What did you smell today?
Here we are again, Wednesday, the HUMP in my WEEK… and yours.
Aargh.
If I had a dime for every Wednesday… well, let’s not go there, I was never very good at saving money.
But, if I had a choice of all the things to smell in the world, I really don’t think it would be a turtle’s ass.
Seriously, give it a few more minutes thought and tell me you didn’t just smell your fingers. Or think about smelling your fingers.
Or finally smelled them now…
Aargh!
Traveling with the one you love
Wednesday
I am not one of the great minds of our time and I’m not afraid to say it… mainly because you’re reading it, in a way that will likely last hundreds, if not thousands of years. My great-great… great grandchildren will be able to see these very words and wonder “WTF?”
Or not.
Maybe I’m just too modest to make a difference? LOL
I like to think that the four thousand people that will read this today appreciate what I do. Otherwise, WTF?
That being said, I have forgotten the point I was driving at. I do think I am one of the great minds of the time, our time.
I do want to think that I’ve made a difference in some people’s lives (this isn’t just hopeful thinking, I have emails!).
And for me to help you, today… this day… I do suggest this headline to help you get noticed, to help you be the special person that someone you will love is looking for. Use this as your headline today:
“Today’s estimated earnings: Love forever!”
Have a great day!
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| Underage drinking: it doesn’t get more glamorous than this. |
According to a new study, teenage girls drink more than guys (59% of girls, compared to 52% of guys). A possible …
Over the past few days, a variety of things have had one particular word on my lips – assumptions. I’ve written before about the danger of holding assumptions that don’t have a basis especially when they haven’t actually got anything to do with the actual person, which you then in turn continue to base your perceptions and actions on, even when there is evidence that doesn’t support your assumptions.
The key times when I see assumptions creating issues is when:
We love and trust blindly based on assumptions which don’t hold true but we continue to ignore anyway as we prefer the illusion of the assumption.
We assume that someone who we feel attracted to possesses the values, qualities, and characteristics that some ‘we’ want to love should possess. We think ‘Wow I love that we can climb mountains, play football, and listen to John Mayer together’ and assume that makes you life partners even though it turns out, you don’t have shared values.
We look at people or a situation and make assumptions about it, not stopping to sanity check our perception.
A particular example of this is being with a guy and assuming that he’s a pillar of the community, liked by everyone and it’s just you that he’s a jackass with. But I’ve found on a number of occasions that much like how we apply a rosy glow and put people on pedestals, we apply it about their social standing too, possibly because we believe them to possess qualities or attributes that we think make likeable and popular people. What we may not realise is that sometimes these people are tolerated or maybe even liked, but not to the extent that we believe.
We make assumptions about how we think, feel, and act and assume that our partners think, feel, and act in the same way.
For example, people often say to me that they know that they wouldn’t do something so they assumed that their partners wouldn’t and even when they discovered that they did do what they thought they wouldn’t, refused to accept it. Instead, they became boggled by it or even denying it.
We assume that when we communicate something that the meaning is loud and clear and that everything we intended comes through.
In your mind, it makes sense and you hear you loud and clear. However, often, it can be that you’re speaking Chinese, they’re speaking French but you both don’t realise it and continue to assume that the other party is understanding you and become frustrated when they don’t. You’re assuming your communication style is understood or that it is even shared.
We assume that our partners understand why we are p*ssed off or hurt because we assume that people who love us and who want to make us happy know when we’re not happy, why, and how to fix it.
When they ‘fail’ to understand, we assume that it must mean that they don’t love us as much or that the relationship is doomed because they don’t instinctively know what your needs are…even if you don’t either.
We assume that what we are prepared to give in a relationship is what the other person needs because it’s what we are capable (or what we think we are) of giving.
Many of us give based on what we can give and assume our contribution is right or valuable even if it’s not what the other party needs. We can get very annoyed when our efforts are not appreciated even if it’s not what they wanted.
We assume scenarios or things that our partners would do in a hypothetical situation and get surprised when it turns out that actually, they wouldn’t.
We say stuff like ‘Oh well I know he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t had A happen to him’ and then feel blindsided when he says that he actually, he would’ve done.
It’s important not to base too much of your life on assumptions to ensure that you’re not just going through the motions of life reacting.
Not assuming everything gives you pause for thought and you have a more conscious, considered approach to life where you can be far more empathetic because you truly put yourself in the other persons shoes or consider them as an individual entity instead of looking at you both as a unit that think, feels, and acts in tandem.
I found myself getting caught out by assumptions very recently where I assumed that what I perceived about someone’s social standing and their friendship was founded. A situation arose and I reacted based on the perception only to discover that my assumption was very wrong. This was an online situation and if you want to apply my experience to your own, be careful of blind assumptions about online relationships and things you see in the written word – it’s easy to knit them all together and make a person that doesn’t exist with a sandcastle in the sky.
I also spoke with a couple who had a misunderstanding and while trying to explain their misunderstanding to me, assumption after assumption kept coming up and each and every one of them was misplaced – remember that you are individuals and that if you put aside the assumption making for a bit, you stand to really learn about each other and appreciate each other’s perspectives.
