Being successful is something that most of us strive for in some, way, shape or form. Success means different things to different people and sometimes, it’s driven by an indefinable reason that you just can’t put your finger on. You just know that you value something, it’s important, and you won’t feel ‘successful’ or content until you attain that specific measurement of your success. You have an idea of how you’ll feel, what you’ll be doing, and thinking about it may evoke a yearning sensation…or one of frustration and disappointment that you internalise and give yourself a hard time about it. It can throw a cloud over everything else to the point where you’re no longer enjoying life because your ‘failure’ is holding you back. Particularly when you feel like you’re being successful at other things which you thought would make it easier for you to meet a partner, it can be incredibly bewildering.
This is why, right now, there are millions of men and women who in spite of the fact that they are successful in terms of other areas of their lives like friends, family, professional achievements, they feel unsuccessful because they are not ‘successful’ in the one area that truly counts to them – relationships.
Here’s the thing: Being ‘smart’ in other areas of your life and it enabling you to be successful at those areas is not the same as being relationship smart.
I don’t doubt that many Baggage Reclaim readers are very intelligent, but being good at maths, closing business deals, managing people, being a marketing or PR whizz, taking calculated risks, or being a great teacher, doesn’t translate directly to relationships, especially when the heart and libido are involved.
I was contacted by a woman who for all intents and purposes was an extremely successful woman. Well educated, great career, own business making millions of pounds, big home, kids, family around her, friends etc. OK, she was divorced and that’s obviously not that easy to deal with, but here’s the kicker – she was dating a completely bonkers narcissist who was bouncing between her and his ‘ex’ wife. When she was dating him, she was dating other dodgy guys. Let’s just say that her taste in men was not in line with other areas of her life…
A lot of women in particular complain about the fact that they’re success is hampering their chances of meeting someone. I also know there are a lot of guys who in spite of their success, because they are not perceived to look the right way and may even be written off as ‘nice’, struggle to meet women, or the type of women they’d like to be with.
There are a lot of very unhappy successful people.
The fact that they are successful doesn’t change the fact that they are personally unhappy within and being personally unhappy can and will hamper your ‘success’ at relationships. Much like when we’re unhappy and end relationships only to discover that we’re still unhappy on our own and our problems seem to be following us, many people assume that if they have symbols of success, a magic lightbulb will go off and a relationship will follow.
Many people are driven to be successful because they are unhappy.
Many people are also successful because they totally immerse themselves in, for example, their work, so that they can avoid dealing with other aspects of their lives.
Sometimes we are driven to succeed in an effort to try to prove something to others, potentially seeking validation that we are different to what they thought we would be.
Sometimes we get so consumed by trying to achieve, that we end up defining ourselves based off things that don’t necessarily contribute to how successful we’ll be at a relationship.
I’ve talked about this before when I wrote about overestimating yourself: the consequence of change vs inertia in dating and relationships.
Many men and women overestimate the value of superficial qualities that they possess and undervalue other qualities and values that are far more important to their relationships. This means it’s a lot easier to say ‘I’m really successful and I can’t get a relationship’ than it is to recognise that there may be other things going on within you that may be holding you back from forging healthy relationships with a possibility of going the distance.
The fact that you are successful at work is great, but if you are conflicted within and don’t like yourself, are secretly uncommitted and carrying unhealthy attitudes about love and relationships, it doesn’t matter whether you can click your fingers and have a team of people jump to your beat, can afford to drop a few thousand on a shopping trip, are beautiful looking, or have great friends, especially when in spite of these successes, it’s relationship success that you actually want and value.
I hate to break it to you, but it’s not like you reach the holy grail of success and a relationship falls out of the sky into your lap. It’s not like we’re entitled to be in a relationship because we earn good money or got that promotion that we wanted at work; does that mean that someone who is poorer that didn’t get the promotion shouldn’t be in a relationship?
To give yourself a strong chance at relationships, you need a decent level of self-esteem, healthy ideas about yourself, love, and relationships, boundaries, values, an awareness about red flags and other inappropriate behaviours, and a recognition of real love, trust, care, and respect.
