The Love You Have To Give

Is your heart ALL IN for keeping your core relationship values intact?

Susan Bratton Dr. Patti Taylor Sloane Fox Tallulah Sulis Are you expe­ri­enc­ing all the love you want? Could you be hold­ing back your love? Is your heart tru­ly ALL IN for keep­ing the core val­ues of your rela­tion­ship intact? There are as many rea­sons we hedge our bets when it comes to being "all in." I am con­tin­u­al­ly sur­prised at how many peo­ple feel betrayed and can nev­er open their hearts again to love. They stay closed and miss out on the best part of life because they can't work through the hurt. Could you be avoid­ing feel­ing the love you are receiv­ing? Some­times, it's so scary to open your heart to love that you don't ful­ly take it in. Your part­ner loves you com­plete­ly, but you are unable to receive it. My dear men­tor, Dr. Deb­o­rah Anapol, who has now left this life, wrote an out­stand­ing book called, The 7 Laws of Love. She explains that your heart is both a door and a mus­cle: The more you use your heart, the bet­ter it works. Love is a prac­tice. It's eas­i­er to give love than to receive it, and most peo­ple can actu­al­ly feel more of the feel­ings of love by loving—so love as much as pos­si­ble to expe­ri­ence more love in your life. Don't wait to be loved—start lov­ing, and you will expe­ri­ence the ben­e­fits of love. The door swings both ways—the deep­er and more intense­ly you love, the more it hurts when the love is lost. But when you get the expe­ri­ence of feel­ing those feel­ings on both sides, it is what makes life worth liv­ing. So don't be afraid to feel. Why do many of us strug­gle with love? CORE RELATIONSHIP VALUES Many of us strug­gle with love in no small mea­sure because most of us are not secure­ly "attach­ment par­ent­ed." A set of core fears keeps sab­o­tag­ing you. Anoth­er of my men­tors, Dr. Susan Camp­bell, explains how to rec­og­nize what core fear might be hold­ing you back from a life of love. Some­times we don't have the mod­el for what love looks like. We under­mine our inti­ma­cy (con­scious­ly or uncon­scious­ly) when it comes to being "all in." Could you love MORE? Do you feel deeply loved? No mat­ter what the "rea­son," hold­ing back has a sig­nif­i­cant impact on every aspect of a rela­tion­ship, sex includ­ed. Sure, in the ear­ly stages of a rela­tion­ship, when you're essen­tial­ly check­ing each oth­er out, it's nat­ur­al and healthy to take your time going "all in." How­ev­er, you will feel the impact if the "check­ing-out" is laced with the oth­er person's judg­ment. I didn't know it at the time, but rad­i­cal hon­esty and accep­tance are the core val­ues in a rela­tion­ship, and they played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the res­cue oper­a­tion that saved my mar­riage. See, my moth­er brought me up, and she repeat­ed­ly told me: "Nev­er trust a man. Always stay in con­trol of your finances so you can get away when­ev­er you want to." Mom was try­ing to pro­tect me. I don't blame her at all because she always act­ed in my best inter­est. How­ev­er, that fear of not being able to trust, when I actu­al­ly COULD trust my hus­band, reared its ugly head and almost bank­rupt­ed the love I should have had and could have had. I absorbed her belief not to trust men and did as she'd advised when I mar­ried Tim. I didn't know then, but now I under­stand that my core rela­tion­ship val­ue is anti­thet­i­cal to my mother's belief. She'd cho­sen poor­ly, but I chose well. So, hold­ing back almost ruined my mar­riage. Beneath the fear­ful con­di­tion­ing, I want­ed my man to take care of me, which includ­ed man­ag­ing the finances. Secu­ri­ty, includ­ing finan­cial secu­ri­ty, is my #1 rela­tion­ship val­ue. I wouldn't be in a rela­tion­ship if I couldn't have finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty. But hav­ing been spoon-fed fem­i­nist val­ues, I couldn't admit—much less accept—my desire to have a man take care of me for many, many years into my mar­riage. Far from being "all in," I had one foot out the door for much of the time. It's a bit para­dox­i­cal, giv­en that I rec­og­nized Tim's busi­ness savvy very ear­ly in our rela­tion­ship. Here was a guy with fis­cal mus­cle who han­dled mon­ey with com­pe­tence and ease. And yet, I couldn't imag­ine merg­ing our finances. "Get a joint check­ing account? Why in the world would I do that?" It took a long time to exam­ine this belief and even longer to accept that he enjoyed man­ag­ing our finances. And I sucked at it. When we were eleven years into our mar­riage and amid a 3-year rough patch, I said to him: "I'm not sure if I can stay with you. I want my hus­band to be finan­cial­ly suc­cess­ful so I can relax and know I'll be safe." This added insult to an injury Tim was already suf­fer­ing: our sex life was just plain dis­sat­is­fy­ing. I'd become bored with sex, and I couldn't have orgasms from inter­course back then. Even hav­ing an orgasm at all required a lot of effort. Now and then, I'd give him "mer­cy sex," which didn't help at all and made him feel even worse about the rela­tion­ship, so he checked out emo­tion­al­ly. His moti­va­tion to take care of me was at an all-time low. Nei­ther of us could see any way through this painful impasse. We were on the brink of divorce when we both real­ized that break­ing up our fam­i­ly was not an option. At that point, I said, "All right, I'm gonna have sex with you and try hard to have orgasms." It took some doing, but in time, I could bridge the Orgasm Gap and enjoy mak­ing love. Tim began to re-attach to me emo­tion­al­ly. But I still had a lin­ger­ing fear that he wasn't going to make enough mon­ey