In life, we do have to make a reasonable level of assumptions. In dating and relationships for instance, you ideally need to go in with a reasonable level of trust and assume that it is well placed based on whatever initial perceptions you have. Your interactions serve as a series of checks and balances – you’re either going to increase your trust because not only are they meeting or exceeding your assumptions, but they are giving you more reasons to feel trusting.
Or…you start out with a reasonable level of trust and your initial perceptions and you discover that the trust or perceptions are misplaced.
When we don’t go through life adjusting our assumptions and perceptions and applying our checks and balances, we end up loving and trusting blindly, and operating off an illusionary point.
It’s like operating your life in a fog where you’re really having relationships with your assumptions and reflections of how you’d like it to be or how you think it is, but not how it actually is.
And this is a good time to remind those of you who are partial to letting your imaginations run riot – The danger of being someone who gets caught up in illusions is that you’re not making assumptions based on perceptions of the person – you’re making assumptions based on the reflection of your imagination. Really, they could be anyone or you could replace them with a cardboard figure – you’re not seeing them, you’re seeing your illusions which makes it an assumptive illusionary relationship.
Part of what created my huge epiphany and changed my life forever, was realising that not only had I dated yet another emotionally unavailable guy in a barely there relationship for five months, but I had assumed that if he had pursued me off the back of him ending a very long term relationship, then he must want to be in a relationship.
In fact, it was not the first time I had assumed that if I was pursued or whispered sweet nothings (nothing being the operative word) to, that it must mean that they want me and are serious, when in actual fact, they wanted me but were not serious or were serious about being Mr Unavailables and assclowns. It took me five months to let go of my assumption but my assumption had actually been challenged and shattered about two weeks after we got together and he started blowing hot and cold and easing his way out of whatever we had started.
If I had not only registered my discomfort but acknowledged it, I would have realised that I was wasting my own time in my own little assuming illusionary bubble.
I still have to make assumptions and so do you because you know what? – We haven’t got all the time in the world to be questioning and second-guessing every move.
We need to invest ourselves in relationships where there are shared core primary values and mutual love, care, trust, and respect and there are two parties living congruent with their values and being authentic. At least then when you make assumptions, they’ll be honest ones grounded in reality and when things shift or you have an error in judgement, you’ll be quick to acknowledge and adjust your perception.
While sometimes letting go misplaced of assumptions (and illusions) signals bad news because it turns out that the reality isn’t good for us, the flipside is that letting go of misplaced assumptions frees you up to enjoy reality.
If you’re making assumptions about your partner, not based on who they are or your experience but on other partners, or other experiences, and your beliefs, you’re missing out on the opportunity to get to know them as they are, and at least make your assumptions on them. Don’t limit yourself to a life based on assumptions that you don’t challenge, especially if they’re negative beliefs you’re holding on to and validating through a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, don’t limit yourself or you will end up in limited relationships with limited people having limited experiences based on…you guessed it…assumptions.
Your thoughts?
Learn more about values and common interests with my special ebook bundle. You can also check out my ebooks including The No Contact Rule, a dedicated guide to getting over someone by cutting contact and injecting some boundaries into your life so that you can move on to a happier you, and Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl, a no holds barred guide to emotionally unavailable men and the women that love them, in my bookshop. For personal advice or analysis of your relationship/situation, check out my consultation service.
Busted
Tuesday
Actress Amy Locane busted for drunk driving…. If you don’t follow “Melrose Place” that’s OK, neither do I. But I don’t choose what’s news and what isn’t. I just like to share with you the factoids that I find around the web, because you never know what will make a great headline but I can tell you, with a great amount of certainty, that using current events in your headline will help your profile get a second look.
And I hope your picture looks better than her’s!
So, staying on the path here I suggest this as your headline today:
“Unlike Amy Locane, I take a cab!”
Have a greater day than Amy Locane!
A regular Teen Advice visitor is having a problem with her boyfriend. Here’s the deal: he loves her and everything, but whenever she talks to other guys, he …
Relationship help
It’s funny to think but dating isn’t always about single people.
Married people often need to have some “special time” together, even if they decide to call it a “date”, or, as seems fashionable of late a “date night”.
(Hell, you’re married, it’s likely that if you have kids… if you have a date night together at any other time it’s called a ‘nooner’… oops, single people can have those too, forget I opened up these parenthesis).
But, let’s try to stay on this current topic… a “passionless” relationship doesn’t have to be something an old married couple experiences. Or even an unmarried living together couple has to endure, of course and again, to add substance to this one-way dialogue, “passionless” is what one half of the couple experiences, the other half is generally clueless.
Passionless can be described as when one person’s needs are not met by the other. Simple.
The real issue get’s to boil once it is realized that when your soulmate seems to no longer be interested in you, sexually or romantically, you wonder if it’s something you’ve done to encourage this passionless behavior.
It does sting! And it does chaff…
I always ask the person, is there more you could do to encourage romanticism in your relationship?
It’s a tiresome line but have you looked inward before blaming this “perceived” problem outward?
My own relationship, now in it’s 12th year (almost 10 yrs married), has had it’s ups, downs and all-arounds. But I have realized, much to my chagrin, that often the blame lies on my shoulders and not hers.
