[ESE H]

Hi Heidi,

Thank you for your further insights. Wow! I have to say those questions are on point. I wish I knew you before I started dating anyone lol, but never too late to know this lesson. Mind blowing discovery just happened today.

Based on these questions, I am seeing red flags now during my dating or getting to know phase. I also found my own pattern of whom I tend to date or be in a relationship with. All 3 men in my life have had Dad relationship issue. My first boyfriend barely knew his Dad and I want to say he tried to meet him once but didn’t have memorable result. My ex-husband blames his Dad for not supporting him through college and was a victim mindset since I’ve known him. When I first dated my ex-husband, he didn’t want to elaborate about his past relationship (his first love) and I could see his pain deeply still. Then MJ didn’t grew up with a Dad but met his Dad later just to find out that his Dad was trying to connect to use him (asking for money). I can see his pain still from that meet up. I just realized why I didn’t pursue my feelings for MJ because there was 1 incident about 2 years ago where I didn’t want to disclose 1 info to him about my supplier for good reasons, but he snapped. All along he said he trusts me but when I did something that is not to his liking, he immediately shuts me out or showing distant by saying “be careful, this could change our relationship.” To me, if I trust someone, and that person did something that is not to my liking, I would at least ask what their reasons are. MJ didn’t even ask or give me the benefit of the doubt by assuming that I don’t trust him with the info. I told him “don’t always think negative when things don’t go his ways.” He hated that comment. We met and talked this out but he started with telling me that his trust level would gone down for me if we didn’t talk this out. He was talking with harsh tone to my face and called me arrogant and the last part was “if you don’t appreciate the amount of money I am working hard for to pay you, I’d rather not have known you.” Something to that degree. At that time, all I can see was someone in pain and even though I was feeling just wanting to leave and forget about this work, a part of me still want to be a part of this collaboration because we both have invested so much creative work together, and I care about him and I actually love the work. I almost did it for him because I feel that he will lose more since he has been telling me how hard to find a great creative person like me. After this incident, I think my gut feeling stays in being cautious that he is the type who could blow up any moment. Just like how you suggested above. He has a lot of pain in his life and career, and this is my weak point, I always want to help people get out of their dark hole. That’s been my pattern and I’ve been taking on too much for these men like it was my purpose in their journey to help them to certain degree.
With my ex-husband, I feel that whenever there is a conflict arise, we never have a thorough discussion to resolve it. He tends to want to ignore and leave our house to cool off, then come home ignoring the fact that the issue didn’t get resolve in my mind. He could operate this way for all these year, while I feel that my feelings have been disregarded time and time again. So I couldn’t reach my inner peace or feel happy with him. With MJ, we have conflicts from time to time, but the difference with him is that we could thoroughly discussed them and got to deeper understanding from one another which brought us closer every single time. I feel that MJ care to consider my point of view and have many times put some thoughts and validated my points via text the next day or two after our misunderstanding or disagreements. I do the same to him whenever I didn’t get him at first but later I texted him validating his points. In this sense, our relationship is healthier than my previous one. MJ is a sensitive guy but strong in opinion and stand. I am too. Still, he is not in peace with himself and his past, and he often didn’t want to discuss the past and simply want to focus on the presence and having fun. He doesn’t like to see me sad and strives to make me happy. With MJ, I feel that I need to be his happy place all the time because that’s the value I can give to him since his life is not really sunshine and rainbows. Silly right?

The new discovery I realized after seeing this pattern led me to my own childhood situation. I used to love my Dad so much 100% and I recalled telling him “Dad, when I grow up, I want to marry someone like you.” Then, things changed in my teen years, when I found out from my sister that my Dad has cheated on my Mom for a brief moment. I’ve never confronted my Dad about it. After that I gained resentment towards him and started making things difficult for him (like passive aggressive behaviour). My Dad was inspiring to me in business and personal development. He didn’t grew up with his Dad, and was raised by his grandparents because his Mom has to work in other town. His Mom got remarried and he wasn’t too keen with his Step Dad. My Dad is very smart and excellent business man that he started from nothing and became successful owning 4 businesses at one point. My Mom came from a normal family and she rarely go anywhere but she is a great homemaker such as great at cooking, great mom and being a host. She is very patient and giving. Her education is not that high while I feel my Dad is super intelligent and love personal growth. They seemed incompatible even though they care for each other in a sense to keep the family together, maybe because they both need that sense of belonging somewhere. I didn’t love what I saw in their relationship. Like there is no passion and deep connection between them. Growing up, my Mom often compares us a lot and I recalled her saying to me “I think your Dad love your little sister better.” So growing up, not only I resented my Dad for being a respectable hypocrite to my Mom, but I also felt that I am not beautiful enough to be loved. My Dad has never told me that I am beautiful or pretty or anything to that degree. He has hit me with a belt once just to teach me a lesson for being rebellious towards him. He then apologized and explained why he did it. I should have told him that I resented him because he cheated on my Mom so he could understand why I did what I did. I don’t know why I always seemed to keep my vulnerable secret to myself and that is eating me up. I grew up feeling like the black sheep in the family. That’s probably why I gravitated towards the bad guy type turned to good men who seemed to have overcome their childhood pain. Like we understand each other for being the misunderstood souls. Does that make sense? Heidi, after all the things I’ve learned to date, and from what you just brought up, I feel that it has come to a full circle for me. I think I have longed to be loved by someone like my Dad but I want to be the woman who helped them, so I can be the woman that my Mom couldn’t be for my Dad. Isn’t this mind blowing? I’ve never seen this realization before. So glad that you pursued this insight for me. I want to sincerely thank you for being here for me at this moment. This is such a crucial shift in my journey, I believe. I think I can heal better now and set new chapter without past pains and with full understanding what made me did what I did before.

