BY RUTH L. SCHWARTZ, PH.D.

Dear CG,

Help! I always end up with bisexual women who end up leaving me for men. This is the fourth time it’s happened! In the beginning they always gush on and on: “You’re so beautiful, you’re such a goddess” and I fall for it every time. Then later they’re like “Well, I’m sorry, I really like you, but…” My heart can’t take this any more! What is wrong, and how can I fix it??

S.D., Chicago

Dear S.D.,

Ouch. That does sound incredibly painful. I am so sorry you are going through this.

The issue really isn’t that your partners are bisexual, though. (Bisexual women are just as capable of committing to one partner as anyone else.) We hear from lots of women who have similar patterns that play out just a little differently. For instance, “I always fall for women that aren’t over their exes yet,” or “I always fall for women who are poly, even though I want a monogamous relationship,” or “I always fall for women who live far away.”

So, let’s look at what these scenarios have in common. They all involve someone who thinks, “I’m here, I’m available, my heart is open – why can’t I meet my match?”

What I’ve discovered time and time again, both in my personal experience and with my therapy clients, is this:

When you feel like you’re saying Yes and the universe is saying No, the truth is that somewhere inside of you, there is also a big loud No – and that’s what the universe is echoing.

Please know that I’m not saying you want or deserve this situation. Of course you don’t want it or deserve it. And it’s not your “fault.” Yet somewhere inside of you, there are beliefs, fears or needs that are leading you to re-create it, to get drawn into it, again and again.

Now, it can be very painful to face this truth – but ultimately it’s a joyful and empowering truth, because it means that since you have been (unconsciously) creating your own suffering, you have the power to change it! (Which is part of why we at Conscious Girlfriend love to say, “You have the power to transform your relationship destiny!”)

Here is an exercise I often do with clients to help them locate that inner “No.” If you’re brave enough, you can even do it by yourself. Here’s how.

Let yourself get into a calm, centered, meditative state. Relax, breathe deeply, feel the surfaces underneath you, remember your connection to the earth, and to yourself. Place a hand on your own heart. Come into your body as fully as you can.

Then try on a preview of what you believe you want. Say to yourself, “Okay, I’ve met my match. She is completely, 100 percent available. She’s single and unattached, she lives nearby, I’m just her type, she’s just my type, she’s perfect for me and she’s totally into me. All systems are GO.”

Now, closely observe what happens in your body. Is there a feeling of loosening, opening, a whole-body YES? Or is there any part of you that tightens up, shuts down, goes into disbelief, fear, numbness?

If it feels like 100 percent of you is saying “Yes,” just stick with the image. Let yourself really try on the scenario in technicolor. Let the movie keep running – in fact, see if you can invite it off the movie screen and into your body. Imagine as fully as you can, “She’s real. She’s here. She’s available. Nothing stands in the way of our having a full partnership.”

I would bet a large sum of money that as you continue to try this on, you will start to notice some part of you that balks, that closes up.

I remember when this really became clear to me in my own life. I was on my third relationship in a row with someone who wasn’t fully available. I’m a creative person, so at least I had varied the pattern a bit. The first time, my girlfriend led me to believe she was single, but somehow, her last live-in girlfriend believed they were still together. (Huh?!) Then she stayed out drinking with another ex till 5:00 a.m. Then she moved across the country. Then she ended up moving back in with the woman whom she had supposedly broken up with shortly before we met. I was madly in love with her, and totally shattered.

My next girlfriend appeared infinitely more available. Her unavailability was much more subtle. Over time, she stopped hugging me when we saw each other. She stopped wanting sex. She became withdrawn and mean.

And the girlfriend after that was officially unavailable. She had a primary partner with whom she was no longer sexual, from whom she’d obtained permission to have a lover on the side – and because I was trying to heal this pattern of mine (even though I didn’t know it at the time!), I signed on to be her once-a-week love muffin – although that wasn’t what I wanted at all.

So, what was at the bottom of this? I’ll cut to the chase, though it took a lot of self-exploration and some work with my healer to get there. My father was loving, but also invasive and sexually abusive; my mother was loving, but often fearful and unhappy – and she had poor boundaries, so her feelings oozed onto and into me. This set me up to want and expect love, but also to believe I had to protect myself from it. In essence, I created an energetic “electric fence” around myself to keep both my parents out. I felt safe that way, but also very, very lonely — which made me more and more desperate to connect with others. But since I didn’t really trust them not to invade or abuse me, I kept my fence up. This meant that the truly available women I longed for couldn’t get to me — because the fence kept me from being available. So I only attracted women who, like me, were ambivalent about connection.

Are you still with me here?

Once I really understood this pattern and took full responsibility for it, I could finally heal it. I had to do some inner child work to let my younger self know it could be safe to be close. That took a number of hypnotherapy sessions, and some intense emotion. But things shifted.

Then I played out the opposite side of the pattern with the next few women I (briefly) dated. They tried to glom onto me immediately, and I became the “unavailable” one for them! I learned a lot from that, and it helped me understand even better why it had felt safer to me to be always yearning than to feel swallowed, engulfed and invaded.

But to tell you the truth, both sides of the equation felt bad. So I did a smart thing: I stepped way back and took some time off from relationships. I spent a couple of years single, really working on being connected to myself.

And then I met Michelle, and we’ve lived happily ever after.

(Seriously, of course Michelle and I have growing, learning and healing to do together, too. But it’s fascinating to me to see that when this issue of “availability” does surface between us, it’s only the palest, faintest shadow of its former self. Michelle is deep, sweet warm and present, but when she gets overwhelmed, she has a tendency to kind of fade out, or pull back into herself like a turtle into its shell for a little while, and sometimes I notice just the tiniest little twang of a trigger in myself. But we can both recognize what’s going on, talk it through, take the space we need, and then joyfully, lovingly and consciously re-connect.)

I hope this personal story is helpful to you, S.D. Your own particulars are undoubtedly different, but I’d bet that when you look closely enough, you’ll find a part of yourself that says No to closeness (as well as the part you’re more aware of, that yearns for it.) That means you’ve got a split intention – which is kind of like having one foot on the gas, and another on the brake. The “vehicle” of your relationship life just can’t get very far that way. So the answer lies in doing more healing around whatever in you has led you to re-create this pattern – so that you can find the truly satisfying love you want and deserve.

I’m rooting for you!

Love,
Ruth

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too!

Learn more about bisexual dating, including bisexual stigmas and how to connect with queer and open-minded folks

The post Ask Conscious Girlfriend: I always date bisexual women who leave me for men first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY RUTH L. SCHWARTZ, PH.D.

In the first part of this article, “The Goldilocks Dilemma: Navigating Closeness and Distance in Lesbian/Queer Relationships,” we explored the reason why so many lesbians and queer women struggle with difficult feelings when our partner seems to get too far away — or when she seems to get too close. Because these feelings (which we call “primal abandonment panic,” or PAP, and “primal engulfment panic,” or PEP) have such deep roots in our brains and psyches, they can wreak havoc in our intimate relationships.

Infants — which all of us once were — are wired to respond with outrage and desperation if the person who is taking care of them becomes unavailable. Their lives literally depend on it! And even as adults, our intimate relationships (and breakups) can trigger this same response. Because we get emotionally attached to our girlfriends, having them seem distant can feel unbearable.

Yet two-year-olds — which all of us also were — are wired to individuate from their mothers. This need, too, is pivotal to our human development. So even decades later, if a girlfriend seems too clingy or demanding, our response may also have an over-sized force.

Part I of this article profiled two couples: Jerri and Lou, and Elise and Susan. Jerri and Lou struggled because Jerri wanted to spend entire weekends at Lou’s place, and Lou, an introvert who was used to more time alone, felt suffocated. Elise and Susan fought because Elise, who had grown up with an abusive mother, wanted frequent phone calls from Susan; these calls helped reassure Elise that she was lovable. But Susan, an entrepreneur, wanted more time to focus on her business without “demands” from Elise.

None of these women are wrong, and none are right. There is no “correct” amount of time for couples to spend together in person or on the phone; these kinds of choices are always a negotiation between two people with different needs, patterns and priorities. And coming up against these differences doesn’t have to become a huge problem – when neither person is triggered. Often, however, one or both peoples’ PAP or PEP gets set off, so rather than remaining a simple negotiation (like, “I’d like Chinese food tonight,” “Well, I’m more in the mood for Italian,”) differences in the arena of closeness and distance can start to feel like a life-or-death battle.

Many lesbian couples break up over these issues — not necessarily because they truly can’t work out how much or what kinds of time to spend together, but because the feelings that get brought up for one or both women can feel like too much to handle. If the fury, despair and panic that comes up around issues of closeness and distance actually stems from times and places much earlier in our lives, it makes sense that it can’t be effectively addressed by usual “adult” means, like rational conversation and compromise. Yet of course, irrational adult conversations and fights don’t help, either — so what’s a lesbian to do?

When we are in a primal state of panic, having a “PAP” or “PEP” attack, we need to attend to ourselves. Although our feelings can feel huge and terrifying, we are larger than they are. No matter how strong they get, feelings are always temporary. The truth is, we couldn’t hold onto them forever even if we tried! They have their own life-cycle, and they will move and shift. Yet trying to suppress them or talk ourselves out of them actually gets them stuck inside us, and makes them last longer. Instead, we must summon our emotional courage and resources so that we can be with the feelings, rather than being them.

Deciding to be with the feelings is like “steering into the skid.” As people who live in snowy climates know, “steering into the skid” is the only way to stay safe if you’re driving on an icy road. When your wheel starts sliding to the right, it seems natural to want to jerk it to the left — yet doing that will actually worsen your car’s drift to the right! Strangely enough, actually turning the wheel in the same direction as the skid is the only way to straighten out your car’s path.

As someone who has experienced a lot of both PAP and PEP, I can speak to this firsthand. I still remember one night about 12 years ago that proved to be a turning point for me. My girlfriend Jana was spending the day helping some friends paint their house, and at 6:00, just when she was supposed to get to my place, she called to say she’d be late. “How late?” I asked, my voice tight. (Jana’s schedule had already been an issue between us; I felt as if I always had to fight for time with her.) Jana sounded reluctant to answer. “Um, maybe 7:30?” At 8:00 she called again, and again at 9:00. She didn’t get to my house until 9:30.

From 6:00 to 8:00 that night, between Jana’s first and second phone calls, I cried and raged in a way that was very familiar to me. My head was filled with imaginary arguments with Jana in which I proved to her once and for all that she was wrong and I was right.

But I’d been living with this pattern for enough years already that I recognized it as a dead end.

So, after Jana’s second phone call, I did something I’d never done before: I lay down on my couch determined to let the storms of feeling move through my body without believing their “stories.” I pulled an old blanket over my head, cried, wailed and shook. Deliberately shifting myself beyond the “I’m right, she’s wrong” story, I turned into the skid.

Feelings are very different from the stories we tell ourselves (and other people) about those feelings. Stories have no natural end-point, but feelings do. So it didn’t actually take a full hour; it was more like 15 or 20 minutes of crying and shaking. Eventually, I began to feel more calm. I got up, blew my nose, and then lay down again, feeling cautiously around my inner landscape. It felt like a place where something enormous had shattered, and I wanted to make sure I’d swept up all the glass. Yes, it felt pretty clear in there. Jana’s lateness was annoying, yet it also wasn’t that big a deal.

By the time Jana got to my house that night, I was genuinely calm. Not faking it, not stuffing my feelings, but calm. I had entered some new country within myself, and planted a flag.

Without knowing it, I had used the SCORE process for the very first time.

SCORE is the Conscious Girlfriend go-to method when we get triggered. Here’s what the letters stand for:

S – Step back into yourself
C – Connect to yourself with compassion
O – Open to observe your feelings (and their true origin)
R – Remember your responsibility for your feelings — and relinquish responsibility for anyone else’s
E – Experience empowerment

SCORE sounds simple, but often it’s not easy. One big reason for that is that when we get triggered, our “reptile brain,” the part of our neurology designed to protect us from life-threatening harm, goes into high alert. That’s why the “S” step is so important. Unless we deliberately step back into ourselves — through our conscious intention, and by reminding ourselves to take 5-10 long, deep, slow breaths — we will stay caught in the grip of a full-body reaction, feeling as if we’re fighting for our lives. And yes, the word “fight” is important there. Trying to communicate when we’re in this state definitely leads to fights with our girlfriends!

