Tell Giselle: All the good we deserve

“My friend is living with someone who is not as generous and thoughtful as she is toward him and to everyone she loves. She has told me how she wishes she were with someone who cherishes her. She wishes he would change. They have been a couple for more than a few years. How do I tell her to move on without making her feel like she is a fool to put up with this guy?”

G: We put up with what we put up with because we haven’t yet become willing and prepared to live in an honest relationship with ourself. That honesty has nothing to do with the other person’s ability to love us, care for us, and treat us with the tenderness and adoration we yearn for.

What a dysfunction of dishonesty looks like is exactly what your friend is experiencing. One important question is how long will it take for her to realize she is short sighted in her expectations of what life can be on the other side of her self-dishonesty, unhappiness and frustration.

Another question you do not have the answer to is how long it will be before she comes to the discovery that she is self-sabotaging her fulfillment and capacity for peacemaking.

Instead of telling her she is wrong to stay in this relationship, as tempting as that may be, and that she is wrong to think she has the power to change him, I think it is more effective to talk with her about the purpose of this relationship. You can ask her what she thinks she is in it for. You can ask her why she is willing to tolerate the imbalance. You can ask her to explain why she finds him worth all the disappointment and tradeoffs.

Trust me on this, if she says they have great sex, or the best, I can all but guarantee she hasn’t yet known that, especially with him.

She may not be able to articulate in that moment a full analysis, but these are the kinds of discussions that can open up an awareness of her role, not his, in the dynamic of that intimate relationship. These are the questions that can reveal how unfavorable, or how tipped, the scale has become.

It is not uncommon for people to be in romances that are imbalanced, meaning one person is significantly more in love, more invested, more “into” the other person. I believe this is because each is having an experience that is uniquely their own spiritual growth lesson. Truth be told, we cannot always know for certain what those lessons are for ourselves, much less the other person.

But we can accept, if we choose, to believe that there are valuable lessons we are here to learn. Yes, learning to be an even better lover is part of those lessons, but that’s not the end all, though it may feel like it at times.

We can choose to seek to grasp firmly the most wisdom we can out of every relationship, whether intimate or casual, regardless of the length or the blood connection.

Sometimes a person has to be in such a situation as your girlfriend in order to learn what their capacity is for unconditional love, patience, tolerance and compassion. But if the heart imbalance, by that I mean the irregularity of emotional cadence, goes on too long then it becomes a futile exercise in suffering. That, in terms of timing and the discomfort of struggling, is a judgment that only an individual living within the relationship can determine.

Not all suffering is destructive. But if it does not lead one to commit to becoming a deeply honest individual, the agony will serve to delay peace for themselves. It will also be disruptive to all those who have encounters with them. This is because all unhappy, unsettled hearts will, like Pig Pen did in Charlie Brown, deposit their dark cloud into the world instead of shining their brightest energy and light of contentment and joy.

But if someone has not yet realized what their luminosity looks and feels like, then what?

All we are ever tasked to do successfully, again this is from my spiritual playbook, is be kind and to become your brightest light, knowing others may have to grapple with their strife for as long as it may be necessary for them to bloom.

I know I know this sounds a bit callous, but the reality that I have come to live in is one in which we all can choose to hold compassion and distance simultaneously. We can be an expression of consistent support while allowing the space for our friends and loved ones to punch their own way out of their suffocating paper bag.

She may or may not get out of her pickle in a timeframe that suits you, but this is ultimately not anything you can control. Pivot your energy toward being an example to her of what it looks like on the outside of that sack. Reinforce that none of us are to wait for others to give us what we believe, or think, we deserve.

It is for us to indulge ourselves with all the good that we deserve and then share that goodness wisely, and in peace.