Invite, don't demand- SECRETS OF A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP

Invite Love, Don't Demand It

Have you felt hurt or angry at your man and found yourself saying a whole bunch of things that started with: "I need. I want. I deserve.
You should. You need to. You'd better"?

If those phrases sound familiar to you, that's because you were talking from the space of ENTITLEMENT.

Meaning, you felt like you were "entitled" or deserved to have your man do or say something to make you feel better about yourself or the
relationship.

You can have very good reasons for feeling this way.

Maybe you feel like you've been doing all the WORK in the relationship, and all the sharing, while all he's done is get distant or confuse you with what he says and does.

Maybe you've been doing your best to make him happy and you've been withholding how you REALLY feel because you don't want to hurt him or start a fight.

So you feel stifled and powerless in the relationship.

After doing that sort of thing long enough,it's no wonder you feel like you DESERVE and NEEDto get the love, respect and consideration back that you've put in.

And yeah, you do deserve all those things.
It doesn't make much sense to you that he doesn't see or realize how hard you've been working to make things right between you.

But in a man's mind, when he sees you shutting down, pushing him away, and then he hears you telling him how he needs to be doing this, or how
he'd better do that, it doesn't make much sense to him, either.

When you're feeling hurt and start telling him,"You should" or "You really need to", you'll likely not get the kind of reaction you're expecting.

Instead of seeing how you feel, a man will simply SHUT DOWN and back even further away from you.

A man has to have HIS OWN REASONS for wanting to do all the things that make you happy and keep your relationship strong.

You can NEVER, ever, ever tell someone how to feel or act - just as noone should ever do this with you.

But you can INSPIRE a man, and you can share what it is that you like, love and want.

And therein lies the secret of having a relationship where the man in your life is
irresistibly attracted and devoted to you.

Fortunately, there's a way to ask for what you need that will have him WANTING to give you more.

This way is not about ENTITLEMENT, blaming ordemands...

But by INVITING him, by opening up and making it very easy for him to give you want you want.
(Men love nothing more than feeling like it's easy
for them to make you happy as a woman- but only
when they feel like it's THEIR CHOICE.)

Wow. Sounds complicated and like it's too much work.

Wrong.

It's dumb-easy once you know how.

You can start to create these powerful shifts in the way your man responds to you simply bychanging the way you phrase things.

Instead of saying, "I need you to..."
You can say, "It would really make me feel
loved if you were to..."

I can't tell you how much most women resist doing this because they think it's silly. but whenthey finally speak the words they work like MAGIC.

Try it.

Here's another.

Instead of telling him, "You should really needto (do this or that)"...

You can invite him by saying, "It would really make me happy if you would (doing this or that)."

It doesn't take much to shift your energy and become more inviting and therefore INSPIRE your man to want to give you more of what you want and need.

If you're not convinced, think back to a time when you felt hurt or angry and you closed off to your man. You blamed him. You didn't talk to him for hours or days. You criticized and demanded.

How did he respond?

Did he become more generous and tender withyou?

Or did he become defensive or distant?

I think you'll realize that the energy you bring to your relationship has a HUGE effect on what you get out of it.

Shifting From Blaming & Criticism to GOOD Vulnerability

Noone wants someone by themselves who's upset, irritable, and hard to be close to.

In fact, that's the last thing most men and women want,and the first reason most men start thinking aboutleaving a relationship with a woman they used to love.

But most women don't become hard-edged, annoyed and worn down by their man and relationship on purpose.

They stop getting what they want, and so they start to build WALLS and shut down the part of them that was VULNERABLE and that a man could love in the first place.Does any of this sound familiar?

Think back to the last time you were in a fight with your man or he did or said something that really got under your skin?

How did you react?

Did you feel yourself tighten and become disconnected from him emotionally?

Was it difficult to open up and really LISTEN to what he had to say because all you could think about was how wrong he was?

I get it.

When you're feeling resentful or disconnected from a man because he's hurt you, the LAST thing you want to do is to become softer, more vulnerable or accepting of the love and attention he wants to give you.

That's because when your man has let you down in some way, your normal reaction is to PUSH HIM AWAY.

You do that because you want him to know and to FEEL how much you're hurting, and you want him to see you and love you.

But instead of loving him to get you to love you back, you do things like:

-Criticize him
-Pretend like nothing is wrong and withdraw
-Get angry at little things he says
-Withhold your love, affection, and sex
-Give him the "silent treatment"

But if it's MORE that you want, why is it so often that you find yourself giving LESS?For most women, this happens because they already feel like they are giving too much of themselves.

And that they're the only one giving, or they're just not getting much if anything back for all that they do for their guy.

Sound familiar?

You start to think that everything you're doing for the relationship is a chore, or just plain hard work, and you let him know in obvious (and not so obvious) ways.

You start to see not just the thing he didthat upset you--but ALL the ways he upsets youor irritates you.

So all the little things he does that were just little annoying "quirks" before become one of the many major reasons why things just aren't "working."

One thing sets it off, but now he can't do ANYTHING right in your eyes.

But here's the result of going down those paths- they never get you the solution you're REALLY looking for, or get you what you really want andneed from your man.

Which is - more love and affection. More understanding. More connection.

There's a better way.

What if, instead of shutting down and becoming blaming and critical of him, you OPENED UP and shifted out of and away from the things that weren't working?

What if instead of intellectually thinking about how wrong he is, and how justified YOU are in what you did or said, you could just stop and get in touch with what you're feeling, and what you really want?

Do you think your guy would respond differently?

Do you think it would have an impact on your relationship?

You bet it would.

But of course all this is easier said than done IN THE MOMENT.

