Life Check Yourself Episode 283 – With April - How to Move On From a Man Who Doesn’t Meet Your Needs Even if it Feels Like Love
During this coaching session, Marni works with April to help her break free of a relationship that doesn’t meet her needs. April keeps going back to a guy because he fits into a familiar relationship pattern.
Key Takeaways from this Episode:
- Seeing a relationship for what it really is
- Dating from a mature place
- Feel worthy of love
- How to make self-honoring choices
Do You Keep Going Back to What is Familiar? [1:56]
April says she can’t stop thinking about this particular guy. When they first started dating, he would say he never felt the way he feels with her. He gave her compliments and said he will make her a priority. He knows her favorite song and her favorite water!
She says they dated for about 8 weeks. And, during that time he deleted his dating apps. Then, he hurt his back and their dynamic shifted. She reached out and asked him what was going on and told him what she needed. He only said he was doing the best he could. They attempted a relationship for a while but it was different so she ended it. Now, she is back in it. He says he can’t give her what she needs but there is something about him that keeps her going back.
April is rationalizing, coping, and intellectualizing because she is trying to get what she wants from an unhealthy place.
April admits that the on-again-off-again type relationship reminds her of the relationship she had with her stepmother. It was always hot and cold. The relationship feels familiar and she knows how to deal with it even though she doesn’t like it.
Healing Past Wounds Makes the Future Better [14:47]
Marni takes April through an exercise of talking to herself, as a child, when she first learned about how relationships worked. (Her little who)
Every time April goes back to a guy that makes her feel like her step mother did she is reinforcing the idea that she isn’t ready to make self-honoring choices.
Marni helps April to realize that she will waste more years of her life feeling unworthy only to be in the same position years down the road if she doesn’t shift her behavior.
When she wants to text the guy she will consider that it is her ‘little who’ who is being needy and she will find a healthy distraction. She will practice meeting her own needs in a healthy way.
April promises to be courageous.
