ARE YOU ready to discover emotion-free relationships?
This week’s question comes from Roxy in Bedfordview: “Is it selfish to not want a relationship with someone to keep oneself sane and with less drama? It can be lonely at times, but work, kids and my relationship with myself just seem so much better without someone else to please. And something that I want even more than to be with someone else, is to be content.”
For many people who are committed to a personal development path, there comes a time when they make a conscious choice to be in a relationship or not. If it is selfish to choose to be on your own, it depends a lot on your personal expectations of what relationships should be like. Only you can answer that question.
Values are based on which considerations a person thinks are important. To consciously help you answer your own question, I will mention a few.
If we look at it from a woman’s perspective of what is selfish, what comes to mind is that our culture asks of us to consider others before we think of ourselves. Our nature to nurture gives us this warped idea that we must put others first.
The truth is that no one can really love another before you learn to love yourself.
A partnership motivates us to be mindful of another person’s values with each decision that we make. Without a partner, life certainly can be easier on the emotions, but it lacks other normal human needs.
Without a partner, you need to be able to do everything yourself that a partner brings to the relationship, that is, income and chores which require typical male skills and strength. If you can fill those roles in a different way, the biggest challenge is to “feel loved”.
Few women are able to experience “feeling loved”. Perhaps their lives are successful and they are busy with no physical need for a man. Unexpected moments occur when they realise that something is missing, like when they are alone in a beautiful place with no one to share the experience with.
Ironically, often the accomplishments which made them successful prevent them from prioritising a partner.
We resist this notion that it is our role to please a partner. The concept: “Happy wife, happy life!” (or its opposite). If you focus on making yourself happy and becoming content, you are ready to raise the bar and allow a partner to challenge you just a tad more.
Conscious relationships allow us to grow as we go.
The idea is not to please someone else, but to be emotionally free in a relationship, where your only responsibility is to be authentic and find common ground with your partner. Both your values are important.
We never ask a question unless we are ready to answer it. My guess is you have your answer. All you need to do is trust yourself and be honest.
* Adelé Green provides answers here when posted on www.adele-green.com/askadele/ or confidential, fee-for-service individual coaching via Skype. She is a transformation specialist coach and author of Can You See Me Naked: Grow in a conscious relationship. Also listen to #360Brunch on mix93.fm on Sundays.