Dwelling
The following blog uses the term ‘man’ because I am a female and find it easier. If you are a male reading this, feel free to turn ‘male’ into ‘female’, as both sexes make the same mistakes.
Why is it bad for you?
For one thing you cannot live life and experience joy when you are constantly worrying and dwelling about the person or situation. If you believe in the law of attraction you have to start wondering what you are attracting when your life and thoughts are so negative. Dwelling changes our energy, it zaps us of our strength. We cannot focus on anything for long because the person or situation keeps popping into our heads. You can change this behavior. It takes inner strength to push those thoughts out of your head.
Contrary to popular opinion, worrying about the situation and dwelling on ways to fix it do zilch for it, but rather increase the negative aspects of the relationship. What it does to you…… is what matters, it makes you miserable. It hurts you inside. That person hurt you once but the reliving it hurts again and again and the pain grows and grows. Is this what you want for yourself? You imagine the other person so happy now, so free, doing all the fun things without you. You imagine them finding the perfect mate, someone they click with. Those thoughts just hurt you, why think them? A great way to stop dwelling when you just cannot, when the thoughts overwhelm you at the most inappropriate times (such as at work, in church, the grocery store or on a date with another man) is to give yourself permission to dwell. This is tricky. You need a timer and a time of day set aside where you have no distractions (tv, radio, telephone) then you need to set the timer for 10 or 15 minutes and do nothing but dwell. No thoughts allowed except thoughts of him and the situation. This takes away the ‘illicit’ feeling of dwelling and will replace it with the “Oh gosh do I have to think of him?” feeling. It works and must be done once or twice a day faithfully. Within a week, you will cringe at having to do this. Even if you secretly think you enjoy dwelling.
Here are some types of men that women commonly dwell on.
The “Cheater”
If your mate cheated and left you for another, guess what? You just got rid of a liar and cheat and the other woman just gained one. If he cheated when with you, how can she ever trust him? How can he ever trust her, knowing she cheated with a man who was in a relationship? What a scary relationship they will have. Both will know exactly who they are. Forgive both of them, they deserve each other and you deserve to be happy.
If you cheated and he left you, ask him to forgive you and then forgive yourself. Understand he can no longer trust you and you can no longer trust yourself. No matter what the reason you had for your action, catching him cheating, feeling as if you need validation of yourself, or just plain bored or drunk, understand you did something to hurt another and that’s wrong. Forgive everyone involved, figure out why you did it and get on with your life. Make promises to yourself and do not break them. Prove yourself trustworthy to yourself before you try to convince another that you are. Love yourself first if you ever expect another to be capable of loving you.
The “Unavailable”
This type can be unavailable for many reasons.
Legally Unavailable
This is the married man. Read the above. This is hardest when children are involved. The pain and hurt this can bring to children as well as all the adults involved is tremendous. Relationships are never the same afterwards. Think about ending up with this man, he already has legal and financial obligations. How he treats her is a good indication of how he will treat you if your relationship should fall apart. If children are involved think about guilt, think about holidays. He needs to be separated and have filed before you should even consider going there. Read the above then take a deep breath, put comfortable shoes on and RUN.
Emotionally Unavailable
This man never feels connected. He usually goes from relationship to relationship and cannot stay in one. He has a hard time expressing himself verbally; he usually has a pensive, sad look on his face. Somebody done him wrong and he cannot forgive or forget it. Generally he has been hurt in the past and is unwilling to gamble on love. Sometimes he is still pining over his 9th grade girl friend. This one is so intriguing to our egos. We actually feel delighted when we can make him crack a smile. We want to be the one to heal him and make him see he should have hope and that not all women are the same. He is emotionally constipated. This one is a temptation best left alone.
Emotionally unavailable includes men who are addicted to drugs or alcohol or addicted to any harmful thing. You will just be the mistress; he will be wedded to the drug or other addiction.
Emotionally unavailable includes men whose sexual orientation is not the same as yours. He makes a great friend, be happy with that.
Physically Unavailable
This one is usually at a distance, states or even countries away. It can work, just remember the word work, you will be working hard at staying connected.
Men who show no interest in sex also fit in the physically unavailable category.
The “Not sure you are the one”
This one is tough, you have decided he could be the one and he says he is not sure that you are the one. Immediately you start wondering how to prove you are that person. More crazy sex? More personal attention? More fun? More gourmet meals cooked at home? Doing his laundry to save his dry cleaning bills? Loaning him money to pay his bills? What can you do to prove how great you really are? Nothing. This person is just not sure and no action can fix it. You may get temporary satisfaction but you will wear yourself out trying to prove how wonderful you are. Shouldn’t he already know that? It will make you feel inferior and just plain not good enough. Focus instead on taking care of you and your needs. Examine whether he ever met your needs, or you were just willing to ‘settle’. Give him freedom to make up his mind and tell him you have some major thinking to do as well.
If he has specific reasons why you are not the one for him such as “I save money and you are in huge debt”, or “You call me hideous names when we fight and throw dishes at me” or “You used to be so exciting to talk to and now I feel as though you are my Mother” or any other dozens of real reasons. Thank him for being honest. You may want to see if there is any truth in this and fix it for you, not him.
