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Your Body and Male Entitlement

Your Body and Male Entitlement

In loving and intimate relationships, there are always things you need to negotiate on – where to eat dinner, who is preparing dinner, where to go on holidays, what colour you should paint the walls, how much money you save together for your agreed goals, and so on. These types of negotiations happen in healthy relationships.

Unfortunately, some men believe their female partners should also negotiate with them about other topics like:

  1. What you wear
  2. What you eat
  3. What you post on social media (when he and/or your children aren’t in the pics)
  4. What you wear when you post on social media
  5. What you weigh
  6. The size of your breasts (implants anyone?)
  7. Which other men you can talk to
  8. How much make-up you do or don’t wear.

These topics are NOT negotiation points and if you’re with a man (a term I am using very loosely in this instance) who insists on you negotiating about these, LEAVE.

You may think this advice is rather melodramatic but is it, really? Because I have to tell you, when you agree to negotiate about how you show up in the world, you are on a slippery slope to nowhere good. Your autonomy is not up for negotiation.

And quite frankly, I don’t give a damn about his feelings about this and neither should you. I would also wonder who taught him it was okay to tell you what you can and cannot do with your body. That sounds like a bad case of entitlement and he should get some therapy to resolve that issue while you move onto a man who has a healthy sense of self and respects you as the amazing goddess you are.

No man has the right to tell you how you should or shouldn’t show up in the world.

The right man will love you as you are and will not seek to control you. He will respect your autonomy and respect you as an individual who chooses her own path. Just like he chooses his.

Lucretia is an author, psychic and intuitive mentor who helps women live their purpose. Need some practical and honest advice about feelings, life or relationships? Visit DearLucretia.com to ask your question. Answers are FREE and your name will always be changed if your question is published.

Loving him is no excuse

Loving him is no excuse

I want to talk to you about, what I believe, is one of the greatest and cruellest ironies of our time – that you can love someone with every part of your being but they don’t have to love you back.

That’s right, they don’t have to love you back.

You can be willing to put up with all kinds of shit for them – bust open your pelvic floor giving birth to their children, put up with their toxic relatives, mates and exes, support them while they work their “shit” out, move past the fact they have sex with people who are not you!, have them bruise and batter your body, denigrate your values, abandon you for a younger model, drink too much, have addictions that you try to help them get clear of, accept that he would rather watch porn than have sex with you, or know that he’s going to make you have sex whether you want to or not, pay all the bills and get the laundry done, and so on, and so on.

And you will say it is because you love him.

I mean, how many times have you heard a woman use those four words, “But I love him” as she excuses another piece of appalling behaviour. Your best friend could tell you the same story and you would say, “Get the hell out of there!”

But for you, it’s different because you love him. And somehow that makes it okay.

You may even convince yourself that despite all the challenges you are facing in your relationship, you will make it through because you love him and he loves you.

He might even tell you that he does. And you will let yourself believe him because you want him to love you, so much. Even if the way he shows that love isn’t exactly how you would ever dream of showing it. In fact, you would never treat him the way he treats you. But somehow, in your heart, you tell yourself that it’s okay.

You love him.

Because the alternative is that he doesn’t love you back and that can’t possibly be.

I mean your love is so powerful it can move mountains, right? And if you feel this way he must feel it too, right?

No. And ladies, this is where we get to the true crux of the matter – we can love with every fibre of our being and he will never, ever love us back in the way we deserve or in the way we love him.

But we keep on hoping don’t we? Hoping he will change? He will choose us first over her, his work, his mother, or his amateur drinking championships with his mates every Friday night.

The question of course is, why do we keep thinking it’s possible when it is patently and blatantly…a lie.

Why indeed?

Well, I have a couple of theories about this and I’m willing to share them with you. And I’d like you to think them over and maybe drop me a line later and let me know your thoughts.

My first one is this…

We believe that men deserve more than us, so we accept less.

