Loving Herself More – A common story of women in love

Romantic love and marriage is a very new relationship phenomena relative to our human history.  Up until the 18th century, marriages were traditionally arranged.  A few hundred years of such a dramatic cultural shift is still very new in its inception, as there hasn’t been enough generations yet that have “figured it out” and left healthy happy examples for us to model after.  It makes so much sense to me why the topics of love, romance, marriage, partnership, intimacy, sexuality, are all so exploratory, experimental, progressive, and sometimes, downright messy, tragic, and traumatizing.

The women’s empowerment, confusion about roles and approaches, evolving out of the wounds of the patriarchy, global collective infancy for romantic relationships, experimentations testing cultural norms, mothers who don’t know how to teach their children to love and respect them, are all contributing to a divide that ultimately (I believe) is leading to even greater unity and harmony (eventually).  It is a divide that is an essential step in our growth together, and I warmly welcome its healing transformative empowerment into our world (even though going through its challenging aspects definitely doesn’t feel warm and fuzzy).

Since 2015 I have counseled countless women and men about their relationships, and have seen a very clear pattern that is present and undeniable.  As there is great healing and development needed and happening in both men and women, I am going to illustrate a point of view here from the woman’s perspective and experience.  I am finding this to be relevant, mainly for women who are in their 40’s and older.  This can be relevant for any gender or relationship orientation too.

Women in love or relationship with men, are more and more, are standing strong in their intolerance to abusive, oppressive, disrespectful, neglectful, immature, entitled behavior from their partner.  As women grow in their strength, men are struggling, as the conditioned level of comfort they are familiar with (and have inherited) is crumbling and taking on a new shape.

(So much love, compassion, and praise to the men of our world!  I believe in you!)

Mens hearts are suffering, as the ways they know to be right and real in relation to women (and the world) are being confronted, and are not holding up to the newly forming standards that women have for their needs to be met within relationships.  So much of men’s personal identity is formed from how well he treats the women in his life.  His ability to make her (whether she’s his lover, partner, sister, mother, neighbor, etc. ) happy is what defines his manhood.

When he makes her happy, makes her feel safe and secure, helps her in some way, treats her in some way, and for romantic partnerships, when he satisfies her needs in the bedroom, all communicate to him that he is a “good man” and that he is “doing it right.”

Women are growing in our awareness of and process with empowerment.  We are (still relatively new) in a time when our voices matter.  Our needs and desires matter.  We are learning how to acknowledge our needs, have healthy boundaries, activate our voices, step more effectively into our roles as friend, lover, guide, healer, mother, and muse of men.

Women are leading the movement of personal development, spiritual evolution, healing and transformation.  The more a woman grows in herself and her success, the harder it seems to be for her to find a suitable man to be her mate.  The women of the modern world want so much for the men to engage in their transformational healing work, so they can meet her with their strength and ability to co-create a stable, secure, safe foundation together of health and harmony.

For the woman to really own her power, her truth, her voice, she will develop high standards of conduct in her relationships and their patterns.  She can guide, she can support, she can love so deeply and compassionately, she can hold space.  However, she cannot support him by sacrificing herself, her worth, her life, to keep her partner comfortable in his ways of being that are destructive, dysfunctional, or even abusive beyond a level he can even comprehend.

For him to be able to understand, he would have to deeply humble himself, tap into his vulnerability, and clearly see himself.  He would have to feel himself, feel his own pain.  Wallow in it, die to it, and let it guide him into his own liberation; which is patiently waiting, secretly begging, to love and support him in a quality of self-love and self-compassion greater than he has ever known.

Woman asks herself – what can I do?  How can I help?  The answer is that there is nothing to do but be still, as the gate keeper, and be available for the man who is ready to meet himself through her reflection.

He must do his own work in showing up, in some way, to say “help me, I need guidance, I have no idea how to help myself, and I am ready to surrender to a wisdom greater than what I already know.”

As we so often see on the healing path, there tends to be a crisis point we hit on our journey of maximum discomfort, as the previous outer shell of our reality no longer suits us.

We feel a pressure and tension in our process of shedding it from us, so we may begin to create a new shell around us that is more fitting for our new form.  Many creatures in nature also experience this very thing – it seems to be a natural part of how we, Earth’s creatures, move through life’s transitions.

I see a beauty in this general current process men and women (or general masculine/feminine dynamics) are in, of creating a greater sense of harmony that’s true to our nature, rather than one fabricated and fed to us over millennia.  This is a new opportunity for each to rise up, claim our power and come together in a way that is most serving and nourishing to both, the balance of Yin and Yang.

The breakdown is necessary for a rebirth to take root, and this new force of love coming though is requiring much more space within the temple of the heart to reside, than its previous allotted quarters.

Here’s a couple more blogs I’ve written that you may also enjoy:

https://goddessmodern.com/lifestyle-feminine-blog/

https://goddessmodern.com/heartbreak-transformation-blog/