So many women have an intense desire to be loved, affirmed, cherished and married. Women too often think and assume that he wants the same thing she wants. We want a relationship to work out just the way we picture it in our minds. We get these fantasies frozen in our minds from images in movies, songs and fairy tales like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Sleepless in Seattle and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. These seemingly harmless happy-ending images create tunnel vision, which blocks out reality. Rushing into emotional or sexual intimacy causes us to fast-forward and skip over the real process of building a relationship based on time, dating, trust, communication, asking qualifying questions, honesty, disciplining our hormones, shared values, boundaries and friendship. Because of tunnel vision you don't see red flags. That's why people say love is blind. Well, that's true when your hormones are raging, your Relationships IQ is low and your neediness and loneliness are giving off the scent of desperation. If you were to see a counselor, your pastor or me, the "Self-esteem Doctor," we would tell you that you are wearing a "pink lens." When you are lovesick and desperate, you are not seeing clearly. You are idolizing and exaggerating his virtues and minimizing his flaws.
You think in your mind that you both connected in some way and that you have a relationship. You see what you want to see. When love is blind, you don't see his or your own issues, flaws, romance-addiction patterns, lust or immaturity. You don't see the betrayal, breakup or divorce coming.
Lovesickness can make you blind and deaf. You don't hear your inner voice or acknowledge the cautions and wisdom of family, friends and elders.
You don't hear the Lord's word hidden in your spirit. You don't hear what He is saying or, most important, what He is not saying. You only hear what you need to hear. Oh, I know, honey
this message can sting. Don't stop, continue to read on.
Sometimes I laugh and sometimes I just shake my head as I remember all the times I was naive, immature and wearing my pink glasses. My heart has not always been smart. Even at this seasoned age of being a wife, mother, an elder, spiritual counselor, speaker and author, I still remember how it feels to be lovesick. It is not a pretty sight. I would remember one little statement and hold on to it in my heart's memory forever. I can still remember whispers in my ears, while dancing in the dark, on the phone, across the dinner table, in the movies, in the back-seat of a car or while what I thought was making love
but it was just lust.
I truly know what it is to be smart in my head and yet stupid with my heart choices. Through my own on-going healing, increasing my Relationships IQ, prayers, forgiveness and salvation from the Lord, I now possess a secret strength. I can truly say I know about God's favor, mercy and grace
Allelujah!
Desperation is a terrible fragrance to wear. You're wearing the scent of despair and low self-esteem when you cling, obsess and beg someone to love you and stay with you when he can't return the love you deserve.
In the movies falling in love = marriage. In real life, falling in love or a long-term relationship does not always result in marriage. When pain and loss happen in your life, you can either choose to suffer and feel like a victim or learn the lessons of life and love. Learning and maturing from each life lesson gives you a secret strength.
Let it go, dear, so your heart and spirit can heal. Don't dial those digits. Don't circle his house. Don't blow up his cell phone all day with desperate messages. Don't fill up his voice mail and e-mail box with sad messages. Don't put your life on hold. Don't neglect yourself, your family, your dreams, your goals or your faith.
No one person is responsible for your happiness. You don't ever want to give someone that much power. Never make someone a priority, who has made you an option.
Sometimes what we think is rejection
is really God's protection pointing us in a new direction.
Open your eyes and see your real worth and beauty in the mirror. Get balance in your life. Get help from the wise women in your life. Pour all that misguided and untapped passion into your goals and dreams.
When your heart is smart you can avoid the pitfalls, anxiety and pain of living in a chaotic, drama-filled, sitting-by-the-phone, life-on-hold and stressful world.
Increase your Relationships IQ by knowing these important points and recognizing the potential traps:
Am I Needy?I can't stand to be alone; I accept less than what I'm worth because it's better than being alone; I hear myself saying, "Call me, do you love me?
I don't know what to do, help me, save me, you're stronger than me."
Am I Naive?I ignore the red flags waving that he is not the one. I continue to ignore his lateness, his rudeness, his addictions, those strange phone calls, loan him too much money, he's always having a crisis, I can never find him, I make excuses and rationalize his temper and abuse, I think I can change him even though I see signs that he is immature, gay, bisexual, married, in between relationships, can't keep a job, won't talk, I don't read enough materials to increase my Relationships IQ, etc.
Am I Desperate?When love walks out the door and doesn't answer your phone calls anymore, do you start drowning in the pool of what's wrong with me?It must be my faultI can't believe he doesn't see how good I am for himHow could he change so fast?I can't breathe without him?
That kind of emotional agony makes you lovesick and desperate.
Did you ever notice that there are many cold and cruel lyrics on the music charts written for a woman who can't let go and gave her all to a relationship or marriage. Or maybe she thought she just thought she was in a "relationship" that really didn't exist. Either way, the truth hurts. When someone can't return your love, it hurts like hell. A love hangover keeps you confused, bewildered, depressed and damages your sense of worth.
-If love isn't lifting you up, it ain't love!
- If love doesn't come home, it ain't love!
- If love doesn't return your calls, it ain't love!
- If your life is on hold and you can't eat, sleep, work, study or pray, it ain't love!
- If love isn't loving you, stop in the name of love.
- Love yourself before you give your heart and soul away again.
