Dear Prudence: I am fairly new to the dating scene after a lousy 12-year marriage. "Once bitten" is a major factor for me, so when I date a man and think things are getting too serious, I'm outta there!

I met my present boyfriend three months ago, and I'm really thinking that I want to commit to him. Those three little words are on the tip of my tongue, but I'm afraid that HE will be the one running for the hills if I say them. How do you know when it's safe? -R.L.

Dear R.: One way to be safe is to let him say them first. However, some men wait until they are told first because they, too, do not want to send someone to the hills.

Should there come a time when you really want to tell him, do it, trust your instincts.

Also remember that saying "I love you" is a remark on your feelings, not a pledge of anything. —Prudie, Providentially

Gabby's Reply

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Hi R: You write, ". . . when I date a man. . ." as though this has happened dozens of times. Perhaps it has, but what you've done is lump all dates into a generality. The reasons you used to dump #3 are different than the ones you gave to dumpee #5, and none of those reasons are the truth. Based upon your comment about your marriage it's clear that you haven't gotten to the truth of how you created your "lousy" marriage (more about this below).

At the end of your letter you ask, "How do you know when it's safe?" A conscious person, one who is intent on knowing the truth, would have asked, "How do I know when it's safe?" Yours is an unconscious rhetorical question, as though what I would do would work for you.  You reveal that you are unconscious, as in sleepwalking. You'll know you're in present time* when you begin asking for feedback about how you destroyed a specific relationship so as to not do it again.

Your "once bitten" is covert (unconscious) blame, as though your ex was a venomous viper who did it to you. Clue: Just as vipers always hang out with vipers, so too do blamers hang out with blamers. A person who is clear about responsibility would write, "I destroyed my 12-year marriage." —communicated thusly it would create space for a new 'n improved one. But, because you are still dramatizing your marriage, lying about your cause in the matter, using it, and even earlier and similar communication breakdowns, as a reason for present behaviors, you will have to recreate another just like it. You'll have to create another person doing it to you over and over again until you get that it's your leadership-communication skills that are producing these less-than-desirable outcomes.

It works to make a distinction between talking and communicating. Whereas talking causes problems to persist communication always results in the experience of love. If you're not experiencing love then you've become stuck doing your imitation of communication. If he is not experiencing love then you are not a safe space for him to tell the truth.

Notice that you begin a relationship from the point of view of withholding your expressions of love. It's called controlling (controlling yourself and controlling him). You test the man, you present him with a modified (watered down) version of you.

For example:

"Here I am, but not the whole loving me. I'm not going to give you the real me until you pass a few of my tests."

It could be said that you present a man with your "loving act" and then expect him to fall in love with your act. If he does, you've conned an equally unconscious man. He doesn't know what you are really like. He doesn't know because all along you've been withholding your love. You have unconsciously (accidentally) withheld other parts of yourself during your sales presentation. By this I mean, you have been working towards a loving relationship by withholding thoughts. This is called deceit. With your most recent man you have verbally been withholding from him your considerations about expressing love. I say "verbally" because you have been communicating your considerations non verbally; he just doesn't know what you've been withholding. You've created confusion and uncertainty. So, when he thinks he's with you he's not, he's with someone who is afraid to say what's on her mind. You haven't been sharing the real you. All the while you expect him to be open and honest and spontaneous with you.

Eventually you'll discover that the men you have attracted have had no option whatsoever but to withhold some of their thoughts from you. In this regard you have been and are the leader. Put another way, using your present communication model it's virtually impossible for you to attract anyone except a man who withholds his thoughts of choice. What happens is you dump your imitation of communication (talking), words minus your experience and expressions of love, in another's space and then wonder why it doesn't produce what you say you want.

