Too often we don’t believe we have a
choice as to whom we find ourselves in intimate relationships, especially many women. It is believed that we have to settle for
whatever and whoever finds us, instead of us deciding with whom we would like
to spend our lives. We many times unknowingly and recklessly relinquish our
power of choice and hand it over to others. As a woman, you are more likely to
believe that you are in a one-down position when it comes to choosing and having
positive and healthy intimate relationships. You are more likely to believe
that your choices in a mate are limited, while men are more likely to believe
that they can have anyone they choose to have in intimate relationships.
Most religions tend empower men in the
belief that they have the right to choose their mates through words such as, ‘he
who finds a wife finds a good thing.’ In other words, the man is supposed to
choose his wife. However, it is important for you, as women, to recognize that
you also have the right to choose your mate. Does not a woman have the right to
also find/choose a ‘good thing?’
When your family relationships are
strong, there is no question as to whether you belong. It’s a given that you
belong to your family and your family belongs to you. However, when things go
wrong with and in your family, as they often do, you many times ask yourself, ‘why
in the world am I this family?’ ‘I didn’t have a say or a choice in the
matter.’ As a child, when you were not allowed to have your way, you often
thought about and many times verbalized wanting to run away from home or to
trading your family for the ‘great’ family you believed your friends had.
As with your family relationships,
when you believe your intimate relationships are going well, ‘things are good,’
if not necessarily great; you are still willing to own the relationship, even
though you did not choose it. However, when your intimate relationships are
going awry or they are failing, you begin to question why you are in the
situation. You ask yourself, ‘how did I
get into this situation in the first place?’ Similar to your family
relationship, you were probably chosen to be in the intimate situation in which
you find yourself. Unlike your family relationship, YOU HAD/HAVE A CHOICE. You
just didn’t/won’t choose or still haven’t chosen to exercise it! As a matter of
fact, although you didn’t choose your relationship, you STILL have a CHOICE!
On too many occasions, because of the
seeming desperation of women to be with somebody, they wind up being with
anybody (who probably chose them), who is actually nobody! The mantra of these
women is often, ‘a piece of a man is better than no man.’ Sadly, as a woman, although
you accept having what you consider a ‘piece of a man,’ you are not in a
peaceful relationship with that man. That man is not who you probably want or
what you want, need, and deserve in a healthy relationship, but you wind up
settling for less and not for what’s best!
That ‘nobody’ is generally somebody
who saw the desperation written on your forehead, crying out, ‘I just wanted to
be with ‘somebody…anybody.’ That ‘nobody’ exercised his opportunity to choose
who and what he wanted. And there is nothing wrong with that, as long as you,
as a woman, are not on the receiving end of being chosen and not choosing.
Men, it’s not that you, as a man don’t
have the same or similar experiences as women, you are less likely to be as
desperate as women to get with anybody, because you are always looking for
somebody, expecting the best and no one less. As a man, the difference is, you
believe you can have anybody you choose to have. In essence, you believe you
have a choice and you can choose your mate. You also believe you have the right
and the power to choose your mate and she should accept you, just because you
chose her. Too many women don’t share the same beliefs.
Because of the negative societal
messages perpetuated about women, the disparities and discrepancies allowed to
be proliferated between women and men, the cement ceiling faced by women, women
not being given permission to have choices or to choose their relationships, as
well as the low self-esteem possessed by many women, many of you are too afraid
to exercise your God-given right to choose the person you would like to be
with. Now, just because you choose a person, it doesn’t mean he/she will choose
you back. However, you will have exercised your choice in the matter,
remembering, men and women are like buses; one chooses to move on, and another
one will soon appear.
Although you don’t get to choose
your family, you can choose the person you take on as an intimate partner. In
other words, you don’t have anyone to blame but yourself for the relationship
or the situation in which you are engaged. You did and you DO have a choice in
the matter!
However, just because you find
yourself in a seemingly unexplainable situation with someone you didn’t choose,
and you have finally awaken from the nightmare or the ‘daymare’ you have been
living, keeping your foot in your behind won’t fix the situation. Although you
didn’t choose the person you are with and you finally realize that he/she
doesn’t fit, taking your foot out of your behind is one of the first things you
must choose to do. You will need your feet in order for you to walk away from
the situation!
It is time for you to recognize, capitalize,
exercise, and optimize your power to choose your mate and not stay in a situation
for the sake of staying with someone, all because you were chosen to take part
in it. In order for you to walk out of and away from the intimate situation you
have been in for sometime, or the intimate situation you are still in, knowing
that it is best for you to get out of it, you must understand why you stay.
There are five (5) major reasons as
to why you stay in situations with others, believing they are healthy relationships,
even though you didn’t choose them. They chose you! When you understand why you
stay in intimate situations you did not choose, you can now have permission to
choose to make plans to exit the situation and develop a plan to choose the
relationship you want and deserve.
Why you choose to stay in situations you didn’t choose:
1.
You are grown and you don’t want
anyone telling you what to do
2.
You believe you are truly in love
with your mate
3.
You believe you have invested too
much time, effort, energy, money, and emotions in him/her
4.
You are afraid of what others will
say if and when they find out that the relationship you perpetrated as
successful, was a fraud; it was a situation all along
5.
You are afraid of being alone
Recognize that this list is not an
exhausted list of the issues that keep you in situations that you did not
necessarily choose. And if you cannot combat the issues above on your own, seek
the help of a professional who can help you to confront the issues and
realistically assess your options. Begin
to assess your life relationships and journal about the situations you
considered relationships that did not or are not working for you, all because
you were chosen and you did not do the choosing.
It all boils down to, why do you
want to keep investing a million dollars ($1,000,000.00) worth of emotions,
time, and energy in a five cents (5) situation? The bottom line is, you CAN choose your
relationships, intimate or otherwise! If you haven’t chosen in the past, you
can start choosing today…it’s never too late!!
