“The Unsuitable”

 Love Awakened by an Unsuitable Suitor 

 What is it Teaching You? 

We look through the fog of the old habits and take stock of who we want to be now.

-Heather Carlile, MA, LPC

 WHEN IS IT GOOD ENOUGH? As a Marriage and Relationship Counselor, sometimes clients come to me with an agonizing decision to make. They are asking themselves questions such as these: “Is this enough? What we have is better than most. The good parts of “us” are really extraordinarily great! But the not-so-good parts are pushing us apart. Is it good enough for forever? What should we do?”

THE ONE: My opinion is that, when you meet the other half of your soul, you will understand why all the others let you go. When you meet the one who deserves your heart, you’ll understand why things didn’t work out with everyone else. And, even if you have serious problems or you try to turn away, you continue to be connected.

 AN UNSUITABLE SUITOR: Some of us experience the wonder of a quickening, AKA a powerful “Wake-up Call” embodied by an obviously unsuitable mate but packing a romantic or playful wallop.

LOST IN A RUT: An Unsuitable can come along at any juncture but usually when we have become too settled, too afraid, too stubborn, too passive, sometimes to the point of sliding backwards. Somewhere inside, our soul is asking, “Is this all there is?” Yet we stay in the rut. We continue on the same old way. We stay stuck, sometimes gazing at greener pastures and feeling deprived or frustrated yet not taking action for something better.

The Love Cocktail

THE LOVE COCKTAIL: Then “An Unsuitable” person comes along to yank us out of our passivity into passion often via The Love Cocktail. We feel the thrill of attraction and infatuation.

CONSTRUCTIVE DISCONTENT: This love cocktail, from naturally occurring substances in the brain, induces the euphoric chemistry of attraction. All of our systems stand fully awake and we take extraordinary action. We feel the intensity of our youthful vitality, our sexual libido and our inherent attractiveness. We look through the fog of the old habits and take stock of who we want to be now.

WAKE-UP CALL: This wake-up call often comes at any age when we are stuck, at the beginning of the first adulthood around 30-years-old or in mid-life. I think it is the most efficient influence to boost us into the next level of maturity. Our thoughts and self-concept are transformed by this excitement whether or not we have a fantasy, a friendship or a romance with The Unsuitable.

GROWTH: We may be in danger of great disappointment if we abandon our current valuable life patterns to create a long-term relationship with The Unsuitable. The love cocktail with any person wears off in time, a month…a year. We usually learn that it created an illusion, an over-idealization of the source of attraction. And we find that the substance we require (and expected we would find) lies in meaning rather than stimulus. So, our energy is better spent on growth. Smarter to use knowledge rather than emotion. Our feelings presume that The Unsuitable is the new Beloved. Our wisdom can discern between impulsive pleasure and purposeful vision. That which we have found within is a new inspiration. This energy can empower us to a more mature level of caring for self, for others and for serving humanity.

IMPULSE FOR IMPROVEMENT: We can see that The Unsuitable isn’t appropriate to meet our lifestyle values and needs in the long run. However, the excitement offers an impulse for change in the guise of novel, mysterious, illicit or brief romance and, therefore, stimulates action. There is a saying, “If you think you don’t have any free time, just imagine what you can do when you’ve just fallen in love.”

CHANGES: So, before you drop everything to fly away on the magic emotional carpet, give yourself some time. If you are wise about what has been awakened in yourself, you can choose to use this time for necessary advancement. Think it through and separate your new self from the Unsuitable. This is about your expansion and not about an unsuitable relationship or the trigger that the other person became for you. You might want to take advantage of your awakening and add meaning to your personality and your way of living:

• Take some time to learn what this ‘wake-up call’ has to teach you about yourself, your relationships, your lifestyle, etc.
• Face your fears and make the changes you desire.
• Improve physical activity via better fitness, refinement of skill in a sport, losing weight, stop smoking, etc.
• Increase self-esteem with doing the things you’ve been putting off because of what we’ve been just settling for in your old habits.
• If this was an affair, turn away from it completely, return to your spouse and, before you give up, see if you can rejuvenate a stale marriage by turning your new vitality into a willingness to risk deeper levels of emotional honesty and sexual intimacy. Go for marriage counseling, take a communication for couples class, etc.
• Improve sexual health by getting fit, studying or seeing a therapist.
• Walk away from a dead-end job by taking the steps toward a new employer, new career or your life’s purpose or mission.
• Go alone on a spiritual retreat for at least a week. See mkp.org for men, womanwithin.org and discovery-training.org.
• Return to higher education for a second career; school yourself anew.
• Take a sabbatical for personal reflection and rejuvenation or to serve as a volunteer or in a foreign country.
• Jettison unhealthy friendships and invest in better ones.
• Plan a really exciting vacation alone or with your spouse/partner/child to get away for a few days, weeks or months.

The enthusiasm we feel in response to The Unsuitable says, in effect, “this is not the one,” but “this inspiration is showing me what I’m missing and what I need.”

When you meet the other half of your soul, you will understand why all the others let you go.

When you meet the one who deserves your heart, you’ll understand why things didn’t work out with everyone else.

If this is confusing to you, just give me a call.

Best wishes,

Heather

214-636-5889

heather@heathercarlile.com