Tag: should we break up

What Should I Look For In A Man And A Relationship?

tashacaufield1 Comment

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So, these are the questions…:

“Dear Megan,

I broke up with my fiancé of 9 months, and now it’s been 3 months and I still don’t know if it was the right decision. The reason why I broke up is because there were small things that bothered me that started to build up. Looking back at it, I feel like it’s things I can help him with to grow and I shouldn’t have abandoned him, yet then again, he never seemed to put in the effort. Am I a bad person for wanting to I change him?”

“Dear Megan,

Me and my boyfriend have been together for 8 months. He’s bipolar so he calls me really early in the am and I didn’t want to wake up the rest of my family members so I hung up on him. Two hours later I messaged him, ‘What’s up?’ And I get this as a response: Sorry but I need someone who will be there for me when I need them to and clearly you cannot do that. And he also writes we really could have been amazing together and it kills me to say this but lose my number. And he also blocked me from everything – his phone, all social media… I can’t understand why he would get so upset over something so silly. I really loved him, and this is driving me crazy because I thought that he loved me.  Why do you think he did this, and do you think that he will be back?”

“Dear Megan,

I am seeking guidance to my situation as I’ve lost all hope and I have no idea what to do. I have been with my current partner for approaching 5yrs. We have loads in common and I love him to bits but we have never had any sex life. I just don’t feel special or important to him. He’s not prepared to get any help for his issues, I’ve offered to go with him to talk to someone but I think he’d be more prepared to let me walk away than to try and sort it out, which to me says our relationship isn’t important to him. After nearly 5yrs am I wasting my time?”

Sincerely,

-Confused Gals of the Universe

FOR THE VIDEO/YOUTUBE VERSION OF THIS ANSWER CLICK HERE!!

Dear “Confused Gals of the Universe,”

Now, not only to kill multiple birds with one stone – (I mean, I’m lazy, but not that lazy, lol) – but to stick by my preference of teaching y’all how to fish opposed to giving y’all fish, I’m going to respond to these questions by sharing the FOUR things a professional counselor shared with me when I was once confused about what one should looking for in a man and relationship worth staying in and fighting for. 

And in no particular order, those things are:

  • Chemistry, (of course).  In its most easily identifiable terms, this means that you’re with someone that you want to touch…  Kiss..  Hug…  And “bang.”  Now, with that said, since these feelings can not only come and go, but can cause some to over-look other important things in a satisfying relationship, (like good treatment), it’s very important to balance it out with the other three criteria. But, yeah, he can’t just be a “nice guy.”  You gotta want to touch the boy.
  • Intellectual Connection.  While you two may not be into all of the same things, or have the same educational background, it is important that the other person understand you when you speak, (lol).  And note that I’m not saying that your partner should automatically get your emotions the first time they’re conveyed.  (It takes genuine curiosity, respect, and a strong desire to do so for a partner to get past their own seemingly-conflicting needs and truly hear you; as well as patience on your part to work with him until he does. [And vice versa when needed.])  I’m saying that you should feel like you’re on “the same level” so that you can converse with your partner about your interests.  This is what allows for the foundation of friendship.
  • Safety.  A feeling of safety in the relationship is not only a big one because it manifests in so many ways, but it takes a lot of time to fully accomplish and see if it’s there.  Not only do you need to feel safe physically, which is only determined after experiencing adversities.  (How does he treat you when he’s upset, frustrated, angry, hurt, or feels like he’s losing something, etc.?)  But it’s important to feel safe emotionally.  Can you be vulnerable, open, and honest about everything with this person.  Does he have your back?  Is he willing to protect and provide for you? Is he devoted and dedicated to you and the relationship? If you value monogamy, does he? Do you two have other shared values like marriage, family, and a commitment to work things out during tough times?…  Feeling safe will make room for trust and allow you to let your walls down and become a true team player.  But remember, actions speak louder than words, so be prepared to give this box time before checking it off.
  • Love For Each Other.  Simply put, do you two care for each other?  Do you want the best for each other?  Support each other?  And respect each other?  This love you two share for each other will be the glue that will help you guys weather the storms, push each of you to communicate when tired, seek counseling when needed, and even learn each other’s “love language” if either of you don’t speak it naturally.

