This week I was home in Ohio.

Right before I was about to leave my home to fly back to NYC. Both my parents cooked an Indian meal for me…mmm…mmm good.

One of my clients, Brianna, was talking to me recently about how she has been out on a ton of dates in the last few years.

She said to me, “What gives Kavita?! Ever since that relationship, I feel like men are going to leave me just like he did, no matter how great they seem.”

Have you ever experienced this?

Well, I am using Brianna’s story as a way for you to unravel how this may be stopping you in love and attracts men that aren’t relationship ready.

And as usual I am going deep so take some time to go there with me.

Now Brianna felt that men always leave for the “next best thing” or because it’s in their nature to change their minds about what they really want.

To give you some background, Brianna thought her last relationship would really be her LAST relationship.

They were all in.

They had moved in together and planned on getting married.

But then he broke up with her.

She was deeply hurt and it took her a while to even want to start dating.

She assumed that the next guy, whoever he was, would leave her too.

I knew better. There was something deeper going on.

She was feeling insecure in love.

You see, when Brianna was younger, her mom received a letter from another woman that her dad was seeing, divulging the situation.

In that moment, everything for Brianna changed.

“It was like I knew my dad was one way for all my life, and then in one second he changed to be someone else, even though my parents stayed together” she said.

I told her, “Okay so THAT is really where this is coming from. This feeling that men will always leave or change is not coming from the experience of that happening to you in your last relationship. It is coming from what you experienced with your dad, which taught you that men change over time and they eventually want someone else.”

I went on, knowing that the answer to this would be the key to releasing this for her.

“Let me ask you something. After your mom received that letter, did you notice your dad acting any differently towards you? Did your relationship with him change?”

“Actually,” she said as tears started streaming down her face, “Now that you mention it, he was even more loving to me during that time. Our relationship actually got stronger.”

Without realizing it, Brianna had taken on the situation between her mom and dad as if it had happened to her.

The way she talked about it, it was as if at the same time that her father potentially left her mom, he left her too. She had judged him for it for all these years.

She said to me, “Kavita, I didn’t realize that he’s loved me this entire time. Through everything, he’s never changed with ME.”

“Exactly” I said. “And that anger you’ve been carrying around is between your mom and dad. Your parents moved forward and so you can honor that for them, and really let in the strength of your relationship with your dad.”

She stopped talking because she was so choked up with emotion.

I said, “Tell me what the emotion is when you are ready.”

She took her time, and through the tears she got out, “I feel so much love around me and from him in particular.”

Brianna let out a sigh of relief and said, “WOW. All of a sudden I just don’t feel as heavy. I can feel whatever was stopping me from really putting myself out there and dating has immediately melted away. I want to give the right guy a fighting chance and know that he will be there for me!” she laughed.

With this realization, Brianna was ready to give dating a try again, and I just found out she has a date next week with a guy she’s really excited about! Boom 🙂

I know that she is not alone in feeling like men will always leave for the “next best thing” or because it’s in their nature to change their minds.

But it really makes me angry because I hear so many women say “I’ve just been treated so poorly by men in the past, thats why my relationships never work out. Men are jerks! Or I seem to attract men that leave.”

Sigh.

Honestly, it is much deeper than thinking that one heart break (or several) have tainted your view of love. This is soooo not the case. And going back to that is only keeping you stuck in a pattern of attracting in men that leave.

There was something somewhere along the way in terms of your interactions with your dad or mom or from early childhood that has shaped this idea that men change or leave.

Simply put, relationships are a reflection of what is going on inside of us, so take some time to think about that.

So if you’ve been carrying this belief around with you, your Lovework for this week is to tell me over in the comments below what your earliest memory of someone leaving you or changing is.

Was it a parent, father-figure or close childhood friend?

And once you pinpoint it, can you see the situation differently like Brianna did?

Let me know.

I’d love to hear from you!

In Love,