1, "Mutual love doesn’t exist"
After getting a heartbreak this is a common belief that can develop in us in order to protect ourselves. The rule is: not to love deeply anyone, so we don’t get hurt in the upcoming relationship(s).
However what we are really truly looking for is mutuality.
Thus building a new relationship without deeply loving feelings won’t satisfy us (neither our partner) on a long term, just causes more pain on both sides.
This belief has many different varieties, but one thing is the same: the believer can imagine only two possible roles in relationships: they believe every couple is formed by a “head in pink clouds”-one and a “not really in love” one. Indeed, those relationships exist. However, these
unbalanced relations are just a slice of the pie of “relationships”.
Getting out of this mindset can be difficult. When you live in unbalanced (dependent-independent) relations one after the other you don't allow yourself to have a personal experience of a mutual relationship and you project your own experience on all the other relationships that you see around you.
Mutually loving relationships exist, but when one's hypothesis is that they don't, that doesn't recognize them
- screens them out from their consciousness - because of the contradiction.
An advanced- bit more friendly- version of this belief is that mutuality is exist in a way that the roles (“pink clouds” or “sober”) are switching between the partners. These relationships
also exist, however they usually turn to a never ending break up- make up story. This on-off patterns come from the fact that the partners have to switch roles and that is always easier by taking distance with a break up.
It is important to acknowledge that mutuality exists in romantic relationships just as like it exists in friendships. When two men meet and they find a lot of common values and interests, they probably want to see each other again. If they meet several times and they enjoy the time together they become friends. When they don’t see each other for a while and they don’t miss each other anymore, their connection fades away.
This is the same with relationships:
Mutuality creates the connection.
If there is mutual interest, there is connection, if there isn't, the connection is not there anymore.
2, "I am only attracted to men/women that I shouldn’t."
It's might be you, who is dating for long time and still hasn't found the right one? I used to go like this: “I am always attracted to guys who don’t really care about me, but the ones that are caring and loving, I am not interested in.”
My own experience was that this is never really about the other person but about ourselves:
If we don’t appreciate ourselves enough, we can’t accept that someone else does.
On the other hand if we have low self confidence (or we think we don't deserve love) a cold person that acts uninterested would fit in this self-image completely. This usually turns into an ego-game: if we manage to raise the interest of this person, that means we are "good" enough, but then our self confidence will depend on the other's actions instead of our own self.
Thus, remember to love yourself first.
If you do, you won’t like people who don’t care about you, and you can appreciate if someone does.
The other version of this belief is: “I am attracted to men/women who are not really my match. I always choose wrong.” It takes a good amount of consciousness to realize this pattern. We often sabotage ourselves in finding a long-term relationship, and we choose partners that don’t fit our personality or values.
It is important to acknowledge this pattern but not enough: we should start to make steps to be more conscious when it comes to dating. We should keep it in mind what kind of personality traits, common values or interests we are looking for in a new partner. We have to
discover those unconscious strategies that guided you to wrong partners in the past, and create better ones.
For such a case I would use these affirmations on a daily basis:
“I am only attracted to men/women with who I can build a mutually loving relationship on a long term”
“I can easily see who could be a right partner for me.”
“I am only attracted to people who are also attracted to me.”
“I am attracted to men/women who are physically, mentally, emotionally matching with me.”
3, "I am sure there is someone for me but it is hard to find him/her."
This is a typical sentence of a person, who wants a good relationship but still not ready for it. That’s why it is easy to blame the circumstances instead of thinking about why is it so difficult to be open for a new relationship.
It takes effort to find a partner with who we can support each other on a long term. We
need to be open for it, look for it, think about it.
If we are busy with an other segment of our lives, that is fine. Admit it, and give yourself some time.
Remember: to find someone takes two things: love ourselves and energy to look for the right partner. If these two steps you take, the right person will come to you.
4, "It is not possible to have a successful career and be in a good relationship on the same time."
I remember when we played cards with my grandfather and whenever I lost he said: “One has no luck in cards, is lucky in love”. I interpreted this phrase like: one who is successful in career, cannot be happy in a relationship as well.
This belief is grounded deeply in our culture, and connected to the belief that poor people don't have money but at least they have something else: love. This is just a justification that we use in order to "give" something to poor people, and "get" something from the successful ones.
And just as other beliefs,
if this is our hypothesis we only recognize those successful people around us or in the media who are lonely.
There are phenomenons that support this belief very easily. For instance when one of the partners have long lasting hardships in career, it is easy to project the problems on the relationship. It takes a lot of consciousness not to make the mistake and blame our partner for our own misfortune or struggle at work.
A successful career (on both sides) and being able to deal with challenges by each other’s support can be the base of a harmonic relationship.
Just as mutual and non-mutual relationships: there are lot of examples for people with success and love on the same time . It is important to acknowledge that we deserve success and long lasting relationships on the same time, the two things don’t exclude each other, but walk hand in hand.