*Bonus criteria I can’t help but add!*

  • Your gut’s approval!  I know you might feel like you gut is broken or “misguided,” or that you simply don’t have enough life experience to put faith in it, but trust me, your instincts won’t fail you because deep down you know if something’s good for you or not.  So, learn to trust your emotional guidance system by, guess what, trusting it!  But, yeah, I know it’s hard so that’s why I laid out the criteria that’ll help you when you’re having trouble trusting yourself.  But at the end of the day, just know that if this guy and his behavior feels consistently good, you can go with it.  If it doesn’t feel consistently good, and you find yourself making excuses for bad behavior, let your courage and faith help you in walking away.  After all, remember, “If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no!”  Best of luck!

-Megan 🙂 

For my story check out “The Care and Feeding of Sex Symbols” here

To submit your question to “Dear Megan” click here!

“Dear Megan” Home Page

To Subscribe to my YouTube channel click here!

Note: As this column is designed to be a judgement-free zone, only those who have been, (or know someone who has been), in a similar situation are invited to comment; especially if the question is unorthodox or hard for one to relate to.  And for even more relevant insight, those seeking answers are always encouraged to go within.

The secret to a wonderful relationship

tashacaufield2 Comments

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How this article would have ended if I tried to provide the answer myself

Hey sexy ladies and gents,

Alright, so I’m crazy busy banging out a draft of my next book before upcoming Thanksgiving travel, and am too swamped to answer a question this week, so, basically, I’mma pull a teacher move and turn down the lights and play a video.

But don’t worry, it’s a super good, eleven-minute video featuring the best advice I’ve ever heard on relationships.  Since I’ve never been in a marriage that lasted a little over 30 years like the woman in the video – (heck, that’s about how long I’ve been alive) – I decided to bring in the big guns for this week’s Q & A.

As someone who’s never seen a long-lasting and loving romantic relationship – you know, one that’s just dripping with endless adoration – modeled up close, this woman and her now-deceased husband, have served as my role model.  During the decades they traveled the country teaching weekly seminars, their deep love, devotion, and respect for each other was readily observable.  And in this video the woman shares their “secret sauce,” which I will now share with you, “my peeps.”

Before we get into it, I know some of you have been curious about how to even pick a mate worth doing the work necessary to live happily ever after with.  In “The Care and Feeding of Sex Symbols,” I covered the “head vs heart” debate, which gives you an understanding on how to use these two inner guides to make decisions that not only fulfill your deepest desires, but feel good when you’re doing it.

And when answering some of your previous questions, (like this one), I relayed the most important criteria one should have when looking for a mate.  Which is summarized best by Harville Hendrix when he asserts that the best one can hope for is to find someone you have chemistry with, AND who’s aware of their issues and willing to do the work relationships require to grow over time.

So, now that you know what to look for in a partner if you want a dynamic and long-lasting relationship, and how to use your inner guide to weed through your romantic options, let’s focus on the mental state you need to cultivate in order to decide if a person’s worth going “all in” for during the courting period.

As Iyanla Vanzant states: “We can only control our own choices, our own actions.  It’s not our place to make the other person in a relationship do any particular thing.  I don’t get to tell people how to love me.  I get to see how they love, and then choose if I want to participate.”

So, before you start sweating over the small, (or big), stuff, take as much time to as you need to really get to know a person.  Observe how they love, and what their values and principles are.  And as Mama Maya Angelou said, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”  If you like what you see, now you can start thinking about creating a wonderful relationship, which brings me to this week’s advice via video.

