What makes a man fall in love with a woman...and want to stay with her forever?
There are going to be two parts and 12 chapters which I'm going to share with you, especially those who have no idea why your man kept a distance from you.
Have you ever wonder why does lasting love seem to be elusive? Here's how you can learn the secrets that evoke loving and positive responses from men and find out exactly what kind of woman a man loves....and stays with....FOREVER.
- Trusting a man to love your strength
- Arousing a man's passion and desire
- Deepening love through friendship
- Giving up the prince and finding the man
- and 11 essentials rules for staying in love (of course this is going to be reveal at the last chapter. I don't think you're ready to follow the rules when you can't even bother to pay attention to the next 11 chapters, right?)
By the way, I want to thank Dr Connell Cowan and Dr Melvyn Kinder for producing the Women Men Love and Women Men Leave.
Chapter 1 Why Love Seems So Elusive
For so many women today, men are confusing, even incomprehensible. They seem to operate according to a murky set of rules women have never quite learned. While men has a lot to learn, women has more!
Why on earth love so puzzling?? We all want to find and nourish warm, rich and fulfilling relationships. Does love become so easily diminished; why do couples drift away from each other? Why does love blossom into an enduring bond for some people, but never seem to develop roots for others? You must be thinking "because I'm not as perfect as her" or "the guy is just madly blinded!". Everyone deserves a relationship whether or not you're just a basic average girl. Sometimes is about the timing and the right person who got electrifies by you.
Most relationships die slowly and without the conscious awareness of either party. There's a fine line between a relationship that moves in a positive direction and one that slips silently into apathy or the slow accumulation of disappointments and resentment. The funniest part is most of us do not know where that line is and do not have the specific guideposts to track it over a period of time. However, if we are able to track what affects relationships, we are then able to change them.
You may be essentially asking yourself "how do I make love happen and how do I keep it alive" and trust me, I've been through this and it's not easy. You need to go step by step, and the first step will be understanding that learning and information can alter love's path by having an effect on a man's feelings of trust, friendship and graduating into passion.
Everyone needs love!!!
The wish for commitment has given rise to a new set of concerns. Women clearly desire commitment, and think that most men today don't. I truly understand if your man aint committing your desired amount (cause I've been there and done that) but there are reasons to it. Don't judge before you know what's wrong.
It is this difference that contributes to the myth that men do not wish to commit themselves. Not you. Men under the age of 35 often appear to avoid commitment because they are consumed with work and career. Believe me, if you're a workaholic, you will understand what I'm saying. What it means is that their highly focused emotional investment in work predominates. Unlike women, men do not have a biological clocks that force them to reorder their priorities. Working overtime for a long period unconsciously is the first thing that hits my mind. Men will slowly neglect the concerns of their partners about the quality of their relationships with men. Women will start to worry whether they are having quality time together while the men are just basically busy with their daily routine.
Tensions!!!
Like most people, you may assume that women willing to embrace love while men are more ambivalent (it means they can take it or leave it); that women innately are more monogamous and faithful while men are polygamous, more prone to roam even when they seemingly have been given everything by the woman they love; that men are less capable of and less comfortable with intimacy while women easily give full expression to love; that men are romantic only when in pursuit and that their amorous gestures are mere "tricks" which are discarded the moment they feel certain of a woman's love; that women are love addicts and men are love holdouts; that women like to be swept off their feet and men like to be babied in a relationship. You're not a full list of the description that I've just made right????
Guess what? The fact is, there are elements of truth in all of these statements. This is the battle of sexes. Men and women are drawn to each other, feelings of weariness and suspicion are heightened. What causes men and women to need and desire each other and yet be so cautions, so easily disappointed and frustrated? Men and women are different. The most basic conflict between men and women comes from the fundamental difference in how they view intimacy--the priority in their lives, and the comfort it gives them. It means the sexes view love and experience with love result from our not taking these primitive differences into account.
Intimacy is the thing!!!
Women and men approach love in different ways because of one terribly important fact: boys form their identify and unique sense of self by separating from their mothers and modeling themselves after their fathers, while girls develop their sense of self by continued affiliation with their mothers and by modeling themselves after them.
INTIMACY SCALE
Separateness -------------------------------- Attachment
- Separateness represents the state of being alone, autonomous, independent.
- Attachment is the experience of feeling connected, intimate--at its extreme, fused with another person.
AFFINITY: HOW WOMEN BOND
Women's bonding zone
Separateness---------------------(Bonding)>>>Attachment
Affinity factor, can be found in a girl's earliest childhood experiences. Closeness becomes forever associated with security. As the baby girl starts to grow around age two, she'll slowly develop her own identity and starts to imitate her magically powerful mother. The factor makes closeness and bonding so very important for women. As the baby girl grows into an adult, her independence and achievement will increase and become important to her.
