10 Myths to Bust About Realtionships

A Belief is only a thought we keep on thinking (Abraham). Has it ever occured to you that there are beliefs that pose themselves not as walls or fortresses but the trenches in the battlefield of love? What are we repeatedly thinking that makes relating all the more difficult and more complex? Let's play ghost busters and haunt all of those invisible and sometimes flying nagging little bitches that have been sabotaging our relationships for so long because I have identified 10 of them. Come and join me if you dare.

1) The belief that someone out there is going to complete us - It's inevitable, it's encrypted in our psyches as if since we were born we have to accept phrases like "Your other/better half" to describe your mate. We don't know where it came from. You can find this phrase in all languages and all cultures under the same blue sky and this idea that it is someone else's work, task, destiny is to make us happy is so ... outdated! It is one of the main barriers to our own happiness and our own fulfillment. What happens if you can't find "the one", what happens if you're past your "marrying age", are you going about the world feeling and believing you are but half as good as anybody else? Of course NOT ! Are you sincerely going to wait until your "prince charming" comes along and makes your life wonderful? It is high time we join forces and face this barrier with love and compassion to ourselves, we are wonderful women, no one needs to complete us because we are already complete. Give yourself the opportunity to fall in love, enjoy, admire and be passionate about YOU.

2) The idea that if he loves me he must know instinctively what I need from him - Come on girls, guys are wired differently, they simply don't get it if we can't spell it out simple and straight. So many times we create such drama in our heads only because: he didn't notice you were wearing a different perfume/lipstick/dress/shoes today and didn't complement you, didn't call exactly at 12 p.m., forgot to buy your favorite dessert/latte/flowers, didn't notice you were sneezing/coughing/scratching/crying more than usual, and you're about to explode because: " All this means he doesn't love me because if he did he would know! Oh how dare he! We are nurturers and every wink of his eye, every nod does not go unnoticed but that is not true for them so if something is important for you, communicate it and do not expect him to read your mind. Let them express their love in their own unique and different way.

3) He belongs to you, oh so completely! - This includes his time, his assets, his ... well everything. Your partner has the right to have different views, time alone with his friends, his own space, his own tastes, his little secrets, his toys, his awkward moments, his beer occupying half your fridge, his own mess without needing you to pick it up for him, his dirty laundry, his toiletry, his bad hair days, his own feelings, beliefs, his time to breathe and he does not necessarily need to share all of it with you and it's perfectly and simply OK. He is not your symbiotic twin, remember?

4) The Perfect ONE - Oh my perfect man needs to be .... (a list of 1000 qualities) and he needs to fulfill them all because if not he is not for me! How many times we have a list of qualities that are not really that important for us and we pass up the guy who smiles at us every day only because we don't label him as the man of our dreams? Sometimes the boy next door (or next cubicle), if you give him the chance turns out to be the man you ever wanted, in a different presentation maybe. But if you take the plunge he might simply be many times way beyond your expectations. Identify only 3 qualities that are really important for you and you only, not for society or the family or your girl-friends, you. Someone once said: "There's no perfect one, just one that fits you perfectly".

5) Fulfilling YOUR expectations - women love detail, and we love to picture the romantic dinner in detail ranging from the flowers to the candles and the whole nine yards. And we want to fit our lover in our mental "box of pandora": we picture how he will come home early on your anniversary, how amorous and how passionate he will fold you in his arms and of course surprise you with a gift! But when/if he fails to respond or act the way we expected ... then something is wrong, I mean VERY wrong. Many times we want to change him, "help" him, make him wear "better" clothes, change his "bad" habits, push him to get a "better " position, but in the end why do we do it? So that he can fit him better in our mental picture? Doesn't he deserve to be the man that he is and make the changes that he wishes on his own and by his own choice? Didn't you fall in love with him just the way he is on the first place?

6) Mothering him just a wee bit too much- we are just too nurturing naturally, we can't help it. We are cleanliness freaks and we love to fix things and people and we go great lengths to do his laundry, feeding him, clean for him and after him, playing the role of the therapist/teacher/counselor, healing his wounds (physical or emotional), paying for him, pumping up his ego, baby-sitting him, playing the good Samaritan and running across the city for him because after all that's our job, right? There is something you need to keep in mind. Do you want a mate or a child? Does he need a mother or a partner? Separate the roles. He is an adult, there are things he needs to do on his own and by himself. Breath.

7) Allow yourself to be loved - I got you, you thought the greatest and most important phantom looming over your own happiness was point number one, right? Wrong! We have grown up in an environment that fosters so much insecurity, such a distorted way of looking ourselves that we have become our greatest enemy. We might attract the guy we never thought was even possible and he falls for us! But there is this nagging, creepy, sleazy phantom somewhere that invades us: "You're too fat, you're too ugly, you don't deserve him, it won't last, he doesn't love you that much" and all that bla,bla,bla and yada yada yada that swirls around your head unconsciously and ends up sabotaging your bliss. True love and acceptance begins within.

8) Love is not a battlefield - a partnership is about being partners, going hand by hand on this temporary journey in life, side by side towards an agreed goal. It is not the war of the sexes, not the competition about who earns more, who controls the household or the relationship! We have been deceived into believing that men (and sometimes other women) are our foes and not our friends. We have this perception that we need to conquer and fight and catch ... a man, and we have stopped seeing them as human beings with feelings, thoughts and unspoken fears. Our experiences have taught us that our mates can be snatched from us from other women. We need to stop this. If the guy was the snatchable then the girl did you a favor. Bless them! Men are our friends, not our foes. No one is better than the other, or more intelligent, or more responsible, or more loyal, or successful, or whatever . . . they, like us are simply human. Let's make love not war.

9) Living in the future - it's your first date and you have already pictured yourself getting married to the guy, having babies, the house, the car and the 50th year wedding anniversary. We really need to stop planning our lives to the last detail. Let's enjoy every single date like if it were the first and last one, sip the wine, enjoy dinner, laugh at his jokes, feel the tingle all over your body when you are with him, look at him in the eyes and feel how good it is, appreciate the NOW. Refrain yourself from running a complete 3 hour film in your head of your future together. After all how can you construct the future without being in the present?

10) Being single is not a sign of leprosy - Sometimes we have instinctively accepted that the goal of every woman on earth is to get married. Is it so? And is it true for you? In some cases not getting married is a social stigma, there's peer pressure, parental pressure, social pressure, our biological clock is ticking and then we rush and hurry to tie the knot only because we need to catch "the last train". Because if we don't, oh shame on us! Are these actually valid reasons to get married? You know best.

I am a mere mortal, flawed and all who has had her heart-aches, not a love guru. I have seen my own fears about intimacy mirrored by my partners who have been angels in disguise. And like many of you what I yearn is simply to be able to pave a smoother way towards waltzing along life with a chosen partner to the rythm of a balanced, beautiful and loving melody.