From your yesterday’s advice, I’ve put together this non-negotiable list. I feel that this list is important to me. Do you think these are reasonable or am I being too picky? Should I even be asking this as I shouldn’t doubt myself again? I consider myself to have these qualities (with exception of 2) or have the capacity to get there for my future man. Not sure if you have other thoughts based on your experience.

Non-Negotiable List:
– High integrity & Courageous
– Thoughtful and Romantic
– Trusting and Trustworthy
– Respectul to all people, dogs and cats
– Effective communicator
– Generous / Abundant Mindset
– Spiritual
– High Emotional Intelligence
– Great role model or leader
– Fun & great sense of humor
– Humble, patient and emphatic
– Active and love nature
– Creative or appreciate creative expressions
– Curious about life and personal growth
– Successful or on his way to sustainable lifestyle

Curious about what you think. Thank you again for everything. Enjoy your weekend! Really appreciate you.

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi,
This is such a great advice! Definitely makes sense and thank you for giving me your personal examples. I will do this “fun”damental homework and let you know if I have further questions.
You gave me a good reason also to date with purpose. I’m on it.

Really appreciate you!
Erna

[ESE H]

Hi Heidi,

Thank you so much for joining this conversation. Your objective point of views really help me.

Your first paragraph about shaky foundation is a great insight. I understand it but I haven’t fully embedded in myself as it’s a new concept that I am learning recently. I’ve always believed to give unconditional love first. And if someone loves you back the same, then they are your soul mate. I know MJ is not my soulmate because I feel that I give in more to him emotionally.

I think I took care of myself by not giving in to his feelings because I felt small red flags here and there about him. How I could take care of myself more is not to doubt myself like right now in making that wise decision. Do you have other suggestions? I tend to over give whenever others seemed to have needs and express me, whether they are my clients, kids, partner and friends. I tend to inconvenient myself to help them. In biz, they call it pay it forward. It has served me well as far as people appreciation, friendship, repeat biz, etc. What it didn’t serve me is that I felt unauthentic sometimes. Like I did it because the cultural expectations. Maybe it stemmed from my upbringing expectations; my Mom is the most selfless person I know and she is not as happy as she can be in her relationship either because she always gives and takes care of others. I used to feel that I have to be so nice for me to be considered a good girl. I even feel guilty when I want to eat lava cake for myself without offering to my kids. My biggest downfall is to be agreeable to the men whom I am attracted to. If they like something, I went along with them. I was worst for my ex husband when I first met him. I fell in love with him and not share with him my true self just so I can be with him. For example, he likes reggae music and I am only so so, but I let him play it all the time. Everytime I play my music, he will switch it and I didn’t complain. This small thing lead to other problems where I grew up within my marriage that I started respecting and loving myself more by voicing my preferences. With MJ, I learned to be better at voicing my preference but I noticed that I still hold back here and there. That’s probably why I don’t feel good in that relationship because I couldn’t be fully myself eventhough MJ calls it out sometimes. He is quite observant on my comfort level around him. I guess the way I see this thing with MJ is that we both were in a path of self discovery, healing from unhealthy past relationship, and trying to find self love, which made us connected deeply in that journey. Now that he has found his ideal woman whom he truly loves, I felt kinda left out to go on by myself. Sad is the right emotion word to describe it.

MJ has asked me (during our trip to helicopter ride in early Dec) if I have started dating and I said no. He asked me don’t you want a man in your life. I said yes, but I am not ready for dating because I am still trying to find myself and what I want. I told him I want adventurous good guys. So he said “someone like me?” Then I ignored him jokingly. I was serious about not being in dating mood and I feel the need not to jump into another relationship without finding my healthy inner self.

