Hi, it's Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track. Welcome back to the podcast.

In this podcast, I want to talk to you about past relationships, and the reason I want to do this is that I had a memory pop into my head yesterday. When I first started coaching, I was talking to a chap about relationships, and he let loose on this barrage of quite nasty statements about his ex-partner. And as I listened to him, I was amazed at the intensity and the ferocity of these statements. And once he unleashed and I had let him vent a little bit, and then I stopped him, and I asked him how long ago this had happened, figuring it would have been mere months ago because it sounded like it was still really raw and really fresh. He told me, and I almost literally fell over. He said it was 15 years ago. 15 years and he was still holding this venom about this woman that had wronged him, and I was amazed at how much ferocity there was behind it, and sadly, he's not a solo story. There are many people that are like this.

 They carry around these negative views about their ex-partners. I'm amazed that people do this and in this podcast I want to just give you a couple of little things to ponder, to think about in regard to your ex-partners. Now, I don't know obviously, how you view your ex-partners. You might have parted really healthily. You could still be able to have a dialogue with him if you needed to. You probably don't bear any grudges or any hurt or any venom against them. And that may be the case. If it is, fantastic. If you're someone though, that does carry around some things that bug you still, I want to give you a couple of things to get you to think about them that may help you shift your viewpoint of them, your perception.

First of all, when you got with them, you're with them for a reason. And through the course of the relationship, those things were probably still present. Those good things that you enjoyed were probably still there. But because you started focusing on the negatives as you moved out of the honeymoon period into the power struggle, you probably focused a lot more on the negatives because as humans we're silly like that. We focus on negatives more than we do positives. So, therefore we tend to not see the positives because we're focusing on the negatives. So I want you to think about some of the things that were there, that appealed to you, that made them someone you would consider going out with, and know that they're still those things, even though those negatives were there.

And the other thing I want you to ponder. And I'll tell you, my story as well to illustrate this. Actually, there's two parts to this. We attract the people that we need at that moment in our life. So for where we are at that moment in time, we attracted the perfect person for us. We attracted them into our lives. We welcomed them in. We chose to be with them and we chose this because they bring certain lessons. So they attracted us because we have lessons for them. Now, if we're aware, we can receive these lessons and we can become better versions of ourselves. So I'll illustrate these point with two stories. 

One was or is, I should say, when I first get with partners, I'm someone who enjoys looking after someone. So when I get with them, I tend to do most of the cooking, I'll do most of the shopping and things like this and I don't have a problem with that. But in the past, what I found was, I started getting angry in the relationship and I couldn't figure out why, and it was only years later that I realised why. Because each of us has things that we do so easily, so naturally that we don't see it as difficult, yet other people, they struggle with it.

So I don't know about you, if you've ever watched, say, a bricklayer, they get the bricks, they slap them down. They make it look easy. So then you decide. I could probably build a wall and then you build a wall and it looks like someone's thrown the bricks from about eight metres away. I know that because I've actually done that, not throwing them from eight metres away, but built a small retaining wall, thinking "Ah. it can't be that hard" and a bricklayer, who was a mate of a mate came along and had a look at it and went "The walls a bit wobbly".

Anyway, there are things that we do so easily, so naturally, we don't think about it, that if we don't realise that we can feel like we're being used, that we're not being valued. And that's how it was for me, with the cooking and the shopping and all of these things. So I ended up feeling used and taken advantage of, and that's where my anger came from, and what it is, is I had this ability to do these things and because I just did it so naturally and so easily, I didn't think about it, and therefore it was not consciously used by the other person.

They used it without me being aware that I needed it to be acknowledged. When I met my current wife, I said to her, "Look, I'll make your coffee every morning for breakfast. I'll cook. I'll do the shopping. We actually do it together. I said, I'm happy to do all of that and every now and then though, I want you to just come up and say thank you. So I'll give her a coffee in the morning and she'll say Thank you and I feel appreciated. I'll wash the dishes, which I do, you know, 98% of the time and she'll come up every now and then and give me a little hug and say thank you for doing the dishes, and I'll feel appreciated.

So because my little gift, my little ability, my skill is being acknowledged. I feel I have worth, I have value and I feel loved. So that's something where with our exes, we can be bringing these things into the relationship because we are not aware of them, we have a sense that we're not valued. We don't have worth. We might not be appreciated or have as much gratitude from our partners as we would like. So that was could be one of the things with your ex. You know, you could be feeling like they didn't value you. they didn't take your worth for what it was and give you appreciation. And that could be where it stems from, something like that.

The other one is, I've mentioned this in a previous podcast where we attract partners who push our buttons and it gives us an opportunity to grow. So with my partners, I tended to attract angry women, and I didn't know why. And it became quite intense with wife number two, and the anger was of a very high standard, a very high level. And it wasn't until I'd ended the relationship because I couldn't see it changing, that I did some work and I realised that these two women that I had married we're bringing in a challenge to me, to step into my masculinity and to be strong, to be firm and to by the masculine energy within the relationship which I wasn't doing.

So now I do that, and I don't have a problem doing that, and consequently, I don't need to attract angry women anymore. So that's why my wife and I have so little conflict is because, a) I have learned how to use it properly, and b) I didn't need to attract an angry woman anymore. So for you, that could be the same thing. You need to sit down, look at your previous relationships, ponder what they were bringing, that was giving you an opportunity to be a better version of you.

Also, what were the skills and the abilities that maybe you weren't being appreciated for? So therefore, you know, you didn't feel like you had as much worth with your ex, as you would have liked. So this is a couple of things for you to think about in regard to your previous relationships. So I'm hoping that gets your thoughts going. It gives you something to think about and ponder and hopefully allows you to release some of the stuff you've been dragging around with ex-partners and so that you can let them go on, move on into your next relationship or if you're in one currently, give yourself to it fully.

So I hope you've enjoyed this. I hope you found it illuminating. Feel free to send us any messages, questions, whatever, and we're happy to answer them. So yeah, look after yourselves, and remember, here's to a good life.

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out.

 You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE

Thanks for listening.