to keep me feel­ing secure. I was 45 at the time and put him on notice, say­ing, "I'll let you know by the time I'm 49 if I can ful­ly com­mit to our rela­tion­ship, and it hinges on whether or not you're doing a good job tak­ing care of me." His anger at my lack of inti­ma­cy had dri­ven a wedge between us. I let him know that school was still out for me on the mat­ter, say­ing, "I don't want you to think I'm com­plete­ly com­mit­ted to the mar­riage. I'm not." I real­ize that is a tru­ly shit­ty thing to say. But one of Tim's top four core val­ues in a rela­tion­ship is hon­esty. He'd rather know I wasn't "all in" than be blind­sided if I decid­ed to leave our mar­riage. By that time, we had learned the pow­er of under­stand­ing each other's core val­ues in a rela­tion­ship. When you know what your part­ner needs most from a rela­tion­ship with you, you can pri­or­i­tize your actions to make them incred­i­bly hap­py. I would write Rela­tion­ship Mag­ic—a work­book for dis­cov­er­ing your own top four core val­ues in a rela­tion­ship. This book has helped thou­sands of sin­gles and cou­ples become deliri­ous­ly hap­py and sat­is­fied with their rela­tion­ships: Dis­cov­er Your Top 4 Core Val­ues In A Rela­tion­ship ⇐ Well Over 25,000 Copies Sold ($9.95 dis­count link for my fans only.) When I turned 49, it hit me: "Oh my god, did I say that to him?" We'd just been through a finan­cial dis­as­ter and were pulling up from the bot­tom after almost los­ing our house. We'd put ALL of our life sav­ings into Per­son­al Life Media. We lit­er­al­ly couldn't make the next house pay­ment, and we were so afraid our house wouldn't sell. It did. Thank good­ness. So like a lot of peo­ple, we had to down­size. We moved to a less expen­sive town and rent­ed while we fig­ured out how to make our busi­ness sup­port us. It tru­ly amazed me when I real­ized that I'd come to trust Tim with our finances. We had to hit bot­tom togeth­er for me to appre­ci­ate that if any­body could pick up the pieces and put us on sol­id finan­cial ground, it was my dar­ling hus­band with me 110% hav­ing our back. We'd final­ly become a team. Through thick and thin, all odds and near divorce, I com­mit­ted to him and rad­i­cal­ly accept­ed our rela­tion­ship for its ups and downs. OUR WEDDING DAY in 1993 That's when I said, "He's my man; I'm all in. I fill in his weak­ness­es with my strengths. We know what each other's foibles are, and I'm con­fi­dent we can make this work if we stick togeth­er." I let go of expect­ing him to do it all and took respon­si­bil­i­ty for doing my share to make us suc­cess­ful as a cou­ple. I final­ly grew up! After 27 years of mar­riage, I have relaxed into our rela­tion­ship. I am going to stick by Tim, no mat­ter what. At this point, we are prac­ti­cal­ly one unit. I know him bet­ter than any­one else in the world. We com­plete each oth­er. Once I rad­i­cal­ly accept­ed him and myself for what we brought to the table as a cou­ple, every­thing got bet­ter, and bet­ter, and bet­ter. As I hope you can see from my sto­ry of mat­u­ra­tion that rad­i­cal accep­tance and rad­i­cal hon­esty can work mag­ic in a rela­tion­ship. Like uncon­di­tion­al love, rad­i­cal accep­tance is a pre­cious gift to give and receive. You may be miss­ing a ton of hap­pi­ness and love just by not giv­ing your part­ner your all. Love, Suz Susan Bratton, Intimacy Wellness Expert, is a champion and advocate for all those who desire lifelong intimacy and passion. She is the best-selling author and publisher of 34 books and programs on lovemaking techniques and bedroom communication skills such as Sexual Soulmates, Relationship Magic, Revive Her Drive, The Steamy Sex Ed® Video Collection, Hormone Balancing, The Pump Guide and Thrust In Time. You can find The Susan Bratton Show™ on YouTube at BetterLover.com, her more personal posts @susanbratton on Instagram, and her new sexual vitality supplements, FLOW, BOOST, DESIRE, and DRIVE at The20store.com P.S. Ridiculously Stimulating Articles You Might Have Missed: NEW and Improved Libido Botanicals Here (Holiday Gift Guide 2020) This is part 8 of my 2020 Holiday Gift Guide. My sexy goody recommendations! Get them for yourself and give them to your lover, family, and friends. New and improved libido vitamins available! Infrared Sauna for Pain Relief and Reducing Wrinkles (Holiday Gift Guide 2020) Sunlighten infrared saunas come highly recommended by health and wellness experts, such as Dr. Mark Hyman, Wendy Myers, Dave Asprey, Ben Greenfield, Ari Whitten, and Dr. Joel Kahn. Eliminate Metabolic Syndrome And Reactivate Dormant Sex Hormones I'm so excited to tell you about my good friend Cody Bramlett, who just announced a BANGER of a deal for his Turmeric + Bioperine supplement. Want more energy, focus, memory, better moods? Read on… At-Home Red Light Devices You'll Love (Holiday Gift Guide 2020) The light could augur a new era in which millions of people have access to painless home-based therapy. It would give them a new layer of protection against the natural aging processes that steal our eyes' sensitivity to light and the ability to distinguish colors.

Susan Bratton "Trusted Hot Sex Advisor To Millions" susan@personallifemedia.com CEO, Personal Life Media, Inc. My "Better Lover" Channel Instagram @SusanBratton Personal Life Media, Inc. 35 Miller Ave., #153 Mill Valley, CA 94941 USA Toll Free: (866) 731-9919 Main Number: +1(650)948-0500 support@personallifemedia.com Help us send you more relevant content. Click below to update your Account: Married | Single | Male | Female Your EMAIL preference: Explicit | Non-Explicit Contact Us | Unsubscribe Copyright © 2020 - Personallifemedia.com