This continues my speaking to the distant or pulling away spouse or partner…
You really want to love and be loved. You truly want love in your marriage.
Underneath your aloof exterior, or tough, you-can’t-touch-me act, or your constant but fruitless search to find that loving relationship, or your porcupine prickly attitude that keeps others at bay or your sad withdrawn demeanor that isolates you – you truly do want to love and be loved.
Yes, you do. More perhaps than you now realize.
Take a minute.
Isn’t this true? Don’t you truly want an intimate relationship in which you can feel appreciated, wanted, acknowledged, affirmed and to touch and be touched?
You want to be known and to know in a genuine heartfelt way.
You long for that.
Your toughness, your prickles, your withdrawal and your constant frenetic search is merely your way to cope.
That’s all it is! Period.
You see, to love someone and allow someone to love you is truly a risk.
Loving and being loved in a genuine authentic, calm, I-can-take-a-deep-breath-and-trust-myself-with-you is downright scary for most of us.
It truly is!
A wise man once said, “The greatest risk is to love. Because in loving you will at one point feel the pain of losing that love.” One will always leave the other: death being ultimate abandonment, of course.
As well, you probably have many hang ups about disclosing yourself to another, to allow someone to truly know your idiosyncrasies, the parts of you that are a little crazy and off kilter.
What will the other think? Will your spouse say, “Yes, indeed, you are a little (or a lot) off!”
And so you hold tight or flail, fearing that to love will only bring pain, rejection and more emptiness.
But, you really do want to love and be loved.
And you know what?
So does your spouse!
That’s a great beginning point for resolution – for both of you and the marriage or relationship.