So the S step allows time for our cognitive, rational brains to come back online. But even once that happens, we can still stay stuck if we remain caught up in our inner movie-scripts about ourselves and other people. “I’m a victim.” “I never get what I need, want, deserve.” Those are stories. “I’m flawed, defective, unlovable. I don’t deserve any better than this.” Those are stories, too. And both sets of stories are equally painful in different ways — which is why it’s so important to connect with ourselves with compassion before going any further.

For many of us, it’s difficult to extend compassion toward ourselves. But it’s actually a crucial step in being able to have good relationships. If we’re not able to be self-loving, we often become what Buddhism calls “hungry ghosts,” who are depicted as beings with huge empty bellies and tiny little throats. In other words, we constantly seek love from other people, but we’re unable to really take it in.

Some people have a pattern of blaming ourselves or making ourselves wrong. Our inner monologue can be like a war zone in which we’re constantly aiming missiles at ourselves: “You idiot, you crybaby, you loser! How could you be so stupid?” The problem is that it’s very hard for people in war zones to trust, relax and receive, even if someone else actually wants to give to them. So this “C” step is important not just when we’re triggered, but actually all the time. The more we become able to be genuinely gentle and loving with ourselves, the more love we’ll be able to take in from others, too.

By the way, self-love and self-compassion are very different from self-pity or self-righteousness. When we are truly extending love and compassion toward ourselves, there’s actually no need for self-righteousness — we don’t need to feel “right” or feel sorry for ourselves because we’re getting what we actually need, i.e., love.

So, back to my revelation on the couch, that night when Jana was so late. My own pattern wasn’t one of self-blame, but rather of blaming others. I was very good at internally making my girlfriends wrong, rather than feeling all the feelings that came up when I got triggered. And of course, there were always things for me to find fault with. For instance, Jana’s change in plans was inconsiderate. Yet as I said above, holding onto a mental story in which I was continually victimized by inconsiderate girlfriends was an emotional dead-end for me — as were the fights in which I tried to forcibly “get more” from someone who didn’t want to give it.

So, when I opened to observe my feelings, I realized that I often felt let down by people close to me, and resentful about how much I gave, and they took. Yet I had known when I got involved with Jana that she would generally only have time to see me once a week. I had walked into the situation with my eyes wide open, so I had to take responsibility for that; Jana had never actually promised something that she couldn’t deliver.

The truth was, I could take what Jana was able to give me (and do my best to be content with it), or I could leave it (and leave her). Those were my two options — Doors #1 and 2. I’d been trying with all my might to create a Door #3, a change in Jana that just wasn’t in my power to make happen. And of course, trying to demand more from Jana always backfired, because it made her want to see me less, not more.

Still, the storms of emotion needed to pass through me, so I shook and wept. But at the same time, the observer in me began to detach from my story of victim-hood. I saw that I needed to deal with my feelings of deprivation myself, rather than trying to insist that Jana take them on. And this was actually an empowering realization: that I could deal with them myself!

As I continued looking within, I realized even more. For instance, my resentment at Jana’s lateness and general lack of availability was only one of a number of complaints I had been nursing. I also felt frustrated and angry that I both cooked dinner for Jana every week, and did all the clean-up.

But when I really thought about it, I realized that Jana had often offered to bring some take-out, and I always declined. Sometimes she had started washing dishes afterward, too, but I always made her to stop — both because she washed dishes so slowly that it bugged me, and because I didn’t want to waste our precious moments together on clean-up. I saw now that I had choices I hadn’t even realized I had. I could accept Jana’s offer to bring take-out some nights. I could let her do the dishes, even in her slow, methodical way. And/or, I could accept that it was my choice to do all the cooking and clean-up, rather than telling myself a story in which Jana was taking advantage of me.

As you can probably see, I was moving internally through the steps of SCORE: observing my feelings, taking responsibility for them and then feeling empowered!

I think Jana was probably primed for me to be angry, and was quite surprised when I was calm and pleasant with her that evening (despite her arriving 3 hours later than planned!) But the best surprise was how I felt inside. Shifting my attention from blaming Jana and feeling deprived, to recognizing the ways I had co-created the circumstances that frustrated me, was incredibly freeing.

So, back to Jerri and Lou, and Elise and Susan. When I explained the SCORE Process, Jerri was skeptical at first. Her first response was, “But most people spend the whole weekend with their girlfriends. I’m only asking for what’s reasonable.”

“But you’re not with ‘most people.’ You’re with Lou. She’s a very particular person, with particular needs,” I answered.

“But what about my needs?” Jerri persisted. “Am I supposed to just pretend they don’t exist?”

“No, of course not. But you do have some choices. You can explore the places inside you that get so upset about Lou’s needs, and see if there’s room for some flex and some healing inside of you. Maybe some part of you would actually enjoy spending part of the weekend on your own, too, if you made room for that to emerge.”

That got Jerri’s attention. “Hmmm. It is true that my friend Zoe invited me to go for a ski weekend, and I said No even though it sounded like fun. I just thought it wasn’t right for someone in a relationship to go off for the weekend with someone else. Don’t partners need to spend time with each other?”

“Of course, but they also need to spend time alone, and with other people. If you and Lou really love each other, time apart will just make you even happier to see each other.”

Jerri looked thoughtful — and a few weeks later, she emailed me to say she had spent some time with her own anxiety, and it had lessened. Then she’d gone skiing with her friend Zoe, and Lou had been thrilled to see her when she got back. “There is hope for this relationship after all,” Jerri wrote.

Elise and Susan’s process was similar. Elise was already aware that she’d been looking to Susan to convince her that she was loveable, and she understood that that wasn’t really Susan’s job. So she began, instead, to use a metta (loving kindness) prayer I gave her: May I be peaceful. May I be happy. May I know my truth worth. May I open to fully receiving and giving love.