It’s important to state that to fully appreciate the advice you’d have to first buy into the idea that you have the power to create your own reality (i.e. “deliberately create”).  That doesn’t mean that you can control everything that happens to you, but it does mean that you can determine your emotional response, or how you experience the event.  With this mentality, you don’t need anything outside of you to change to feel love towards someone; which is, ultimately, the definition of unconditional love, (a necessity ingredient for a happy and long-lasting relationship).

The advice encourages us to take responsibility for our own emotions in a relationship, and not make it another person’s job to make us feel good, or soothe our insecurities.  That pretty much goes against everything we’re taught in society, from childhood up.  But then again, in a society where happy, life-long relationships aren’t the norm, “If you want to have unconventional success, you can’t be guided by conventional wisdom,” as Stephen Covey says.

And, finally, we are advised to be “solution-oriented” when problems arise.  This requires us to sometimes ignore the other until we’re in a place where we allow love to, once again, flow through us.  A place the advice-giver calls “the vortex.”

I hope this advice helps you all as much as it has helped me in my own personal life; and I am happy to report that the questioner in the video came back years later claiming to still be as happy as ever in the relationship she originally sought advice about.

And now, without further ado, I give you Abraham Hicks’ “The Secret to a Wonderful Relationship.”  Enjoy!

-Megan 🙂

P.S.  If this video is ever disabled, just type “Abraham Hicks The Secret to a Wonderful Relationship” into YouTube until it is brought to my attention.  Thanks, and I’ll be back next time with more answers to more of your questions!

For my story check out “The Care and Feeding of Sex Symbols” here

To submit your question to “Dear Megan” click here!

“Dear Megan” Home Page

To Subscribe to my YouTube channel click here!

Note: As this column is designed to be a judgement-free zone, only those who have been, (or know someone who has been), in a similar situation are invited to comment; especially if the question is unorthodox or hard for one to relate to.  And for even more relevant insight, those seeking answers are always encouraged to go within.

Should we break up over “cheating” before we were official?

tashacaufield1 Comment

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Dear Megan,

Before my boyfriend and I “officially” became a couple, we spent a year getting to know each other. During this period we were intimate, so I wasn’t dating any other guys and was pretty serious about building a relationship with him. During most of this period, however, I ended up finding out that he was dating several girls, being intimate with all of them, and deceiving all of them by not telling any of us he was also hooking up with other girls. Basically, he was a Player.

However, as time went on, him and I became very, very close; and I was sure that he had stopped talking to all the other girls because he told me “he wasn’t pursuing anyone else,” and a couple months later he asked me to be his girlfriend. And we have had the most wonderful, loyal, perfect relationship for the last year and a half.

So, yesterday I found out that during the couple months right before we officially became a couple, he in fact WAS still seeing other girls. “Not pursuing anyone” meant that he wasn’t hooking up with anyone new, just the same old lineup. What’s worse, I found out he was hooking up with his best friend’s girlfriend, who is my friend too!

Here is my dilemma: We have had the most wonderful relationship since we became a couple. He wants to marry me, and I know he would never cheat on me. But constantly finding out about more and more girls that he hooked up with while we were dating really bothers me and has put a strain on the relationship. Especially recently finding out about him hooking up with other girls during the period I thought we were exclusive.

It hurts me because I didn’t know he was the type of person that would do that, especially with his best friend’s girlfriend. He apologizes endlessly, but says that since we weren’t “official,” it’s irrelevant. However, I feel that if I knew about all his deceitful actions at the time, I would have ended it then and we wouldn’t be in this great relationship we have today.  

So, should I break up with him over things he did before we were officially a couple? It REALLY bothers me, and I feel like I don’t want to be with someone that could have done that to me, even though things are so much different now. I feel like enough is enough. There have been plenty of opportunities during our relationship to tell me everything, but I still keep finding out more and more. I don’t really trust him anymore, and feel like our relationship was built on lies and deceit. I feel like I want to end the relationship over this, but is that unfair?

