For the sake of keeping this simple and illustrating the point, if you want someone who wants to go out to dinner three times a week and you are with the man who never suggests taking you out to dinner, and when I say never suggests,  I’m speaking to that brand-new place in relationship where people really reveal who they are. Let’s say he suggests hey, let’s go for a picnic out in the woods. Not your flavor? A lot of women would say yes anyway, because they like this guy and they want him to like her, so what we are basically doing is setting up our new relationship lies and facades.  You’ll go for a picnic in the woods and hate every bit of it because you don’t like bugs or sitting on the ground, and he will go out to dinner with you even though restaurants aren’t his thing.

As time goes on, you will continue the farce,  but most guys won’t.  Sorry ladies, but this is one of those places where I have to give it to men for being  more simple and honest. And it’s not that we are being dishonest consciously, it’s that there is a subtle form of manipulation going on when we keep trying to get him to do what we want.  And it’s born of a fear that either we will never have what we want, or that we don’t deserve to have what we want, or a combination of these feelings.  Or perhaps you just don’t want to end up alone, so you settle for what comes along.

What to do? In those early days, if you are clear about  what is important to you in relationship, you must adopt the feminine principle of BEING  and leave the masculine one of DOING to him. Witness how he shows up organically, because this is who he really is. Is he a guy that brings you flowers and takes you out to dinner and fancy places if that’s who you are? Or is he the kind of guy that wants to sit and talk for hours and know who you are from the inside out?

You won’t find this out if you continue to lead with your doing.

You’re trying to get what you want and need from a relationship which you are absolutely entitled to have, but you can’t get it by trying to change the man who is in front of you.  When we do this, we dishonor ourselves and the man before us.

Are you following me on this? Why do we do this? I believe because inherent in most women is a sense or belief that if we are just being who we are, that won’t be enough to be offered the things that we genuinely want to be offered by a man in a relationship, so we work at it. We set up our own romantic scenarios and all the other ones that are important to us.

But here’s the thing, is it because we’re afraid of being alone? If we just were truly who we were and allowed the man that is the object of our interest to just be who he is and we both were to witness how we each show up for the other we would very early on know the truth of whether we will be a good fit in relationship. Instead we create a habit of getting what we want by taking the masculine role and then one day we realize “he never does XYZ if I don’t initiate.”

You’re right, because it’s not in his nature and  you probably should never have been with him if this is one of the things on your list of needs in a relationship. And then when you get angry, your guy is scratching his head because he genuinely, honestly doesn’t understand.  You see, ladies,  the simplicity of man is the gift and the confounding confoundment that they bring to us, just as our innate complexity levies the same effect on them.