“I feel so much more full inside,” she told me a week later. “I really can’t believe the change. You know, it’s okay for Susan to just call when she feels like calling, because I don’t feel that — that desperate hunger inside me any more.”

Not every PAP and PEP story has this same happy ending. Sometimes, two peoples’ needs really are incompatible, and the best solution is for them to part, rather than continuing to battle it out. But very often, working with the underlying issues can not only smooth things out, but even lead to surprises.

“You know, sometimes these days Susan wants to talk on the phone more often than I do!” Elise told me a few months later. “I still love her and feel connected to her, but I’ve gotten so much more involved with my book group and biking club. I feel like now when I want to talk to Susan, it’s about actually talking with her, rather than just filling a need of my own.”

Jerri reported something similar. “I never would have thought I’d be saying this, but I’ve actually come to appreciate the fact that Lou likes to spend some alone time on the weekends,” she told me five months after our first conversation. “It actually makes me feel so much more free. I love being able to make plans with my friends now, without feeling guilty about it. It’s like getting to ‘have my cake and eat it too!’ And then when I do spend time with Lou, we really enjoy each other so much more fully than we used to. She’s ready to come out of her shell and play, and I’m ready to calm down a bit so we meet in the middle, and it works out perfectly.”

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too!

The post Too hot, too cold, just right: Closeness, distance in lesbian relationships first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY RUTH L. SCHWARTZ, PH.D.

It was my favorite carry-on suitcase. A decade ago, it served me well all the way to India and back. So when the fabric ripped, I didn’t want to throw it out — but the luggage repair shop’s quote was outrageous. I felt very pleased with my ingenious solution: one large needle, some dental floss, and ten minutes later, my suitcase was travel-worthy again.

In contrast, Michelle’s carry-on looked sleek, sporty and new. “Will you be embarrassed to be seen with me?” I joked.

She considered. “To tell you the truth, it would bother me if it were mine. But it’s okay if it’s yours.

Ever diplomatic and respectful, Michelle would never tell me what to do. But I also didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. So I decided to look further into this difference of ours. Was it simply a personality quirk, or was there something more?

Michelle and I are soul mates from different backgrounds. She’s African American and Christian, while I’m white and Jewish. On the surface, we’re from similar social classes — her father a lawyer, mine a doctor — but our families’ approaches to money were dramatically different. During my growing-up years, my father threw his money around flamboyantly, while Michelle’s father closely guarded his. Yet my family never took vacations, whereas Michelle’s family traveled frequently, always staying in 5-star hotels.

How do our race, class, ethnic group and religion affect the ways we think, feel and perceive? Obviously, there is no simple answer to this question; all of us are formed by many factors, both external and internal. There is tremendous diversity within every race, class and ethnic background — and even within a single family, siblings often emerge with very different attitudes. It’s always problematic to assume that anyone will have certain preferences or points of view “because” of their background — yet it’s also unrealistic to imagine that our backgrounds play no part in shaping our experience.

Decades ago, the African-American lesbian feminist poet Pat Parker wrote a classic poem titled, “For the White Person Who Wants to Know How To Be My Friend.” Part of the poem read, “First, you must forget that I’m Black. Second, you must never forget that I’m Black.” This poem comes to my mind often when I run into differences between Michelle and me.

“My parents cared a great deal about how luggage looked,” Michelle reflects now.

“Do you think that was partly because of race?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

I know enough to understand that this wasn’t just a personality quirk on Michelle’s parents’ part; it was likely a way of staying safe. In a racist world, it’s dangerous to be a scruffy-looking African American. (Would Trayvon Martin have been less likely to get shot if he’d been wearing a business suit, or maybe creased chinos and an alligator-embossed shirt, instead of a hoodie?)

Could my thriftiness also be related to my culture? Jews have been oppressed in many societies, too, and centuries ago became money-lenders at a time when Christians were forbidden to do so because it was considered sinful. Perhaps that’s why Jews are stereotypically careful with money — what some non-Jews call “cheap.” My father certainly didn’t uphold that cultural stereotype, but both of my grandmothers were frugal, so maybe I’m a throwback.

Why is it important for us as lesbians to be aware of our partner’s background, and of how that may — or may not — influence her? Well, for one thing, it’s simply part of the intimacy-building practice of seeing, knowing and understanding one another. But we also teach people to do this kind of exploration in our coaching and at our retreats, because it can be a big part of avoiding unnecessary conflict.

Now, ultimately, it could be that Michelle just likes nice-looking luggage, and I just prefer using things for as long as I can, regardless of our backgrounds. After all, plenty of white Jewish women might have been bothered by my ratty carry-on, too! But without curiosity, compassion and respect — and the ability to acknowledge what comes up for us — we might quickly get lost down the rabbit hole of conflict. For instance:

“Why are you bringing that crappy old suitcase?” Michelle might have asked me (sounding critical because she was feeling, but not acknowledging, discomfort at the thought of being seen with my suitcase.)

“Because I fix things rather than get rid of them. That’s why I’ve got more money in the bank than you do,” I might have responded self-righteously (returning Michelle’s perceived attack with one of my own.)

Uh-oh! That conversation is likely to turn into a fight or a strained misunderstanding, rather than an opportunity for us to come to know ourselves and our partners more intimately. Far better to be able to directly name what we’re feeling, look with interest at the factors that may have influenced us, and discuss them openly!

Of course, even though we’re of different races, both Michelle and I grew up with financial privilege — so in many ways, our differences are less pronounced than those we’ve each experienced with other partners who grew up poor. (That’s the subject for another article.) But the bottom line is, when we can talk openly and respectfully about our differences, whatever they may be — and also inquire with compassionate curiosity into where they may have come from — those differences don’t have to divide us.

By the way, I did end up taking the dental-floss-repaired carry-on on our trip, after Michelle declared it was really fine with her. And my repairs held up, but now the bag has developed yet another rip. Should I finally throw it out this time, or should I sew it up yet again? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think!

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too!

The post Class, race, ethnicity: How dental floss taught me a lesson about respect first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY RUTH L. SCHWARTZ, PH.D.

