Marital relationship needs, love and our motivation to improve

1. When people see others as being different they often conclude "some thing's wrong with you", or "some thing's wrong with me", or "why don't you get your act together and change", and so on. As we will see, this is flawed thinking.
2. We are attracted and drawn to those who are different to us. Difference provides variety, interest and allows us to find out 'who we are’ when we are with those who are 'not the way we are.’
3. We also tend to love those qualities in others that are either like us, or resonate with a part of us that would like to have qualities like the loved person. It is this admiration or triggering of an unmet need that leads us to love another, and feel motivated to make a success of the relationship.
4. Relationships therefore provide opportunity to discover what we like and dislike by being in the presence of someone who is different. Empowerment results when each can be who they are whilst in the presence of the other.
5. We can very easily interpret these differences as being unacceptable, bothersome, frustrating, or downright wrong. When this happens, we have lost sight of the fact that features in our partner that may once have attracted us, have now become unattractive to us. Behind all behaviours we see in our partner now, are patterns that were present, even if mostly dormant, when we first got together. How is it that we missed seeing this? Were we blind?
6. Couples relationship requires, therefore, that we learn to work with, and understand, difference. Otherwise, we are destined to repeat this dynamic, over and over again. Eventually we will lose motivation to carry on, and even our sense of self-worth may become undermined. Little wonder relationships can become depressing.
7. Relationships also trigger unmet needs from childhood. They thus provide an opportunity to find out who we are, and how we’ve been damaged, by the way in which we react. We react emotionally when we overlook, (often mirrored by our partner overlooking) needs we have which we’ve been ignoring usually since childhood - although we are often not aware of all this.

Self awareness and empowerment to improve our relationship

8. The combination of the above puts us constantly in a position of having to reflect on self, and what our emotions and preferences are telling us about what we do or don’t want. To remain mentally healthy, we must continue to be free to be empowered and to enhance self esteem.
9. Most people make the mistake of thinking that our emotions and preferences are telling us about the other person. This is a common projection and illusion that occurs, especially in close or intimate relationships. Feelings always tell us about what we must do for ourselves. Our self esteem, self worth and confidence relies on acting on our own behalf, regardless of what’s going on 'out there.’
10. Thus, relationship invites participants to consciously notice what is happening, rather than to unconsciously react. With self awareness we can choose to be and do what leads to our growth, or we can live blind to our inner world that is being activated by the relationship dynamics.
11. Relationships then, provide an opportunity for us to notice which part of us is going to 'turn up’ in any given situation, and why. Instead, we often seek relationship so that we can have, hold, and use those parts of the other person that we admire.
12. The purpose of a relationship is not so that we can feel complete, but rather to provide an opportunity in which we can consciously become complete within ourselves. For this we must be loving of self enough to accept whichever part turns up.

Relationships are where we can self-actualize - become our true self

13. The irony here, then, is that without another person, we are quite literally nothing, because we only know self by virtue of the way we relate to others. Yet, the other person can do nothing to make us be anything or anyone - that is totally up to us.
14. So long as we are relying on our partner to 'be someone’ or 'be the person we want them to be’, then disappointment is inevitable. Empowerment is impossible. Each of us must live up to our highest expectations of self, and stay true to self, if the relationship is going to serve us, and accept the other as they are. Changing others is a tall order, and doomed to failure and not a healthy way to live. We can only act on behalf of self, which includes expressing support we would like.
15. Relying on another person to be who we want them to be is thus fraught with problems, because we can’t control another, or have them change to fit our needs, values, attitudes or wants. Yet, most individuals think that their relationship will get better when their partner changes in the way they, the partner, prescribe.

You must love and accept yourself first

16. Thus, it is through focusing on the other that relationships fail. Healthy couples support each other to autonomously support, expand, change and become self-actualized. Love is expressed in the relationship through support of the other.
17. Couples often operate from the unconscious perspective that if they love another, then the other will love them. Then they will have the love they seek, and can then love themselves. The law of attraction demonstrates that we must love and accept self first, then you will be a more attractive mate, you will have a loving vibration, and one that is more lovable to the partner.
18. It doesn’t matter what your partner is doing, being, hoping, having, saying, needing, wanting or demanding. Your job is not to fulfil all of those. Your job is to notice who the other is, and how they are, but not to fix or alter them. Your job is to love and support self no matter what is discovered about self or the other. A person who loves and accepts self is more confident and motivates others to be loving towards them.
19. By loving self, putting self first, we can live and act out of integrity. Then, if it serves our highest good to do so (and it often will), we can make ourselves available to support our partner. Because of what we want for ourselves, it can serve us well to support the needs of others - to a point. That point is reached when we must ignore or compromise our own needs, values, etc to support the other.
20. Our feelings will always alert us to who we are or are not. By listening to these, and the needs, values, attitudes, insights and knowing they inform us of, we can then decide who to be, in the next moment, in our relationship.
21. Because they are wanting to please or be loved by the other, many lose themselves in relationship. They lose track of who they are, and what they need. They then blame this on the other, and hurt, resentment and anger result.
22. This can result in a person feeling less than when they were single, because they’ve given up so much of self in order to keep, save and serve the relationship. How depressing.