She Wants to Marry Me and Thinks I Am The One...But

Your girl says that she is resisting moving forward with you in order to protect you. In other words, she’s in what I call Care Take Mode. She is telling you that because she can’t give you what you give her that she’s being unfair to you. But I haven’t heard you complaining dude!

The fact is in a healthy relationship each partner has to be responsible for taking care of him/herself. It’s not her job to say whether you are getting what you need. That’s for you to say. My point is, if you are satisfied with what she gives you (even if it isn’t what you give her) then it’s your call to say whether she’s giving you enough or whether the relationship is unbalanced and unfair.

There’s more. Partners may never give equally to each other in all areas. An intimate bond is not the marriage of clones but rather a complementary union. This means that one may contribute more financially while the other may give more emotionally. Relationships aren’t like financial balance sheets. So long as everything balances out emotionally, and you both are satisfied with the division of emotional labor, you’re fine.

What’s more, relationships fluctuate like seesaws. Since we are not emotional clones, it is common for one partner to pull more of the weight in one area. And in long-term relationships, the seesaw will shift back and forth. For example, there will be times when one of the partners is ill or emotionally upset requiring him/her to receive more.

There’s still more. If you are happy with her the way things are—her not giving as much as you give—then it means that this kind of imbalance works for you! It’s very common in a relationship for one partner to give more than the other, and for one to pursue more. In fact, in traditional relationships, the man will often pursue the woman and she will gratefully receive his offerings.

I also suspect that if she gave you more, you wouldn’t be as happy with her. In other words, you may be more comfortable giving as opposed to receiving. 

Now I’m really going to throw you a curve ball by telling you that your girl is unconsciously hiding behind a cover story. What I mean is the story she tells to explain why she can’t move forward with you isn’t the real reason why she’s dragging her feet. She’s not creating this story on purpose to deceive you. In fact, it’s her unconscious mind that is deceiving her—hiding the actual issue—or stumbling block--from her own awareness. By projecting the issue onto you by saying I’m cheatingSee Infidelity. you; I’m not being fair to you, etc., she doesn’t have to face her own painful feelings and fears.

In order to break through this cover story, we need to identify her stumbling block.

I think her stumbling block relates to her having been very hurt by her last partner. As a result, she is scared to death to form another relationship. Rather than admit this to herself, she just says I can’t be unfair to you, and so on.

There’s a way to verify that I’m correct in my interpretation. If you were to simply remove the roadblock that she’s erected by saying, “But you do give me enough. I don’t feel cheated. I don’t need you to give me what I give you. We’re different people with different needs. And, I’m ready to move forward with you just the way things are.”

I bet that she would find another excuse for not moving forward, which would prove that she’s hiding behind her story rather than facing her wound, talking through her feelings and healing herself once and for all.  

If you truly want to move things forward, then I suggest you do the test that I suggested a moment ago. That is, tell her what she gives is fine and you’re ready to move forward. If that resolves the impasse: wonderful. I highly doubt it will.

So then when she still drags her feet, we need to move to phase-two. This second step consists of your telling her that the resistance to moving forward is her own. Tell her what I said about her hurt and fear. See if you can get her talking about what went on, how she was hurt, how she’s afraid that the same nightmare will recur with you, etc. Identifying the real issue and then talking it through is the cure to this problem.

Keep in mind that the pain she experienced with her former boyfriend may very well have opened up an emotional can of worms from her childhood. It so happens that when we find ourselves stuck and unable to move forward, it’s because an earlier wound, what I call an Old Scar from childhood, has been ripped open. The unconscious mind actually unearths the emotional pus from the past so we can bring it to a head and heal.

The problem is, this entire process is occurring on an unconscious level. This means that when an Old Scar is awakened, we find ourselves overwhelmed with strong emotions that we can’t seem to shake BUT we have no idea as to why we are stuck and can’t move on. We can’t move on because we truly aren’t conscious of what is really going inside. And we can’t move forward until we make the conscious link back to the original wound from the past.

Once we make this link, we must have the courage to allow the old feelings to surface, to feel them and work them through. Once we do this, the key to our soul unlocks, the door of our heart opens, and suddenly we are freed.

If we don’t make this link to the past and do the work of feeling and healing, the past continues to haunt us, and we just stay stuck, unable to move forward or perpetually trapped in a cycle of repeating the past.

Your girl probably knows on some level that she did repeat an Old Scar from childhood with her ex. This is why she’s afraid to move forward with you because she knows that she will very likely replay her childhood wound again with you! I encourage you both to read my book Till Death Do Us Part (Unless I Kill You First) in order to identify the exact wound that she’s trying to heal and then heal it once and for all.

You also will want to check out whether you have any Old Scars lurking. You very well may be playing out a piece of your own past in which you gave more than you received to one or both of your parents in the hopes of finally winning love in return. This could explain why you are attached to a girl who won’t fully reciprocate your love.

In conjunction with the book, I invite you both to take my Your Personality Profile test, which is free with the newsletter sign up. This test will help you both test how well you’re functioning, identify your Old Scars, and give you tips on how to heal any issuesIssues, in the words of the Serenity Prayer, are things you can change, either by making different personal choices and/or by finding ways to work with your partner more effectively. detected.

I have given you the blueprint for moving forward. So don’t be blue!

Let me know how it all works out for you.