It was April 2000. With the woman I’d been madly in love with since the previous summer, a woman I’d literally wanted since the first moment I saw her. She’d signed up to take a workshop with me at a writing conference and told me later that she’d felt a sense of “destiny” when she first saw my photo on the flyer. So, very quickly and intensely, we were both hooked.

Our relationship wasn’t easy, yet it was the first one in which I’d ever wanted forever. There was something about Sarah that opened me up to a joy I’d never felt before in another person’s presence. As the love songs say, I loved “every little thing about her.” She wrote amazing poetry, she kept a huge unabridged dictionary open on her dining-room table, she collected dead dragonflies in boxes. And she was beautiful and ephemeral, great in bed and hard to pin down.

She ended it by phone, from 3,000 miles away. She couldn’t even give me a clear reason. After we hung up, the room spun. I huddled in my stuffed green chair, crying. Briefly, I wanted to hate her. No, I wanted to love her. I did love her. But our relationship had been a kind of Eden for me, lush, magical and dangerous. Now, I had been kicked out.

I had no idea how to handle that much pain. I called a psychic. I called a friend. Late another night, I called a suicide hotline. I barely ate. Rationally, I knew I’d had a life before Sarah, so presumably I could have one after her. But to the part of me crumpled in the green chair, nothing was real except the fact that Sarah was gone.

As it turned out, she wasn’t. A month later, she started spending weekends with me again, but without letting me call it a relationship. Four months later she left again, but called and sent postcards as she made her way back across the country to reunite with her ex. Three months after that, she invited me to join her on vacation, asking, “Do you think you’ll still be attracted to me?” But when I arrived she insisted I rent my own room, then left the next day. I spent the weekend alone, crying and drinking dark beer.

The happy ending took awhile in coming, but it did come. First, though, I got into another relationship much too quickly. When that relationship blew up a year later, I spent six months alone, then dove headfirst into a relationship with someone who was officially (as opposed to unofficially) unavailable. But I also began to work hard on my own healing because I’d finally realized that if I changed, my relationships would, too.

Now, it’s been 14 years since that devastating breakup, and I’m deeply grateful for the much wiser, deeper love I’ve co-created with Michelle over the past eight years. From where I stand now, I truly feel no anger, grief or regret. I forgive Sarah her confusion. I forgive myself, too, for the many mistakes I made. In fact, I’m actually grateful for the pain that relationship caused me — something I never, ever thought I’d be able to say! — because it truly was a big part of what pushed me into transformation.

Have you ever had a breakup you thought you might not survive? Have you gone through multiple breakups with the same person? Do you still feel grief, anger or regret about a past relationship, even one that ended years ago? If so, write and tell us your breakup stories. They’ll help us in developing the Breakup Recovery Program we plan to create.

We’d especially love to know:

• What one or two things made (or makes) it hardest to let go of your relationship?
• What do you think you most need(ed) to help you heal and move on?
• If you’ve healed enough to be able to name the biggest thing you learned from the relationship and breakup, what would it be?

Write to us at Ruth@consciousgirlfriend.com and please share this post with your friends, too!

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too!

The post Conscious Girlfriend: The worst break-up of my life first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Dear C.G.,

I don’t understand the statement on your retreat page about learning to create “a relationship that just works, rather than one that feels like hard work.” Aren’t relationships always hard work? (It sure seems like it to me!) After all, two people are always going to be different and have different needs.

Sometimes I’ve imagined that the only path to happiness would be to find someone who is exactly like me in habits, preferences and communication style. But I’m not sure that person exists, and I don’t know if I’d be attracted to her if she did! Yet the endless work just doesn’t feel worth it to me any more. Maybe you two are just two in a million, or something? I’d appreciate any insight you can share.

Disillusioned in Daytona Beach

Dear Disillusioned,

Have you ever tried not washing any of your dishes and not putting anything away in your house for months on end? Can you imagine what would happen if you did? You’d quickly have such an overwhelming, stinky mess that you might be tempted to just move out, rather than face the massive amount of work involved in cleaning it up.

Unfortunately, that’s what many of us unwittingly do in our relationships. I don’t know about you, but I personally grew up without knowing a single queer couple, much less any happy, healthy ones. And my parents’ way of handling conflict was to yell at each other, throw things, lie, have affairs, and eventually split up, so they certainly didn’t give me a model for how to “keep a clean house” in love.

Even if you were lucky enough to grow up witnessing a good marriage, we all know that watching something doesn’t automatically make us able to do it ourselves (otherwise we’d all be Olympic-level athletes, right?)

Relationships only feel like endless work if we don’t know how to do the small, hourly and daily steps that keep love running smoothly. Yes, you do have to be willing to do the emotional equivalent of washing your plate and fork after you eat. No, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming!

Michelle and I created Conscious Girlfriend to help other lesbians and queer women get on the “fast track” to relationship happiness. Yes, there is one! You can learn how to become aware of the choices you have available in every single moment – and then make choices that produce the outcomes you want (deep connection, harmony, mutual enjoyment, lasting love), rather than the ones that don’t.

The two of us do feel very blessed to have found each other – but we’re also aware that if we didn’t make the right choices, hour by hour and day by day, our relationship would quickly become a stinking mess. These choices don’t have to feel hard; in fact, a big one involves bringing more compassion to yourself, which feels exquisitely good once you get the hang of it! We also teach you how to access more self-awareness and healing, which will help you get happier, as well as, yes, creating a relationship that “just works, rather than feeling like a lot of work.”

It’s certainly possible to live a good life as a single person. But deep inside, most of us long for a deeply connected, joyful love. I understand that you’ve grown disillusioned by your past efforts to create one, but it sounds like you’ve been working without tools. So we invite you to check out our many articles, videos and free events – and then consider signing up for our membership program (the most affordable way to get our help), our coaching (the most targeted and intensive way to get our help), or, yes, our retreat – where you can build community as well as skills!

In love,
Ruth

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too!

The post Ask Conscious Girlfriend: Aren’t relationships supposed to be hard work? first appeared on Lesbian.com.

