LOVING RELATIONSHIPS          

          Every person in your life is a temporary gift to you.  As with any precious gift, handle it with respect, with gentle kindness, and with acceptance.  No one has to love you.  No one has to stay with you.  His or her gift is freely given.  You cannot demand love and get it.  The response to a demand for love will always be counterfeit.

          A relationship enhances our lives; it does not save it.  Many people expect their partners to save them because they don't know about loving themselves. 

          Heavy expectations can crush a relationship.  The person who does not love himself or herself will pretend that it's the responsibility of their partner to make them feel good about themselves.  It is not.  Work on your own self-love to become whole, and you will attract another whole person.  But if you are not whole and you seek a relationship, you will only attract a mirror of yourself, a person as needy as you are.  Become the kind of person you want to attract.

          We always have a right to express needs, but cannot demand that they be fulfilled.  If you express your needs without accusation and in a positive frame of mind, be prepared to receive and lovingly accept what you've asked for.  Many people ask for changes, get them, and then continue to resent the past.  Let the past go.  You are creating your world day by day, step by step.  The more you put your focus on what's right in your relationship, the more those positive aspects will grow and flourish. 

          If your partner is belittling you, not respecting you, or deceiving you, first ask yourself how you might be belittling, not respecting or deceiving your own self.  Those close to us generally mirror back to us what we're doing to ourselves.  Work on yourself first, then if things don't improve, love yourself enough to make a change in your life.  But don't discount the possibility that your present relationship can be transformed.  Talk about it gently with each other, and the changes will come more easily. 

          Love in a relationship brings up everything unlike itself, because too often we move out of the present moment of loving, and into the fear of future loss.  Notice: fear brings up issues, not your partner.  Realize that he or she only activated some past feelings that are asking for resolution now.  Realize that blame only keeps you blind to what needs to be done.  Love from yourself to yourself, and love from another to you, will help move and change those feelings quickly.  Those feelings probably feel stuck, inflexible, unmoving.  Let love flow and they will melt.

          Give thanks that the relationship brought those hidden negativities to your attention.  Remember to constantly love and accept everything about yourself.  Say, "I love and accept this feeling" -- whatever it is, whether it's fear, jealousy, anger or whatever.  Don't get scared and feel that you're backsliding because these feelings have come up.  They are you, too.  But you can release them.  Learn to separate your emotional reactions from your observation of those feelings. 

          Don't think that leaving a relationship is easier than changing it.  Remember, if you don't change yourself first, you will very likely attract another partner like the last one.  You will get only as much love from another as you are willing to receive from yourself.

          When you treat yourself with love, and you attract a partner who treats himself or herself with love, then the love between you will blossom and grow and affect everything and everyone around you to love and grow themselves!