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Be Loved for Who You Really Are
How the Difference Between Men and Women Can be Turned Into the Source of the Very Best Romance You'll Ever Know
By Judith Sherven, James Sniechowski St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2001 Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-8342-0
CHAPTER 1
Why You Can't Fail at Love
You may know how to find her G-spot. You may know how to turn him on with the most heavenly Beef Wellington this side of the Atlantic. You may know that if what you want is a loving, trust-filled, lifelong bond, you can't follow anyone else's rules. You may even know that men and women actually come from earth, no matter how different they may be.
But, like most everyone, you keep stumbling over the same old difficulties when it comes to a long-term, committed relationship, whether in marriage or not.
Why?
When you allow love to enter your heart, it has special designs on you. It wraps itself around you and urges you to surrender to what it wants from you. That's right, what it wants from you.
And here you thought it was the other way around, that love would make everything right — rid you of loneliness, fulfill your fantasies. In other words, meet your every expectation, and turn your life into nonstop joy
Instead, you just keep getting hurt, confused, and even enraged by love.
Some people come to believe that there's something wrong with love. "It's a fool's dream," they mutter, "full of promise but no payoff."
Others decide there's something wrong with them. They either give up or spend years and thousands of dollars trying to make themselves right. But their lives don't change.
Well, why doesn't love match your expectations?
What we've discovered through our own past relationships and those of the many, many couples and singles we've worked with is that almost everyone's understanding and expectations of love and romance are incomplete. Not off the mark, for the most part, but incomplete.
One of a Kind
On this entire planet there is not nor can there be another you. That's a fact of life. You are one of a kind. Well, so is your lover. If you don't get it, really get it, that the one you are falling in love with, or the one you've been with perhaps for years, is different from you, then your relationship is incomplete and can never fulfill its promise.
Oh sure, you see the obvious differences such as height, weight, sex, taste in clothes, and so on, but we're talking about something far more than that.
When you understand, emotionally and spiritually, the very real and significant fact that the other person, your partner, is truly other — different and distinct from you, in a sense a whole other world — then your relationship is not only grounded in reality, but it also has its roots deep into the truth of what love can be and what the two of you can create together.
To be loved for who you really are means to be loved in your wholeness, to be loved for the one-of-a-kind that you truly are. And that is exactly what you must return to the one you love.
Bring to mind couples you know who spend their time and energy determined to change each other. You know what a mess that leads to. Yes, change is a necessary part of being in a relationship. But it's disaster when you're trying to force the other person to be what you want him or her to be, when you see the ways your partner is different from you as something that needs to be fixed. That doesn't work because it can't work. You don't really see your partner as an other person. You see him or her as an extension of you, whether you're aware of that or not.
And don't you resist when your partner tries to force you into a picture he or she insists on about who you should be?
The good news is, you don't have to continue that any longer.
Our clients have learned from us that their differences were not the problem. In fact, we showed them how their differences were the source of the deepest and sweetest romance and intimacy they could imagine, and how their relationships could even exceed their expectations, bringing them a depth and trust in love that they hadn't ever known. And that's what we're bringing to you in this book. So if what you want is to be loved for who you really are, please keep reading.
Success or Failure
Conventional ideas of success and failure in dating and marriage no longer work. They are, in fact, exactly the opposite of what men and women need today. The staggering divorce rate ("We have irreconcilable differences!"), the resignation that so many married couples feel ("Is this all there is?"), and the chronic grievance that single people express ("Why is it so hard to find someone?") are symptoms of our upside down and backwards ideas of success and failure in romance.
For example, a recent remake of an old idea advises women that the best way to catch a man is to always keep him guessing. That's supposed to incite his male need to be the pursuer.
So despite what she actually feels and who she actually is, a woman must play hard-to-get in order to be successful. How long must she keep manipulating herself and the man she hopes to "land"?
