Are You Attracting Love Or Dysfunctional Relationships?

A woman who is confident and happy with being single is not a woman who has bitterly sworn off men. She's not a woman who actively dates and never gets discouraged. She's a woman who, despite hurt and discouragement, doesn’t allow that negativity to tempt her into settling for the wrong relationships.

It's Okay If You Haven't Found "The One"

When asked why she's single, she simply says, “I'm not prepared to fulfill the needs of someone who isn’t right for me.” The problem isn't that there aren’t enough great men out there. The problem is that just because someone is great doesn’t make them the right person for you.

There's a difference between being liked and being valued. To truly value someone in our lives, we must get past surface level commonalities and really get to know them. But often, we don’t do that. Carried away by infatuation, we act on our impulses and rush into dating. We're so excited to get to the good stuff, we end up missing it altogether.

To truly value someone in our lives, we must get past surface level commonalities and really get to know them.

We don’t even realize how desperately hungry we are for love. We're so hungry that we don’t have the patience to wait for anything authentic. We settle for imitation love like we settle for fast food. Anything quick and easy, sure it tides us over, but we still feel disappointed that it doesn’t truly satisfy us.

Our culture has become plagued with narcissism, desensitized to the fragility of peoples’ hearts. In the process of seeking our own happiness, we inadvertently hurt other people, training each other to become closed off and callous. And while the damage we inflict isn’t intentional, does that make us any less responsible? No, we're reckless, when in relationships we should be intentional.

We Crave Genuine Connections

Casual relationships have become the norm, and authentic love hardly exists. People can barely define it, much less experience it – forget about giving it. Romantic relationships have transformed into entanglements of people just making a mess of things. We're careless with the hearts of others, only worried about protecting our own. Creating a cycle of broken people in broken relationships.

“Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.” -Mother Teresa

It’s hard to find a genuine connection when we bury our true selves under the fluff. People lie about who they are because they can’t be honest with themselves. We don’t prioritize our values or the needs of our partner because we don’t talk about them. We accuse people of having avoidant conflict tendencies in our relationships, but we have culturally assimilated to be that way. We avoid conversations involving different opinions, we avoid listening to other people’s perspective, we avoid being wrong, we avoid getting hurt, we avoid humiliation, we avoid intimacy. We avoid. But everything rich in a meaningful relationship stems from the courage to be honest, selfless, and patient. The exact opposite of how we typically act.

Real Love Inspires Us

Infatuation can be thrilling, but love is inspiring. Love is patient, steady, constant; it's made up of principles that aren’t seemingly thrilling but are inspiring because they aren’t easy to practice. To love authentically requires relationships that are constructed on a foundation of mutual investment. Two people who acknowledge that a relationship requires them to give of themselves 100% of the time. We need to consider what we're willing to give to someone before diving into relationships.

Many women struggle with the fear of being alone because of the societal pressure they feel to live according to an auto-generated timeline. They end up falling into attachment rather than love. Some choose to ignore red flags, some never communicate their expectations, and some misinterpret sexual affection for love. And sadly, many times, women do all three and find themselves in unfulfilling relationships.

If you're continuously falling in and out of "love," you might reconsider if you're falling in love or attachment. Here’s a sad truth about love – it’s rare. “Love is the wanting, and the having, and the choosing, and the becoming. Love is the desire to see the person we love be and become all he or she is capable of being and becoming. Love is the willingness to lay down our own personal plans, desires, and agenda for the good of the relationship. Love is delayed gratification, pleasure, and pain. Love is being able to live and thrive apart but choosing to be together.”

Love is the desire to see the person we love be and become all he or she is capable of being and becoming.

How many of your past relationships resonate with this? Probably few, if any. It’s easy for us to describe what we want in a relationship and in our ideal partner. But how often do we consider if we ourselves are ideal partners? We have such high expectations of others, but do we have the same standards for ourselves?

Confidence Is Key

A woman who's happy and confident in being single is one who approaches relationships prepared to give, but for the right person. She doesn’t expect more than what she's willing to give, she doesn’t look for a man who's perfect but one who's genuinely compatible with her. She doesn’t perpetuate dysfunctional relationships. She's honest about who she is and is patient for something authentic.

A woman who is happy and confident in being single is one who approaches relationships prepared to give, but for the right person.

Immediate gratification in dating isn’t rewarding; we never appreciate what we don’t actually earn. We know all too well that our hearts are delicate and difficult to restore once broken; we need to protect the hearts of those we date as carefully as we protect our own. Intentionally seeking the good of others will not only attract the right man, but it will also bring more love into your life than you’ve ever known.