Let’s face it, in today’s society women are still earning less than men, have less money when they’re old, are more likely to be single, and more likely to do most of the child rearing in amongst everything else they’ve got going on. But still nothing changes? It’s not as if this stuff is news. It’s been happening for a long, long time. And yes, things are changing for the better, of course they are. But those changes look a bit glacial to me sister!

I mean seriously, why are men still not paying child support when they get women pregnant. He can sign away his parental rights and never have to be responsible for the child he helped to create in any way because, after all, he wanted her to get an abortion and she didn’t so, it’s down to her. Never mind the fact that he was probably the one who didn’t use any birth control. Seriously, talk to any single woman who is sexually active and she will tell you that, yes, even in the year 2020, men still carry on about having to wear a condom because it interferes with his pleasure – even though cumming is pretty much a given for him whether he has a rubber on or off while, for women, yeah, it’s still not a sure thing is it? But still, men don’t like it so it’s down to us women to pump our bodies full of hormones that make us moody, gain weight, may or may not work, have other side effects and don’t protect us from STDs at all. But hey, we take the hit because we accept less. And then if we get pregnant and don’t want to terminate because we don’t believe in it, have fertility issues, it might be our only chance or whatever the reason, he can just walk away because he doesn’t want it.

Now, to be clear, I am pro-choice because you know, the woman’s body is going to be the incubator for that new life and it’s her pelvic floor so I feel like that is her business, no one else’s. But equally fellas, if you can be “man enough” to put your dick in then you can be man enough to catch the baby when it falls out nine months later. And yes, that does mean financial responsibility even if you can’t manage the emotional support a child requires.

But still, we accept less because that’s our job right, to carry the baby? So often we literally do.

And while we’re on the subject of accepting less, why do women often accept less money in their financial settlements when their marriages breakdown? If the woman leaves she feels too guilty and doesn’t want to fight it, so gives him more. If he leaves, you’re too broken to fight it, so you accept less.

We believe we deserve less. So we get less.

And then there’s the thing where we pursue men who aren’t really into us and who quite frankly, don’t deserve us because of that very reason. If someone finds you unattractive and doesn’t want to invest time in getting to know you and doesn’t value you highly, then that should instantly make them look less attractive to you. It should be a turn off!!

But it’s not, is it? No, invariably it makes us want them more. We love him so he just has to see how amazing we are. He doesn’t get it…yet. We loooovvvve him. Let’s see if I’m thinner, wear more make-up, change my clothes, starve myself, get breast implants, get a Brazilian so my vagina looks like it belongs to an eight-year-old …maybe that will do it. Then he will see.

Ha! But he doesn’t, does he?

Now at this juncture, some male readers who have misguidedly stumbled upon this post may be tempted to begin the “Whataboutery parade”. Some female readers may be similarly tempted.

If that’s you I’d like to say, please don’t. This post isn’t for you. Let us agree to part ways and go on with our lives. I bear you no grudge, this isn’t meant to attack anyone. I’m just telling you like I see it. So please, thank you, now move on.

There are a few other things I’d like to cover about this topic including the influence of religious doctrine and the whole downfall of Adam being due to Eve not being able to control herself and leading him astray – which of course goes to the continuing emasculating concept that men are a bunch of halfwits with limited self-control who women need to take care of and make allowances for – but I don’t have time for that right now. I’m too busy learning how to not accept less than I am worth and hoping to help other women do the same.

Does whole-hearted love still matter?

Does whole-hearted love still matter?

I’ve been thinking about love today. This is unsurprising because I’ve been working on my next play and of course, like most of my writing, it is about love and all that goes with it – the good, the bad and the ugly.

The question of whole-heartededly showing up for love in a partnership is coming up and I wonder if many people still believe in that concept.

I see so many relationships that are not based on whole-hearted love. Instead they rely on obligation, financial security, fear of being alone, convenience, public image and even that old deluded adage about staying together for the children’s sake. Why people are still using that last excuse is beyond me – isn’t it abundantly clear that when people stay together for the wrong reasons they sentence their children to an adulthood where they will repeat and then try to break those negative relationship habits modelled by their parents?

