How to put an end to one-sided relationships

Who YOU date is entirely up to you.

Crazy thought, right?!

In the beginning of a relationship YOU are fully in control of who you date. YOU are fully in control of what you decide to do. YOU are fully in control of what you put up with.

Not embracing that power is how you end up in one-sided relationships.

A one sided relationship... It's where you’re into them but they’re not that into you.

Or they’re into you but you’re one foot in and one foot out.

Hesitation is what leads to those relationships because if you’re not saying NO in your dating life then essentially you’ve put all of the power in someone else's hands. You’re drifting in the wind hoping they make the decision. You're not respecting what you learned from your past relationships.

Why are we so hesitant to say NO in our dating lives?

We don’t want to throw away something that COULD be great? We don’t want to be too picky? We’re getting older and we're starting to panic? We think our standards are too high? We think we’re being unrealistic?

Sound familiar?

I’m NOT advocating for a mentality where you think you're perfect and you deserve 10/10 everything in life. I'm not advocating for a savage "no one is good enough for me" mindset. No one is perfect - including you and including me.

But you should say NO to the things you've ALREADY learned don't meet your standard.

That is the power of NO. You simply say no to what's already proven to be unworthy of you and your energy. You say NO to the things you learned through experience do not deserve you.

THAT is how you avoid one sided relationships.

- You say NO to needing to convince someone to choose you.

- You say NO to making excuses for someone.

- You say NO to begging for more.

- You say NO to begging to be understood.

Your past provides the WHY behind your NO.

If you've learned through experience that something is important to you... that’s all you need to know. It’s not a NO out of blue. It’s not a NO because social media says so. It’s not a NO because you’re scared.

It’s a NO that comes from experience. YOUR experience.

When that’s the case… NO doesn't make you selfish. It doesn't make you picky. It’s you honoring what you’ve learned!

And if you don’t act on what you learned from your past... did you actually learn it?

NO is you respecting that lesson.

- If you’ve learned it’s important someone respect their family, that’s a standard you NEED to respect moving forward.

- If you’ve learned it’s important someone accepts your boundaries, that’s a standard you NEED to respect moving forward.

- If you’ve learned it’s important someone has a full time job (i.e. financial security) - as superficial as it sounds - that’s a standard you NEED to respect moving forward.

You should value what you’ve learned. If you don’t, what was the point of that experience?

If you’ve had previous one-sided relationships and you don't say NO to the warning signs of future ones... what does that say?

It says you’re willing to begin another one sided relationship.

No! We all need to raise our standards.

The bar can’t be as low as if they're nice, funny and have a job that’s good enough for me. No matter how tired you are... you have to have a higher standard than that.

You have to have a standard that respects what you've already been through and what you've already learned.

You have to say NO if you’ve learned something in your past and you see it about to repeat itself in the present. Yes, make room for possibilities.

Yes, make room for someone who doesn't deliver on that thing immediately but wants to. Be open minded. Be patient. BUT remember to respect what you've learned.

NO is NOT setting you back. NO isn NOT a reflection of loss.

NO is self respect. The moment you say NO in the present you open yourself up to YES in the future.

BUT if you say YES or you don’t say anything at all when you know you should be saying NO… then you’re signing yourself up for a one sided relationship where the possibility of YES moves further and further away.

Turn to the power of NO early on. Turn to the power of your past experiences.

NO means you’ve actually learned from your past and you know you need more.

It’s ok to need more. It's not selfish. It's not greedy. You're not throwing away possibility.

You're simply trusting your intuition. You're trusting what you've learned.