We want our relationships to match our preferences. We want to be able to say that they are good and that they are right for us. And most of all, we want our relationships to work. But most people alive today have a totally inaccurate idea of how to go about finding and creating that kind of relationship. And as a result, we fail over and over again. 

Here is the process that most people think will lead to them having the right relationship; the relationship they want. 

1. To become aware of the relationship you want, what kind of person you want and what you want in that relationship
2. To find a model for that relationship, i.e., an example of someone who has the thing that you want. Or a teacher that is telling you what it should look like
3. To copy or emulate that model or that person who has what you want
4. To communicate what you want to other people and give them the example of the model you have found, in order to see if they are willing to also copy that model with you
5. If someone is not willing, move on and get rid of them, so you can look for someone else who would be willing to copy that model with you
6. If you and they are willing to emulate that model, it should work out

The problem is, this is not the process that a person needs to embark on in order to manifest the relationship that is right for them. It will not work. It doesn’t account for who a person actually is, only what they are willing to try to be. It doesn’t account for variables between you and the people or model you are emulating. It doesn’t account for compatibility or incompatibility beyond having the same vision. You don’t even know if that model is what will work for you and for what you need. You only imagine it will. That model may not be the way to get what you specifically want; you only think it will. And it does not account for your own ability or lack thereof, due to several variables, to actually live up to the standard of that model. It doesn’t account for even awareness of the ways that you, yourself are an oppositional force to the very thing you want. 

This is the actual process that will lead you to the right relationship for you.

1. To become aware of the relationship you want, what kind of person you want and what you want in that relationship
2. To become aware of what within you (beliefs, behaviors, actions etc.) is oppositional to the relationship you want
3. To resolve the root of those aspects of you that are oppositional to the relationship you want, so that you are in alignment with what you want
4. You will have different beliefs, different behaviors, make different decisions and take different actions because of this. Your conscious choices change to be in-alignment with the relationship you want
5. You assess your compatibility with other people that you come across, most especially their compatibility to what you want
6. You enter into the right arrangement with someone based on compatibility

To give you an example of how this works, let’s look at Mike. Mike wants to be in a relationship with a woman who really respects him as a man. Using the first process, he finds a model for that relationship… a social media star who produces content all about divine masculinity and that man’s wife. He emulates this man and he sends all of this man’s content to the women he is dating. And he tries to behave exactly how a masculine man is supposed to behave, so that he can find a woman who wants to have that same relationship with him. If a woman fights back about it, he just gets rid of her and doesn’t call her again. But he eventually finds a woman who would love to have that kind of relationship. So, the two of them use that relationship as a model and try their best to emulate that relationship and do all the right things to try to have that relationship. But it doesn’t go well. Each of them fails to live up to that model. Each of them has aspects within themselves that undermine their ability to actually create that ideal relationship. And so, the relationship they are in quickly becomes something they don’t want. Very quickly it becomes a relationship where he feels emasculated and controlled by her. And she feels like she is in a relationship with a little boy, which she finds pathetic. Pretty soon, they are fighting all the time. And both of them are feeling like failures because they can’t seem to create what that social media star has with his wife.

Using the second process, in seeing the ways that he, himself is oppositional to the very thing he wants, Mike realizes that he gives off all the signals of weakness. He chooses controlling women and he has a pattern of flipping the polarity in the relationships he gets into. When he looks at this, he finds that he has to resolve the split between the aspect of him that wants to be a man vs. the part of him that wants to be mothered. And he needs to resolve the trauma of having never felt parented. He also needs to change his belief that all relationships are “my way or the highway”, which leads him to behave in co-dependent ways in order to stay connected in relationships and avoid the threat of separation. 

As a result of doing this work, Mike starts to assert his needs in relationships. He approaches different women than he would have in the past… ones that don’t have “my way or the highway” written all over them. His masculine part is now the part leading the part of him that wants to be mothered. He leads his interactions with other people with what he is truly confident in, which causes him to have stronger body language. As a result of all of this, he attracts different women and gets a different response from them as well. He assesses compatibility with new women he meets, rather than co-dependently molding himself to their preferences. And he chooses to ask the woman who he feels is compatible and who will respect him as a man, to be his girlfriend.

While watching other people’s relationships potentially will provide you with an idea of something that might work really well for you too, emulating other people’s relationships won’t work. The reason being that you are not them. You don’t have the same body, the same life experiences, you’re not in the exact same situation. You’re not subject to the exact same variables. There are so many variables between two people. Because the variables between you and them are not the same, all you are looking at when you see a relationship that works, is a relationship that works for them, given all of their unique intricacies. Their relationship in its totality will not work for you. But some element of what they are doing (or many) might be something that works for you too. But that is still no guarantee that you will actually be able to do those things just because you’ve decided to do them. Which is why when it comes to finding the relationship that you want, the most important thing you can do is to recognize and resolve whatever about you is acting as an oppositional force to that very thing that you want.