But I digress. Back to whole-hearted love.

Whole-hearted love to me, means showing up openly and vulnerably. It means coming together with one other person and connecting in a way that is sacred to you both.  

My play explores this concept of whole-hearted love and more controversially, love in open relationships. I have to say, when it comes to whole-hearted love, I find the open and polyamorous dynamic problematic.

To be clear, have sex with whoever you want, with however many people you want and of whatever gender you desire. As long as it’s between two consenting adults – who cares. It is certainly none of my business or anyone else’s for that matter.

But it’s the whole-hearted piece that plays on my mind.

Whole-heartedly loving someone else, to me at least, means showing up for one person and proudly too. It’s not about giving a bit here then giving a bit over there and then returning back here. That isn’t whole-hearted love.

And before you say, but it’s just sex and only a physical act, I have to say no – that’s not all it is.

You can’t get any closer to someone energetically than when you have sex – there is a merging of your energetic fields and when you detach, part of that other person’s energy stays on you. Then you take it with you when you return to your other lover. Then you end up with someone else’s energy in your bed with both of you.

Is that whole-hearted love – to carry energy from one to the next and contaminate the sacred space between you?

I can’t believe that it is.

This brings me to my next question – do we not desire whole-hearted love anymore? Is it considered a mute point in society? Is it redundant and perhaps unneeded? Is it old-fashioned?

I can hear that song playing in my head by Iva Davies when he sings,

“I don’t know where to be begin
Don’t want to hear it again
I don’t believe anymore
This is all I know
I know I’ve heard it before.”

Have we simply stopped believing that whole-hearted love is possible?

Now, I’m not saying I believe whole-hearted love is easily found or easily kept. Sometimes it arrives for a limited period of time then disappears as quickly as it came. I’ve lived long enough in the world to understand that whole-hearted love doesn’t guarantee longevity.

But I do believe it demands through its very nature, exclusivity.

Part of me wonders if some people have given up on it altogether because they don’t believe they deserve it in the first place. If you don’t believe you deserve something then why would you expect it? Certainly, from my own personal observations and conversations, it’s clear that some people agree to polyamorous partnerships because their partner convinces them it is necessary for their relationship to survive. So one gives in to the other because they fear losing them altogether.

I even read an horrendous article recently that gave instructions on how to convince your “unwilling partner” to change their mind – it read like a narcissist’s handbook by encouraging the person to persistently undermine their unwilling partner’s values and beliefs until they finally gave in. I found this horrifying and deeply disturbing.

Now I’m definitely not suggesting this is how all people approach polyamory with their partners. But I have noticed people who give in or are pressured to be in these types of relationships because they fear losing their partners are devastated as a result. The impacts on their self-esteem, feelings of self-worth and being deserving of love can be emotionally catastrophic.

Sex is an amazing and wonderful thing. It can be liberating, fun, stress-relieving and great exercise. It can also be a divinely intimate and sacred act between two people who are showing up whole-heartedly for each other and that connection.

I can’t help but feel sex in a polyamorous dynamic, can’t co-exist easily or at all with whole-hearted love.

But perhaps it doesn’t need to.

The Madness of Love

The Madenss of Love

It’s a strange thing, this love
Crazy, mad, unexpected
It crashes on through in a moment of time
Through a glance or a voice heard projected

Its force like a truck
Driven into a wall
It can leave you all in pieces
Or it cracks you wide open
And shows you more
Of what’s within
The craziness deepens

Or sometimes it sneaks up on you real slow
You don’t hear or see its sly coming
You only realise too late that you’re in
Love has hit you
It’s really quite stunning

Inconvenient, messy
Your sanity’s undoing
You’re tied up in its silken cords
Love has your mind all terribly mangled
No breathing space it will afford.

