In relationships, you shouldn’t fake it to make it.
As I continuously try to think about ways to help my clients so that they can have meaningful partnerships and marriages, there seems to be a running theme:
One person in the relationship isn’t coming into the relationship authentically.
They are coming as their ideal selves or who they want to be and not who they are.
This is one of the most critical mistakes you can make in your relationship. Later on, it leads to despair, sadness, and ultimately unhappiness when you don’t come as your full self.
This particularly happens with a lot of my clients who are cisgender women, regardless of sexual orientation.
If you don’t know yourself or what you want or what your desires are, then you need to invest time in yourself to figure that out. What are the things that make you happy about who you are dating? What are the things that you don’t like about them and do you think it’s sustainable over time if they never change? Can you really accept them for the way they are or are you settling or sacrificing things for other things?
For example, I had a client that met her husband at a swinger’s group where they frequently engaged in threesomes. They fell in love. Well, I should say that she fell in love with him. He fell in love with the person that he thought she was. After getting into a relationship, the threesomes stopped, and she never told him that her ideal lifestyle was being in a monogamous relationship where no other women are involved. To me, this feels like a bait and switch. Not being authentic on what you want in a relationship is not good and having someone fall in love with a fake version of yourself is cruel to me.
Some women put on a show and actually show their “representative” and maintain with that representative for a long period of time, even to the point of getting into a marriage, only to find out that the person they were pretending to be is the person that’s actually compatible with their partner instead of the person they actually are.
It turns out, the person they actually are, are truly not compatible with the person they’re with, but they don’t want to sacrifice the life they have made and the bond that they have with that person, despite the false pretenses.
It’s heartbreaking. Literally.
If you’re going to sacrifice an aspect of yourself for something else, I believe that you don’t have the right to complain about your situation. Getting upset with your spouse because they are thrown off by your authenticity that now you’ve decided it’s best to be out about who you really are is incredibly deceptive and clearly not sustainable over time.
For example, if your partner makes a lot of money and they are really messy and you decide at the beginning of the relationship that you are okay with this sacrifice and that you’ll be cleaning up for the rest of your life, then you can’t complain. You need to accept them the way they are, just like they accepted you for the way that you are.
To put it simply:
Know yourself in and out, including possible curiosities and potential fantasies and relationship ideals.
Don’t enter in a relationship with your “representative” or your ideal self or a person that your partner wants you to be.
If you enter a relationship under false pretenses, don’t complain about what your partner is or isn’t doing. You are the one who ultimately made the decision.
I know this may sound harsh to some people because when I’ve talked to them, they tend to go “but we have a great relationship and friendship besides A, B, C, and D.”
Just like love isn’t enough to sustain a relationship, neither is upholding a personality or characteristics that are not yours to begin with.
Be you. Be authentic. Be the person that makes you happy and brings you joy each and every day.
Cheers to your sexual success!