5 common but costly mistakes women make in relationships.
We’ve failed to realize that the
significance of our masculinity does not lie in how many girls we can dis-virgin
but rather the honor we can bestow upon one. We fail to understand that the
purpose of our strength and dominance is to defend and protect not to attack
and destroy.
But the
first mistake was not yours. You were born into a world that didn’t even give you the chance – the chance to be who you really
are without any pressure or expectation. From day one you were unconsciously
groomed from childhood to be an acceptable accessory to a man’s life. You were constantly made
conscious of a false milestone that suggested your value was based upon a man
finding you worthy to be his, instead of being made aware of who you are by
virtue of your own unique existence. Your worth as a woman was reduced to two
things; being a wife and your ability to bear a child – and in some cultures, you have
to bear the right type of child. And if per chance you failed in one of these
areas, you are regarded as nobody, no one –
you are nothing.
Unfortunately,
along the way, you may have made some mistakes in trying to fulfill this false
notion of who you are supposed to be. Bad relationship after bad relationship
continually emphasized the lie that you are nothing without a man. Not only do
you sit there as one with mental wounds from childhood, but also with hurts and
wounds that are self inflicted as you sincerely tried to fulfill the so called
destiny of a woman –
being someone’s
woman.
As I
share this with you, I do not come as one who claims to understand your plight,
but rather I stand as one who has heard you. From my mother to my aunts to my
cousins and my friends, I have heard you and will continue to listen whenever
you speak.
That
being said, I do not believe we are responsible for the things that are done or
said to us, but I do know that we are responsible for allowing those things
continue in us. It’s
in this light that I share with you the five common but costly mistakes women
make in relationships.
Your Personal Standards! Don’t
leave home without them!
By not
setting your standard, you’ve
just set the standard. The standards I speak of are not standards for the
relationship; I speak of your personal standards irrespective of the
relationship. What is your life’s
moral compass? This could get a bit confusing, so let me explain. Often times,
at a certain point in life, people turn to religion for some sort of moral
guidance or law. It’s
an acknowledgment of some sort that they have made numerous personal mistakes
and are in probable search for a turn around. So you might have a young lady
who’s been around the block
and has now become a Christian, and professes that she will be celibate until
she gets married thereby claiming this new belief to be her standard. This is a
religious belief that she has now adopted and not a personal standard.
Your
personal standards are born and realized from within you and become your
principles rather than a law. A principle is born out of understanding; an
understanding of who you are and why you are here on this earth. If you are
roaming the earth like a lost sheep in search of a man to give you relevance,
you will always find yourself jumping from relationship to relationship with
each one leaving you even more confused than you were in the beginning. But
when you understand that you are not here by chance and your presence on this
earth has significant relevance, the aura about you changes and the people and
things you accept into your life will only be a reflection of your internal
essence or your personal standard.
A man
can cause you to go against a belief because it was never yours in the first
place, but he can never sway you away from your principle because you are one
with your principle. A lady who lives from her principles takes personal
responsibility for her own actions and responses. She takes charge and never
leaves her fate to the opinions or actions of men. She doesn’t go on a date with every man
that asks her out because she doesn’t
need a man –
she would want a man but she fully well understands that her worth is solely
appraised on who she is and not who she’s
with.
She
would not change her principle to have or keep a man. She doesn’t
need to sleep with a man to have or keep him. She understands that whatever she
can’t get by way of her
principles will never be her own. That you are sleeping with a guy does not
mean he’s yours. If you had to
sleep with him to keep him, he was never yours in the first place.
In the absence of your personal standards, you
end up trying many things and many people, but you never experience the love
that is already within you. Allow that love within to write your standards and
begin to live from them. That love will never lead you astray, never ever!
Why are
you making excuses for him…..again?
I have
come to observe that ladies often see the man as the prize. So once it looks
like they have him –
especially if he appears to be a good one –
they want to do everything in their power to keep him. I understand that, but I
don’t accept that and
neither should you. You are the Prize. We should fight over you and want to do
things to get and keep you. We should want to make sure you are ok. A man who
loves and respects a woman will never want her in doubt when it comes to her
knowing of his feelings towards her. When we are crazy about a woman, we are no
longer the reserved and non emotional creatures you think we are. We become a
mess – drooling internally
when we think of you. We would never want you to feel you are on shaky ground
concerning your status with us. We will publicly profess and show you to the
whole world. We will put up a picture with you in it as our profile picture,
tag you in all photos you appear in and most importantly make sure that our
status box shows that we are in a relationship with you. Yup, that’s what we do when we love you – we say it out LOUD! And when we
are out and about with you, our professions are usually crystal clear: ‘Meet my girlfriend, Sandra’ or ‘Meet my fiancée, Sandra.’ Not, ‘Meet Sandra’ who is Sandra??? When we love
you, we want the world to know that we love you. But I get amazed when ladies
see the writing on the wall and continually make excuses to justify a man’s blatant abuse towards them.
