In my line of work, where I assist those who seek my help and than powerfully empower them with life changing events, I have learnt and realized that all their stories and events share common patterns of behavior in life.

That while circumstances or situations may be different, the root cause of failure or setbacks is often something we have repeated in the past and continue to do so without realizing them.

I am reminded of a young woman named Lin who came to me for healing. Lin is a young woman who had an unhappy childhood and came from a broken family. Growing up with her family, she experienced abuse, emotional isolation and abandonment. As she grew up, her only interest was to meet someone, get married and have a family she never had as a child. It was a powerful desire to experience the joy and love that she never did that led her through many traumas and failures in her relationship.

Lin followed a pattern where she would get into a relationship immediately once she felt she shared a good initial rapport without looking at the truth character of the person or understanding his values and codes of behavior. Unfortunately, she went through this pattern only to discover that she was not being honored, respected or appreciated.

In search for her happiness she chose to continue with what was available and with pre built assumptions about her relationship. In the beginning of her last relationship, she never thought that it would be like the last three ones. She simply thought that her emotional and physical needs would be met as if her partner could read her mind and know at all times what her needs are.

Sometimes, without realizing, we place expectations on our partner, which puts a lot of pressure on them often leading to conflict. On the other hand and very often, women have the tendency to expect very little, suppressing their true needs so they get very little. They live in a state of fear. Unfortunately, we can suppress our true needs and desires for a limited period only. For some it can be a year and for others five years of suppressing our needs. Eventually, those suppressed needs and desires lead to resentment and anger in a relationship. This is exactly where the unloving behavior begins, bringing in conflicts arguments and fights pulling the couple apart.

Lin felt frustrated and disappointed to a great degree with herself, her life, god and her partner. She felt she wasn’t appreciated, honored and respected for who she is by her partner. Day by day things were getting more disappointing and hectic as arguments and conflicts were now part of their daily routine.

Sadly for her, she had chosen to ignore the most important aspect of relationship – being clear about her expectations in a relationship. Often I wonder the following;

Why do we not represent ourselves as how we truly are? And:  Why do we play down what we desire and what we don’t accept?

It is of utmost importance to draw the red lines right from the start to make sure that we have our needs met in our relationships and avoid disappointment. An equal measure of drawing those red lines is being honest and truly understanding what our needs are.

Many times, we create the image of our partner, of who we think they are. Sometimes because we never give enough time to get to know them or we have this need to believe that they are who we want them to be. Often, we see certain aspects of them that we don’t really like but we believe that we can handle them or we can change them as we go along.  And than there are times that we are all caught up in who our partner is not, rather than see the value in who they are and what they can offer.

What a huge mistake to base our life on making assumptions or believing that we can change another person. We can only make a decision of accepting another person as a partner, based on who they are at the present moment. We are not in a place to know when and in what way and if they will change in the future.

So then what is stopping us from being clear about the true desires or the red lines to our partner? Is it some kind of a fear? Do we feel that we will lose them or that we will be rejected? If so, than we need to see within ourselves first and than change that weak part that prevents us from expressing our own truth.

As with Lin, she was in her own paradigm.  And after being in her relationship for 5 years, she was totally ignored, unappreciated and unloved. When she found out that her partner was cheating on her, she felt her red line was crossed and finally spoke. It was a shocking and traumatic experience for her to come face to face with reality that she had avoided for so long.

In her final conversation, she explained what she wanted and how she expected to be treated from him in their relationship. She made clear what she could accept and what not. She made clear that being insulted, emotionally abused and cheated crossed her lines and she wasn’t ready to go along with it. After five years she found the courage to overcome the fear of losing a relationship speak her truth. Unfortunately, her partner’s response to her expectations and truth was to shift the blame on her, calling her unstable and crazy.

When you feel unhappy in your relationship, you need to speak up. You have two choices, either speak your truth to know if there is a possibility to fix it ,or suppress what bothers you and live a very angry, resentful and painful life.

Sometimes pressure of family, friends or society makes us stay in a relationship for the sake of others, not to harm the family, children or friends. We take on the entire burden of the relationship thinking that we will take care of things but what we really do is hurt and suppress ourselves even further. This is clearly an unhealthy way to live their life but the fear of getting out of the relationship is far too bigger than the power to be free from the pain.

You should only be in a relationship that you want to be in it and you should only choose to be with a partner that helps you become a better person every day that passes by. Anything less and you are setting yourself up for life empty of joy, excitement and emotional security.