Where Has The Love Gone?
Where once there was connection and the warm and fuzzies, now the love between you has slithered away leaving layers of scaly resentment, anger and frustration.
When you first met, you loved-him-so. He left sparkles and fairy-dust in his tracks. He painted your toenails, fluffed your pillows, paid attention to you in ways that made you feel really special, and looked longingly into your eyes. If someone were looking-at-you-looking-at-him, all that could be seen were big hearts bursting out of your eyeballs as you gazed adoringly at him. You easily overlooked his "flaws" ("What flaws?!?", you asked), his messes and gruff manor around anything emotional. "Perfection, manifested," you thought.
Then one day, you noticed something about him that seemed like a flaw in the perfection package. You gave it some thought; maybe you discussed it with your friend(s). You may have decided you should discuss it with him, asking him to stop doing (or change) that thing because it made you feel irritated, bothered, angry or bad in some way.
So he did. Kind of.
You thought that telling him how it made you feel and asking him to stop the behavior would solve it. Then, he did (substitute "she did" anywhere in this discussion) something else that caught your attention. Rather than let it go, now your radar for "things he does that bother me" was heightened. Once again, bothered by this inappropriate thing (by your standards), you thought about it, told him and your friends about it, and asked for another change or modification.
Because you wanted the best relationship that you could have, you thought that pointing out his "faults", the things that bothered you and things you needed to work on as a couple was the way to go about having that fantastic relationship.
Fast-forward to now.
It's been months or years that you've been together. That in-love feeling you once had? It's almost as stale as the bread in your cupboard. The longer you're with him, the more you expect him to disappoint you, the more he annoys you, and the harder you think he makes it for you to be in-love with him.
You believe that it's because he's changed (or not changed enough) and that it's up to him to make you feel love. It's certainly not up to you to feel love if you're not given good-reason to.
Now let's turn the lens on to you.
Where are you in that picture?
Have you changed? I'm not talking about your physique, or your personality. I'm talking about your mood and attitude about him. I'm talking about what you notice about him now vs. what you noticed about him when you first got together.
Are you perceiving him from the same lens that you perceived him from when you were feeling all the loves for him?
Has the way you think about him changed? Has what you think about when you think about him changed?
Are you noticing more things you don't like about him than you did in the beginning of your relationship?
And you thought it was about him.
Given what you're paying attention-to and your thoughts about him, is it any wonder you don't have that warm-fuzzy feeling for him?
The love you once had hasn't gone anywhere - you've just vacated the love-fest by focusing on what you don't love about him.
Feeling love comes from you and how you focus and has much less to do with the other person.
Remember, he was a slob when you first met (and still is) but you didn't pay attention to that, then. Now, it's just about the only thing you can think about!
You've mastered the art of looking for what's wrong about him and have adjusted yourself right out of your in-love feeling. With your thoughts, your observations, what you're talking about and with what you've been thinking you needed to talk about.
If "your vibe attracts your tribe" (it does), your thoughts create your reality (they do), the more you think about something the more you get of it, and you get what you most come to expect (or practice thinking about someone), do you find it at all unusual or coincidental that he keeps cooperating with your expectation(s) about him, doing the things that bug you?
Are you choosing how you'd like to feel, choosing to look for affirmations of those feelings, and being the person you're asking him to be, or are you asking him to be who you want/need him to be so that you can (once he changes and is just the way you want him) feel the feels that you want to feel?
Are you asking him to take the credit for how you feel rather than choosing how you want to feel and taking the credit for it?
Who's in charge of that, by the way?
If your holdout for feeling how you want to feel and being the person you want to be with, is that you need your guy to change first - you're going to be waiting a long time.
You get what you're tuned to. You can't get (receive) anything different from what you're tuned to about a person any more than you can tune to Apple TV and receive what's on DISH.
To have the relationship you want; to have the money you want; to have the lifestyle you want - you must tune yourself to how what-you-want feels like. If you're diligently noticing more of what you don't want and what you want that you don't have, and therefore very familiar with how that feels, you're not tuned to what you want. You're on DISH when what you want is on APPLE TV. Different frequencies. Any wonder why you're not feelin' the love?
So if you're noticing what you don't like, you're not on the frequency.
If you're noticing what you do like, you are.
If you're thinking about your guy/gal and you don't feel good, you're not on the frequency.
If you're thinking about your guy/gal and you feel good, you are.
If you're thinking about your guy, not feeling good, and therefore (usually) thinking that he needs to be different in some way so that you can feel better - that's false. He does not.
While being with someone who compliments and praises you, helps out, and loves you no matter what, is so much easier and nicer than being with someone who judges and criticizes you, asks you to change, and who's sloppy, mostly grumpy, pessimistic and not-so-much-fun, you're still in charge of how you feel and what you choose to notice (focus on) about that person.
The reason you're feeling bad and the reason why you're not feelin' the love you once did, is because the way you're thinking about him contradicts your true soul-knowing about him. It's got much less (or nothing) to do with him and so much more with how you're (consistently) perceiving him.
That's good news. You know why? You're in control. You have all the tools. You don't have to wait for him to change. You don't need him to be different. You don't have to wait until he decides he wants to change, or when it's convenient for him. You don't have to make demands of him and hold a grudge until he changes or does what you want. That approach to relationships creates resentment and a sense of powerlessness.
If you could know that what you want (which is to feel good) is at your fingertips.
If you could know that what you want is just a thought and a thought and a thought away.
If you could know that you could affect change from the inside out by tuning yourself and never need another person to do something differently before you could feel how you want to...
Would that not make you feel less at-the-sake-of other people and more in control of your own "destiny" and desire?
What kind of world would open up for you?
What possibilities would there be?
How would that feel?
Can you feel how your relationship would change if you simply acknowledged that how you feel is a direct result of how you focus; what you think about; what you decide to amplify and what you choose to tune yourself to?
You can have the relationship that you want, right where you are, with the person you're with.
The love hasn't gone anywhere...
All it takes is your focus.
All it takes is your desire to feel good and tuning yourself accordingly.
All it takes is for you to decide that someone else doesn't hold the reins of your emotions, your thoughts or your perspective.
You do.