"Is There Hope For Our Relationship?"

Lauren asks:

"I have been married for 12 years, our marriage has always been a struggle of various forms. I have gotten to feel so empty and resentful that I can hardly look at my husband in the eye let alone be loving to him. I feel my inner self tell me its time to be done. But my mind tells me differently because of our wonderful children. Trying to find out if there is hope for our relationship or if I can truly feel love/intimacy for him without sacrificing my own health?"

Lauren, I don't know enough about your relationship to know whether or not there is hope for your marriage, but what I do know is that there is much inner work for you to do before deciding that it's time to leave.

The first telling statement is, "I have gotten to feel so empty and resentful…" I know you believe that your emptiness and resentment is about your husband, but it's not – it's about your own self-abandonment.

You feel empty and resentful because you are not taking loving care of yourself. If you leave the relationship before learning about how you are abandoning yourself, which is causing these feelings, you will take your dysfunctional patterns with you into your next relationship.

The next telling statement is, "I can hardly look at my husband in the eye let alone be loving to him." Your inability to look your husband in the eye or be loving to him sounds to me like a projection of not seeing your own essence and not loving yourself.

When we see and value our own true Self – our own soul essence – then we are able to see and value the essence of others. Right now you are seeing your husband through the eyes of your ego wounded self, which says to me that you are seeing yourself through the eyes of your ego wounded self. We cannot see our own or another's essence through the programmed eyes of our wounded self.

Until you do your inner work to learn to see and value your own essence, it is unlikely that you will be able to look your husband in the eye.

Because you are probably abandoning yourself rather than loving yourself, which is leading to your inner emptiness, you have no love to share with your husband. When you learn to fill yourself with love, then you will have love to share.

Once you are filled up with love, then you can know whether or not there is hope for your relationship. There is a good possibility that when you are loving yourself and making yourself happy, your relationship will change for the better. But even if it doesn't, at least you will not be taking your self-abandonment with you into your next relationship. And learning to love yourself rather than abandon yourself is the very best role modeling you can give to your children.

I suggest that you let go of the outcome regarding your relationship and focus on the process of learning to love yourself - which means learning and practicing Inner Bonding. By learning and practicing the Six Steps of Inner Bonding, you will gradually stop abandoning yourself and start loving yourself.

Your health is determined more by whether or not you love yourself than by any other factor. Leaving the relationship without learning to love yourself will not necessarily improve your health. You might feel relief for awhile, but self-abandonment takes a huge toll on health. Also, the problematic patterns of behavior are likely to repeat if you have not healed.

Learn to love yourself and then see where your relationship is. You might be surprised at the outcome!