happy and good about how you do that.

Letting him worm his way back into your waking life puts HIM in YOUR driver’s seat. And if you try hard to turn that around, you’ll just dig yourself in deeper.

Move AWAY from him – not back into his energy field.

Let me know how this works for you, and please share all your experiences with this kind of thing…

Love, Rori

Okay – so just because YOU want to date other men – does HE get to date other women? NO!!!

Here’s a letter from Victoria that started this post:

“Rori, I was thinking about your Circular Dating and turned it around. Would you be able to date a man you were very interested in (hoping to marry) for a year or so, if he was also going out with other women and maybe sleeping with them? I don’t think I could, considering the health risks.

So if a woman continues to date, she has to allow that for her man…no? It would be very hard not to ask questions and be consumed with curiosity. Victoria.”

And here’s my very provocative answer (provocative to men, especially, who argue with me about this all the time – though they KNOW I’m right and tell other MEN and their little sisters and women friends the same thing):

If you are dating a man – you let him know that you’re either dating or engaged, and that you’re looking to be married.

After a couple of months of dating a man, perhaps sleeping with him (which I don’t recommend – there just needs to be an exception clause for young women, women who really want to be sexual and want to try to handle it) – sex, in my opinion has to be exclusive – but not DATING – if he’s still dating other women, I’d drop him like a hot potato.

In other words – once you let him know you want to be married – and that otherwise you’re dating – if he does NOT move to claim you right away – if he STILL feels the need to be with other women, if he isn’t ready – then you continue to date him and date others, UNLESS or UNTIL it doesn’t feel good to you. Then you drop him.

The idea is to keep dating as many men at once as you can fit in your schedule.

First man to claim you that you want – that’s it.

In other words – he’s the one who has to make the decision to come get you.

Victoria, after a year with you, it’s completely ridiculous for a man to want to date other women. If he doesn’t know he wants you by then – drop him out of your rotation.

The terrible thing is to get invested in a man and then find out he didn’t want you.

When you’re able to express to a man, simply and without an “agenda,” that he can’t have you all to himself “unconditionally” – that’s when he makes a decision.

And he makes that decision without you PRESSURING him, or explaining things to him, or trying to convince him – or anything. No ultimatum. No threat. Just taking care of yourself.

Love, Rori

Here’s a situation – a VERY common situation, where a man is consistently defensive and on the attack in order to feel okay with himself. The cure is in my Toxic Men program, and I’ll touch on it here.

It’s about unearthing the anger in you, in him, in the relationship – and getting it out in the open in a NON-DRAMATIC way – so that it can be healed – and USED to bring you closer to each other.

Otherwise, the anger goes underground and does so much damage there that things are seemingly beyond repair – but it IS repairable. The key is in YOU.

SOMEONE has to start a new kind of communication, a new kind of attitude and approach, a new way of expressing all kinds of feelings – both verbally and physically – that actually CREATE INTIMACY, instead of driving it away.

To do this – you need more strength on the inside – more trust in yourself to state clearer, more consistent Boundaries – and a willingness to be completely vulnerable on the outside.

You have to trust yourself that you will not just BE there, vulnerable and open, when things don’t feel good – when there is even “modest” defensiveness and verbal abuse (I was with a man for a long time who was master of verbal abuse and manipulation – he was funny and charming, and so everyone always laughed, and I stood there wondering what was wrong with me…).

You have to know how to always stay open, and yet always feel strong enough to walk away. At any moment. That’s Power….

Here are 2 symptoms that anger is underground and running things:

1. Judgment and Criticism - you always feel as though everything you do is being “watched’ and “scrutinized” and “judged.”

Every time you do anything, he’s ready with a roll of his eyes, a snide comment – about what you did, about what you didn’t do, about his own needs that somehow it’s your fault aren’t being met (like where things are). Sometimes it’s about simple choices you make – or how you look or what you’re wearing. Sometimes it’s loud, sometimes it’s muttered, sometimes it’s done with a joke (so it’s even harder for you to pin down). It’s constant and never-ending. You feel like a child being berated.

This is about a lot of things, but it can simply be the most “controlled” way a man can express his anger (often his anger at himself – it might have nothing to do with you). He judges you constantly because he’s such a harsh judge of himself. His guilt about his irritation and anger leaves him this “mild” way to express anger – telling you what you’re doing wrong.

(By the way – we do this too…)

2. Withdrawing

He’s drifting away emotionally, spending less time with you, there’s less sex, less affection.

Almost all my programs deal with this and how to stop it and bring him close again – and here – let’s just look at the hidden anger component: He’s angry, he doesn’t know how to deal with it, and so he withdraws. It’s easier.

When you talk with him and try to be “understanding” and get at what the problem is – he just feels angrier, and withdraws more.

The obvious expression of anger is arguments, fighting, verbal and physical attacks – but I don’t want to deal with that here because this is about HIDDEN anger – where all you’re experiencing is the tip of the iceberg, and you’re living in fear of that iceberg surfacing.

And here’s a small step to the solution: Unearth the anger iceberg by YOU changing YOUR reactions.

Now – this is not a lifestyle – you don’t want to be with a man who is constantly berating you or withdrawing from you where you have to be the one always “changing” – this is an experiment, a test, a learning experience – and the goal is to unearth the anger and learn to TOLERATE the experience of it.

Once you can get through surface stuff and into the rage that lies underneath – without all the arguing and fighting and nastiness that only uncovers a tiny part of the iceberg and actually DAMAGES a relationship – you’ll start to feel things loosen up and more affection, attention and love start to fill the space between you.