If you have poor taste in partners, place too much emphasis on electricity, fireworks, passion, drama, excitement, interests, appearance, money, and other superficial qualities, plus are catering to a ‘type’, and seeking compatibility based on the wrong things, you will struggle to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear.
You’re not single because you’re successful. You’re not going to be in a relationship and happy unless tied in with whatever measurements of success you have, you have healthy love habits. You may be single though because you place too much emphasis on your ‘success’, using it to define yourself and are not dealing with other behaviours that could be impacting on your chances because you don’t recognise the importance.
The likelihood is that if you’ve been making some sort of correlation between being successful and your desirability for a relationship, you are not seeing the wood for the trees.
If you place a value on these successes, it’s likely to be mirrored in your relationships where you may place too much value on the wrong things whilst either ignoring great things that you don’t value, or ignoring bad things because it doesn’t suit your agenda.
It is very easy to take your success and spread it across everything as if things that you need to be dealt with no longer need to be. However if you want someone to like you for you and value you, treating you with love, care, trust, and respect, you need to see the wood for the trees and recognise that you are not the sum of the successes you profess to have.
Mentality is behaviour. This is why going out and doing things to be successful doesn’t cancel out the wrong mindset.
If you’re saying variations of ‘I’m successful, why am I still single?’, I’d stop looking at your ‘successes’ and start looking a little bit closer to home to make sure that your beliefs and attitude are in line with what you profess to want. I talk to people about their desires for a relationship, and almost always, there are conflicts that they don’t recognise as conflicts.
If being in a relationship is how you are going to define how successful you are, you need to examine that desire and make sure that you are doing everything that you need to be doing to make it happen. Make sure that you’re also being realistic about your perception of what you expect that success to do or feel like. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a committed relationship, but if you define success as meeting someone who makes you feel like and be, something that you are incapable of feeling and being for yourself, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment.
I know a lot of people define their lack of success by their relationships. The expectation is that when they meet that person, they will feel good about themselves – they’ll be completed. But we can still be a complete person before we get the relationship. If we don’t like or love ourselves, even if we do meet someone, we won’t make a success of it because we won’t believe that we deserve it. We may sabotage it, or be drawn to people that confirm the negative things that we believe, keeping us further away from that success.
You also have to ask yourself, is this your only measure of success? It’s good to have a dream but it’s also good to be able to keep things in perspective and appreciate, embrace, and enjoy the other areas of your life, otherwise it’s a bit like putting your life on hold and tingeing the rest of your life in sadness. Addressing your perspective on yourself, love, and relationships means that instead of working harder at all those things that you think already make you successful, you’re making sure that you are relationship smart and relationship ready so that you don’t end up inadvertently sabotaging your own chances at success.
Your thoughts? How important is a relationship to you? Do you let being successful define you?
Your thoughts?
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“If you place a value on these successes, it’s likely to be mirrored in your relationships where you may place too much value on the wrong things whilst either ignoring great things that you don’t value, or ignoring bad things because it doesn’t suit your agenda”
Brilliant, NML. That is EXACTLY what I was doing! I thought I had so much to offer, without looking at the fact that I was emotionally unavailable, had little to no healthy boundaries and even less slef-esteem, and refused to let go when I should have taken the hint that the guy wasn’t interested long ago.
I could not see the forest for the trees. Now I’m trying to fell as many trees as possilbe and become a person I would like if I were to meet me.
I’m surprised at how I used to think success made me desirable – when I wasn’t doing the inner work that is so crucial. Money didn’t make me happy. Starting to have some self-respect is making me happier. And now I feel less needy and lonely.
Great article!
.-= Aurora´s last blog ..Brad and Angelina =-.
Success is pretty important to most people in an achievement oriented society. I am as financially successful as I want to be. I am single too, but by my own choice, meaning I have walked away from relationships when I realized that a healthy, successful relationship was not a shared goal.
Here is what I have realized after the fallout of the extreme EUM experience, which came on the heels of the ending of a 30 year relationship….. I never really thought about what my standards or goals were in a relationship; I just enjoyed the company of a man and assumed we were on the same page with regard to trust, communication, committment and the constant evaluation/ revaluation of mutual goals. OOOPS.
