You can speed up marriage to Mr. Right by slowing down your urge to rush into a relationship. Choose now to consciously slow the pace of the early dating and courtship stage so you can evaluate your mans long-term suitability to you. Slowing the pace also helps you overcome any residual fears you may have of intimacy. Slowing the pace will help keep you from losing your self at the start of a romance. Then youll be free to see the new man in your life as a person, not as a prize or as your only source of emotional validation or the answer to all your problems. Meet your need for approval. You dont need to look to anyone else for approval if you always have your own self-approval. As children we want the approval of our parents, but parents often withhold approval as a means of controlling children. In womanhood, this can translate into dating men who dont approve of you, so you can recreate, via the man in your life, your childhood story to win the approval of a parent. See the need for parental approval for what it is and abandon it. If you approve of yourself just as you are, you wont be drawn to men who tap into your need for approval and use it to control you. Meet your need to be loved. If you truly love yourself, you wont be a slave to your emotions; instead, youll easily reject men who treat you in less than loving, caring ways. Youll set a boundary that screens Mr. Right in and Mr. Wrong out. Start loving yourself by getting in touch with the child within you, and loving her the way you would a real child. If you truly love a child, you wont want to see that child hurt, abused, mistreated or deceived. Similarly, when you love yourself, you wont stand for hurtful, abusive treatment. Meet your need to value yourself. Dont be so eager for love that you give yourself away. When you value what you have to offer in a relationship, you wont be afraid to quickly screen out Mr. Wrongs. When you value who you are, you hold fast to your standards, no matter how tempting he appears to be or how badly you feel drawn to him. Youll value yourself enough to not settle for less than what you want or need. Meet your need for emotional support. Find people who mirror a positive self-image back to you. If you don't have a supportive family or friends, find new sources of support. For instance, keep looking until you find a house of worship that practices unconditional love and acceptance. Build a circle of friends around a common interest who edify you (and eliminate those who don't), or join a support group to help meet a particular need. Notice those occasions when you enter a room, for example, an exercise class, and find that the women there are happy to have you join them. Emotional support provides a healing form of validation that can keep you from pouncing on a Mr. Wrong. Meet your need to feel secure. Youll be free from the bondage of clinging to Mr. Wrong because youll feel whole enough to stand on your own. Feeling secure requires believing in yourself that youre a worthwhile, valuable woman with much to offer Mr. Right. Feeling secure means that you trust yourself enough to protect yourself from getting hurt. Feeling secure empowers you to control the pace of the courtship because you trust yourself enough to do so. Meet your need to matter. Dont give up your interests or your self. For instance, if youve ever dropped your friends the minute you started dating a new guy, youve given up those important friendships for someone too new to have proven himself more important to you than your friends. Youve placed the life you have second to your budding romance, which shows that you dont matter to yourself. You may think your lifestyle or social life isnt much, but it is yours. Don't trade it all in for his, because if a relationship with him doesnt pan out, youll be devastated. Meet your need to have a life. Mr. Right isnt attracted to a woman who wants to use his full life to fill her empty one. Building on what you've got. Join clubs, take lessons, volunteer, try new hobbies. The more you focus on getting your own life, the less youll want to violate his boundaries by over-involvement in his life. Whenever you feel the urge to fix or help your new suitor so he can fulfill his potential or straighten out the problems in his life (whether he wants your help or not), turn that energy inward and use it to fill your own needs and reach your own goals. Steer clear of violating his boundary to be himself. Before you give your heart and emotions to a man, be sure hes worthy of you. Make sure your needs are met before you allow your feelings to grow. We all want to feel as if we matter to someone, as if were important to someone we love. If you want to attract a husband who considers you the most important person in his life, the person who matters most to him, then act as if you matter to yourself. Dont fall for a new man without even knowing if you matter to him or not. Being No. 1 empowers you to wait to see if he treats you as if he cares about you and if hes meeting your needs before you allow your feelings to grow. Youll be in control of the pace of the courtship, as you should be, because what happens to you does matter. |