Sex is great but being romantic is a 24/7 type of thing. It’s a life you life not a moment realized.
Get it?
You can email me when you need help with your passionless relationship, your loveless partner (narcissistic, paranoid and schizophrenic included), but I want you to first take a moment and write down a list of why you feel this way, why your husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend makes you feel this way about your relationship.
Then, if there is nothing on the list you couldn’t change about yourself, email me.
I will listen and do my best to advise you.
I promise.
Related articles:
- The sexless, passionless lifestyle
- My marriage is boring
- Recipes for love
- Is your love meant to be?
Over the past few days I’ve written about the importance of sexual values in relationships and when I explained about the questions you need to ask yourself before having sex, which are variations of the questions you need to ask yourself about your relationship in the wider sense, two of these questions served to remind me how easy it is for people to forget that everything in relationships is contextual:
Even if we are not ‘in love’ or have not said the ‘L word’, is there mutual care, trust, and respect?
Do I like how he/she treats others?
There were emails and comments that basically went along the lines of ‘He was really nice to every Tom, Dick, and Harry except for me’ as if this invalidates the notion of asking this question in the first place. But if you’re homing in on how they treat others and not how they treat others and you and whether there’s a disparity between the two, you’re missing the point.
Everything is contextual in relationships so anything that you think about someone needs to be related back to the context of you and the relationship.
The reason why I stress asking yourself about how you’re treated and how others are treated is for the very reason that we are inclined as humans that even when we are not personally experiencing something ourselves, to be riddled with self-doubt if we believe that someone else is. – What’s wrong with me?
There is no point in going on about how he’s kind to kids and animals if he is unkind to you. Are you feeling the milk and honey of his kindness?
There’s no point in going on about how everybody likes him if at the end of the day, he treats you with a lack of care, trust, and respect, nevermind love. Do you like him? Does he like you? Do these wonderful characteristics filter their way to your relationship?
There’s no point in saying how he helps the old lady down the street – who cares? Yes it’s nice but you’d be surprise how helpful even the most depraved of people can be when they want to kid themselves for a few minutes! What does the fact that he’s kind to someone else mean to you and your relationship?
It’s great that he goes to church, is a pillar of the community, and claims to be a man of God but is he living congruent with his values? Or are you getting a Jeckyll and Hyde experience?
What’s the point in talking about his exes and how he was with them? You’re not in the same relationship, you weren’t there, and for whatever reason, these things are not a part of your relationship.
It is important to see the whole person – not just home in on the bits that suit you because it creates a distorted perspective.
Perspective means that you ask yourself all the questions and if one of them doesn’t stack up, how does it affect other things that you believe about them and the relationship?
So for example, if you ask yourself whether you’re treated with love, care, trust, and respect, and it’s a negative, but when you ask yourself whether you like how he treats others you get a positive, you know that:
1) You’re not getting that experience that others are. This doesn’t mean you make it your vocation to play Columbo and discover why and try to prove yourself and get validation, but it does mean that you use the disparity as a red flag that alerts you that something is wrong and opt out.
2) This person is not consistent or authentic because these qualities and characteristics are compartmentalised. Authentic people get authentic relationships and you need someone and also need to be someone, who is living congruent with their values. If you have ‘split personalities’, there is conflicts of interests and you (or they) will be doing actions that inadvertently undermine their efforts.
3) You’re probably not seeing them realistically. If you still want to be with them in spite of the fact that they treat you badly while treating others well, you have them on a pedestal, are cloaked in illusions, and potentially trapped in your own feelings.
You’re correlating other peoples experiences back to you believing that based on others, you can get it if you just do enough of X,Y,Z.
You’re here now and you’re not getting that experience – instead of looking at as a reflection on you, why are you not looking at it as a reflection of them and seeing them in a more real light?
Perspective and seeing the person and the relationship as a whole means that you relate your perceptions back to you and your relationship to see if these perceptions hold true and when they don’t, you use it as a signal to look closer at your relationship.
The boyf is well liked, an all round good guy, behaves with integrity, and respected by his nearest and dearest, but the fact is, if I didn’t feel the benefit of this, I couldn’t give a damn about any of these things.
Everything is contextual and you must see the wood instead of the trees instead of looking at individual aspects and not adding the pieces together.
Those things you admire? Unless you’re feeling the benefit of them, stop admiring and take them down off their pedestal so that you can get real.
Those things they do for everyone else or for their exes? Bothered-o-clock unless it affects your relationship positively. If it doesn’t, why latch onto it? It doesn’t exist in your relationship and in that context, it means that you’re holding onto something that isn’t real and are in denial – two things that make for a lot of pain. And remember, pain is not love, it’s pain whatever context you look at it.
Your thoughts?
Learn more about values and common interests with my special ebook bundle. You can also check out my ebooks including The No Contact Rule, a dedicated guide to getting over someone by cutting contact and injecting some boundaries into your life so that you can move on to a happier you, and Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl, a no holds barred guide to emotionally unavailable men and the women that love them, in my bookshop. For personal advice or analysis of your relationship/situation, check out my consultation service.
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