“Don’t let what you’ve created get in the way of what you want to create.” —Jana Stanfield
My friend Jana Stanfield, the amazing musical artist, said this as we talked about our somewhat recent singlehood and what we could do with our lives now that we didn’t have a husband about whom to be concerned. We were sharing our travel lust and how responsibilities at home can keep you feeling that you can’t do what you’ve always wanted to do, like extended world travel. The world we’d created — including a home with a mortgage and other responsibilities — could get in the way of the life for which we’ve longed.
What does this have to do with dating? I think it relates because sometimes once we get a sweetie — something we’ve created — we don’t really know if this relationship is what we want. Yes, we’ve been in other — maybe a number — of long-term relationships. But the person you are right now hasn’t. Hopefully you’ve learned more about what makes relationships work as well as dissolve, and about yourself as you’ve moved through life’s journey. So you are a more savvy person entering a new relationship.
But since we’ve longed for someone in our life, we cling to the connection, even though once we’re into it, we may realize it isn’t what we really want. How much of this is fear, fickleness, and immaturity? Who’s to say? For discussion, let’s say these aren’t factors. We are present to the time and effort it took to find the guy and develop a bond to become sweeties. We’ve worked through some hiccups and are fond of him. But we realize that being with him will preclude us from having the life we want to create.
You owe it to both of you to discuss the disconnect. Maybe his career has required him to live in his industry’s hub and you’ve assumed that means he’ll never move. Or perhaps you’ve thought his nearby family would keep him anchored in this spot. You have dreams of living somewhere else. Once your goals are shared, you may learn that he’s been yearning for a change and he’d be delighted to step toward the life you want to create.
But maybe you will discover that you both have very different pictures of the future. So although you wanted to create a loving relationship with someone like him, you have to decide which dream is more important. If you have to choose, you must be very clear which is more critical to your happiness because if you make the decision to subjugate your other goals to stay with him, you very likely will resent him. And if you abandon him to move toward the life you want to create, you may become lonely and sad to leave him behind.
Have you created something in your life that is getting in the way of your creating the life you want? If so, share it with us and what you can do about it.
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Comments
5 responses to “Consciously creating the relationship you want”
I created a life that saw me stagnant. The job I had was good, but I made it so it was hard for me to do and limited me in my personal and career growth. I sat down a couple of months ago and mapped out a plan for the future. Now I live in a new city, am still doing the same job but with much more freedom, and am making big steps in a number of areas of my life that I couldn’t just 60 days ago.
The biggest thing I’ve learned is the importance of goal setting, for every area of life. Sit down. Write out what relationship you want. Then go get it. It’s just that simple… not easy, mind you, but simple!
This is so true…you will never know what you want in someone else unless you know yourself first. Nice post.
Great advice just when I need it. And I liked Doug’s take as well. I can see the relationship I want, but seem to keep having different (not necessarilty bad) ones. I am going to write it down in my journal TODAY and work to stick to it.
Hi DG,
Love this one. I have the career I want, but not the relationship. I blame this on the fickleness and inherent visual stupidity of the male species, (they say they want brains in a woman, but when a woman shows her intelligence it invariably sends them running, right into the arms of the nearest bimbo – and they call themselves evolved and enlightened).
I found a great article addressing this very issue, (written half tongue in cheek the way I like them) and posted it on a dating site just to see if I could set a fire under a few peoples’ bums. Unfortunately, nobody got the joke, I think that’s sad. Maybe that’s my biggest problem, I have yet to meet a man who can keep up with my twisted mind and warped sense of humor, if I ever do I’m tying him to the bedpost and gluing him to the floor with industrial strength peanut butter just to make sure he’s good and glued…
Best wishes from bookyone 🙂
It’s easy to build a relationship with someone. It starts with conversation and learning about one another and you’ll find that it rapidly moves on to he-ing and she-ing as that’s how we’re all programmed. Keeping a good relationship is tougher because it seems that one person tends to think all the work has been done and a relationship is always evolving.