My boyfriend and I broke up last year when I discovered that he was sweet on his boss. Five months later, he asked for a second chance. We agreed to take commitment slow because we love each other. All was well until his Silicon Valley employer folded. He slid into a depression and I rescued him with my time and money. He seemed to appreciate and want me around. Then he became distant and would not make love to me. I discovered that he was taking cocaine and staying up all night masturbating to pictures that were not of me. I love him and want to save our intimacy and regard for each other. Last weekend when I asked how I could help our sex life, he said, “I guess watching me f*** another girl is out of the question.” He later apologized. But now his former boss has her own company and wants to hire him. I don’t want to watch him pursue her. So yet another relationship ends with my partner choosing someone else and leaving me by the wayside. I don’t know what to do. I love him, but he lives two hours away and says that four years is too soon for us to consider engagement or marriage.
If you dated this man for 40 years, it would be the same story. That’s because he is addicted to distracting himself (cocaine, pornography and other women) from fully engaging in a relationship that is emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically intimate. You are addicted to him. Why? Well, a relationship with him allows you to perpetuate your habit: recreating the pattern in which a partner abandons you for someone else. What debilitating belief about yourself do you get to keep by continuing to resuscitate that pattern? I believe that your relationship is an abusive one. Where is the love? For you by you, I mean. Can you see how you choose to leave yourself by the wayside, giving all you have to a man and accepting less in return? How committed are you to closure of this experience?
A wise professor of theology once said, “All beginnings and endings are mythological.” In other words, the Divine is calling you toward something greater: a larger understanding of yourself and your place in the world. An extended period of solitude would allow the insight needed to discover how your choices invite betrayal.
For the past three years I’ve been following my dream of becoming a physician who supports women’s health. My grades and passion are strong, but now that it’s time to take my med school entrance exams, I’m freezing up and thinking, “Even if I invest my time and energy studying for this test, the admissions committee will reject me.” I’m scared. Any words of wisdom?
Back when the world was flat, unknown regions were labeled by map-makers with the words, “There be dragons.” Luckily, it was just their imagination (hint, hint). As you draw nearer to the identity of your dreams, something in you must die. The ego fears that this something is your dream. As you cross the threshold into the possibility of a new success, you’ll find it’s actually your fear of failure that gets prepped for shedding. If you question the authority of your fears by asking yourself, “Is it true? Can I know that?” when concerns about rejection arise, you’ll remember that your imagination and your dragons work for you (not the other way round).