Instead of running away, or making an excuse for yourself or DEFENDING yourself – you want to:

1. Notice what’s going on with you.

Are you being run by fear? Do you want to run away? Do you want to hit him? Are you going numb? Are you determined to do whatever you have to to make peace and get his approval?

2. Speak the DEEPEST feeling you can find inside yourself.

That could be “I feel scared.” “I feel so angry.” “I feel turned off.”

When he questions you, just keep doing what you’re doing, saying your deepest feeling. If you have to put it in context, say “When I heard (you can repeat what he said here, or paraphrase it…just enough to let him know what you’re referring to…) – “I feel so tense…it felt awful…it feels scary..I felt like running…I feel like running…This doesn’t feel good to me…”

3. Stand your ground.

Don’t apologize for yourself, explain anything – and do not blame him, either.

Look him straight in the eye, as best you can. Lean back. You are not attacking, you are expressing.

What can you expect with doing it this way? All kinds of stuff will come up for you…

You’ll feel shaky, you’ll feel upset – and you’ll feel ANGRIER than you’ve ever felt! And what’s more…as YOU feel more comfortable with YOUR anger – so will he.

He’ll start to let you “have it.” He’ll start to let his anger out. And you have to be strong enough to hear anger and experience the ENERGY of anger – AS LONG AS IT’S NOT DIRECTED AT YOU!!

This means – the moment he turns it on YOU – you say “I’m happy to hear your feelings, even your anger, but I don’t want to feel attacked…” and if he doesn’t change his words and copy what you’re doing (expressing his feelings instead of blaming YOU)…then you must TURN AROUND AND WALK AWAY…!

When this happens, and emotions start to  surface,  I know it’s tough – but, actually – it’s fabulous!!! You are starting to communicate in a way that is triggering YOURSELF and your stuffed up and old feelings.

Now – all we have to do is get a routine down for how to handle your emotions when they bubble up…The more you tell him the truth, in feeling messages, the more you will feel that you don’t WANT to feel – otherwise you would have done this a long time ago.

Believe it or not – this is amazing PROGRESS. And – ALWAYS – the first emotion that shows up is ANGER.

Accept that you are enraged – and just keep processing it and sharing it. This is going to feel weird for a bit – so it’s really important you have a way to relax – to meditate – to regroup and ground yourself. Stuff you love that you can focus on and feel better quickly.

If he’s a man who NEEDS to put YOU down in order to feel okay – he won’t let up right away.  He’s going to up the ante, and keep at you to try to get a “rise” out of you so that you’ll go back to the old, crummy defense patterns you used to be stuck.

He may start to panic, and so he’ll do the only thing he knows – attacking you. You’re going to have to acknowledge how awful that feels right away – instead of stuffing down and answering him reasonably.

Later on – you’ll get a sense of humor about it – and he’ll stop doing this very soon…when you start feeling more powerful.

Defending yourself with anger or cleverness will not help you here – it will just make him work harder to top you.

As you express your anger simply, and let him know it doesn’t feel good, that you feel attacked, that you feel afraid of him and what he’ll say to you, and that it’s making you feel turned off…all this will change….You are only at the BEGINNING of this…be patient, take baby steps.

Love, Rori

You know I love movies – and my husband was away this week, and so I got to wallow in chick-flicks and tear-jerkers, and here’s one gem I picked up from Nights In Rodanthe (way too sad for my taste, but very good for tears) – I can’t remember the exact words our heroine said, so I’ll paraphrase with my own thoughts:

There’s a different kind of love, a kind of love where it makes you better than you are – not less. Where you open up to the possibilities – your possibilities.

What she was describing is a relationship that lasted in person only for a weekend, and then for many months by handwritten letter – and straight from the beginning – she and the man (Diane Lane and Richard Gere) open up to each other. They tell their stories, and they tell the truth.

They challenge each other to not fall back into their old patterns, and after the weekend, each becomes MORE. and Better.

He is less ego-centric. Less defensive of himself and open to feeling who other people actually are, their feelings. He becomes more human.

And she stops putting herself last. She rediscovers her strength, her art, and feels free to express herself instead of stuffing everything down in order to cope and be “good.”

So – how can this work for you?

1. Right from the get-go…the first moment you make contact with a man – turn your attention on how you feel about YOURSELF in his presence.

I don’t mean how excited you feel about him, or how drawn to him you feel, or what you think about him and his “potential.”

2. Get curious about HIM. I don’t mean pepper him withn questions like in an interview – just, in your mind and heart, listen to him the way you would to anyone you might meet who has a great story to tell.  Believe that there’s a great story he has to tell, and relax while it’s unfolding into your curiosity.

3. Stay LIGHT.  By this, I mean don’t let a man’s moods or emotions or challenges or dark moments or chronic darkness bring you into the dark.  Don’t go into the dark just to keep him company.  Just to make him feel better.

Always be looking for the fun, the light, the good, the good-feeling – and let it run through you and take you where you want to be.  Be an example to him of what a great life and what great love IS.  If, and when he asks for your voice from the light – from where you’re at – share it with him.  Don’t try to take him anywhere or push him anywhere or protect him.  Just shine your “Light” and be a beacon for him.

Even if he’s a man you’ve never met standing across the room from you at a party.

4. Believe in yourself, so that only a man who believes in you can get through to you. if you’re not feeling that way about yourself right now – meet yourself where you are.  Start from exactly where you are and how you feel about yourself – and aim for LOVE.  Aim for loving yourself so hard, and believing that you can do what you’re meant to do and want to do, and have what you want to have so profoundly that ONLY a man who can make your vison of yourself and your life even BRIGHTER and BIGGER get’s allowed private time with you.

Let me know how this works for you…let’s all get BIG.

Love, Rori