Looking back I can see that the guys were committed to various ” things” that did not translate well to partnership. One was a major spiritual seeker, into the personal growth kind of thing. While this would appear to make him an ideal intelligent sensitive parter, the fact is…he is intelligent and sensitive…. to his own needs. He was not insensitive to mine..he .just did not feel the need to consider them unless I really explained, ad nauseum, how my needs were not being met by him assuming things would go his way. I finally realized he was a good man but a bad partner. I did not feel like a failure for leaving that relationship, I felt it was only fair to me.
I admit to being a bit jaded these days, thinking many men do not want a partner, they really want the reins. I cant help but wonder if part of it is a reaction to the changing roles of men; just one generation ago men were usually the breadwinner and often the ‘boss.’ Now things are very different for men and women and if two people are not willing to explore this tension it may not go so well between them.
The more I think about this the more ok I am with being single because I have always believed in equality and true partnership between the sexes. Accepting anything less in a romantic relationship feels like selling out my soul to a man’s world and I have a hard time compromising my belief in equality. I guess I would have to define success as living true to your own truths and values. I hope I meet a real partner some day, and I now know I am looking for more than good company.
Money can’t buy love. That expression has been used throughout the ages and will hold up in any situation for any individual in any time period. I live by that motto and it hasn’t steered me wrong.
Aphrogirl: You wrote “I admit to being a bit jaded these days, thinking many men do not want a partner, they really want the reins.”
That is what I am finding, too. In my marriage, he was not looking for an equal partner, more like someone to do his bidding and be a “yes sir” type of woman. I got a letter from him today saying (this is 10 years later) that he still wants “reconciliation,” but I know he wants it on his terms, so I politely say “no thank you.” He doesn’t want to be a team where both people contribute equally and beautifully to the relationship.
He did not want me to be successful as he felt that would take away from his looking successful. It is a mystery to me that people can’t seem to share and rejoice with each others successes rather than try and one-up the other person.
I saw him in this post. He is driven toward success and achievement to avoid working on issues and pain. He would see his successes as making him a better person than other “less successful” people. It is unattractive, made him less than desirable to me, and I was unable to remain in that kind of relationship where I repeatedly asked for us to get down to the heart of the matter, and he repeatedly said “yes, okay, I will” and then just kept doing things the same old way.
Coming out of a 10 year marriage where he cheated, and JUST breaking up with my high school sweetheart that I JUST reconnected with (4 month relationship), I am taking a break and picking up my self esteem. After reading much, I am getting better at seeing the signs and only entering relationships that share the same goals and values. This site has been IMMENSELY helpful and keeps me sane.
My x-husband left me, but I left my high school sweetheart, as he turned out to be a major EUM and I’m done with the yo-yo loving. He had a great job, great package, great family, and it started out intense with lots of promises, but it turns out he just can’t love and is terrified of falling in love and now is saying he doesn’t know what he wants. So as hard as it was I left. I consider that my first step to finding a successful relationship even though breaking up with him hurt like HELL. (Still suffering – why does doing the right thing feel so awful?!)
I know that there is better treatment and better partnership out there.
Baggage Reclaim, I love you.
I think success is a personal accomplishment, an ambition. Choosing a partner and making a relationship work instead needs a sharing skill. You need a partner with real character and integrity. You need to think about how you, as a couple, will interact with the community and extended family.
.-= Brad K.´s last blog ..br: Looking for Relationship Success – is seeking the wrong goal =-.
Thank you for keeping me on my toes. Things like this keep me humble, make me remember that the common denominator is ME. 🙂
Some of my friends need to read this. But they won’t pay attention. 😐 Oh well, more information for me to keep. 😉
@Aurora “I could not see the forest for the trees. Now I’m trying to fell as many trees as possilbe and become a person I would like if I were to meet me.” – Great line. We often believe that doing all this stuff will make us happier but because we’re doing things that make us miserable, we of course, feel bad. A lot of people think another person will make them happy – having self-esteem makes you happy and lets you find opportunities to make you happier.
