Learning to Love

I recently entered into a relationship after many years of avoiding relationships and it was an absolutely amazing experience for me.

My first date with this man was lined up to be for one afternoon after work. We had arranged to meet for dinner. As I was preparing to leave work I felt a little bit of nervousness, but when I got into my car this passed, and as I drove towards the restaurant I felt a deep settlement in my body. I felt much more of a woman. It was a truly incredible experience as I hadn’t ever felt anything to this depth within myself before. All feelings of nervousness were no longer there and there was just a feeling of absoluteness, knowing and grace.

How to Start a Relationship Built on Love

For a long time I have been feeling I did not really choose to be in a relationship but more felt I ought to be in one because everything around me (magazines, media, movies, family, friends etc.) were telling me, that that was what you want to do as a young woman.

I did throw myself into it, literally, and would be at times quite proactive in finding a boyfriend. These relationships were very innocent and loving at the start. But later I got this feeling that there was always something missing in them.

Divine Marriage – Commitment and Knowing True Love

I’m a bit of an oddball: I took ‘solo flyer’ to a high art form, being almost continuously and faithfully in relationships with men throughout my adult life, and yet managing to stay unmarried and separate. Not because I was looking for greener grass, but because I was not looking for any grass at all!

I’ve always felt a sense of what love means, but not seen it in the world.

True Relationships: from Abuse to Love with Grace

by Adele Leung, Fashion Stylist/Art Director, Hong Kong

From 15 years of age onwards, there has been almost no break in the intimate relationships in my life. Every man that I have been with I thought I would marry.

Until three years ago: I got divorced from my marriage of two years because of an affair. My divorce was in fact a period of grace for me.  It was my meeting with Grace.

Relationships with Men Begin with My Relationship with Me

by Anonymous

I recently wrote a blog entitled Sex, relationships and a True Fairy Tale. Since then many things have unfolded for me (something I am sure many blog writers will relate to). Each time we publicly proclaim something (anonymously or not) we are asked to step up, and this time was no different.

Reading has been a big part of my life so it’s no surprise that my recent experience has reminded me of another type of story, the ‘Choose your own Adventure’ kind.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept a ‘Choose your own Adventure’ book is one that asks you to make a choice at the end of each chapter. This choice then dictates the next choice that would be available to you and so on.

From Rip Cord Effect to True Love

by Danielle Pirera, Australia

My friends and I would often joke about the ‘rip cord effect’; when a woman gets married and then pulls the cord, like on a life vest, and ‘poof!’ – instantly she puffs out, putting on weight. My partner has also joked to me about this, but I could feel that it was from a genuine concern or fear that this would happen to me. I pondered on this more deeply, seeing it in my mother, and I reflected on times when I had put on weight in relationships, or ‘let myself go’.

In my teenage years and as a young adult I grew up not living as the lovely girl or gorgeous woman that deep down I felt I was. Living in such a way felt empty or bottomless… not living in the stillness and preciousness that I could feel myself to truly be. Somewhere along the line I was taught, shown or told that I could be this lovely woman when I had a man, got married and / or had children. So in my head I thought that if I had a man beside me, or became a wife or mother, I would no longer feel the empty and desperate feeling within. I then spent a greater portion of my life driving or pushing very hard to get a man and kids; I lost myself completely because every choice was based on what would enable me to reach my goal.

Something Beautiful Part 2 – My Unfolding and Learning to Be All of Me in a Relationship with a Man

by Johanna Smith, Perth WA

It just so happens that since initially writing Blog Part 1… a man came into my life. We initially enjoyed a short but fairly committed and serious relationship.

We came from different backgrounds  so at times there was a language and cultural barrier. Also, how we had been raised since childhood, and all the ideals and beliefs we used to get us through life came between us at times. These would show themselves as ‘issues’ that we could both see as something to work through.

I found this man to be open to the way I treat myself and the way I have today chosen to live – with care, respect, tenderness and love for myself. I found him to be gentle with me, understanding, simple, caring, considerate and supportive – with the ability to sit and talk with me, and listen… but most of all I found him to have been willing. Willing to work on a relationship which was more honest and true (a true relationship) to that which he and I had experienced before in our independent pasts. And we both had to work out what that was along the way for us. For me, it had been (and still today is) ‘me being all of me in a relationship’ – (something which continues to unfold in discovering how that actually looks and feels on a practical level, with all the daily activities such as work, chores, kids etc.).

Something Beautiful Part 1 – My Unfolding and Being All of Me with a Man

Johanna Smith, Perth WA 

I am currently 34 years old, and from the ages of 15-28 have been in long-term relationships. Literally as 1, 2, 3 or 4 year length relationships ended, there was another one (the next day or two) knocking on my door ready to begin… and I always took it! I liked the exciting-ness of it all; the feeling that someone was interested in me and all that went with it… until the not so pretty themes would raise their head, and similar issues or patterns would come out in each relationship. Then, it wasn’t so much fun. However, I seemingly kept myself in the illusion that “I was doing OK”, as I told myself that this one (this relationship, man or ‘catch’) is better than the last.

From Russia, With Love

 by Elena Light, London, UK

I was contracted for so long… And I cannot be any more.

That’s what I felt for very long while reading sensible and beautiful posts of other women. I can relate to everything everyone wrote, some more than others, even though sometimes I need to keep my dictionary nearby.

I grow up in the Soviet Union with centuries old believes about women, men and relationships. In that society was absolutely normal to live with a drinking man if he doesn’t beat his wife. If he does drink and abuses but brings money and ‘loves’ her and children it still would be better than being alone. There was, and still is, saying “not the best but my own”. And being married is absolute MUST.

From my early years I saw my grandmother being very patient with her husband drinking; my mother had two husbands, both alcoholics and violent. So from this age my idea of love was patience and sacrifice.

The Texting Game. Innocent or not so Innocent?

by Beverley Brown, Norfolk, UK

I recently had an experience which I feel to share. To set the scene, my partner and I live together; the endeavour of us both is to maintain a commitment to live and grow in love together.

Recently I received a text from a (very) ex-boyfriend and we communicated briefly. I did not tell my partner at first, until he was present when a text or two arrived and only then did I offer information. This texting communication was to me just a random communication with someone whom I had known for many years, and I did not think too much of it. (First stage of ignorance!)

I spoke to my partner as I noticed that he seemed a little out of sorts, and with this he eventually owned up to not feeling very comfortable about the texts. Again I brushed it off and spoke with him about his own insecurities in the relationship – I made it all his problem and not mine (Second stage of ignorance! And a huge dose of arrogance, to assume it was nothing for me to look at).