Quick or slow
When you’re in, you’re in
There’s no escape for you at that point
Defences are useless
Previous balance outdated
You cannot stay the old course.

Love is love
It cares not, you see
For the opinions or judgements of others
It has its own way
Its own path to follow
It will not be brought down by others.

It is neither sensible nor wise
It doesn’t care for that stuff
It’s more interested in the heart of the matter
It’s the heart where it lives
This love, you know
Its influence can be quite scattered

Big or small love
Does it even matter
How or why or when
For a stranger glimpsed across a crowded room
Or for an old friend, with a glance, just then

The devastation of course
Is the opposite of love
When left behind or maybe forgotten
Its desertion can tear you from limb to limb
Once again, all sanity forgotten

To love is to trust
That all will be well|
When it all seems so very unlikely
But love doesn’t care about rational thought
It doesn’t care if it looks unsightly

That old couple who walk slowly in the rain
Ponderous, bent and slow
Their hands entwined
Their bodies leaned in
They still whisper, love be mine, don’t go.
They make me believe
Believe in it still
A love so often unruly
Although sometimes I’ve despaired
Perhaps my judgement’s impaired
I’ve wondered that
Yes, I have, truly.

The Madness of Love
My soul it has collected
Time and time again
Its sway holds me close
Its tender embrace
I will be yours, again and again.

Men, Errors of Judgement and Listening to my Intuition

my brainI’m the final throes of editing my first-ever book. It’s a memoir about my 30s and all the crazy men-related experiences I had during that time. As I sift through the final edits, I’m constantly reminded of how far I’ve come in learning to trust myself and my own judgement. It’s been a long road.

Mine is the story of a woman who, around the age of 30, begins to feel and finally listen to the inner voice inside her. It’s a voice that says, you’re on the wrong road and you need to make some serious changes. My story continues with what, in hindsight, seems like the ‘what not to do’ when it comes to life, men and relationships. As I re-read the anecdotes, I revisit a roller coaster of highs and lows that somehow I emerge from (with a little dignity intact) and I keep going. Some of the stories are so odd that I can hardly believe they happened. Yet they did. Some of my behaviour was quite odd. Yet I did it all.

I was a woman on a journey of self-discovery that has brought me to this very moment in time.

What is most obvious to me is how much I’ve grew through those experiences and how much more I trust myself because of those things I went through. I’ve gone from being a 20-something judgemental, naive and very analytically-focused woman to the 40-something I am now. But I had to go through all those things in the middle to get here.

Nowadays I’m not so judgemental because I’m no longer so hard on myself. I’ve realised that we all make mistakes and life is never black and white; it’s all the colours of the rainbow. I’ve done some things I’m not particularly proud of, but I own them all because they’ve made me who I am.

Somewhere along the way I’ve also decided to trust that voice inside me, my intuitive inner guidance system that always has my back. It’s a voice I ignored a lot in my early life and certainly, when dealing with men, I tried to drown it out with rationalisation and kind excuses (kind to men, that is). These days my intuition is something I use every day to keep me on track in all kinds of ways. I also use my rational brain and reasoning too, but that’s not all I rely on anymore. Like many people, my brain can rationalise almost anything if I let it while my intuition always cuts through to the truth of the matter…if I’m brave enough to listen to it.

My intuition can’t necessarily stop me being hurt. But it can warn me when that event is likely. It also helps me see things for what they are and not what I’d like them to be. My brain and its very passionate friend my Ego are rather clever at pulling the wool over my eyes.

So I’m grateful for all the craziness, ill-advised decision-making and random events of my 30s because they’ve brought me to this moment in time. They’ve taught me so much about who I am and who I wish to be. And most of all they’ve brought me to a point in my life when I have learned to trust me. What greater gift could there be, than that?

If you’d like to learn more about connecting to your own intuition, check out my next Nights for Spiritual Beginners – Introductory Course beginning in Brisbane on 19 August 2015. More information is available at http://lucyandlife.com/a-night-for-spiritual-beginners/