In fact, being able to open and love MORE in the tough times when you feel like your
relationship is giving you LESS is hard.

When someone hurts or upsets you, and you feel unappreciated or unloved, the last thing you wantto do is sit around and figure out why you're feeling the way you do, and look at what else you can do to make things better.

Instead, you want HIM to get with it and start giving to you the way you've been giving to him.

But with this feeling you often want to try and fix things right away, you RESIST the hard feelings that come up inside you and, instead, push them OUTWARDS at him.

This is when you get into "blaming", "criticizing" or "needy" mode, which sometimes
makes you feel a tiny bit better...but only for a little while until you see that your guy only pulls farther away afterwards.

It doesn't take a psychologist to see that this is NOT a great strategy for inspiring your guy, for finding more love and happiness, and for building a lasting long-term relationship.

So how do you get out of a destructive and dead-end pattern?

It's often the things we don't think to try that, when we finally give them a chance, createamazing results in our lives.

And that means trying something that feels very COUNTERINTUITIVE.( being unpredictable, spontanous, open)

That means stepping out of your comfort zone and doing something different than what feels "normal" and "obvious" in order to change the outcome.

Here's what I'm getting at.

When you find yourself in that place where you begin to tighten up and resist because your emotions and frustrations are welling up inside you, instead of trying to quickly feel better and ignore or hiding those feelings, give yourself some
space.

Try feeling it MORE.

That's right - really get deep into what you're feeling and find the words to describe it.

Take a minute to let yourself become aware of WHERE these feelings are really coming from.

Then, once you've had a tiny bit of time to feel it and understand it a little bit for yourself, you can share what you're feeling with your man.

Not only will you start to learn and grow by leaps and bounds in your own heart and mind with this simple exercise...

But your relationship will suddenly start to look and feel differently to you, as your man will react differently to you and stay closer and more open to you and what you're going through.

In other words, by giving yourself space to feel what you feel, you also make space for your real feelings in your relationship and to be felt and more understood by your man.

And it's these moments that create that intense, deep CONNECTION and love that is what a relationship is all about.



When was the last time you had the experience of a really intense pain or emotion you felt being taken in and understood and talked through with you by your man?

When was the last time your man said, "Wow, I didn't know you felt that way. I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do"? ( sounds like a fairytale isn't it? :))



Instead, they seem to react with withdrawal, irritation, anger or frustration each time you tell them how you're feeling.

And it's only making you more frustrated.

It's time you feel more supported, and your man starts being this way with you on a regular basis.

Which leads you to something important here - a CHOICE.

You have a choice about how you're going to keep on handling your own feelings and emotions in your relationship.

And you have a choice in how your feelings are going to shape your experience and your relationship.

You can keep doing what you've been doing and hope that it starts to work once a man finally figures it out and gets with it.

Or...

You can try something you might not have thought to try before -

Which is actually opening and sharing more of
your deeper FEELINGS, instead of your busy
THOUGHTS.

If you try the new way I'm going to show you, then get ready to watch as you get a different outcome and response from your man that you
might have not thought possible from around your
feelings.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

Let's say you notice that your guy has a wandering eye, and it upsets you.

Should you say something?

Should you stay quiet and try to not let it bother you because "men are men"?

The key here is respecting yourself, your true emotions, and sharing what you're feeling, not what you're THINKING.

Otherwise, you'll not only put more distance between you and your man...

But he probably won't know why you're upset and he'll eventually feel irritated that you're unhappy for some unknown reason.

So if it's your true feelings that are important, what do you say?

THINKING Statement:

"You must not be attracted to me anymore since you obviously want other women."

Wrong. This is sure to only create a new problem that probably isn't about what's really going on in the first place.

FEELING Statement:
"I feel really scared and gross when you look at or flirt with other women in front of me."

What's going on here, and what's the difference?

You're talking about the same thing, but being open and honest enough to stick to your FEELINGS about what's happening, instead of moving to judgment, is what makes all the difference with a man and making sure he listens and opens up to you
in return.

Let's try another example.

Let's say your guy doesn't call and he's 30 minutes late to meet you or pick you up.

How could he do that and not call?

If he had just called, it wouldn't have been a big deal.

Why didn't he?

THINKING Statement:
"You're either dumb or insane if you think you can show up here 30 minutes late and not call and I won't be angry at you. What's your problem?"

FEELING Statement:

"I feel upset and confused because I don't understand why you didn't call."

Do you see how the two feel very different?

One feels very offensive, blaming, and antagonistic. It actually raises the level of
conflict, and creates tension and distance.

The other one is an "opening" kind of question that actually allows for truth, honesty and promotes answers and understanding.

Oh, and which one do you think a man will respond better to?

Your thinking statements, or your feeling ones?

I can practically guarantee you that a man will either shut down and feel annoyed or withdraw from you, or escalate things and get into an argument
with you and not give you any understanding if you used the thinking statements in the above situation.

But if you used the FEELING statements above, and you left space after them for your guy to say something...

Very quickly he'd start to listen, explain himself, and either apologize or give you the understanding and respect you just wanted in the first place.

But here's a catch, and where most women mess this up even though they start out with their FEELINGS:

Once you open up and admit your true feelings,you can't keep going on and on about it.

You have to allow time for a man to PROCESS what you just said, and not "rush" things just because you feel uncomfortable and want him to Hear you and say something immediately.

Most men - about 99.9% of them - do NOT move this fast from one emotion to the next.

So when you try and take them with you on that ride, things will just turn ugly.

This is just a small part of some of the secrets to inspiring a man to be an open and endlessly understanding partner to you.

Good luck

source: C. Carter