Go or Grow

Once upon a time, I was married to a man who didn’t want to be married to me, at least not in the way where he would have to quit dating other people. So, not too surprisingly, our marriage had some significant conflict. In fact, to be more specific I was miserable, we both were. Unfortunately, we stayed in that relationship and stayed miserable for longer than by my standards today made any sense at all.

We told ourselves we were staying together for our son. The truth was we stayed together way longer than what was good for our son.

I knew our marriage was swirling the toilet bowl for more than two years before he packed his bags and finally went to live with his girlfriend. So, a smart person would wonder what on earth was happening for those two years. Let me give you a list.

I was losing any sense of self-worth and my mind.

I was trying to find a way to be different enough than I really am, in an effort to make him love me.

I was trying to find a way to coerce him into being a “good” husband using everything in my power up to and including using our child as a reason/bargaining chip for him to shape up and conform. By conform I mean, he needed to be someone he wasn’t.

Then when none of that worked, I came to inevitable conclusion that I had created the whole shit show so I could either:
Recreate the whole nightmare into a dream come true using the power of my thoughts.

or

Manage my thoughts about having a husband who was still dating other women in an effort to let that be ok and stop the suffering my thoughts were causing me — and him.

I know I’m not alone in coming to those conclusions. As a law of attraction relationship coach, I talk to countless people who are struggling with their relationships who have landed in exactly the same place. People think either they created it so they can change it, or they can change the way they think about what’s happening to release the resistance in an effort to facilitate change or stop the suffering. From an LOA standpoint, both of those approaches seem to make sense.
So, considering I’m a law of attraction relationship coach, what I’m about to say might come as surprise and might ruffle some feathers.

When I look back at my first marriage I can say with absolute certainty, I was no more responsible for the fact that my husband had multiple affairs than I am responsible for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Sure in some larger than life way, where all of us are sharing every aspect of everything that was ever created, I contributed. However, in a functional real life in the real world way, I had no more control over him than I had over a Japanese bomber pilot decades before I was born.

Want to know how I contributed to creating that reality for myself?
I tolerated it.
Plain and simple.

And you know who’s fault it was I was in that relationship with a man who cheated?
It was mine, not his, because I tolerated.
Also plain and simple.

For better or worse, your reality is the sum total of what you tolerate. If you want more in your relationships and your life in general, set higher standards.