POLARITY: HOW MEN BOND
Men's bonding zone
Separateness<<<<<(Bonding)>>>>>Attachment
Many women today feel that men are fearful of commitment. They see men as hesitant to take on the emotional demands of a relationships. No matter whether a woman is single or has been married to the same man for years, she is likely to have experienced a man's approach/avoidance behaviour: by turns he is strongly drawn to her and is romantic and loving, then he pulls away when emotional intensity builds. This will cause the women to a great deal of confusion, resentment and unhappiness.
You must be wondering why men acted this way. It is believed that there is a powerful underlying process or force that explains this often maddening behaviour in men. The reason behind this is the Polarity factor and it too originates in childhood experiences.
Boys form an incredibly dependent bond with their mothers but while girls remain in close affiliation with the mother, some thing very different begins to happen with boys around their second birthday--they slowly become aware they are unlike their mothers and more like their fathers! Of course, in the end of the day, boys will be boys and girls will be forever girls. Nothing can make a change to this strong statement. Boys are then compelled to separate from the mother and model themselves after the father.
They tend to move back and forth between the two poles of Separateness and Attachment. Hence the term--Polarity.
One thing that made men move back and forth between the two poles is they are uncomfortable remaining at either of these extremes for any length of time. For a women, you can see extremes--girly girl or iron lady! Men feel most comfortable and are most willing to bond when they feel themselves rougly in the middle of this Intimacy Scale.
How Love is Learned???
Being a good partner or mate is not innate and not intuitive. Our behaviour and expectations in realtionships are, in large measure, shaped by all our experiences, both as children and as adult. I do wonder children right now still does that or is it about iPads and iPhones now??
We watch our parents and most often imitate them no matter how strongly we want to be different from them. Our parents' treatment of each other reaches us what to expect in our own lives and what attitude to take toward caring affection, respect and closeness.
Many of us find our attitudes about dating and love arise from these adolescent in our younger years. Our self-esteem is formed by these learning experiences. Most of the dilemmas we encounter as adults as the result of wounds to our self-confidence that occurred in our younger years. Most of our self-defeating patterns of loving can be modified, altered, even dramatically changed in positive directions. So try something new today. Don't be too rigid to try new things. =)
Influencing the Path of Love!!!
Change can be frightening to all of us. We fail to remember that it can also be an adventure to experiment with new ways of being. We are too often pessimistic about our ability to break self-defeating patterns. Either we secretly believe we can't change, feeling "that's not me", or we insist on not changing, declaring that "this is me, this is who I am--take me or leave me". But one thing for sure, whenever we act with such rigidity or fear, we inevitable lose out.
Having an impact on a relationship--creating attraction and influencing the path of love--starts with the first encounter between a man and a woman. The seeds for both positive and negative patterns are planted in the every beginning. Our fears, needs, and hopes are present as a kind of hidden agenda from the first "Hello".
When a man and a woman meet, what happened in their first encounter that creates the "chemistry" that goes deeper than physical attraction. What I meant to say was you will hesitate for a moment and try to guess what's the real him/her and would he/she be your cup of tea, that includes personal habits you may not hope to find out under the spot light. Well, there's none in this world is perfect! So suck it up and try to adapt to it if you want him/her so much!
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Chapter 2 Woman Who Unknowingly Fear Intimacy
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Chapter 2 Woman Who Unknowingly Fear Intimacy
Intimacy is the essence of both love and friendship.
What’s intimacy?
To be intimacy with another person is to feel a close
emotional bond characterised by mutual sharing and understanding. There is a
wish to know the other person’s innermost dreams, wishes and concerns while at
the same time allowing ourselves to be known. This leads to feelings of warmth
and security reminiscent of the trust and acceptance we felt as infants. When
intimacy is absence, we feel the acute pain of being strangers to each other, a
sense of isolation or separation.
Have you ever wonder the guy sleeping next to
you right now doesn’t know the most of you? Or neither of you both knows each
other much? I bet you don’t even know what his favourite drink is! Well, I
think I’m might need to do my research on my other half too. So start
communicating with him.
Intimacy requires a good deal of trust. The man and woman
can both share their innermost thoughts, dreams and feelings openly and vulnerably.
But if either of them fails to genuinely empathise to “receive” or acknowledge
what the other is sharing, the couple is not intimate! This is called
pseudo-intimacy—which each person is ultimately remains isolated! Now only you
think intimacy is a big thing right??
Fear of Rejection, Abandonment and Loss!!!
Who else doesn’t afraid of these??? Many of us are not as
open to intimacy as we would like to believe we are, because love, as wonderful
as it feels, it can trigger intense fear of rejection, abandonment and loss.
In order to feel comfortable being known and loved by
another person, you have to accept and love yourself. You have to reveal
yourself to your partner instead of keeping everything silently. Revealing
yourself mean offering yourself up for judgements, both positive and negative.