I am currently working with a therapist and therapy group weekly to hash out all these. I joined this forum hoping for other angles and objective insights about my situations in greater details.
They also noticed I’m taking on more responsibility than I need to. So that’s pretty consistent and I am listening. Thank you for validating my feelings about the unstable and confusing relationship with MJ, and I was right to trust my instinct about his ability to love me in healthy way because I am not interested in dating and sex activities (which he might be trying before) without committed relationship. I want to invest myself in the right, respectable man who is stable and loving in healthy and mature ways. Someone with integrity and knows what he wants in a woman and intentionally go for it. Not someone who jumps around the next nice, pretty woman comes along. I like honesty and straight shooter when he means something. Someone who cherishes his relationships wholeheartedly like how I have been, just to the wrong men.

I started focusing on my new creative biz with my growing team which is healthy influence for my soul at the moment. I am also started prioritizing my mind on my 2 kids as they are my top priority and I haven’t been fully myself enough to be present for them. I am taking a publicity course to gain new skills and taking on other freelance work at the same time. Lastly, I am following one bible study group with great insights about overcoming challenges. So, that’s what I am doing so far. Honestly, I am okay if MJ doesn’t continue our work arrangements. I am quite open to either way as I believe whatever comes is my new open door of opportunities. If you have other suggestions on other ways to move on, and words of affirmations perhaps, please share. Another advice I’d like to ask is do you have a guideline for what a healthy relationship looks like. What to look for. So I can focus on those for my future relationship. I want to set myself for the best situation on my next one. Thank you in advance, Heidi!

[ESE H]

Hi Kanya,
Thank you for those observations. Regarding your questions, I am feeling uninspired by him so I am working on moving on. It was tough back in Feb when this shift happened. But after pandemic, I’ve been alone long enough that I almost feel okay not to have him in that capacity. I am conflicted between a little betrayed, disappointed and letting go. I want to move on and ideally not work for him any further because when I see him, it reminds me of those mixed feelings, and it will pain me to see him with his girlfriend often if I continue to work there. I am actually happy for them because I think they match and she has the characteristics and physical look that he’s been longing for. Which was one of the main reasons I didn’t pursue my feelings for him. I know I will be okay 100% with time, as I started to make peace with this reality. I tried to write down the list of things I dislike and like about him hoping I will find more bad than good, but I failed. I found a much longer list of good things about him. So I started a new strategy by writing down the characters of my ideal man which helps. Like a vision or daily affirmation. The hope of a better relationship soothes me. I just need to get disciplined at not looking at the closed door, instead, focusing on new open door or future open door. If you have any advice on certain affirmation phrases or healthy ways to get over this mixed emotions, please let me know. What do you think I have learned from this or should learn from this? To me, I learned not to mix professional with personal, which I wasn’t intentionally. I kinda felt into it because of his consistent nice gestures and kind words. Secondly, I learned to take care of my feelings and set proper boundaries. Last, I need to find myself, my values and what I really want too so I can be clear to reject things that aren’t suitable to those. Let me know if you have other things to add. Greatly appreciate your take on this. I tried talking to my sisters but I feel that they are quite subjective and a bit judgemental. I need objective point of views.Thanks in advance!

[ESE H]