When my beloved partner Michelle and I first started thinking about offering relationship tools to lesbians and queer women, we did a search to see who else was doing that kind of thing. We found almost nothing.

We know there are many hard-working lesbian therapists out there, and relationship coaches (at least, we hope there are) who simply don’t have much of an online presence. But really, we were shocked. I mean, even if adult lesbians and queer women were only one percent of the U.S. population, there would be 3.17 million of us.

There are hundreds — maybe even thousands — of books, websites and workshops for straight couples who want happier, healthier relationships. But there is close to nada, zilch, zippo for us women-loving women.

Now, why is that? Is it because, as some straight people fantasize, women just “naturally understand each other” and automatically have wonderful relationships?

Ah, if only it were so.

The truth is, queer women and lesbians face most of the same challenges that straight couples do, plus we’ve often got some additional problems all our own, like:

• The challenge of being in a couple where one or both partners has been rejected by her family or religious community or is afraid to come out of the closet.
• The challenge of one or both partners having a gender identity or expression that is “outside the norm” and may provoke fear, discrimination or even violence.
• The challenge of living in a homophobic world, where even now, people are proposing “Jim Crow” laws to prevent us from doing dangerous, subversive things like, um, buying donuts at the local bakery. (Actually, buying donuts probably is dangerous, given how much sugar and fat they contain. But still, we deserve the right to buy them.)
• The very real possibility that both partners may be sexual abuse survivors (since approximately 50 percent of women are).

And, in addition to all of those challenges from the outer world, it can sometimes be hard just to be two women together. Often we’re really good at merging into that initial hormone-fueled bliss, but not so good at moving back into our separate selves again. That needs to happen if we’re going to have healthy love. And lesbian bed death — along with fights, depression and flatness — can be among the consequences.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love being a queer woman.

I remember when I was 22 and having problems with my first girlfriend, my mom said, “If there are going to be problems with women, too, why didn’t you just stick with men?”

Um, can you say, “unclear on the concept”? Thankfully, mom’s come a long way.

But the truth is, as a community, we do need relationship help, resources and tools from people who understand us, from people who are us.

I’ve gotten a lot of benefit from heterosexually-oriented relationship books. Often they give a nod to same-sex couples with a case study or two. But I always have to do some translating. For instance, “Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus.” Well, what if my girlfriend is from Mars and Venus both, and I’m from Pluto, what do we do then?

So that’s why Michelle and I launched Conscious Girlfriend. It’s also why we decided to offer retreats. We believe there’s nothing quite as powerful as coming together with a group of like-minded women, a tribe, to look at and learn about our relationships together, to explore who we are individually, what we want and value, how we can heal what needs healing and how we can finally create the kind of love we came out of the closet to have.

We think it does take a (queer-lesbian) village.

We look forward to welcoming you to the Conscious Girlfriend community! Our next retreat is coming up in late May in the beautiful hills 25 miles north of San Francisco. We hope to see you there.

And by the way, if money is an issue, there is a way for you to come free or at a big discount. Sign up as a Conscious Girlfriend Ambassador, then recruit your friends, exes, neighbors, frenemies, potluck partners, hiking group buddies, softball team members, etc. When someone you’ve referred buys a class from us, we’ll give you 30 percent of the money they’ve paid us. So this is a great way to get big discounts on our classes or even come free.

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too!

The post Does it take a village to nurture a lesbian relationship? first appeared on Lesbian.com.

In my years of Buddhist practice, I’ve learned a lot from the four Brahma Viharas, also known as “beautiful relationship qualities” — loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity. You don’t have to be a Buddhist to understand that cultivating these qualities can be very beneficial for your relationship. And although it’s especially powerful when both members of a relationship agree to cultivate these qualities together, it can also have a lot of impact when just one person cultivates them.

Loving-Kindness

Loving-kindness is a feeling of benevolence toward another person, and the wish for them to have what they want and need. Relationship expert Stan Tatkin talks about the importance of a “couple bubble,” in which both partners agree to prioritize the needs of the relationship ahead of their individual needs. Ruth and I create our bubble a little differently, by each holding space for the other person’s needs. For instance, if I want to spend the day with Ruth, but she has something else planned, part of my loving-kindness toward her is feeling glad that she’s doing something she wants to do, even if it wouldn’t have been my own preference. When Ruth also extends this same kind of loving-kindness toward me, it creates a sense of freedom and well-being in the relationship. For instance, there are days when Ruth wants us to do Conscious Girlfriend work, but she knows I need a day off, and because of loving-kindness, her desire for me to have what I need wins out over her other desire.

Another manifestation of loving-kindness is the “micro-acceptance” which sexuality coach Charlie Glickman writes about. Micro-acceptances often show up in small statements of appreciation, like “Thanks for putting the dishes away,” “That shirt looks good on you” or “I like the way you talked about that.” The more loving-kindness we cultivate, the easier it becomes to make these kinds of genuine comments throughout the day. Loving-kindness also makes it easier for us to avoid “micro-aggressions,” small negative comments and criticisms — like “Why did you buy that shampoo? You know it’s cheaper at Trader Joe’s,” or “You shouldn’t have taken the freeway; it’s always slower at this time of day,” — which, though small, can accumulate and create hurt and mistrust.

Compassion

Compassion is the desire that another person’s suffering will end — but it also includes a willingness to be present with the suffering just as it is. Cultivating that kind of compassion toward your partner can create a safe space for her to be in, even when she is struggling with something.

Sometimes it’s easy for us to want an end to our partner’s suffering, but it’s harder to just be present with that suffering. We may instead start taking care of her, or wanting to solve her problems. But that isn’t really compassion. Compassion includes knowing that we cannot fix anything for anyone else; instead, the most helpful thing we can do is offer support, acceptance, love and presence.

For instance, I have chronic arthritis in a few of my joints, which does sometimes cause me suffering. As part of her own process of cultivating compassion, Ruth has had to learn to stop looking online for herbal remedies for me, and just accept the fact that I do live with pain — even while being present with me when I’m hurting, or when I’m frustrated by my physical limitations.

