NOTE: When a person seriously can’t move on from a relationship, it shows that the definition of love is twisted.
In our last question Zandie asked why she keeps failing to let her abusive boyfriend go.
The way we grow up can twist a wrong definition of love into our mind-sets.
For that reason, I later contacted Zandie and asked her more about her past…
Moffat: How was the marriage relationship between your mum and dad?
Zandie: Ouch it was very bad! I honestly never saw love in the marriage. My mom could have left, but she only stayed for us her kids.
Zandie doesn’t know growing up in an abusive and loveless mum/dad relationship has made her tolerate a loveless relationship in her life too.
Let’s explore those effects one by one:
i) You can’t imagine relationships being better than what you grew up seeing.
Your childhood experiences make up your world.
Though there are many good relationships in this world, in your world good relationships don’t exist because you never saw any while growing up.
You can’t let go of this bad relationship because your mind thinks it is normal, and it would be over-ambition if not pride, to think you deserve something better than what you grew up in.
Leaving a person who is as bad as your parent feels as bad as leaving your parent. So your brain keeps asking,
“If this man was your father would you have left him? Wouldn’t you give him another chance? Come on, this is your father that we are talking about.”
Well the truth is your boyfriend is not your father and no other man; not even your boyfriend or husband, has a right to be your father in your life.
Even if you were born in a dysfunctional family dysfunction is still abnormal, it still hurts and it can still be avoided.
Your mum made a wrong choice, you can still make a right one.
Above all, remember that the world is bigger than where your eyes end to see.
Like I write in my inspirational self-coaching book Cinderella Taught me Lessons, if you want a successful marriage, stop focusing on your mum and dad’s broken marriage.
Look for couples that have made it, be close to them. You will see that surely love and happiness can be real in marriage.
ii) You believe you can keep a partner through dependence on you.
Your mum stayed with your dad because she was financially dependent.
So at the back of your mind, you have a hidden subconscious belief that helping him with money should somehow motivate him to stay in your life…
Unfortunately, like I responded earlier in this book, there is nothing that you can give anyone to make them love you – nothing at all.
From your attempts you can see that money doesn’t make a person love you.
And from your mother you can learn that she gave her body, her loyalty and children, but that still didn’t make your father love her.
Walk away from a love in which all you do is give. Love don’t cost a thing!
The next point is more important…
iii) Your past made you believe you can stay with your partner even in the absence of love.
Your mum stayed in a loveless marriage. Mum taught you to stay even when you are in pain.
This was the worst lesson of your life.
This is why specialists now say it is better, for the children, if their parents separate rather than grow up seeing them fight and abuse each other.
Those experiences twist children’s definition of love, making them susceptible to staying in the very same kind of destructive relationships when they are grown up.
This is why children who grow up in abusive homes are more likely to stay in abusive relationships too. It is because their past normalized the abnormal.
The purpose of love and marriage is happiness. Everyone has their happiness prepared for them.
However, because of the past – many are fooled into settling for a lifetime of sorrow, stress and pain.
You don’t need to change the past, all you have to do is wise up and run for your life.
iv) You are likely to fall in love with a person who is similar to your parent of the opposite sex.
Most times men are attracted to women who behave like their mothers, whether they were good or bad.
Most times women are attracted to men who behave like their fathers, whether good or bad.
Psychology discovers that, being strongly attracted to someone doesn’t mean you are meant to be together.
It may simply mean that person is in some way similar to someone you know very well – usually a parent or guardian. The human mind is attracted to familiarity.
This is the reason why girls who grow up abused by their fathers have higher chances of falling in love and getting married to men who will be just as abusive as their fathers.
When they thought they were looking for love, their minds were looking for familiarity.
The real reason good people are hard to find is that we are searching for familiar people and not good people.
We love what is familiar to the description we carry within us.
We turn down good people, take them for granted or even mock them – it is because our brain is uncomfortable with people that are different from our father or mother.
We are scared of loving good people because our minds subconsciously think “the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t know.”
If you have never known good people before, then good becomes “too good to be true.”
These thoughts happen faster than our ability to notice them, yet they are the thoughts driving the major decision of our lifetime.
So Zandie, you have to sit down and consider the definition of a good man in your life. So far you have met two bad men in your life i.e. your dad and your ex-boyfriend.
List down all the bad you saw in them on a fresh new page of your journal or notebook.
Now on top write the heading:
These are the Signs of a Bad Guy
Below it, write all the negative things you disliked in your Dad and your Ex-boyfriend. e.g.
- Doesn’t care about my feelings
- Verbally abusive
- Harsh
Then in the next page write the heading
These are Signs of a Good guy
Then write the opposite of each point that you wrote in the previous page e.g.
- Considerate
- Cares about how I feel
- Empathetic
- Careful with words
- Speaks words that heal.
NOTE: I didn’t write negative statements like “he doesn’t hurt me” I straightly said “he heals.” Be positive and direct.
Every day take time to pray and meditate on the qualities of a good guy that you listed.
Tell yourself this man will be worth keeping and any other kind of man will be worth losing.
When you know what you want, then finding it becomes easier.
In fact, you will find you have been bypassing it all this time – simply because you didn’t know the signs by which to recognize it.
Next Question…
