For Women: from Cringe to Thriving within Relationship

Right now, I have this memory arising, and I feel a strong desire to cringe, I feel so uncomfortable. I feel shame, awkwardness, and a sense of “not getting things right”. 

I really don’t want to share about it.. And yet, something inside of me is saying, yes, do this.. 

I was 20 years old, a uni student, travelling with a group of students in Colorado, USA. There was a guy that I had a crush on. We had hooked up once or twice. We hung out in the same group of people, and for the most part, he just wasn’t that interested in me, outside of hooking up for sex. 

One day in a group of people, he made a comment about shaving and the effect it was having on his face. 

In that moment, I saw an opportunity to be helpful, to impart some advice that might be of support to him. 

If you have listened to our Wounds as Weapons podcast episode, you will know that being helpful is “my thing”! I adopted being helpful when I was really young, as a way to win love. 

I don’t remember what my “helpful advice” to him was. But I do remember the look on his face. 

He cringed and laughed at me and it was very clear that all he wanted to do was get away from me. 

I was lost in the sinking feeling in my gut. 

I could feel him judging me. I had said the wrong thing. I said something that pushed him away. In my desire to win love, to win his approval, I had created the opposite. 

I remember in that moment, the downward spiral that happened internally for me. Thoughts like “Other women know how to talk to men, but I am hopeless”. I don’t know what I said that was wrong, but I knew something was wrong, I just pushed this man away. I thought to myself. “I will have to try harder.” 

It was another 10 years before I really shifted the way I related to men. I was in my early 30s before I started to realise that men saw the world differently to me. 

I had been relating to men, the same way that I related to women. And whilst I had some great male friends and men who I got along well with. For most of my 20s, my relationships were fleeting, and mostly of the hook-up variety. 

I knew that I wanted and needed to relate to men differently. And so I did. I have committed the last 20+ years to developing, refining, and deepening my understanding of men. 

So I began my inquiry. I explored questions like:

• How do I relate with men?
• How do I understand them?
• How do I see the world through their eyes, to understand how they feel and why?
• What makes them tick inside intimate relationships.
  What does a man need and want in an intimate relationship? 
• And what will keep him coming back for more? 
• How do I do this authentically?

And on and on I went, once I began discovering the answers, I set about putting my new found awareness to work. 

I wanted to live it, try it out, taste it, see if what I had learned would make a difference.

And it did.

I have been living and exploring sacred intimacy with my husband Rod, for 8 years. We have a thriving relationship, and I experience deeper love and more happiness than ever. 

The best part is it’s possible for anyone. And you don’t have to do the years of work I did to work it all out. 

If you would like to learn more about your relationships with men, join me at “Loving Men Masterclass - a guide for Women who want loving relationships with Men”.