In fact you may want to see how being in this relationship has changed you. Did you stop laughing? Your friends used to say you had the best sense of humor and now you never laugh. You used to glow with the very joy of living but now you feel like a 10 watt light bulb. You used to jump out of bed in the morning excited about life and now you lay there and wonder if you really have to get up and wonder how many times you can hit the snooze button and still not be late for work. You started reading all those articles titled “ 100 New Ways to Pleasure Him” and realized you are doing 78 of them now. You wonder if he reads any of those types of articles. Now is a great time to think whether this person is really for you. Stop making him the priority of your life, your life is a gift to you and your choice to share it is a gift to him. Do not give your ‘pearls to pigs’.
The “I am not sure I am IN love but I love you”
Read the above again. Ask him if he is a love junkie, has this ever happened before? Is he caught up in the highs of a new relationship, not understanding the highs never last? Ask him if he understands that the test of a great relationship is as much the valleys as the peaks. Anyone can enjoy the peaks. That kind of love is usually lust and lust takes a hike after it has been fed. Then like any junkie, they need a new high. Has he had a history of kissing and running when the relationship becomes commonplace? Does he understand relationships need nurturing? What does the word ‘love’ mean to him? Does he understand the meanings of the words faithful, steadfast, loyal? A love junkie adores being infatuated.
Wikipedia defines infatuation as “Infatuation is the state of being completely carried away by unreasoning passion or love; addictive love. Infatuation usually occurs at the beginning of relationship when sexual attraction is central. It is characterized by urgency, intensity, sexual desire, and anxiety, in which there is an extreme absorption in another. It is traditionally associated with youth”.
The “I just want us to be friends with benefits now until I decide if you are the one”
Read all the above. He already has made the decision that you are not the one but wants to be sure of getting sex on a regular basis in case he does not meet anyone willing to tango with him.
The “Disappearing without a reason for weeks or months”
Unless someone close to him has died or he has proof of amnesia from his physician this one is best left alone. You will constantly be worried he will drift off again. If you were the one for him, nothing could keep him away from you but jail or war.
The “Dancer”
This one adores you when with you but leaves for days at a time. You never go a week or so without communication and he always apologizes and tells you how busy he has been. I often see this in readings and it always looks like the Disney cartoon Cinderella. They are dancing happily and he just walks away and leaves her standing waiting for him to come back and resume the dance. If you do not mind the dancer, he can be fun to dance with while you are waiting for your prince. A real prince will never walk out in the middle of a dance.
The “I am not ready for a committed relationship”
If this is your third date, do not have a fourth unless you do not want a committed relationship. Do not let this drift into the friends with benefits arrangement. Why? Why waste time, energy, and emotions on someone who tells you they are not ready. Especially if he tells you in the beginning. If your life is full with this relationship, it will be hard to attract what you want.
If you truly desire a committed relationship and after about six months you have the relationship talk and he says he is not ready then you need to consider your options. First of all we need to honor what we truly want for us and our future. We also have to honor what he says he wants for himself and he has been honest about not being ready. What to do? Thank him for his honesty and tell him that you are looking for a relationship that has a future. That it is your dream and heart’s desire and that you were hoping it was he. Therefore you have to honor your and his desires and leave this relationship. Then you need to actually do so. It hurts. He may tell you to wait and see if anything changes. If he is not fairly sure after six months, six more weeks will not change a thing.
The Midnight Snacker
This usually starts out as a good relationship. You went out on dates and did things together. You enjoyed each other. Things got routine and now you feel he sees you as his late night snack. He shows up for a booty call and then leaves. If he is very tired, or it is very late he may even spend the night after sex. He expects you to be ready and willing to appease his hunger pains. Put him on a diet. Refuse to answer the door or phone. This man is not always the jerk he seems, somewhere along the way he got the message that this behaviour was fine with you. Somehow he thinks you will always be there to take care of his needs. He just does not see you have needs as well, emotional as well as physical. If you do not stop this cycle it can go on for years.
The Flip-Flopper
This man knows exactly what he wants and it’s you. However he changes his mind again in the next week. He second guess’s his decisions and worries that if he makes a choice something better will come along and then he is stuck with the prior choice. The best way to deal with this is to remove you from his lists of choices and become the ‘one that got away’. He will either find his deal of the week elsewhere or realize you were the best deal all along and see if you are still available. If you are, you now have choices to make. You have to tell him that it's very unbalancing to be in this type of relationship. That you are the best you that you can be and if he cannot see that and see that you have value, then you want someone who can. Your value grows as you age. You are like a fine wine and you have to have that opinion of yourself for him to appreciate you. The biggest problem is that he can make you feel so devalued when he is trying to make up his mind. It puts us in the "oh please, please choose me" frame of mind and we should be in the "Is this choice right for me"? frame of mind.
The Finger Pointer
Never accepts blame for anything. His not buying tickets to the concert is your fault because you called him last week to update him on your Mothers surgery and he forgot. He did not pay his cell phone bill because your nephew was visiting. He did not get the right suit from the cleaners because he knows he asked you to remind him and you forgot, you have no memory of this but accept the blame because maybe you did forget. He is worried about being fired because the boss plays favorites. We all have to be accountable. He does too.
I could go on and on about men and the types that are out there. It looks pretty bleak after reading this. There ARE wonderful men out there, there are not-so-wonderful men out there who DO change and become wonderful. They grow up, they have epiphanies, they mature in healthy ways and become available. You cannot feel ‘stuck’ in a relationship that is making you feel insecure and sad. You have choices to make too. Sometimes all it takes is the courage to walk away from something that does not honor you. That sets wheels in motion. Remember the follow-the-leader game we all played as children? It is great to be a leader and great to get your power back. This is your life, choose carefully.