Countless women are staying in miserable relationships. They know what they’re living in is unhealthy. They know they need to set limits and stand up for themselves and they know that these relationships are slowly tearing them apart. Yet they stay.
The bottom line is that you can read a thousand self-help books, go to the best relationship experts in the world and hear the advice of all of your closest friends, yet none of these will change your relationship if you don’t heed the advice you’re given. None of these supports will help if you don’t love yourself enough to stand up for yourself. No one can do that for you.
Many of the women I work with are extremely bright, competent women, who know what they need to do. They know it’s not okay to have someone screaming at them. They know that having their husband continue in an affair while he decides which woman he wants to be with isn’t helping them. And, they know that desperately hoping for change will not create change. Yet they continue to accept and do all of the above.
The problem is not that women don’t know what they want or what they should and should not accept. Although some women are unsure of these things, most women don’t struggle with this issue – they do know what they deserve. Instead, many women struggle with daring to step behind what they want and deserve. Women are willing to yell, scream, beg, become a sexual dynamo, cry, plead, manipulate and even threaten their partner. They are not, however, willing to risk losing the relationship. And not being willing to risk losing a relationship often plays out as not wanting to set limits, not wanting to directly ask for what they want and not wanting to do anything that might remotely upset the proverbial apple cart. As you can imagine, this fear leaves very few options for changing a bad relationship—or any relationship for that matter.
If a person is so fearful of losing a relationship that they hesitate to speak directly about what they want, don’t set any real limits and/or do anything they can to not upset things, they never had the relationship in the first place. If you’re willing to sacrifice your sanity, sense of self and your happiness so you don’t lose the person who treats you poorly in the first place, then the problem is not your partner. Until you are able to truly have your own back, you are destined to repeatedly be in less-than-cherishing relationships. Work on you and get yourself stronger. Stop trying to twist yourself into a pretzel to become someone you think your partner would want to be with. Stop throwing out empty threats. Stop complaining while doing nothing about the behavior that’s ripping you apart.
Stand behind yourself. Get grounded. Get clear. Get help. Do whatever you need to get out of the pattern of being in toxic relationships. That pattern is old. When women stop accepting toxic relationships, men will start stepping up. Until then, men have no reason to.
Love yourself enough to demand that others treat you well. It’s your basic right as a human being. Stop accepting the unacceptable—it is so not serving you or your family.
Challenge: Feel the fear and do it anyway. Stop allowing the fear to stop you from doing what you know is the right thing to do. Often, when women stand up, men step up (with a Grounded Powerful Strength—NOT aggressive strength). Stand up—you deserve it.