@aphrogirl “One was a major spiritual seeker, into the personal growth kind of thing. While this would appear to make him an ideal intelligent sensitive parter, the fact is…he is intelligent and sensitive…. to his own needs.” That’s a brilliant example of seeing the bigger picture and recognising that someone being in possession of certain admired qualities and behaviour, is no good to you unless it benefits you and the relationship. Some men do want the reins. Others will share the reins with you and will take it in turns. We may have changed a lot of things on the surface about the equality between men and women, but it hasn’t filtered down to core relationship behaviours between the sexes. This is why there is much confusion as both sexes are still catering some old beliefs.
@Phyllis Totally agree. If you want to see how much misery money can buy, just look at Hollywood.
@Lisa I think if you’re involved with someone who only wants to operate on their terms, it’s just never going to work. They’re not team players so you’ll be alone even when you’re with them and they just cannot empathise or operate with your best interests at heart.
@Myrtle It feels awful because your emotions were involved and parts of you that were interested in someone who was emotionally unavailable will feel the tug. It hurts because it’s supposed to but if you feel the pain and work your way through it, you will come out the other side. You are already doing the right thing by you and right now, you just have to have utter faith in yourself and the reality of better relationships. He is not as good as it gets.
@Brad K Ooh you have been missed. It absolutely does require a sharing skill. If we engage with people who don’t share or empathise, the relationship won’t take off. Likewise, we also need to open ourselves up and not be closed, locking ourselves into poor opportunities with poor prospects.
@ph2072 Thank you 🙂 Sometimes, people just aren’t ready to hear the message!
Thanks NML. You bring up some really good points. For a long time, I thought – “I’m successful at friendships, why is dating so hard? Why do I fail at that?” You know what though – I do have a ton of great friends. I got really lucky – my friends are good people. But, when I learned more about boundaries and loving myself – I had to face the fact that I didn’t do a good job in those relationships. I just got lucky – for the most part. I have some awesome people as friends, but I ended up attracting and retaining some unavailable friends too. Now that I’m more consistent in my boundaries, and I know it’s important to speak for my own needs – I’m more real in my relationships. Sometimes they’re less “successful” and smooth, but they’re more authentic and I know I am true to my own heart and needs.
Dear NML, I liked when you talked about being ‘relationship smart’ and when you wrote, ‘The fact that they are successful doesn’t change the fact that they are personally unhappy within and being personally unhappy can and will hamper your ’success’ at relationships.’
Here is something sad, but I want to write it because it gives a great description of what you are saying here. I have three sisters, so that makes four girls. We are all in our 30s now, early to late 30s. We are all what people would call ‘professionally successful’ in many wonderful ways… but here’s the sad thing, none of us is in a relationship, has a boyfriend, is engaged or married. None of us has children. Here’s something more sad, which explains the whole thing. My father was a violent man, he was violent with our mother and violent with us – and our mother condoned it – from when we were tiny, well up into our early 20s. It would be hard to gather a sense of self worth in such an environment. Need I say more? If any of us four were to have a relationship it would be a miracle. We are all ‘alone’ and I think it is no coincidence.
So it is true what you say NML, the inner sadness, the unhappiness, that we have for ourselves, that total lack of self-esteem, that is the thing which determines whether or not we find a lasting postive healthy relationship. I’m in therapy for what happened now, and have realised many things. I’ve been dating and have (shockingly) great boundaries. Principal among them is a deep sense of self-love which is emerging, and I no longer walk around with a blank price tag on my head – letting men determine my value. I am the only one who determines my value, and I set it high.
Thanks for all your wonderful blogs. They are AMAZING!!! And so are you!!!
I let my ethnicity, the music I like to listen to, my passion for animals, and other things identify me. How I’m currently doing in college and where I could go are part of my identity, but not all of it. right now, I’m choosing to be single, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about how it was with my ex-girlfriends, how I’m not seventeen anymore, and how a relationship might be defined for me next time.
I also wonder about this same question myself. I’m a successful business woman, I have raised a child successfully all by myself, I have a handful of good friends, but my relationship skills are terrible.
I like the term above, “I want to become the person I would like if I were to meet me”. That pretty much sums it up and that’s why I’m back in therapy for maintenance purposes. But here’s my question, are there men out there who are also willing to make the transition within themselves? If so, where are they?
