I recently began my spring cleaning for the year, and as I always do, I took
a little time to reflect on my own relationship history and the psychological
consistencies that I found from those relationships. First, being a
problem-solver myself, I’ve often heard the usual accusations of “you want to
save someone” or “you want to be a hero”. There was a time when these were true
and misleading at the same time. I do want to help people, and for decades I had
a terrible habit of falling for women who were in that usual rebound sphere of,
“why did he leave me, why wasn’t I good enough, why can’t I just wish a nice
guy would find me and treat me right”. I could never understand why these guys
treat them so poorly, when these women were so incredible, and why when they’d
been down that road time and time again, did they go once more for the guy who
obviously was so like the ones who came before? This was when I’d swoop in, be
my usual sweet and charming self, be romantic and encouraging, while letting
them repair and find their wings again, only to see them fly off…
I would again be transported to the world of “why”. All these women who told
me time and time again that I was so great, the women I’d been with who told me
how fantastic it was to be with a guy like me, and then go on to a guy so not
like me that we shouldn’t even be in the same area code. All the female friends
who constantly said they wished they could have someone care for them like I
did for these women, and yet they kept going back and back and back some more,
to their usual types. I became hostile for a long time. I decided that if I
wanted to be happy, I’d just have to look for the smarter sort, and avoid the ones
who constantly found their way to the bad guys, and you know what? That didn’t
work either.
I became so centered on the prospect of finding a woman without a history of
major trauma, that I over-analyzed and looked for all the bad things in the
past, looked for residues from back then, and the prices I’d have to pay for
someone else’s blundering. I became hostile to most of the male species because
they were making life tough on the few good guys who were left, and because we
were being painted with the same brush as everyone else. Yet all around me, my
friends were managing to get married, settle down, start families, and I
couldn’t figure out why I was still single and just floating around. Then
it finally hit me…
I spent a lot of time by myself, and a lot of that time was spent thinking
and reflecting on past relationships, those had and those attempted. It finally
dawned on me that I have spent 35 years of my life constantly either being in
or trying for relationships. THIRTY-FIVE YEARS, that’s almost three quarters my
life. And the majority of that time, especially the time spent being single? I
thought it was all about the problem(s) with them. They wanted to date guys who
were making the rest of us look bad. I never stopped to think that maybe the
problem was with me. And so, with the year of spring cleaning, I started a new
path to viewing the situation. Lessons learned from the past.
1. You can be a partner or a repairman, but you cannot be both. - When I met all those women with all those problems, they were looking for someone to make them feel better, to be there for them when they needed, but come on, when you have to call the guy to come and fix your internet, you don’t keep him around after the job’s done! You get back on the web and go about your business. Same score on them. You fixed the problem they had, but the problem they had was preventing them from being able to move on. Maybe she’ll call if the problem comes up again, but in the meantime
2. It’s not them, it’s you. - Most of us have heard the old stand-by, “It’s not you, it’s me.” Well, get ready for the big one. It’s not them, it’s you. If you’ve been treated a consistent way by the women you’ve dated, especially if they’re from different places, of different ages and backgrounds, different personalities, you’re going to have to come to accept that the problem might not be them. Now, this isn’t to say you’re a bad person, or that you need to change who you are. You need to change how you are. And that leads to the final point.
3. It’s not about them, it’s about you. - Your dating life cannot be focused on the other party. Take it from one who knows, I’ve been there too many times to count. When you make the whole relationship about them, whether it’s about helping them get over that guy from their past, or getting them through a rough time in their lives, or trying to be the guy of their dreams; the whole relationship is going to be centered on that, and it may skew their view of relationships in the future (if it’s not already there). Your romantic existence cannot be based on focusing on those other people. Focus on what will satisfy you.
These are my reflections on the past and lessons for any guy going forward. I
just hope it won’t take you thirty five years to figure it out...
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