This is definitely an interesting topic. I've delved into this myself for well over a year, yet I've never really looked to any source outside of myself to learn how to handle it.
I'll warn you now, this post might be a tad lengthy, yet it just may provide you with an awakening within yourself, if you can easily relate to this topic.
If you dont care to hear my story, I wont be offended at all, so if you want to just get the pearl of it all, scroll to the bottom 3 paragraphs.
I'll give you a short summary of my PD and situation with my "other" so you can grasp my meaning fully.
I'm male, 21, in college and on the prowl for women. In highschool I was a natural ladies-man, which i really didnt appreciate fully until I got to college, fell into some bad habits, became obese, and just lost my "golden touch" with not only ladies but people in general. i decided to take a semester off, and I knew things had to change. Very long story short, I met up with a highschool friend during my semester-off, he presented some profound concepts (personal growth ideas) to me and told me to read "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill and to watch "Double Your Dating" by David Deangelo. At this point, I had already hit rock-bottom with nothing to lose, so I watched DYD, read T&GR, and all of a sudden my life got this HUGE boost, as if I had tripled the positivity of where I was in life. That was 1.5 years ago.
Now, I've been through sooooooooooo much personal development, I really must have learned more in this past 1.5 years than I ever did of anything in highschool (no exaggeration!).
So, finally to the "significant other" bit, well I cannot exactly relate to the significant part, my story is about a pretty serious girlfriend. I started talking to this girl named Kat that I really liked (this was around the days that I finished up DYD and had an enormous boost in my dating life again). We started dating, and probably within the first month of dating, I began sharing some of the concepts I was learning in PD. Now, the way I was then was very... I guess straight-forward is a great way to say it. I would share the concepts to her not really to "change" her, but more to get benefit from teaching this information to others, because teaching anything to someone else solidies the knowledge within your mind!
Ultimately, Kat and I met a bifucation point (a fork in the road). We were either going to start being more serious, or end it all. Luckily, I was at the point I could seperate myself from anything exterior, including a girlfriend. I told her that I had big standards, and that I required my "other" to be passionate about personal growth in life, to the point that she is either at my level of growth passion or exceeding it. Its good to have boundries, because earlier in my life, I settled alot and didn't really get what I wanted much. What really drove me to set this boundry was the idea my parents implanted into my head through growing up, that whoever I marry and I must share at least the deepest passions together, which provides much more growth together than ever was possible seperately.
So, Kat and I had this agreement, and she liked me so much that she started personal growth as well. I want to keep this post fairly short, so I'll just summarize the rest. Basically, over the next 3-4 months, she was doing growth, but at about the 5-6 month period we discovered she was doing it to impress me, to keep me around, as if NOT doing growth would make me leave (and she was right, in the early stages I would have). She has a people-not-loving-her complex, so thats the root of that. I digress.
Fast-forward to the present. About 6 months ago we decided to split apart, things were getting too complicated, and she was still doing everything to please me more than to actually grow for herself. Now, we live in a 2 bedroom apartment together (its sometimes hard to explain to people that her and I, guy and girl living together only as friends is possible). I practice my personal growth constantly daily, and she does it about half my speed, but she is nonetheless.
Here is the bottom-line, the "pearl of it all". Basically, this girl that I am now simply friends and I are on these terms. If you want to present these terms to your girlfriend, or dare I say spouse, thats up to you to do. I'm not responsible for any reactions or situations that you dont like that occur if you follow my footsteps (however, I'm very glad I walked my path and wouldn't have changed a thing.)
Kat and I are just friends. I am growing as a person daily, and she is growing as a person too. As we grow, if we grow apart, thats what is meant to happen. If we grow together, thats what is meant to happen. All personal growth should be done
for yourself, and not to please another/gain acceptance from them. The person should love you for who you are, not what you know or what you can do.
If your "other" isn't into growth, and its a life passion of yours, I'm not going to say things wouldn't work out, but I will say that you will find yourself quite frustrated quite often that the person you are closest to in life doesn't share with you in the thing your most passionate about. If your in a "light" relationship (girlfriend/boyfriend), you might consider getting out or just being single. If your married and you just found PD and your spouse isn't into it... stick with it and perhaps they will see how great of a thing it is.
Thanks for reading all of this if you did. Reply with your comments on my story, or any specific questions at all. I believe a troubled road should be easily avoided by everyone else if at least one person walked down it already.
Andrew Bentley