The last guy I dated was a jumble of mess with guilt and shame. He is seeking therapy and thanks to me, I “showed” him what a somewhat well-adjusted person is like. I still have baggage, but like I’d said on my post on that site, it’s small enough to fit in the luggage compartment overhead. I’ve worked diligently for most of my adult life through therapy on improving myself and I know I still have room for improvement.
Thank you for this site. It’s helping me put some things in perspective. I will definitely be working to be a successful woman in a relationship and remain successful in my career.
Dear NML,
Something that has been on my mind a while and have questioned it several times in the past.
To give you a bit about myself, I am a CEO of my own corporation (yay! a woman CEO). I created and cultivated my corporation from infancy to its current stage of just a bit older than a toddler. I’m proud of myself for being able to start and maintain a successful career.
I’m a student of life, constantly evolving, learning, trying to improve not only about my business, but especially my mind, my heart and trying to get into a “healthy” relationship with a “healthy” man.
One thing I’ve noticed is that men are intimidated by successful women such as myself. They think that I will dominate them in the relationship not only financially, but in life overall. I’m far from it, sometimes actually being cordial and accomodating to the point where I ask the men I date to make decision on what restaurants to eat in, movies, etc. I am a lady in a man’s world who happen to be successful at it and I feel I’m being punished for my success and therefore, I’m not getting many dates.
I don’t want to apologize for my success. I feel I don’t need to. I am actually proud that I’ve come this far… now that I just need to give the same energy to forming a healthy relationship and finding a man to match. When I’m in a room full of men, which happens most of the time in my field and being one of the youngest or “the” youngest, those same so-called “powerful” men just can’t seem to fit me into the compartment in their brain. I don’t fit anywhere in their criteria as what a woman should be and where a woman should be. In their minds, I am not supposed to be in a room full of testosterone and should be behind an administrative assistants (no offense ladies, I started in this position) desk answering phones.
For example, this last EUM that I’d dated. He was just so surprised that someone who is in the same age group as he is, has accomplished so much, whereas he’s still trying to find his way to the corporate bathroom! He told me that I’m such a decisive woman, that no wonder I was able to accomplish so much at such a young age. When he said those words, I received that as him being intimidated.
When I go on dates, I have to play down my career, my accomplishments and reveal it on the 3rd or 4th date or whenever they ask about what I actually do for a living and my position. I hate doing it, but men are afraid of successful women, at least the ones that I’d met.
So what does a lady do on these situations? I meet so many men everyday in my field. The ones who are far more successful than I are married or taken which I’m not going to touch. Since I travel so much, a lot of eligible men are on the other side of the USA. The ones I deal with here near me are mostly intimidated by someone like me.
Any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
As a independent businessperson who has always been in a man’s world I think its safe to say that a successful older woman needs to know she is entering a brave new world when it comes to dating. Many middle aged grew up with the man being in charge and being king of the castle is a hard dream to let go of.
I am older and I know that if I want to date at my age I will need to find a self confident open minded mature single older man who is also looking for a relationship with a pretty demanding self made woman, one who is not like his mom ! I am sure a lot of men would think I am too fussy.
So what I seek may be one tall order, and while I do not expect perfection, I will not accept the immaturity or instability that comes from a guy who does not have his self confidence intact. Nor can I accept the laziness of a guy who does not know there is always work to be done to make and keep a relationship loving, healthy and alive.
I am not sure there are a lot of men out there looking for women like me ! and I have accepted that I may not meet someone. And, after the EUM encounter I am more than a bit cautious and am getting very clear about what I want at this stage of my life. I am also becoming really OK with the fact that finding a partner might be something very, very hard to find.
Strangely, this might read sad but it is not sad at all. It comes back to finding a deep satisfaction in life that is independent of a lover, independent of another. And since the only lover I want is one who also knows this level of self love for himself, finding this within me actually sets me up for the possibility of finding that kind of love.
Hi Aphrogirl,
It’s actually disheartening. I do find younger men who are confident enough to date someone like us, but I hardly have anything in common with them aside sex. That usually pacifies me for a day, but after that, I want something more substantial than just something between the sheets.
I’ve been unattached for too long and now that I have my life pretty much together, all I want is to find a healthy man to share it with in a healthy relationship.
I guess I need to work on being alone and accepting that fact for the rest of my life. Very disheartening.