I know you may say “if he really knows me, I’m afraid he won’t like me”. When
you start to learn this, however, to accept both your good and your
not-so-effing-great qualities, and to feel generally self-confident, you will
slowly begin to feel more comfortable being known by another person. Do tell
me; are you more comfortable with your friend or your boyfriend? It depends on
how intimate you are. Intimacy then becomes not simply tolerable but valuable,
comforting and pleasurable.
You may think “why reveal myself, why get close, care that
much, when he’s going to leave me sooner or later?”, this is what we
called—fear of abandonment; this is another epidemic killer of intimacy. People
who are too guarded, who fear intimacy, often set in motion a process of
estrangement and ultimate rejection.
Some people avoid or limit intimacy because they remember
the excruciating pain they felt when a loved on died or leave. A secret warning
bell goes off when they begin to feel loving toward someone: “don’t get too
close—you’ll lose this person and endure that pain again!!!”. I admit I was
once like this when my ex broke up with me and God knows how bad I felt! It’s
like tearing my heart down. I don’t know how would you feel when you broke up
with your once lover but for me, it was chaos. I can really feel something is
poking deep into my heart and pull it out and repeating the same thing again
and again. But you’ll never know when you’ll meet another one. For me, I
personally would thank my ex for breaking up with me, otherwise I won’t get to
find a better one.
At least he’s not promising me anything and breaking it
right after that. So fed up with broken promises. The loss of your love one was
so devastating that we always forget that the love was nourishing; we remember
only the pain of the loss. Honestly, sometimes when I rethink about my love
ones (grandparents), the only thing that I would remember is the sweet times. I
will not remember the moment when they passed away. But for my ex, ya, it is
sweet when we stick to each other 24/7, however, all the sweetness turns to
sour eventually. I have no idea why but I never enjoy thinking back.
The truth is that a deeply caring closeness does mean the
risk of rejection, abandonment and loss. Self-acceptance and self-esteem is
what kept us going on. But I do swear that if I lost the “new” him one more
time, I’ll just be single for the rest of my life. Cause I have a very low
self-acceptance!
Fear of Losing One’s Identity!!!
Women are typically more comfortable than men with closeness
and the sharing of feelings and are more likely to encourage intimacy in a
relationship. Sometimes, a woman may fear that intense closeness will somehow
become a silken web that constricts her. She fear that she will not be able to
handle the man’s emotional needs and requirements—that he will demand too much
of her time and energy. Therefore she’ll limit the level of intimacy to protect
her independence and hard-worn accomplishments.
The solution is not to prevent intimacy, but to let it
evolve SLOWLY and with growing trust and love. To negotiate its terms, making
sure it is Never one-sided.
Fear of Being Overwhelmed by a Man’s Needs!!!
Another reason why women block intimacy: they fear being
overwhelmed by the man’s worries, anxieties and self-doubts. A man’s honest
disclosures may trigger the fear that he is weak and unable to care for her.
There are just some men who expect too much from women. But not all ya.
Men’s Fear of Dependency!!!
Men are concerned about their wish for closeness and worry
that Attachment will weaken and engulf them. Therefore boys will learn to hide
their feelings.
When Men Feel Alone!!! (and you thought only you will??)
In the absence of closeness, a man feels alone and neglected.
If he tries to communicate these feelings, he risks feeling humiliated, because
he exposes his neediness and dependency. We girls might think “oh, why so silly
of you to think such way? I will always be there when you need me”. In the end
of the day, they will still be guys, not sissy or whatever. He will feel
humiliated if his attempts to make known his wish for a closer and richer
experience with a woman fall on deaf ears.
To be true, not only woman left man for lack of intimacy, a
woman who prevents intimacy is inadvertently allowing the man to drift away!
When a woman denies a man the love and intimacy he needs,
his response may take one of several forms. First he may feel frustration and
resentment, which he probably will be ashamed to acknowledge to her, even to
himself! The next thing you know, he may stop communicating, recede into his
work, sports or hobbies and become uninterested sexually or have an affair. OR,
he may simply leave the relationship altogether.
Overcoming the Fear of Man’s Vulnerability!!!
“When a man talks about his problem, it makes me think of
him as weak, and I hate thinking that the man in my life can’t take care of
himself”. This, is a debatable topic. It actually has to see both sides. I won’t
deny that girls may feel unsecure if her man is however frequently failed to
solve his own problems and bring his problems to her. C’mon, everyone is unable
to solve something sometimes, but of course not that frequent lar. If a girl is
unable to accept this, I think she just have to move on and find the right man
that suits her needs meet her requirements.
The task is basically to trust your ability to maintain an
equitable balance in the relationship.