-Feeling Duped

 

Dear “Feeling Duped,”

Excuse me as I place a stethoscope around my neck, shine a small flashlight into your ear, hold your tongue, and make you say “Ahhh…” Yep, see this all the time… What we have here is a classic case of “Girl who wanted real exclusivity, settled for a vague expression of one, and got hurt when she later found out that she, in fact, wasn’t her one-and-only’s one-and-only.” Okay, you can put your tongue back in.

Now, let’s get the obvious out of the way before getting to the nitty gritty of your dilemma. As your question suggests, you already know that unless a guy specifically asks for exclusivity, or for you to be his gIrLfRiEnD, (tee hee), you both are free to entertain other lads and lasses as you please. (And if you want things to be extra clear, it’s always nice to even state that expectation – you know, that he’ll have to ask for exclusivity – upfront, once you two realize you’re starting to like each other.)

So, since we here at sex symbol central know to NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING, you know this wolf technically didn’t do anything wrong. Hell, he may have even done something RIGHT, as, according to you, your ignorance of what he was doing allowed you two to have “the most wonderful, loyal, perfect relationship” for the last year and a half.

However, fact remains that now you’re not only not-so-ignorant of his past behavior, you’re even repulsed by it. And to answer your question, I can confidently say, no, it is not unfair to want to break up with him over things he’s done in the past.

Just because someone technically didn’t do something wrong doesn’t mean that you have to like what they did. And given what you know today, it’s totally okay for you to question if this is someone you want to be with.

Do you want to be with someone who sleeps with his best friend’s girlfriend?

Do you want to be with someone who uses lawyer-like tactics to get out of being completely open and honest with you about what he’s doing?

Do you want to be with someone who doesn’t view sexual intimacy as sacredly as you do?

You’re totally entitled to re-evaluate the relationship based on what you now know.

However, since you already have a relationship you enjoy, and none are perfect, (despite your earlier claim), you may want to just use what you now know to create some new agreements and clarify expectations that were never articulated up until this point.

If you choose that route, you’ll want to make sure it’s clear to him that you want him to be open and upfront about what he’s doing, and that withholding information will not suffice as a form of truth in your book.

When it comes to addressing his promiscuity in the months post-“vague” exclusivity, pre-“official” exclusivity, you’re first going to have to accept it as the price you have to pay for allowing a vague expression of exclusivity to get past you – I know, bummer – and second, learn from it. Reiterate your new agreement for a clear, “full-disclosure” form of communicating that honors the “intent of the law,” not the letter of it, and be prepared to stand by whatever consequence you two agree on for violation of your agreement.

Lastly, when it comes to sleeping with his best friend’s girlfriend, well, you’ll want to further pick his brain there. If his best friend gave him the thumbs up, then, while many loyal wolves would have probably still steered clear, he’s once again only guilty of having an approach to sex that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. If, however, this was a betrayal on his part, you’ll want to hear him out so you gain insight into his views on loyalty and see if they align with your own.

I say all this to not only remind you that you have legitimate options, but to help you to realize that ultimately the right choice is dependent on how you feel. Consequently, the only decision you have to make is to simply do what feels better. If staying with him, creating new agreements, and learning to accept a less than picture-perfect past feels good, do that. If walking away and holding out for someone you believe you can co-create a more open and honest foundation with, and whose approach to sex and relationships/friendships is one that aligns more with your own values feels better, do that.

At the end of the day, it’s important to trust your intuition, even if you can’t rationalize it. After all, unlike lovers, it doesn’t need an “official” agreement to always have your back ;). Best of luck.

-Megan 🙂

P.S. And if you’re interested in creating a cheat-proof relationship from here, feel free to check out this article!

For my story check out “The Care and Feeding of Sex Symbols” here

To submit your question to “Dear Megan” click here!

“Dear Megan” Home Page

To Subscribe to my YouTube channel click here!

Note: As this column is designed to be a judgement-free zone, only those who have been, (or know someone who has been), in a similar situation are invited to comment; especially if the question is unorthodox or hard for one to relate to.  And for even more relevant insight, those seeking answers are always encouraged to go within.