Q: Anonymous Asks:
I am struggling with the fact that I have been in three marriages. The first time, I married at 19 after dating this boy since 15. We lasted nine years before divorcing. I wasn’t ready for a relationship. Then I married a chiropractic colleague whose wife had died, leaving three boys without a mother. I later found out that he was a sociopath and abuser, and that his wife died at 48 from the intense stress of living with him. I lasted three years, she lasted 18. The third marriage I didn’t take too seriously. I married to help someone I loved (but didn’t need to marry) acquire his green card. He died of cancer before we could re-establish his work life. You would think I would give up by then. But I dated two different colleagues. One ended up revealing he had a two-year affair before filing for divorce (he was a divorce attorney), and that was why he could not attach to me. The other was temporarily separated from his wife and returned (a high school principal).
If that isn’t enough – the next “professional” I met was a co-worker (IT) who presented himself as unmarried. I found that he was married. Four months into the relationship, I learned that he had two little kids. He left her and moved in with me. But he decided that it was too costly to leave the marriage after her threats, and returned. I don’t recall “missing” a single nice guy along the way I didn’t recognize.
I equate my bad choices in men as a fact – most men are bad, especially when you’re in your 40s. I know I should have run away the minute I found the red flags. The problem is, if you are a hungry person, you might be tempted to eat food that is laced with poison.
What should an intelligent, attractive, 47-year-old professional female do to meet a compatible bachelor nowadays? I am getting of tired of wanting.
A: Love Coach Rinatta answers:
Dear Anonymous, thank you for revealing your relationship history and asking your question.
I would like to quote your question to point something out to you. You said: “I equate my bad choice in men as a fact – most men are bad …”
The quote from your question reveals that you believe approximately 50 percent of the population to be bad. Could that possibly be true? Could you really judge the whole half of humanity on your experience with five men?
You also said, “I don’t recall ‘missing’ a single nice guy along the way I didn’t recognize.” How could you recognize a nice guy if you believe most men are bad?
We do not take in all the information around us. That would be impossible. We screen out the information and events around us and only screen in what is relevant to us. Our brain selects what we see and recognize according to our focus, thoughts and beliefs. You believe most men are bad. Your brain seeks out bad men for you to see and hides in plain view the good ones.
I can easily demonstrate to you how this works in other areas of your life. For example, think back to the last time you wanted a particular kind of car. Did you all of a sudden start noticing the car you wanted everywhere? Did you start to wonder if almost everyone except you drove that particular car? Were you paying much attention to the millions of other cars on the road, their colors, makes, models?
I don’t know about you, but most people’s experience is that once they settle on their next car, they tend to see it everywhere, and hardly notice the other cars for a while. And that is their brain working to seek out for them the object of their focus and screening out other information.
I can already almost hear you saying to me that there really are only bad men out there. You might say “I have experienced them and never experienced any good ones. I used to be more of an optimist, but I had so many bad experiences!”
Here is my answer. I am sure when you were younger you were more optimistic about men. However, I am going to bet that your childhood taught you that men are bad and relationships don’t work out. You may not even recognize this as true right now, as these were most likely hidden, subconscious beliefs. If I were to work with you in a telephone coaching session, within a short time I would show you exactly which childhood experiences formed this hidden belief in you that men are bad and relationships don’t work out.
Even thought you were optimistic as you went out into the world to find a mate, your choices and relationship behavior were mostly driven by these hidden beliefs, because when it comes to relationships, all of us – without exception – act from our hidden beliefs. But hidden or not, our beliefs inform our brain what to select for us to see and experience.
Presto! You only got to see bad men. As you said, you were starving and felt that poisonous relationships are better than no relationship, so you went ahead and had bad relationships.
You ask how to meet a compatible bachelor. By compatible, I think you really mean a good guy who can finally make you happy. You won’t meet him by joining a dating service or going online or joining a club. Actually, chances are you won’t meet him at all, until you change what your brain selects for you.
In other words, you have to start believing that there are plenty of good men out there before you can meet one. And not just pretending to believe it. You actually have to instill this belief deep inside you, so that it becomes stronger than your belief that all men are bad. And let’s be clear. I am not saying you have to look at men you consider “bad” and say they are “good.” You actually have to believe that there are other men out there who are wonderful, loving and looking for a great relationship, and that they have been simply invisible to you up until now.
