I have been reflecting this week about the feelings I had when I first started having relationships with women. I was in my early 30s before I figured it out. When I did realize I loved women, everything in my life made sense.
I struggled in my relationships with men. I struggled within myself and with them. I felt belittled and like I could not truly be myself. I felt I had to be manipulative to maintain any sense of Self at all. I did not understand why it was so uncomfortable and difficult on myself to be able to stay steady in a relationship with a man.
One thing I found interesting was what happened to my own inner masculine when I was relating to men. The inner masculine and identity is what connects what we want to “do” and what is important to us, with our soul. The masculine is the bridge that makes that connection.
When I was in a relationship with a man, my own inner masculine could not stay strong and steady and would become eclipsed. I would try to get stronger and found that the more I tried, the angrier and weaker I got. This was a problem in each relationship I had with men.
When I got with women, our inner masculines were doubled and I did not loose my power. It wasn’t like competition or envy or anything like that. The process was just comfortable and easy. Being with women helped me keep my masculine inside. It helped me own and identify what was important and direct the energy of “doing” toward my deepest soul. This felt so right.
Another thing that was easier for me to deal with women rather than men was my sexuality. With men, there was always a tension, an expectation, a blurring of myself that made my sexuality feel very unsafe. When I got with women, sexuality flowed out of friendship, intimacy, connection and love.
With men, the connection was always one-sided. Theirs. It was incredibly difficult to find intimacy with the men I chose. I have several men I know who I have as friends and have never been in a romantic relationship with. With them, closeness and caring form the core of the foundation of our relationship. Taking away sexuality makes these men safe and close also.
Perhaps another thing that made being with women so comfortable was my early training about caring for others. My family and particularly my mother paid close attention to the men and boys and took extra care to make sure they were happy. This early conditioning (which smacked of co-dependency) was not only strongly encouraged but I got into a lot of trouble when I tried to stray away from the program.
This made for a lot of conflict when I was in relationships with men. My repressed anger came out with them because I did not want to take care of them. It wasn’t a selfish streak that I was feeling but a struggle to keep myself intact. I had not learned to take of myself, which didn’t make me a good candidate to take care of those whose sense of entitlement left me flat.
Being with women just simply made all of my childhood issues less stressful and made healing less dramatic and painful. The dynamics in my relationships, regardless with a man or a woman, had a lot of similarities. After all, I was the same person in each equation. It was how I was able to work through my issues that became much easier with women.
It has taken many years to reach a place within myself that I can have a healthy relationship with myself. This makes it possible to even have a relationship with another person. I am still smitten with women and am delighted that I know this about myself so that I can share that joy and gratefulness which makes my heart so full.