Well, according to the rules, only until marriage. Then she can abandon her cat-and-mouse strategy and reveal her true self. But at what price? The man she has "won" is attracted to someone she is not! Is that a marriage that will last? Why would he stay true to her if she's not lovable as she really is?
Besides, if she believes that men must be deceived into a relationship, can men be worthy of much respect? Of course not! So why should she want one?
The old idea further advises that for a man to succeed with a woman, he is supposed to use all of his resources to show her how special she is: place her on a pedestal, lavish her with gifts, demonstrate that he is a man who can take care of her.
So the same question can be asked of him. How long does he keep this up? The answer is the same. Until the wedding. Then he can relax and revert to his true self, whatever that is. Is that success?
No wonder so many marriages fail when they are filled with such distrust and manipulation!
Think about it. As preparation to play this game, both men and women have to believe that they aren't acceptable or attractive as they are. They are warned that if they show up as themselves and express the truth of their feelings, the details of their real lives, they'll be rejected. So, at the altar, their fear that they are unlovable is an unspoken part of their vows. And the unspoken resentment they feel at having to pretend already haunts the center of their so-called love. Their success is, in fact, a failure.
To be fair, historically such notions made sense, when the only objective of marriage was to have babies and carry on the customs of the community. But times are changing. Now the love two people share is the centerpiece of their being together. Their individual and mutual growth — emotionally, sexually, spiritually — has been added to the list of what a meaningful marriage is supposed to provide.
When the two of you know yourselves to be truly enough just as you are, charms and limitations, warts and specialness included, and you speak the truth of your experience right from the beginning, you won't have to resort to scheming and performing in the pursuit of love. So what was once considered the basis of failure — an open and honest disclosing of one's self — is now the source of your well-grounded and trustworthy success. And you're about to learn how to have it.
From Our Own Experience
Even though we've made it our life's work to understand the intricacies of love and relationship, just like you we've had to find our way through the snares and disappointments of romance and intimacy.
Judith: When I met Jim, I was forty-three. I'd been in a number of relationships, was engaged to be engaged twice, but never married because all I could imagine was becoming someone's future ex-wife. What was the point?
Jim: I'd been married twice before. The first time I was young and naive. My second marriage came apart because of my wife's allegiance to her family of origin, which created an irreconcilable breach that could not be overcome. Judith couldn't figure out how to get into a marriage and I couldn't figure out how to make one last.
It's in the Differences
We knew we wanted our relationship to last a lifetime, and we had many long conversations over the question of why our previous relationships hadn't worked out. It became clear that each of us, and those we were with, did not know how to make the most of the differences that are a natural part of any relationship. The difference between each of our fantasies of what a relationship should be and the way it was in reality is just one example of the many inevitable differences between two people in every romantic relationship.
Once we clearly understood that successfully negotiating how to be together depended on a loving consciousness toward all the ways we were unique, we were both determined to change the ways we perceived and related to our differences and to open to where love wanted to lead us.
We'll show you what we discovered and continue to practice that has held true for the almost fourteen years we've been married, and our relationship keeps getting richer, more romantic, and more rewarding all the time.
About Differences
When the idea of differences is used in the context of someone's relationship, most people understand it as negative.
"They're having a difference of opinion" is usually an indirect way of saying that two people are in a conflict if not a fight. And, of course, "irreconcilable differences" means their marriage is on its way to divorce court.
But most differences are very positive.
Differences can be delightful — the way she giggles when she's excited, or how he calls her to come see the full moon; stimulating — how your two points of view add dimension to a discussion, keeping things fresh and alive; and spiritually awakening — when you stand in respect and awe of the sheer presence of your lover, and when love draws you out beyond yourselves where you experience something larger than you'd ever imagined.
Unfortunately, people now too often focus exclusively on gender differences. Although gender differences are real, they are only a small part of what you will naturally discover when you commit to being together. Most differences in personality, values, habits, interests, background, expectations, hopes, and ambitions have nothing to do with gender.