But what about when a man actually does want too much?? Your
solution is to expect reciprocity. Just insist on it! Be open and clear with
him about her concerns and be very definite with him that you’re not his mother
and you expect as much generous caring from him as you are willing to give. But
please don’t say it in a harsh way, it will definitely ruin it. Women who give
too much, who allow themselves to be exploited, are typically those who never
raise the issue with the man in their life. Such women are hesitant to be clear
and direct about mutuality and reciprocity.
For your information, ever since I started blogging again,
it was unfavourable for him cause I blogged about him but he insist to be
secretive. However, for once, I stood up and told him I can either private my
blog and blog about merely anything or just stop involving him in my blog and
continue to let it go public. Honestly, my heart was pumping quite fast cause I
never stood before him. That includes my father. Guessed the only two men that
can control me now is both of them. Haha
Learning to Risk Exposure!!!
Women who are superficially quite desirable and engaging can
bling themselves for years to the ways they may actually prevent intimacy. If
men never seem to stay in a relationship with you even though you have a wealth
of positive traits, if may be that you have built a protective façade which can
block the real chemistry! We probably adapt such strategies typically has to do
with old wounds and fears that may be more dominant than we would like to
believe. We normally do this to shield people we care about from out
imperfections. Of course there’s a reason for it, we are unsure whether they would
continue to love us or judge us. I’ve mentioned before that no one is perfect,
we are also most acutely aware of our own imperfections. The only thing I could
think of which is flawless is my Barbie doll and her Ken! Alright, I’m just
kidding…
Meanwhile the task over here is to find the courage to risk
a fuller expression or yourself. I can assure you relieved once you’ve shared
yourself out.
You can free yourself from these fears as you find the
courage to risk. Take a chance in showing more of yourself to others. You will
be surprised to find that people easily accept you as you really are.
Getting Beneath the Surface!!!
If you would have noticed, relationships are composed of a
balance of both positive and negative feelings. Normally people will censored
angry, sad, or hurt feelings for so long that if they ever gave vent to them
they would be overwhelmed by the torrent and they would then overwhelmed by
partner. The second fear is that they have so accustomed their partner to their
behaviour that to suddenly change would not be acceptable! Actually this is a
wrong concept. Everything changes needs time. Don’t you need time to change
away some yucky habits you don’t like?
You will find that you have a lot more energy and are a lot
less prone to feeling depressed inside, for hiding what you feel cause it
consumes much more energy than letting it show.
One advice for the couple, no relationship can survive
without mutual sharing and disclosure. Without that, there is only a cold,
quiet coexistence! This will eventually lead to a ‘volcanic eruption’ from
either one partner sooner or later.
Trusting Your Send of Self!!!
Having an important, loving relationship with a man does
require an investment of time and shared experiences. Try to stay clear in your
interpretations of a man’s behaviour: don’t equate his wish to spend time with
you with a wish to be dependent on you. Likewise ya!
What’s the Man’s Responsibility???
Too often, men will complain, get angry or just become
silent and incommunicative when they fail to get what they need from a women.
Please don’t ignore this statement! Man normally told the woman what he was
feeling rather than what she was doing wrong. Unlike women, sometimes they just
hit your face with their ugly words. Yes, I admit sometimes I do that too. But
men hardly do it.
Perhaps he was seeking a relationship in which he could
continue to keep his own doubts and fear hidden, while at the same time
proclaiming his desire for closenesss.
Encouraging Intimacy!!!
What you need to learn here is to make sure they are no walls
between you and him—either those you have placed there or those you both have
allowed to remain through a conspiracy of silence. Let him share his feelings
to you. Don’t just brag about yourself and at the end of the day, it’s just
about you you and unfinished feeds of you. Talk about those personal
self-revealing things that may have quietly slipped out of your dialogue, and
encourage him to do likewise.
The most effective way to foster growth of openness and
sharing with a man is to present yourself as a model of these behaviours.
People who feel vulnerability is being demanded of them rarely reveal
themselves. Instead, they feel resentment and close themselves up even tighter.
Try these for starts…
Holding hands in the movies, a back rub—these simple expressions
can create new opportunities for closeness. Share previously secret or
embarrassing thoughts, something you always wanted to say or do, but didn’t. Share
some fantasies as well, let yourself be playful—act is out, risk revealing some
new facet or yourself.
Get away for a quiet weekend, anything that creates a new
and shared time together. And this I’m truly working on it!!
Make personal statements about what closeness means to you.
One reminder, do it at a light moment. Never explore these topics in a heavy
face-to-face encounter UNLESS you want a real uphill struggle.
Don’t go overboard. Remember, becoming close is a gradual
process. Don’t try to accomplish this in one evening—it really doesn’t work
that way. Listen to me, men can become satiated with too much closeness and
even with too much dialogue about closeness. It will just block everything and
you’re just stuck there. Even worst, you may need to start all over again.
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