Empathetic Joy

You might have heard of “mirror neurons.” They are a relatively recently discovered group of cells in our brains that get activated when we observe someone else doing something. The fascinating thing is that these cells fire just as they would if we ourselves were doing or experiencing that thing. For instance, when we watch someone laugh with joy, our mirror neurons respond as if we ourselves were laughing with joy. Some scientists now theorize that it’s because of our mirror neurons that we are able to feel empathy for others.

Often, when we love someone, empathetic joy comes relatively easily to us. For instance, if your partner gets a raise or has some other kind of success, it may come naturally to you to celebrate with her. But at other times, envy or jealousy can get in the way of empathetic joy. If you’ve felt frustrated in your own career, for instance, it might be harder to respond with enthusiasm to the news of your partner’s success. Or if she makes a new friend, you might feel threatened, rather than feel joy on her behalf. In these cases, the desire to cultivate empathetic joy can help you move out of the discomfort of envy and back into a more genuinely loving response.

One small example of empathetic joy comes up between Ruth and I around food, since we each have different food allergies and sensitivities. I can’t eat wheat, so one day when I watched Ruth eat a really delicious-looking sandwich on crusty wheat bread, it was easy to feel a bit envious. But then, because I knew she was enjoying it, I found myself able to enjoy watching her eat it.

Empathetic joy requires you to be present to the other person’s experience of joy — to touch in with her feelings, and then let those feelings fill you, too. The great thing about cultivating empathetic joy is that it actually feels good – because who among us doesn’t want more joy?!

Equanimity

Equanimity is a quality of emotional stability. When we cultivate equanimity, we become more able to stay centered and at peace through the inevitable ups and downs in our lives and relationships.

A big part of cultivating equanimity involves accepting things as they are, and people as they are. Now, don’t get me wrong — there are some things that we should never accept in relationships, like abuse. So there are times when equanimity is not appropriate. But often, much of what we struggle with in our partners is not objectively wrong, it’s just difficult for us to accept for our own reasons — and in these cases, cultivating equanimity can be helpful both for our relationships, and for our own sense of well-being.

Of course, it’s generally easy to be equanimous about ways you and your partner are similar, or do things the same way. It can be harder to cultivate equanimity in areas where you’re different!

For instance, Ruth and I left for vacation last week. When I travel, I’m kind of obsessive about making sure I have everything (and checking five times), and leaving with a lot of time to spare. But since someone was going to be house-sitting for us, Ruth felt more concerned about leaving the place clean for her, and more lax about what time we would leave. I had to work on myself and my own fears so I didn’t lash out at her, or get really grumpy about leaving later than I wanted to. And Ruth had to work on her equanimity around things I’d missed in cleaning up.

Cultivating these four beautiful relationship qualities is definitely a process; it’s not always easy. But the alternatives are feelings like anger, frustration, bitterness and envy, which make us feel bad as well as poison our relationships. So when a relationship is basically good, cultivating these beautiful qualities can make it even better, creating more ease, joy, trust and intimacy.

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too!

The post Conscious Girlfriend: 4 beautiful relationship qualities first appeared on Lesbian.com.

It all started out so wonderfully, as many lesbian love stories do. Mary was smart, cute, insightful and interesting, and we connected on many levels. We first met while working on a feminist newspaper together, and although we came from different class backgrounds, I could understand the ways she’d been wounded as a child. We were co-activists, engaged in many of the same activities. She introduced me to a beautiful pond nearby, and I could see how nature fed her, as it fed me. She became fast friends with my cousin, who was in prison at the time, and I grew close to Mary’s younger brother.

But after we moved in together, things started to go awry. Mary lost her job, and then decided to “take a break” from working. I had a good academic job at the time, and it wasn’t too big a deal for me to pay our bills for a while. But then she started controlling what I spent my money on. When I signed up for a gym membership, she berated me, telling me that “we” couldn’t afford it. I ended up supporting her for more than 4 years, and even after I started a business, and had a lot of expenses, she didn’t attempt to go back to work. I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t feel the agency to stand up to her.

The worst part, though, was the constant criticism and verbal abuse. I remember one day I decided to count how many critical comments Mary made toward me, and when I reached 50, I gave up counting. There seemed to be something wrong with everything I did: where I left the dishrag, what I said or didn’t say at an activist meeting, even what books I read. “You aren’t doing your fair share!” was Mary’s constant refrain, even though I was supporting both of us, and also cooked most of our meals. And when I tried to speak up for myself, she’d stop talking to me, sometimes for days. It was heartbreaking, because no matter what I did, it never seemed to be enough. Yet I knew that other partners had left her, and I’d promised her I would stay. So I tried as hard as I could to give our lesbian love story a happy ending.

Eventually, it got to be too much even for me. I realized that I had completely lost myself, and that I needed to move out to find my own way again. At first I thought Mary and I could stay together while living separately for awhile, but when I suggested that, Mary became physically abusive. One night she shook me. Another night she upended a dining room table, deliberately breaking the precious candlestick my grandmother had given me. And then she threw a chair at me. Finally, I saw that I had to end the relationship.

We did try couples counseling briefly. The therapist sided with me, which of course upset Mary. When the therapist heard about the chair Mary had thrown, she said very directly to Mary, “You need to get help!” To her credit, Mary did go to an anger management class. But it was too late for us.

You might ask why I stayed so long. It’s complex, but I think at the core was my deep feeling that I wasn’t worthy of anything else.

Fortunately, I’ve learned a lot since I left that relationship almost 15 years ago. I’ve come to understand that I co-created the situation by not taking care of myself. It’s not my fault that Mary was abusive, but it is my responsibility that I let it go on for so long. In the aftermath, I’ve worked hard on healing my sense of unworthiness.

Metta, a form of meditation that helps to cultivate loving kindness, has been an incredibly important tool for me in my own healing process. Here is a metta prayer I wrote for my own use, which I offer to you, in case it may help you, too:

May I be happy
May I know my true worth
May I know that I am lovable
May I love and be loved with ease

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too!