Thank you
I am successful. But have found, I have to be vigilant as to who I let into my life around my work,. I am the Director of my own company, but also create concepts for other companies. I am confident and fun loving and inspirational in my ‘work’ life. Sometimes it does not serve me in my private life. I am all giving in my work life which is how I have become successful.
I have found men see this and think It will carry over into the bedroom. De the fun girl, De the girl who inspires without asking for anything in return. (they don’t see that I get a check at the end of the day, and a large one!!) So think I do it cause I’m a ‘people pleaser’, Ah no.. I do it cause it’s miserable out there and we all need to learn how to undo the corporate crap and bring some laughter and creativity into a structured life.
Thing is, I find sometimes if you smile at a man, he thinks it’s an open invitation to your bedroom. somehow I give off the wrong impression. I’m so confused.
I know, It’s my job to seperate and find a way to show people what I need. I know how to give, I just don’t know how to ask for my needs to be met. I think thats why I am alone. How do I ask for my needs to be met outside of the work environment.
I am still on the road of recovery, since the last eum left me literally shaking in my boots with fear, through his cold calculated betrayal. For the past few months I have been listening to a nightly meditation to fall to sleep with. I want to share this with everyone cause It has really really helped me 🙂
The tape I have been listening too, is Louise Hay’s, ‘forgiveness and loving the inner child’ meditation. There is one part that made me cry everynight because my heart was locked tight. She says .. when we can’t feel our heart is open to loving ourselves, there is a block, some one or something has blocked you from feeling this love…we have to go deeper now to find this person and thing and find forgiveness for the thing they did that made us lock our hearts.
Well, then you go deeper into the meditation and work on getting rid of the anger, bitterness and well you now all the toxic stuff these horrid people leave behind after they have used you and dumped you.
My point is, I have been going over and over this part of the meditation cause I was devistated to realise I could not feel myself in my heart!! How could I so easily put other people in there and yet I was not present in me!! I had no memories of me except bad ones, all the trauma memories plus this new betrayal was all I was. and honest, I really thought I did love myself. In the past i have been a happy person, loving myself, my choices, my life, but it seems everytime I get to this point in my life, happy content doing great, ready to love, one of these AC’s comes in and steals my light!! I lose myself and they become so much more important than me, and then when they have what they want or I complain, that I have needs… I lose them and then I feel I have lost the world… I am left an empty, and in leaving have made me feel I was not worth sticking around for. Horrid, how could I allow this to happen!!!??
The work has been clearing it all. And just in the past two weeks (after months) I have found me!!! All these amazing memories are coming flooding back. The little girl I had cringed at for the mistakes she made, hearing other peoples voices telling her how wrong she was, how stupid, how she should be doing this or that. I found her and at first she made me cry so hard and I hugged her but couldn’t feel her, now I am having a real relationship with her and I see she was just trying her best and somehow it just wasn’t good enough for other people.
I’ve decided to give her a break, De you did just great and you are doing great and I will hold your hand and make sure you are looked after, and are having fun.
I’ve gone past the ‘I want to make myself better for a man’.
I’m at the point now of… De what makes your heart sing, where do you want to go, what do you want to do to make you laugh.
It’s taken months but finally I am letting go of other people and embracing myself.
Thanks NML, I come here everyday for your support and those of everyone else. I feel proud of myself for finding you all and recognising this is an important part of my life.
peace 🙂
What you wrote is complete bullshit. Too often I hear single women say to me, I will not date a guy unless he is educated, smart and makes money.
I do not buy this article. To me, it reeks of being a crybaby because the women who are “successful” are a complete bitch and no man wants a woman who sees the man as a “net worth” statement.
Women, know how to treat a man and stop seeing them as subordinates.
O.K., today I am talking to the men out there.
Jumpoff–
If you are prejudiced against a successful woman for wanting someone just as successful as she (which, to me, she has a right to want, not that she will necessarily get that type of guy–remember, successful guys want trophy wives a lot of the time), then what of the trophy wife, who is even MORE dependent on her husband for money?
Hey, under your own logic, I myself would tell the trophy to rape youu financially in a divorce–something you didn’t expect Miss Dumb Bunny to do; right?
Go, Dumb Bunnys!