What do I mean?
Take
for instance the introductions highlighted above; He introduces you as just ‘Sandra’: you know you don’t like it, but you make an
excuse within yourself and say, ‘he’s a private kinda guy, he doesn’t like to publicly show stuff.’ Really? Ok, let me ask, “Are you enrolled in midnight
gymnastics with him?”
In other words has he bent your body in ways you didn’t think possible? Well, there is
only one thing worse than a guy sleeping with a woman in secret; and that is, a
woman allowing that to happen. Before you allow a man do to you privately what
can affect you publicly, he must first of all acknowledge you publicly as the
woman he respects and loves. If he can’t
do that, you need to tell me why you are still sticking around. How can you
allow a man to knock you up when you are just ‘Sandra’
to him?
You
know you deserve better, so stop the excuses. Instead of making excuses for
him, take charge –
not of him or the relationship, but of yourself.
Never
remain in an environment where your integrity is compromised. Remember, you are
the prize and we should work hard to get and keep you. And after all our hard
work, you still have a right to say NO.
Why are
you looking for ‘something’ in a bag of ‘nothings?’
A few
years ago, a friend who was engaged was getting ready for her wedding which was
just a couple of months away at the time. She called me occasionally during the
preparation process, but on this one phone call, things were pretty bad. She
was mad, upset, disappointed and unhappy that she was marrying this guy. So I
asked her why she was still going on with the wedding if she felt the marriage
wouldn’t work out. She said to
me that she did not want the last four years of her life spent with him to go
to waste. Hmmm! When she said this, I looked at my phone because I couldn’t look at her (she was in a
different city) and in that instant –
if I had a private jet – I
would have flown to her city to give her a knock on her head – not a hard one, just a gentle
knock – to help tilt her brain
back to the center of her skull, because obviously it seemed out of balance
with what she had just said to me.
Let’s think about this, You are
willing to screw up the next 50 years of your life, create babies in a hostile
environment with a man you despise thereby screwing up the next generation,
raising kids that would need therapy for the rest of their lives based on the
abuse they will experience in that home, all because you don’t want the last four years of
your life – 1,2,3,4 – to mean nothing (I’m having a headache just rehashing
the story). So you are trying to create a love marriage from a four year crappy
relationship. Needless to say, this lady was a young beautiful 28yr old lawyer.
With good life habits she could easily live another healthy 50 years (Have you
seen Barbara Walters lately? She’s
80). And here you are, willing to mortgage a future on four years with this
jerk? She was desperately trying to make something out of nothing. That you’ve been in a long term
relationship does not mean you should continually stay in it. Unfortunately for
some ladies, it takes a while to see the light and muster up courage to get out
of a bad situation.
But
when you see the light; RUN, GO, your life deserves it. If you don’t make that change, you’ll never know what’s out there? And when I say out
there, I don’t
mean what’s out there in another
relationship; I mean what’s
out there in you that you are yet to discover. Some of you ladies are afraid – afraid that you might not be
married by a certain time. You begin the calculations, ‘Ok, I’m 28 now, if I break this up,
how long will it take to find another guy and get married? Oooh! It may take
another 4 years and I’ll
be 32. No! I can’t
be single at 30.”
You are killing yourself with this kind of dialogue. Like she later said to me,
she always saw herself married by 29. Needless to say, she was divorced by 29.
They got married alright, but their divorce was made final before a possible
1st wedding anniversary. Sometimes we allow fear to dictate what we should do.
We will never get from fear what love has to give. Love is bold, confident and
fearless. Why are you scared?
Why are
you letting fear keep you in a relationship that you know you don’t want? Why do you want to marry
a guy who has already made you feel like trash? Why are you choosing to be with
someone you are not crazy about? Ok, so you are more concerned about looking
good and successful on the outside at the expense of how you truly feel on the
inside. You are too special for that. Let people think what they think, you
know what you know and that’s
all that should matter.