The post Conscious Girlfriend: How I managed to get into (and out of) an abusive relationship first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Dear CG,

My problem is that I can’t seem to accept imperfection. Every time I date someone, I find something wrong with her. She’s overweight, she’s not happy enough, she drinks too much, she’s too messy, she’s too neat, she’s too rigid, she looks too gay (I know that one isn’t supposed to bother me, but it does.) I know I’m not perfect either. Believe me, if I could break up with myself, I would! But I seem to be stuck with me, so I would really like to find someone else I can stick with, too. I understand intellectually that I need to get over this block. But every time I go out with someone, there is just something about her that doesn’t feel right to me. Can you help?

– M.L. in Ann Arbor, MI

Dear M.L.,

That is such a great question. I’m so glad you asked!

Your struggle with accepting imperfection sounds really painful. I get how it’s getting in the way of your creating an intimate relationship and clearly it’s also really getting in the way of your relationship with yourself.

And, having a loving relationship with yourself is key to being able to have one with someone else.

When we can’t love ourselves, it’s natural — and common -– to hope that someone else will come along and love us so overpoweringly that our self-dislike will just cry Uncle. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way. In your case, I believe that coming to a more compassionate relationship with your own imperfections is what will help you become more able to accept those of others, as well.

“Okay, but how do I do that?” you’re probably asking. There are lots of ways. This is a huge topic! So I will just offer a few ideas.

The place to start making internal change is always with your intention. That is, you have to truly intend to make the change. You have to decide to do it. In other words, make an internal vow and declaration that you are going to begin to love and accept yourself, just as you are, right now. Even if parts of you struggle and resist, you can still declare that you intend to love and accept those parts (as well as all the other parts of you) just as they and you are.

Next, it’s helpful to empower your intention by calling on larger forces, however you understand them –- whether that means God, Higher Power, spirit guides, angels, the universe or even just the wisest, most loving and compassionate part of you. For instance, you might say, “Please help me to love and accept myself just as I am. Please help me to feel and know that I am worthy of love and compassion, just as I am. Please help me to heal those parts of me that cannot accept my imperfections, so that I become able to embrace and appreciate myself, in all of the facets of my being, exactly as I am.” (You can vary the wording, of course. This is just to give you a general idea.)

Another approach would be to work with the Buddhist practice of metta. Again, you can vary the specific wording of the Metta prayer according to your needs (if you google “metta” you’ll find many versions!), but here’s a version I created with you in mind.

May I love and accept myself, even with all my imperfections.

May I find peace and love, even with all my imperfections.

May I be well and happy, even with all my imperfections.

Repeat the prayer silently or, even better, aloud for at least 10 minutes. Once you feel it start to sink in, then say the same prayer on behalf of someone you care about: “May ____ (name of person) love and accept herself, even with all her imperfections. May ____ find peace and love, even with all her imperfections. May ____ be well and happy, even with all her imperfections.” (If that ending, “even with all her imperfections,” starts to feel tiring to repeat, you can leave it off. Jst remember in your head that this prayer goes out to you, and to her, even with any and all imperfections you and she have.)

Next, say the same prayer on behalf of someone you feel neutral toward. Next, say it for someone with whom you’ve had difficulties. And finally, say it for the whole world (which of course includes you!)

I believe that if you work consistently with either or both of these for even a short time –- say, half an hour a day for a week or two – you will feel a softening inside of yourself. As that softening happens, you will spontaneously find yourself feeling more acceptance both of yourself, and of whomever you date. Let me know how it goes!

In love,

Ruth

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too!

The post Ask Conscious Girlfriend: Accepting imperfections first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Dear CG,

My last three relationships all lasted less than a year. I thought my most recent ex was “the one,” but three months in, she stopped wanting to have sex with me! I know sex dies out after awhile, but three months?! Plus she didn’t work out much, she ate a lot of junk food and she was a slob. At the beginning I didn’t care because she was really hot, but after the first couple of months she was never in the mood.

I bugged her to work out more because I’ve heard that exercise increases sex drive, but she was always making excuses. I’m starting to think intimacy just doesn’t last.

– J.D. in Philadelphia

Dear J.D.,

Ouch. As I read your letter, I find myself wanting to get away from you! But it’s nothing personal, really. It’s just that criticism is not exactly a way to win friends and influence people, much less create lasting love and intimacy. In your short letter, you slammed your ex four times. If I were her, I might have stopped wanting to have sex with you, too!

I get the feeling that you may not realize just how critical you are. If you grew up with critical parents, it may seem normal to you. But John Gottman, who has studied thousands of couples over the past few decades, identifies criticism as #1 in what he calls “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” (The other three are Defensiveness, Contempt and Stonewalling.) So I have to wonder whether criticism might have been the kiss of death for your other relationships, too.

Now, it’s true that hot chemistry can lead us to temporarily ignore issues that are actually problems for us. It’s certainly your right to decide whether someone’s gym, housekeeping and eating habits make her a rule-out for you. It’s best to get clear on what matters most to you and then take stock early on, so you can simply avoid getting involved with women who aren’t right for you. But the other side of the coin is that none of us can ever find anyone who’s 100% compatible with us in every way, so if there’s a heart connection (as well as a heat connection) there, you can nurture and grow intimacy in the following ways:

1. No criticism. None. She gets to keep her house however she chooses, eat what she pleases, and work out according to her own whims. All of her other personal habits are off-limits for comments, too.

2. Lots of acceptance and appreciation. If this is a new habit for you, it might take some effort at first. Actively look for things you appreciate about her, and then tell her. Of course compliments on her physical appearance are nice, but make sure you go beyond that. Does she listen well? Did she make you a cup of tea? Did she go out of her way to meet you somewhere? Does she make you laugh? Did she cook dinner for you? Did she help you think through a thorny situation at work? People open up when they feel acknowledged and thanked.

Even when you’re not appreciating, work on accepting. Each of us contains both “positive” and “negative” qualities (which vary according to the eye of the beholder, of course.) Strive to let yourself take in the whole package with more tenderness and compassion. I think you’ll find that this change pays off big time, by keeping alive both your closeness and your sexual connection.

In love,

Ruth

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too! 

The post Ask Conscious Girlfriend: Why did the intimacy end? first appeared on Lesbian.com.