It's unfortunate that wounded people either give up on themselves, and give up on ever being loved again. If this is you
don't give up. Love will come again.
- Remember, diamonds only sparkle because they go under pressure, through the fire and polishing. Be like a diamond and let your light shine.
In the early stages of a new relationship, if a woman is too needy and desperate, she may give too much and give too soon. If she feels unworthy and suffers from low self-esteem, she may feel she has to earn love.
She lives with hopeless devotion and is willing to wait. Therefore, she may try to buy love by being too available, too accommodating and overcompensating with gifts, sex, running errands, paying for the date, paying his bills and more, just to prove her love.
Generally speaking, men do not think about relationships as much as women. Men are socialized to master work, wages, war and women. Yes, men are passionate, but about different things than women. Men tend to be more passionate about their careers, sports, money, sex and cars. Their attention, thoughts, conversations and energy tend to focus on those things first. Don't take it personally.
Just get wise and understand that men and women are wired and socialized differently. The male and female define their power, image and worth from different stimuli and circumstances. Once you understand this, you won't find yourself assuming that his every waking moment is about you, your relationship and where it is going.
Just like dogs can smell fear, anyone without virtue will recognize a weak and needy person and take advantage of their vulnerability.
Desperation is an invisible quality. It's an aura that a person can sense through your behavior, words and tolerance of bad behavior.
A good man who really cares and respects you would not take advantage of you. If you are wearing the perfume of desperation, an unworthy man can smell it. Unfortunately, he will misuse your body, time, money and heart.
Being needy, naive, desperate and having low expectations will surely cause you heartache and pain.
You may fall in love with someone's personality, but it's his character you really live with.
You deserve more than:
- a part-time love
- a "booty call"
- shared love
- secret love
- "I love you if" kind of love
- abusive love (emotional or physical)
- a date with only fast food and fast sex
- Start believing you are whole and okay whether you are in a relationship or not.
You may wake up thinking about him and he wakes up thinking about how much money he can make today or where is the game or who and where he will satisfy his sexual urges and fantasies.
Men who have options don't necessarily think that sleeping together means you're in a serious relationship. Once you have gotten sexually intimate with a man, your heart is in
your heart is open and asking questions that he doesn't have answers for.
When your heart is not smart, you could find yourself wanting the emotional intimacy. You want to move quickly after the attraction stage to the bonding stage (i.e., attachment, comfort, familiarity, routine).
The initial attraction stage is fun. It's the honeymoon or what I call the "magical dust" stage. When a woman moves too quickly and falls too deeply, the more distant the man is likely to become. I don't know the magical formula and time line to move into each new level. Each individual and circumstance is different. It's a challenge and learning lesson to know how to stay on the same page as you both learn to know each other. A relationship has a better chance if you can learn to "grow" in love instead of falling in love.
Women can act too strong and give too much to her man to cover up her feelings of inadequacy or her unspoken assumptions of commitment and a future.
Women can act too weak, dependent and helpless, giving her man all the power to make him feel more important.
Giving too much to your man can make him too lazy and he loses interest or he will take, take and take. Why?
because he has gotten used to being the receiver and loses interest in pursuing and providing for you.
As women, we need to learn emotional fitness and strengthen our Relationships IQ because our feelings can be our worst enemy or best friend.
Whether the man in your life is a friend, lover or husband, men like women who like themselves. Women who have very low self-esteem are dangerous. Men think they are hysterical, stalkers, whiners, weak and needy.
The pursuing and providing nature of a man determines the degree of his masculinity, power and identity. Men measure their masculinity by what they can do, possess and conquer, not necessarily always by relationships.
Too often, women find themselves acting the role of mother with her mate. She's paying the bills, cleaning up, making all the decisions, rescuing him from trouble and then one day she explodes with anger or illness after so many years because she is resentful, stressed and unappreciated.
What are you letting your partner get away with just so you can say you have a man? Do you find yourself continually adjusting, accommodating and compromising to keep the relationship or to avoid fights, black eyes or withdrawal of affection or money?
When you are giving too much, you become what I call an "emotional bellhop," because you are carrying a heavy bag of emotions.
Erykah Badu wrote a popular song that gave us a new term called "bag lady." Her lyrical metaphors empower women. She advises women to guard their hearts against pain and lightly pack their emotions.
Desperate, lonely and enabling women too often carry heavy emotional baggage of grief, sadness, depression, desperation, low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts.
Bag ladies are the walking wounded, haunted by the questions "Why did he leave me?
What's wrong with me?
I don't want to be alone?
Why did he choose her over me?
I'm not complete without him
Who is he with now?
I love him–I hate him
I want revenge
I want him back."
You can't breathe, live or be happy carrying all that junk. Let it go, sisters.
Don't become a professional "emotional bellhop" carrying all that toxic and heavy stuff everywhere you go. No matter what your status is, and what type of bag you carry, budget priced or designer, all you need to hold on to is you.
Sometimes women love so strongly and passionately that they get caught up in an emotional and tumultuous affair. When the love you are receiving raises warning signals, you could be in a toxic relationship. Genuine love will not leave you feeling depressed, insecure and abused. Spend some time with yourself and recognize these signs; this knowledge could save you a lot of future heartache.