My advice: Come from love. Start each relationship from love. Love everyone. Using air as an analogy: Love is the same as air; it's simply in the air. I love the tree the tree loves me. It only means something when it's not experienced. Withhold air and a person dies. Withhold love and a person dies—they end up walking around in life doing their imitation of living. Love only means something when it is withheld, for reasons—as though it is important or significant. I know this is ludicrous advice because you have a lifetime of created experiences that you now use as reasons to not come from (to communicate from) love. That is to say, your mind is chock full of considerations and proofs of why it's not advisable to love everyone all the time, every man, everyone, right up front.

So, how do you get from distrust and show-me-what-you-got-and-then-I'll-love-you, to pure and simple, "I love you" without it meaning anything other than that you are experiencing the experience of love at that particular moment? You could say,

"I'm experiencing love at this moment. I've noticed that it happens quite often when I'm with you."

Or,

"I notice that when I'm not around you I have experiences of love thinking of you but when I'm around you I don't." 

In this way you don't lay a trip on him; there's no con involved. I.e. There's no implied, "Now tell me you love me or I'll pout."

Better still, create the experience of love at will by telling the truth, by sharing your experience, your considerations, your thoughts, your expectations, your boundaries, with each person you date, all the time. Especially share your judgments of them; your thoughts as to why you think you are not loving them at this particular moment in time. That is to say, you're either experiencing love or you're withholding a thought, or you're causing another to withhold a thought from you. There are no exceptions to this fundamental communication principle. Keep practicing until you get spontaneity down pat—until you can be trusted to consistently tell the truth.

For example, communicate the following up front:

"I've had a pattern of withholding expressions of love and of dumping guys for various reasons, ostensibly when I think it's getting too serious."

In so doing you will reap tons of valuable feedback. You'll get to know who you are and who you are not. When you can "get" the truth of each person's considerations about you without reacting negatively (it's called being a safe space for the truth to be told) your ideal partner will find you.

I recommend spending time with a communication skills coach; ask for support in creating a safe space for others to tell you the truth—such conversations are awesomely enlightening (awaking).

Such a great letter. Many will get value from reading it.

With love, Gabby

PS. Unbeknownst to you you have been loving everyone, and, everyone has been loving you, absolutely. You've just had a misunderstanding of what love is. The meanest acting person you know is loving you with all that they have available. For some, "Bug off! I hate you" is the highest expression of love they can muster at that moment. They are in fact doing their best. They have barriers (consisting of hundreds, if not thousands, of thoughts) to expressing the love that is there. The love is just buried underneath these non-verbalized thoughts.

Here's an analogy: There's a pile of sand between you and each person. The pile is not so high that you can't see and interact with each other but high enough to serve as a barrier to the experience of joyous love. The sand represents a pile of thoughts, yours and theirs. The way to experience love is to shovel away (verbally communicate) each thought until there is nothing between you. What's left is the experience of love. The way to recreate an experience of love at will is to keep the path clear of all grains of sand. One grain (one thought withheld) can serve as a barrier to the experience of communication, of love.

What most look for, and don't know how to create at will, within a single sit-down conversation, is the experience of love. Most married couples seldom experience the experience of love each day. Many haven't experienced it for a very long time, if ever. Most carry their memory of the last experience of love with them throughout each day, they live from the concept that they love their spouse.  The love has become conceptualized—it's no longer an in-the-now experience. Their communication model supports withholding thoughts of choice from each other.

PPS. It's quite common for a married person to  experience the experience of love for their spouse while driving or away from their spouse. They then go home and do something for their spouse, a gesture, action, favor, chore, or gift (that represents the love), something that expresses their love. The reason they seldom experience love when face-to-face with their spouse is that when they look in their partner's face it mirrors all the thoughts each are withholding from the other—these thoughts serve as barriers to the experience of love.

* In support of being in present-time visit The Clearing House and do The Clearing Process, one of four free communication skills processes. Do one clearing per day for five days in a row. Your mind is clouded with incompletes (unacknowledged perpetrations and withholds), these keep you from being clear, and from being here and now. Doing the clearing will allow you to discover the thoughts you need to communicate to him and others.

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