Rebuilding Relationships Through Unconditional Love -The Importance of Unconditionally Loving All Aspects of Yourself

Dwight is a client who came to see us for Relationship Counselling because he had cheated on his wife Chloe. Dwight was caught cheating, he ended the relationship with the woman he was having an affair with, who we will call Eve, returning to his wife. Dwight apologized and promised on his life to his wife that he will do whatever it takes to make it up to her as well as repair and improve their marriage.

This is why he initially came to see us, with his wife for counselling. However, much to his own horror and to the distress of his wife, he wasn’t happy and found himself at a crossroads, he had discovered what he was missing in his marriage and it was what the woman he had an affair with had to offer. He was afraid that he couldn’t be authentic in his marriage anymore now since he discovered what he was missing.

Dwight came from a family who had repressed their Expressive sides. Expressives are people who are emotionally based, love people, are dominant and friendly, love appreciation, approval, centre stage, change their minds a lot, are charming, humorous and fun. They have excellent people skills.

Dwight’s family was seated in the Old C.A.P. which is a paradigm based on the belief that the world is scarce, there are limited resources and not enough for everyone so you have to fight to survive, it is either win or lose and failure is not option.

So in his family there was no time and no benefit to having fun and there was no such thing as freedom, only scarcity and hard work.

Dwight’s parents have been married for many years. Dwight felt that if he left his wife he would be a failure – after all his parents had survived together all these years.

Whether his parents were naturally compatible or not or whether they kept together by the Old C.A.P. and stubbornly refused to get divorced I don’t know, but that is actually a side issue.

The deeper issue is that Dwight has a repressed Expressive side and he had attracted a High Expressive by the name of Eve into his life in order to feel whole and vicariously live through her since he wouldn’t be able to accept and love himself if he expressed his Expressive side. This is because his parents wouldn’t have unconditionally loved him as a child if he had expressed himself and if he tried to have fun because of their Old C.A.P. got strive to survive belief system.

Now his wife Chloe has an Expressive side to her, that is why he was initially attracted to her but once their courtship was over, the patterns and emotional wounds from his parents kicked in and now he won’t allow and unconditionally love his wife’s Expressive side either.

So like his parents consciously or unconsciously – he is now preventing his wife from being Expressive also. What is interesting, is that Chloe’s own parents didn’t allow her to be Expressive either, they taught her that she had to be mature and responsible all the time, so she was looking for permission to have fun, but her pattern fits hand and glove with her husbands so once again, she is being forced to be mature and responsible all the time.

The result was that Dwight and Chloe have a muted, inauthentic, boring relationship because Dwight cannot accept his wife’s or his own Expressive side.

Eventually though, Dwight’s Expressive side was seeking fun and freedom which lead to his affair with a High Expressive in order to seek wholeness within himself.

Having so much fun and satisfaction with his Eve, he can now no longer go back to his mundane life with his wife Cloe even though he wants to stay with her because he loves her and was initially attracted to her.

The thing is, his wife Chloe has an Expressive side to her so there is a possibility that Dwight could have that spontaneous and fun life with her.

However regardless of whoever he chooses to be with or whoever his natural highest and best relationship is, he needs to heal his childhood patterns, wounds and any judgments he has about the Expressive personality in order to accept and unconditionally love that aspect of himself.

This is because otherwise he will continue to seek it outside of himself and once he does find that Expressive person outside himself, he will start to repress that other person’s Expressive side just as he did with his wife until the relationship is as stale and muted as his marriage is now.

When our Counsellor Leslie who was working with both Dwight and Chloe explained to them about their repressed Expressive sides, the importance of unconditionally loving themselves and what their wounds and patterns were, everything was so clear and obvious to them to the both of them, Dwight and Chloe agreed to put their relationship on hold and to both get individual therapy to heal and learn to unconditionally love themselves.

I’ll keep you posted on their evolution in a future article.

Special Note: By serendipity when I went to save this article I accidentally saved it under a different title then the one I originally was going to name it, the title that came up was “Rebuilding Relationships through Unconditional Love”. I don’t believe it was an accident, I forgot to include that couple healing and learning about unconditional love individually is actually the true way on how to rebuild a relationship because everyone gets to start on a clear slate that is not influenced by their past. With a clear slate people can truly find out if they are compatible and if they are, they can be full and authentic expressions of themselves in the relationship.

For more information on rebuilding your relationship and personal work or therapy, check out our new Counsellor Relationship Home Study Program at http://www.counsellorinabox.com/

Melody Chase