Sometimes, we don’t believe in ourselves, so we
settle and then try to make something out of nothing. You can’t change another human being, it’s impossible. You haven’t even changed some things about
yourself; how then do you think it possible to change another?
You’ve gotta think before you have
his baby!
Often
times when I’m
in conversation with one of my numerous lady friends, something always cracks
me up. I know they been having sex for years in and out of relationships and
that fact is not hidden between us. But on some occasions, when I ask them if
they have been pregnant before, their voice takes on a new tone of ‘How dare you?’ And then there is a resounding
NO, like, ‘how could I get
pregnant?’ Wait a minute! Am I
missing something here? If you are having sex – sexual intercourse, you are potentially making a baby. You
are filing an application.
As soon
as he ejaculates into you, the application is submitted and the outcome of that
process is no longer left to you or him but to the Department of Conception.
And if they approve it, you become pregnant whether you want it or not. Sex is
not just about the pleasure derived, neither is it an antidote for loneliness.
Sex is Responsibility; meaning you will have to respond to the outcome of that
sexual encounter and sometimes it could be a lifetime of responses especially
when a child is conceived. And when that child is born, you will forever have a
symbol representing your union with your ex. Once a child is conceived, there
is no moving on from that relationship. It begins the strongest bond known
between a man and a woman.
That
man holds a special place in your heart regardless of how you feel about him
today. You may have an abortion in trying to cut any future ties to this man,
but may I have you know that the power of conception outweighs the power of
birth. For something to be born, it has to be conceived. We are all on this
earth first because of conception then birth. Without conception they will be
no birth but without birth there can be conception. A strong bond is created
when you allow a man’s
sperm to start life within you. It is a major privilege to give to someone and
not everyone should have that kind of access to you. If a man is horny and
wants to be relieved, tell him to use his hand. You are no object and certainly
no substitute for a man’s
hand. So if you don’t
want to have his baby, don’t
make his baby.
I know
there’s Pressure, but why are
you under it?
I have
come to observe that whether she’s
21 or 29, she always feels she’s
running out of time. One thing you must understand is that pressure is not
real. You are real and when you give attention to or come under the dominance
of something that is impotent, you give it potency – you give it power. That is why
this thing we call ‘pressure’ has the effect it has. You give
it the effect. You are the effect. Sometimes we are driven by those voices of
ignorance that may have come from people we love, so we try hard to get into a
relationship and make it work. “Oh!
This one has to work cos I’m
almost 30.” Screw him and screw 30.
You are more valuable to yourself and to the world than the timeline of your
eggs or your age. Your world will not come to an end if you are not married by
30; in fact, it may just be beginning!
A few
years ago, a lady friend of mine, who was 21 at that time called me up to talk
about her ‘man’ troubles. During our conversation,
I observed that she had always been in a sexual relationship since she was 15.
She confessed to me that she didn’t
want to be alone; actually she didn’t
know how to be alone. You see, you do yourself a huge injustice when you spend
your formative years interrupted.
Sex
interrupts. It stops your creative and intellectual development and gives
strength to your emotional cravings which should still be asleep. Your
formative years are years you spend forming your person and your identity in
readiness for your service to the world. Unfortunately, ladies give that time
and space to some guy – a
guy who may not even be in your life past your 30th birthday.
Have we
as men failed you? Oh yes we have! As fathers some of us weren’t present in your young life. As
uncles, instead of being fond of you, we fondled you. As friends we were more
focused on the benefits instead of the sacrifice. We used you when we should
have added value. We took advantage instead of giving the advantage. We failed
you quite all right, but you don’t
have to do to yourself what we did to you –
You don’t have to fail yourself.
You can’t afford to fail
yourself. You are the door to humanity. Life has to go through you to enter
this earth. Even God needed a woman to come back into the world.
There’s no need to dumb yourself down
or compromise your true integrity. We need the true you. We can’t exist without you and we will
adjust to whatever standard you set for us – so why not make it high, why not make it YOU?
Please
think about it…
The
information contained on this blog is written based on my own empirical understanding
and is true for me at the time they were written. However, as I continue to
grow in knowledge and understanding, what I perceived as the truth will
definitely change, as a result of this – the information contained on this blog
may not reflect my current outlook. Therefore, I am not liable for any special,
direct, indirect, consequential, or incidental damages or any damages
whatsoever, arising out of or in connection with the contents of this blog.
Alex
Oduanam
1 comment
This is wonderful....something I really needed..true light..love this.
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