Hi Kanya,
Really appreciate your quick response. Your feedback and questions really helped me out. You are correct about a few things on my part. He has partially followed through on what he said such as paying me consistently with exception of the 2 times he was in trouble financially. He wasn’t completely honest with me up front on his financial situation when he first offered me to be full time. We’ve known each other for 3 years actually, not 4. Still, it’s a long time to wait for him to come through on this. He has never expected me to work for free and he is the type who takes care of other’s needs first before his own, at least financially. That’s part of the reasons he is not moving as fast as he can. He has always been generous and let people take advantage of him knowingly. I saw his sincere passion and intention to help people to be better in their mindset, like how he helped me before. However, he often felt disappointed when they did’t rise up to his high hopes about them. He likes to feel like a hero and mentor, even though he may not realize this on-going need. He has always encouraged me to take on other projects while waiting for him to be ready with funding to bring me full time. But that puts me on a limbo career wise because when I go full force elsewhere, I may not look back and I feel that he may lose me. I might feel guilty about leaving him behind after he helped me so much with my personal growth and moving on from my toxic relationship. I really want to help him finish his launch design work but I want to grow my creative business too. I am not sure if he has been dishonest to me. He always tells me that I can ask him anything. I think the fact that I didn’t know about his separation was on me because I didn’t ask. I noticed he doesn’t wear his wedding ring since the beginning but I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to put him in awkward situation to answer it; maybe I should have. I tend to make too many assumptions, and like you sensed, I take on too many responsibilities of what happened or could happen. Before my separation, he has made a decision to move closer into my area and start his single life and he even wanted to get us a nice creative office in my area. But then my husband situation arise, so he changed his mind and didn’t want to proceed, which I understand. I haven’t told him about my feelings because I didn’t think it was right for me to express a feeling to a married man eventhough I know his intention is to move on from his wife, even before I came to his life. I just didn’t want to be the reason of that decision. I want him to know what he wants and pursue it on his own. I tried to help him once. He sent me his purposeful writing and I replied with a list of things I know about him (like 18 points) and ended with a question: what is the missing part that only you know you need to do? That text blew his mind and he didn’t reply much but an emoji. When we met the following week, he told me how much that text meant to him that it made him cry. He has been longing for someone who understands him so well. He shared that text to his therapist and the therapist told him that this is the woman who really care to be with you for a long time. At that time, I didn’t reply much. I am not very good at being flirty and vulnerable at the time. I was still numb from my previous relationship. But the strange thing is that since he got a new girlfriend, I’m having so many flash back moments of these window of opportunities where I could have embraced his feeling and expresses mine. But like I said, I was waiting for him to decide on his divorce first before I make any move. To me it’s integrity on my part to do that. After we became distant after my marriage separation, I started taking relationship courses like yours and learned a lot about how to show up with feminine energy and being vulnerable without taking values etc. I realized I haven’t been as brave as I should. I now know that I could still hold my integrity but not hold back my feelings. I could have communicated my vulnerable side and still set my value boundaries, which might actually help him earlier. When I texted him about my feelings, I was afraid to burden him to respond because I knew he came a long way to want to commit to someone, and I want him to be happy. He shared his fear to find happiness, like he doesn’t deserve it or something that he tends to push people away or he runs away. I texted him my feelings to validate him that he is enough and he shouldn’t run away because of fear. I truly believe that this is the path he must go through whether there is future with us or not. So, I stepped back but wanted him to know my truth. I really need to move on so I want to have my own closure. I don’t think I have ever loved someone this unconditionally. The funny thing is too, I realized now that love can’t just be shut down that easily. During pandemic, he ghosted me because he has no funding left. I hinted him that good friends check in on each other no matter what. He replied saying if he is dealing with a lot and if he has to lose a friend during this because lack of communication, he said maybe it’s for the best. He misunderstood what I said in the text about moving on when a friend disrespected my value with lack of communication. So we made up and he said he would love to catch up in person with me and I’m always welcomed at the office. When I asked him a good time to meet, he doesn’t reply. This has been his pattern whenever he is trying to focus in ramping up funds. So I don’t get too offended by it, eventhough it bothers me that I can’t plan. He recently received his PPP loan and immediately texted me the good news. That same week, he paid me out of the blue. So this validates me that he is not the type to take advantage and he has been distant due to being pressured financially. We finally met up again with other team members to talk about our work arrangements. During the meeting, he hinted that we won’t do even retainer anymore. He will give me projects, I would quote and he will agree or disagree. So I thought at the time, the full time thing is no longer on the table. He acted distant and super business talking about matrix etc. I understand his position and support this behaviour. I wasn’t inspired by him at that moment and felt the need to have a follow-up conversation to discuss possible blind spots and get clarity in our work arrangements. I texted him about this request and he replied the next day. We didn’t plan to talk longer than 10 min but we ended up talking for 1 hr. He let me because we haven’t caught up for almost 2 months and I brought up great insights about his new team members and appreciated me for looking out for the company and said I have good judgement. During this call, we came to agreement to save our own energy in assumptions that might not be true about his lack of communication etc. As usual, we traded insight. I gave him insight about his new team members, and he gave me insight on how to save my emotional energy. I felt that we both got value out of this long call and glad we did. I told him my new schedule (when my day offs are and when we can meet etc) while waiting for him to be ready to give me a creative brief. He finally let me send him the list of design elements so he can plan on our work flow. This is where we are at. Yes, although I care a lot about him, I sometimes feel something about him I couldn’t fully trust his loyalty to me, and his consistency in knowing what he wants. I trust and he is a good person, he means well and he is doing his best with his shortcomings. He even told me maybe I should put too much trust in him because he got issues when he had such a great day with team bonding. I can sense he has issues but who doesn’t right? I have issues too. I am afraid that if I ever give in to him fully, my heart will be crushed. I seemed strong but I am actually very vulnerable. How should I approach this situation in your opinion? I need to learn to take care of myself first, I think. Sorry for this long answer but I hope the details help you see my situation. Please advise tips to move on if you think that’s the best course of action. Thanks in advance.

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