Loving For Keeps

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Standing Up For Yourself

June 9, 2012 By Melissa Leave a Comment

Are you a prisoner of what your partner thinks of you? If you are so attached to what your partner thinks of you, you’ll take everything personally and not know how you feel about yourself. You cannot answer your question, “How to save my relationship?” if you depend on the approval of your partner to define your every thought and action. Passion will not be able to flourish.

You’ll want that unending approval when you feel your partner is more important than you are. You have to be vigilant that your relationship with your partner does not become more important than your relationship with yourself.

The Loving For Keeps cartoon - cultivating the passionWhen this happens, and it happens in all long-term relationships, these are the only options open to you:

  • Allow your partner to consume you.
  • Suffocate your partner.
  • Emotionally and/or physically withdraw from your partner.

Or

  • Stand up FOR yourself to move your relationship forward.

Your relationship is in trouble if you can’t stand up for YOU, which doesn’t mean against your partner. When two partners know who they are and aren’t afraid of expressing themselves to each other – this is how to save a relationship.

If you feel solid about who you are, you’ll dare to try something new in the bedroom. If you feel weak, you won’t risk being disapproved of by your partner.

Your capacity for passion equals your capacity for personal development. Everyone talks about rekindling, reigniting passion. What that means is growing yourself up, taking the stand to say, “I love you and this is who I am.” This is how to save your relationship – now and in the future.

Think of times in your past when you stood up for yourself
Briefly record each incident on a piece of paper or on your computer. Include the following details: your age, who was present, what happened when you took action. Probably not all the outcomes were positive. What did you do when they weren’t?

After standing up FOR myself, and my husband doing the same, our marriage deepened more than ever. It took an almost-divorce and 25 years to get there, but it did happen. It can happen for you sooner. That’s why I wrote this blog!

This marriage cartoon helps remind me that the world doesn’t revolve around me except in my own mind.

Filed Under: Loving For Keeps Blog Tagged With: Personal Growth

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Want a vibrant and happy relationship?

You can have it!Find the passion in your marriage with Melissa Smith Baker My name is Melissa Smith Baker. I am a relationship teacher, author, and speaker. My blogs, newsletters, books, classes, and talks use humor and real-life examples to illustrate the challenges inherent in every long-term relationship. Since 2002 I have helped transform thousands of relationships, including my own. And I can help you, too.

“When you apply the concepts that Melissa presents in an engaging way, they actually work!”
~ Mary Disharoon, MFT

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