Dear Karen,
I’ve been with Dick for over a year now, and I just don’t feel that he loves me the way he should after all this time. How can I tell if he’s really in this relationship with me, or if I should move on? ~ Cheryl
Dear Cheryl,
What a great question – I hope this gives lots of women some great stuff to think about.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Before we talk about Dick, and whether or not he loves you, we need to look at a very important aspect of your life.
How would you describe your “love container”? (The focus of this question is on your self-love, because that is what creates the “container” to allow you to receive it from someone else.)
• Solid – I feel deep love for myself;
• Porous – I don’t have consistent, strong love for myself;
• Leaky – I have a hard time feeling love for myself;
• Bottomless – I have no love for myself – quite the opposite, in fact.
It is critically important that you do the work so that you can say, pretty consistently, that you’re at the very least able to access feelings of self-love, self-worth and self-appreciation.
If there’s no place for love to be held, when you are getting love from someone else, it will just “leak out” or pass through, without being felt by you. And the tough part of all this is that the less you love yourself, the more you’ll feel neediness in your relationships with others.
See the problem here? You need it more, and yet recognize/feel it less, if at all.
LEARNING HIS LANGUAGE OF LOVE
My guess is that Dick is showing you he loves you in all sorts of ways, and you just aren’t adept yet at “hearing” what he’s saying to you.
You must remember two things:
1) he’s not you, and won’t do things the way you do, and
2) he’s a MAN, which means you can take #1 and multiply it by 10!
If you really took the time to reflect on the ways he shows you he cares, thinks about you, counts on you being in his life, takes comfort in your relationship, shares what is important and/or difficult in his life, opens up his inner world to you, you would see that he loves you and that you’re important to him.
GETTING COMFY
Men have a tendency to get through the courtship phase, and then relax. Job complete. Next project got launched.
Women, in my opinion, tend to want the courtship phase to last forever. It ain’t gonna happen. And if you think about it, isn’t it lovely to (not in a negative way) take some things for granted? To have the uncertainty of that early part of dating totally banished from your relationship? You can trade the drama for the comfort. Once you accept what’s working, then you can help him remember that you do love certain things (flowers, surprise dates, weekends away from the daily “stuff” of life, etc.), and ask him for what you need from him. You’ll be much more successful in that “training” if you come at it from love, appreciation, and trusting he’s doing his best.
BOTTOMLESS PIT?
Where things get really hard in a relationship is when you aren’t able to receive his love because your love container can’t receive it; what you’ll experience is his lack of love. What he’ll experience is your bottomless pit, and a man will only try to accomplish a job for so long before he’ll just quit, if it isn’t working.
GLASS HALF FULL
My suggestion to you is this (and this works whether your love container is solid or bottomless): start noticing ONLY the things he does that are loving, considerate, thoughtful, generous, kind, sweet, making an effort, remembering things, going above and beyond, etc. Very important reminder here: what you focus on flourishes!
Even if things aren’t great (whether it’s because you don’t read his language of love, or he’s given up because of his inability to please you), starting to notice and appreciate any little thing, rather than putting your attention on what isn’t working, will create better feelings for both of you, and that’s a great launching place for more “good-feeling” behavior.
IN CONCLUSION
You can’t receive love you don’t already have space for inside yourself, so make sure you’re working on loving and appreciating yourself. Then make sure you’re listening carefully to his language of love. He’s communicating with you all the time. I’d bet on it.
Until next month, may you enjoy the relationship of your dreams, and as always, if I may be of service on that journey, please let me know.