Читать книгу Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know - Barbara Angelis De - Страница 32

1. We go on “emotional rescue missions,” finding men who aren’t willing to help themselves, and attempt to “save” them.

Allison, a 32-year-old real-estate salesperson, came to me for career counseling. The more we talked, the more apparent it became that her problem wasn’t with her real-estate job, but with her other full-time “job” – taking care of Harry. Allison had been living with Harry, a 37-year-old actor, for three years. “I love Harry so much,” she explained. “He had a really rough childhood, and a first marriage that was just awful, so when I met him, he was very insecure and abusive to himself. He’s a good actor, he really is, but he’s had a hard time finding work. He used to do a lot of cocaine and smoke cigarettes. I got him to stop, so that’s been good. Now I’m working with him on setting well-defined goals and sticking to a schedule. I’m sure you probably think I’m crazy for being with him, but I just know that he could be really successful, I can feel it.”

Allison believed in Harry more than he believed in himself. She loved the potential in him, not the man he was living as from day to day. In some part of Allison’s mind, she’d decided that she would be successful when Harry got his life together. So no matter how well she did in her own career, she felt like a failure as long as Harry wasn’t progressing according to her plan.

2. We find men who don’t love us or treat us well, and hold out for the piece we aren’t getting that we know is in there.

Erika, 45, was a perfect example of a woman making Mistake #3. She’d been married to Arnold for nineteen years, and had never been happy for all that time. “I not only fell in love with Arnold’s potential,” she admitted tearfully, “I married it! Arnold has never been a very loving, giving person. He’s emotionally closed off and very critical. But inside of him, there is this sweet, frightened little boy who comes out once in a while and who just wants to be loved. When we were dating, I’d see glimpses of that part of him, and just melt. I remember the night he proposed to me, he broke down and cried for the first time since I’d known him. I realized that he had problems, but I figured, If I just love him enough, he will open up.’ My parents disapproved of the marriage, but I told them they didn’t know Arnold like I did.

“Well, nineteen years and three kids later, Arnold hasn’t changed a bit. I’ve spent most of our marriage feeling unloved and unappreciated, and I can’t take it anymore. I still love him, and I still see that beautiful part inside of him, but I’m finally facing the fact that he just isn’t going to change. I know I’m making the right decision in leaving him, but somehow I feel if only I’d loved him more or helped him more, maybe he would have opened up.”

Erika spent her life longing for that piece of Arnold he was withholding, rather than telling herself the truth about what he was really willing to give her in the relationship, I know just how Erika felt, because I did exactly that in one of my own relationships. I spent several years with someone I loved very much, who not only wasn’t living his own potential, but wasn’t giving me that last piece of his heart, that last 10 percent of emotional surrender and commitment. And like Erika, I set myself up for failure by thinking:

IF I LOVE HIM ENOUGH, HE WILL CHANGE

The truth is, if a man loves himself enough, he will change!

Women who fall in love with a man’s potential often don’t feel good about themselves and think they need to perform in order to be loved by someone else. We choose men who are emotionally challenging and then set out to love them in spite of who they are. Then we get to say, “Look how loving, patient, tolerant, and compassionate I am. I must be lovable, right?”

I finally learned that:

HAVING A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH A MAN MEANS LOVING HIM FOR WHO HE IS NOW, AND NOT LOVING HIM IN SPITE OF WHO HE IS TODAY, OR IN HOPES OF WHO HE WILL BE TOMORROW