We're going to show you how the differences between you and your partner can be catalysts to spur your continuing growth so that your love will thrive. Even when your differences lead to conflicts, as they certainly will from time to time, they can function like good fertilizer — they may be messy but they nourish the life and growth of your love.
As you continually integrate your differences into your romance and connection, you will learn more about yourselves and one another, causing both of you to change. This assures that the way you live the love between you will never grow stale and empty.
Please remember that the idea of differences in a relationship has a broad and very rich meaning when it comes to being loved for who you really are. That will keep you open to possibilities that you might otherwise miss.
Love
As you continue reading you will not only learn to see differences between you and your mate in a new way, but you will also begin to see love in a way you probably hadn't considered before.
You may have noticed that when we refer to love, we'll often say something like "love urges you to surrender" or "open to where love wants to lead you." We describe it as though it is very much its own being. Well, it is.
If you could see love physically, you'd see it as a specific shape that reflects its own powerfully transformative qualities as well as the transformative qualities each of you brings to it. As they converge and blend, the shape that emerges expresses the wholeness that is your life together. When you let love lead you, your relationship becomes a vessel, co-created by the two of you while containing the two of you. Love then lives within each of you and at the same time encompasses both of you. It is reciprocal — mutual, shared, and joined.
You probably think of love as a feeling. Most people do. But love is more than that. It is a powerful energy. It draws you toward one another — which is the oneness you feel when you fall in love — yet it also keeps each of you distinct, so that you both preserve your own identity and personhood.
You see, true loving requires the two of you. There must be a receiver of your love who gives their love for you to receive. Love cannot live inside just you or just your partner. It is between you that your relationship lives and breathes. So it is to the relationship that you must commit, not to one another. Otherwise you risk becoming lost and accusing one another of being the cause.
Your relationship is formed by your intentions, actions, willingness, and commitment. When you surrender to love, your relationship returns wonder, inspiration, romance, challenge, and intimacy. Sometimes it goes where you want and at other times it leads you where it must. That is the magic of a loving, real-life relationship.
Love floods the space between you. It fills your hearts and minds and shapes each of you like a sculptor shapes clay. At the same time, through your personal histories and particular desires, you shape love into a unique expression of your own.
Love inspires the deepest commitment you can make to one another, yet it is powerless without your willingness to let it live between you.
Love takes you beyond who you've known yourself to be, and your world becomes much larger as you open to spiritual dimensions you've only wondered about.
But love waits to be welcomed, because it will not enter unless you are open to receive it.
We urge you to expand your vision of love to encompass its fullness — feeling, thought, action, intuition, transcendence, and mystery. We will show you how to do that so you won't shortchange yourself and miss what is possible.
To help you make this necessary shift in perception, we will share with you our own experiences of love, and those of friends. You will also read about clients we've worked with privately and at our trainings and workshops, though disguised to protect their privacy. This way you can benefit from how others live their love in their very real, everyday lives.
The Four Passages of a Loving Relationship
Love changes. More important, love must change to stay alive. It is not a monolithic, one-time experience that stays the same forever. It is as vital and organic as any other living thing. Love grows. It can also die. What happens depends on your understanding of love and how you relate to the specific unique and varied differences between you and your partner.
As your love changes it will foster an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual evolution in each of you and in your relationship. That evolution consists of four passages that we call the arc of love — to describe the changing path of your relationship over time. By this we do not mean that the arc runs from the beginning of love to the end of love. Rather, the arc encompasses four passages that lead you from the beginning to the full realization of love.
We've chosen the word passages because, as love grows within and between you, it requires you to face into and grow through a number of challenges. Those challenges are necessary in order for you to mature in the wisdom of love and intimacy and in the relationship you are co-creating. That not only keeps romance alive but it's also how your romance deepens, becoming ever more rich and more fun. To see each passage as a crossing-through is the best way to understand the flow of what is happening and where you are going at any time along the way.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Be Loved for Who You Really Are by Judith Sherven, James Sniechowski. Copyright © 2001 Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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