How do you believe something you don’t believe? Sounds crazy, right?
Start simply by considering that perhaps your current beliefs are not an accurate reflection of reality. I mean, can you judge all men based on a handful of your own experiences and a small number of famous men whose bad behavior shows up in the media? No, you can’t.
Next, start looking around for good men. How about famous men known as faithful and loving husbands? How about Jimmy Carter and Tom Hanks and Paul Newman, to name a few? Seek out other evidence that there good men out there, even if they are married. It will be a good start for you.
To go deeper, to change your hidden beliefs that got you into this mess of relationship experiences in the first place, consider working with me as your coach. This is one of my specialties – helping clients change hidden, unworkable beliefs, recover from a bad relationship history and learn healthy dating and relationship skills. Your work with me could result in your attracting a great partner and getting into a healthy, fabulous relationship.
One of the tools I would recommend to you immediately – whether you decide to work with me as your coach or not – is to learn the Law of Attraction. In essence, Law of Attraction teaches you how to and why you should believe that what you want is real before seeing it. That’s what the movie “The Secret” was about. This skill of believing before seeing works extremely well, but it takes time and effort to learn and understand. Here is a set of audios that I have found invaluable in learning the nuts and bolts of how to really work the Law of Attraction to get results. And, if you reading this and already use the Law of Attraction, here is a set of really excellent audios to help you fine-tune your LOA skills.
You may also want to read an article I wrote on what I recommend clients do to change their beliefs about relationships.
To summarize, my dear, what you believe about men is what got you a lifetime of bad relationships. Change what you believe – in spite of the things you have experienced – and you will change your life and find that elusive deep love. And if you want support along the way, this is exactly the kind of work I do successfully with men and women across the globe. I will be glad to help you.
Related Resources: Audio set on learning how to work the Law of Attraction, Coaching to help unearth hidden beliefs
From the Heart,
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Mentioning “your choices” and that “you” should have run when you saw the red flags shows that you’re taking ownership of “your” role in these bad relationships. I don’t really think you believe that all men are bad or you wouldn’t be asking where you could find a good one.
As a man I would like to take issue with this posting. It is true that there are a lot of men out there that are not worth dating. It is also true that a lot of men are pretty good at hiding their faults (at least men are not alone in this.) So how does a woman choose a good one? Let me make a suggestion.
Several years ago my sister, single at the time was talking to a friend about her ideal husband. It was, as you might expect, a conversation that went on for quite some time. Then my sister’s friend challenged her to make a list of all the most important attribures. She did, and then put the list away and forgot about it.
A couple of years later, on the eve of her wedding, she found the list and was amazed to learn that she had found the man she had been dreaming of!
Now, why, you may ask, would this work so well for her? First, she listed qualities of character, not a list of toys she wanted him to have. She also had a very clear idea of what she wanted. Too many women, and men for that matter, date whoever they find is available. Certainly you should date a wide variety of people. You may even find that someone you might have eliminated turns out to be exactly what you are looking for. But don’t compromise your standards. I see way too many women make compromise after compromise, growing farther and farther from their ideal and only leave when it is painfully obvious they have no choice.
Instead, look at dating as a discovery process for finding your ideal. Any deviation and you will need to REMOVE THAT PERSON FROM YOUR DATING POOL. No compromises. And don’t be afraid to let your dates know what your expect; they may even be kind enough to remove themselves from your pool.
By now you must be worrying if this will reduce the amount of dating you do, and I think you already know the answer. But let me help you keep your eyes on the prize, you are looking for the one man who will make your dreams come true. There is absolutely no reason to be dating guys who don’t meet your standards. What do you get? A free dinner; it’s a trap. don’t fall for it. Hold out for what you really want. You can do it, I know you can. I know because I did.
Lee Reed’s last blog post..You Knew it had to Happen…
Great advice. Quite possibly a situation defined by Anais Nin, “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”
I’ve been with my boyfriend for 7 long years. When I realized we’ve been this long, and he’s not even mentioned anything about marriage, I thought to myself I really need to move on myself….I