She Doesn't Really Want to Be Number One
From Bluetruth
A woman sometimes seems to want to be the most important thing in her man's life. However, if she is the most important thing, then she feels her man has made her the number one priority and is not fully dedicated or directed to divine growth and service. She will feel her man's dependence on her for his happiness, and this will make her feel smothered by his neediness and clinging. A woman really wants her man to be totally dedicated to his highest purpose--and also to love her fully. Although she would never admit it, she wants to feel that her man would be willing to sacrifice their relationship for the sake of his highest purpose.
Imagine that a man must go off to war. He hugs his woman good-bye. She is crying.
"Please don't go," she begs.
"You know that I must," he answers.
They look each other deeply in the eyes.
"You know that I love you," he says to her.
"Yes. I know. And I also know you must go," she replies, and another gush of tears bursts from her heartbroken face.
He turns and walks out the door, to his necessary destiny, as his woman, full of pain and pride, watches him disappear.
This exaggeratedly dramatic scene captures a profound energetic principle: Although your woman seems to want to be the most important thing in your life, she actually can trust and love you more if she is not.
A man's highest purpose is his priority, not his intimacy. Your woman knows this. Deep inside, she really wants it to be this way. The woman in the scene above would actually feel strange if her man suddenly said, "I've changed my mind. You are more important to me than the freedom of mankind. You are the most important thing in my life, and I don't care if my service to humanity is needed elsewhere, so I'm staying here with you." Even though part of her would feel glad, a deeper part of her would feel deflated, emptied, let down.
And yet, as her man leaves the door to accomplish his mission, she cries, wishing he didn't have to go. But he does have to go. And she knows it.
If a woman has become the point of your life, you are lost. You have a gift to give, a purpose to fulfill, a deep heart-impulse that moves you. If you have lost touch with this impulse, then you will begin to feel ambiguous in your life. You will make decisions because you have to, but they won't be guided by a deeper sense of purpose. You may take on your woman's purposes because they are stronger than yours. You may adapt your need for direction to externally regulated purposes, becoming a cogwheel company man or a dead-ended husband and parent, without leaving yourself open to your own greatest vision.
Be careful not to substitute default responsibilities for true purpose. It is easy to fill your day with chores and obligations, coming up for air only long enough to watch some tv or have quick sex. It's also easy to give up entirely on living a life of absolute commitment to truth, settling for the common life of absolute commitment to work, family, intimacy, and friends. Yet, you can only be a superior professional, father, husband, and friend when you are living these relationships as gifts given from your core, not as what's left over because you don't have the guts to discover your core impulse and live on its basis.
If you aren't living from your core, giving your fullest gifts, everyone will feel your lack of true purpose. Your kids will challenge your authority. Your colleagues will take advantage of you. Your friends won't expect much of you. And your wife won't trust you.
Even though she may seem to want to be the center of your life, she doesn't. She wants you to know the center of your life, however, so she can trust you. Even if you must go off somewhere without her to fulfill your purpose, like a man going to war, she will be able to trust you and love you, as long as your purpose is real and true.
If you are always watching tv, reading magazines, or gambling, your woman will feel your trivialization of life. She will feel you settling for less, and will resent the frivolity of your will. But if have discovered the purpose springing from your deepest core, and if your entire life is aligned by this deep purpose, your woman will feel the truth of your choices. Though she may not always like your choices, she will love them, and she will love you for having the courage to live your truth. She can relax and trust you because, even if you enjoy watching tv, reading magazines, and gambling now and then, she knows that you would never compromise your highest purpose in life--which includes, but is not centered around nor dependent on, your relationship with her.
The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida
