RECEIVING MORE IN RELATIONSHIPS | HOW I FINALLY PUT AN END TO THE TOXIC PATTERN OF GIVING MORE THAN I WAS RECEIVING IN MY RELATIONSHIPS

Have you ever found yourself pouring all you had into a relationship, only to receive breadcrumbs in return? Have you ever felt so depleted in a relationship, that when it was over you felt like you had nothing left to give? If so, you are absolutely not alone.

For years, I was in a relationship where I was giving way more than I was receiving. And it left me feeling depleted, resentful, frustrated and alone, with absolutely nothing left to give.

That’s why in this episode of The Femme Cast, I'm going to share with you how I finally put an end to decades of giving way more than I would ever receive in my relationships, and finally opened myself up to creating more loving and fulfilling relationships.

Join me in exploring the power of radical self-love - a journey that shifts the narrative from tirelessly meeting others’ needs to fiercely prioritizing your own.

This episode is a toolkit for transformation. Dive into practical strategies, daily reflections, and actionable steps tailored to cultivate the radical self-love you need to transform all your relationships, and your life.

Let's do this.

Are you ready to create a massive uplevel in your life and relationships? If so, use the link below to book your 90-minute Uplevel + Flow Intensive. This is a powerful 90-minute session where we go deep to energetically shift one relationship pattern you are ready to break free from, so you can magnetize more loving and supportive relationships without the chase...just flow!
https://thefemmecast.com/uplevel-and-flow-intensive

Are you ready to begin your heart healing journey today and manifest the love that you desire? If so, use the link below to register for my Uplevel + Flow Meditation Series . A 3 part series designed to help you heal from heartbreak and manifest love you've always wanted, but never thought you would find.
https://thefemmecast.ck.page/meditations

Are you ready to rewrite your love story + glow from the inside out as you become a magnet for the love you've always known you deserved? If so, use the link below to register for my 21 Day Radical Self-Love Challenge.
https://thefemmecast.ck.page/21daychallenge

Transcript

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 0:32

Hey you guys, what is up and welcome back to the show. I'm so excited and grateful to have you here. Welcome if you're new. So today I wanted to dive in a little deeper with you guys into kind of the story that I guess probably got me started on this whole radical self love journey, which I didn't really know it at the time, to be quite honest, what was happening. It would be years before I realized what was happening. I knew what was happening. I didn't know the why. I mean, I think that the answer as to the why came many, many years later, of me fighting and doing all the wrong things before I started doing all the right things. To give you just to kind of set the scene a little bit. So, because we're going back quite a few years now.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 1:21

So I was with my then partners my first real, probably serious, relationship. We'd been together for 15 years. We were very committed to one another. I mean, this was my person, right, and we'd been together for, I think at that point, probably about seven or eight years. We just moved in together, we'd gotten a place together and on the outside everything looked so great, right, and everybody thought we were just like this, perfect couple. We weren't. We were anything but the perfect couple, and I don't think it really showed up until after we'd moved in together. Before that, everything was nice and pretty on the surface. It wasn't really until we moved in together that we realized some of the deeper issues and the relationships and the imbalances and the toxicities that were coming out in both of us. Right, and you know, looking back on that period of my life, it was by far one of the most painful periods. Right, and the seven years that followed were very, very, very painful, but they were very transformative and they were really pushing me into this lesson of learning to love myself and give to myself first, and not always over giving and people pleasing my way through my relationships. This was the pattern for me that was creating so much toxicity and it would continue to do so. This was my no means the last relationship that would do this, but now, looking back on that relationship in hindsight, I can really see wow, it was right in front of me playing this day, what it was trying to teach me and what it was that I needed to learn.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 3:09

So, like so many women, you know, we had been together for such a long time, me and my partner then at the time and I was giving, giving, giving and giving to this relationship. I was working my butt off at work. I was, you know, bringing in my fair share of the income. I was coming home, I was cooking the dinners, I was doing the cleaning, I was keeping up with the laundry, was making this beautiful home, doing all the things that a good partner woman does for her man, right, or at least that's what I had been taught right.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 3:51

And it was so funny because the more I gave to this person who I loved, who was my person, the less I received. And this became very confusing to me and it almost became like a bit of a mindfuck, because I just kind of felt like, okay, maybe I need to turn up the volume on the. Not at the time I didn't know this is what I was doing, but looking back, this is legit what I was doing. I feel like, okay, maybe I need to give a little bit more right. And it was almost like a. By giving more, I was like setting the example of what I wanted to receive, right, or you know, maybe he'll get the hint, or maybe I'm really not just giving enough and he's not seeing how much I give, and maybe I really do need to give more. Maybe I'm just not enough.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 4:37

All these things right, and it's so funny because the more I gave in this relationship, the less I was receiving, and I was getting so frustrated. I was getting frustrated, I was getting angry, I was getting resentful, and not only was I not receiving in return, eventually he started giving to others aside from me. Imagine how this felt. This was probably again. This was the most, the most painful relationship I had ever experienced, and it took 15 years for me to really get the lesson and walk away, but not before a considerable amount of damage had been done. Looking back in hindsight, I was really disappointed. There's so many things I would have done differently, but had I not gone down this road, I probably wouldn't have learned those lessons. So for that I do appreciate this experience and all the value that it brought me, and hopefully by sharing this here with you today, you can start to shift some of these patterns before they basically cause irreparable damage to your relationship, because they really can cause irreparable damages to relationships if they're not caught in time.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 6:09

And so you know, going back, you know I was giving, giving, giving, giving, giving. I wasn't receiving anything in return, very little. What I was receiving was very surface level. You know he would say I love you all the time, but he wouldn't look at me when he said it. You know he would say I was most important person in the world to him, but he wouldn't look away from his video games to have a conversation with me. You know we couldn't plan a vacation, we couldn't plan on having kids, we couldn't plan on anything because he was either working, exhausted from working, or playing video games to decompress after having worked. And then, when that wasn't enough, you know, he was entertaining other relationships outside of our relationship.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 6:51

So I was becoming increasingly angry, resentful, filled with hate, and not just towards him but towards myself, because I just kept feeling like what is wrong with me? That this person who I love more than life, who I would basically trust my life with, you know, doesn't even see me Like, doesn't see how much pain I'm in, doesn't see how lonely I am, doesn't see how rejected I'm feeling right now, and even if they do see it, they're just completely dismissing it. You know it was a very difficult time. I know I keep saying that, but I mean it was painful, right. And I can remember one of the moments.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 7:39

You know, we've had one of our probably one of our worst arguments, I think in this period, and I remember just sitting in front of him just saying I just want you to love me, like that's all I'm asking for is your love, and I don't understand why it's so hard. And he was just looking at me like I'm the lunatic for saying that. Right, but that was really what I was feeling. I just wanted his love. I just wanted him to love me. I wanted him to see me, I wanted him to notice me and to connect with me, because I was feeling completely alone in this relationship.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 8:17

I didn't realize how emotionally unavailable he was underneath it all, but I also didn't realize how attached I was to him being emotionally available to me and showing his love to me and affirming his love to me and giving back to me so that I could fill my cup after giving all of what I had to him. You know what I mean? Like there was such a codependency there. It was creating massive toxicity on both sides, and so the more he pulled away, the more attached I became, and then he would pull away more, and then I would get more attached, pull away, more and more attached. It became this never ending toxic cycle where he would just keep pulling away and I would just keep trying to pull him back, either by trying to give more repeatedly, or by trying to fight for him to give me more so that I could fill my cup back up from all the giving I'd been doing, because I was literally depleted. I had nothing left.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 9:19

When this relationship was over, I literally, I remember saying I have nothing left to give you, like I've given you everything that I have in my power to give. I, my tank is empty. I had no feeling left. I actually felt a little dead inside after everything. And you know and we had been through a lot of other things along the side of everything too, like there was, you know, there was the toxicities between us. There was emotionally unavailableness on his end. There was the attachment and the neediness on my side. There was, you know, all the extracurricular relationships that were happening. There was all kinds of health and financial issues that we were struggling with, and not to mention, you know, the family planning struggles that you know we were dealing with and you know we had our fair share of obstacles that we had been through and you know when it finally came down to it. You know, between all the struggles that we had experienced and between all the effort into I, you know what I had felt, I had put into trying to make this relationship work. I was done. I was done. I was absolutely exhausted and I had, I had nothing left in me to give to this relationship. I don't think I had anything left in me to give to anything, any relationship.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 10:29

Actually, after this, I was so drained and literally, you know, the whole time we were together, it was this energetic begging of him to just give me more and to make me feel more loved in the relationship. That is literally all I wanted, which seemed like such a simple task. The problem was is that I was going about it all the wrong way and this was my big lesson. Could this relationship have been saved if I learned it sooner? Maybe, probably, yeah, why not? You know, maybe a lot of the detachment and the emotional unavailability on his part was due to my emotional attachment to him and my need for him to kind of fill this void inside of me, this cup inside of me that you know I wasn't taking care of on my own, maybe the energetics of this relationship could have been totally different. From that lens and that standpoint, right, it's possible. You know there was signs that he was emotionally unavailable even before we, you know we kind of moved in together and started a life together, but you know, I didn't notice it then, I notice it now, but again, we'll never really know for sure. If you know, having done this would have changed that relationship in a way that I would have wanted it to. You know I can say now with certainty that, having implemented, you know, some of these changes that you know we're going to talk about today have significantly transformed all of my relationships and the kind of like romantic relationships that I attract into my life, and it has been both the simplest and the most challenging shift to make.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 12:27

Because here's the thing, you know going back into this relationship when I was feeling unloved, unseen, completely alone and resentful for all that I'd given and not received in return in this relationship, and to add salt to the wound he was giving to other people, that was, I think, the real kicker in all of this. You know, there was this belief under all that either that I wasn't enough, or that I wasn't giving enough right, and that if I would give more, then he would naturally want to give more to me. Because this is what love meant to me. Love to me meant giving. If you love someone, you give. If there are, you know, if, if, if how you get someone to love you is to give. If they're not loving you, then you give more and then they will love you right. This is how distorted it was in my brain.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 13:20

So what I ended up finding myself doing in this relationship was either a giving more and in the process, getting more resentful, more burnt out and having even less to give, getting more depleted, or I was fighting for him to give me more again and then, when I wasn't getting it, still creating more resentment, more burnout, more exhaustion. Still giving from an empty cup, like it, hasn't solved any of my problems that I was hoping that these two methods would solve. If anything, it's exasperated everything. The very thing that I had turned to as a solution to the problem that I had been experiencing, which was to give more or to fight for what I wanted him to give me, was only exasperating the problem to begin with, and so I didn't see this at the time. So I kept at it until, literally, the relationship was completely unsalvageable because after years of more fighting, more feeling unloved, more resentment, more of an empty cup, I literally I reached a point where I had nothing left to give anymore. I didn't have two fucks to give anymore.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 14:43

At that point, like I was just so bitter and disgruntled, I felt like an emotional void. It was like I had actually. I remember actually going with therapists and saying you know, like is it weird? Like I don't feel anything, like I actually feel dead inside. She actually said to me you know, you've been letting go of this relationship for a very long time, so you've already kind of detached in that way, which was actually kind of a good thing, although I didn't realize it at the time. Only if I had done it sooner, however. So I think you know where I was was perfect for the journey we had gone on together.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 15:28

But, knowing now what I like, had I known then what I know now, I do believe things could have worked out differently had we con it soon enough. And this was the big lesson for me Okay, what I needed to do instead of constantly giving and giving more and giving more and giving more and receiving less, and receiving less and receiving less, and then having him give to others and not give to me, and all the resentment and the anger that that created, or fighting for him to give to me that which I wanted him to give or needed, that he didn't have the capacity or the bandwidth to give at the time. What I needed to do instead, at the very beginning, when I see this happening, is to start to give to myself, and this is a mistake that many of us will make time and time and time again, because for many of us not all of us, but for many of us we've been hardwired to constantly give to our relationships. Giving right In our mind, giving is how we receive love. If we want to receive love, we give. When we give, we receive love, we receive validation, we receive or at least that's kind of how our childhood brain processes information. Right, because as children, this is very true right. When we give things to people, when we give love, when we give affection, we're praised for it, we're acknowledged for it, for the most part right, and we're rewarded for it right.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 17:07

So, especially as little girls, I don't think this is as much. For little boys. This is very much a woman issue, not a guy's issue. Sorry guys, if you're listening, but women, girls, are very much brought up to be givers and to be pleasers and to be nice and to do the nice thing and to say the nice things and to do what needs to be done to make others around them feel comfortable and happy at all times, and this is the source of the toxicity that needs to be broken if we are going to change patterns in our relationships. This is the source, this is like the needle point of all of our toxic relationship issues.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 17:58

Is this belief that we need to keep giving, we need to keep appeasing, we need to do the nice thing, be the nice girl, make everyone around us feel comfortable and feel valued, seen, appreciated, in order for us to be loved. While all those, in balance, are very healthy things to do in relationship, we've taken it to the extreme, where it's become unhealthy, where we're now codependent on these things in order to receive the love and the validation that so many of us are so desperately seeking right. And so how we start to break this codependent attachment that we have to these things is to pull back our energy from giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, pleasing, pleasing, pleasing, pleasing, pleasing, appeasing, appeasing, appeasing all these people around us and start to give to ourselves instead. Only then Are we going to see things shift. And this is the hardest of all like. This is the work. This is absolutely the work.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 19:11

This is why I believe that the key to creating healthy, loving and fulfilling relationships and a fulfilling life, for that matter is through the practice of radical self-love, because it's only when we can come into a space with with ourselves to be radically loving and accepting of who we are and prioritizing what it is that we need for ourselves, can we come into a relationship in a healthy way, where we're no longer attached or in need of the other person to fill a hole that we've not filled for ourselves already. Right, so it sounds simple, but it's not, because this is where all your triggers are going to come up, because you know I can. I can give you the strategy that I used, right and it's and it's so simple. I can give you the strategy that I use, but you're gonna come up against a lot of resistance. You're gonna come up against moments where you're gonna want to Say fuck it to the strategy, because someone needs something or this person's unhappy with you or they're angry, so you should do something to make them love you again, like there's gonna be. There's gonna be times and moments where you're gonna want to say this isn't what's important right now. This person's important, their needs are important, their feelings are important, what this person needs for me is important, and then I will be loved, and that is asked backwards and that is really the work that we do together. So this is something that you're struggling with. Send me a DM, hit me up, reply to this email. Wherever you're seeing this Semi a note at Maria at the fem coach, calm and let's talk about working together in a one-on-one capacity.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 23:22

But it literally is as simple as asking yourself. Could be as simple as asking yourself these three questions every day what am I feeling right now? And acknowledging it and feeling it and not shaming yourself that, shaming yourself and judging yourself for it, and allowing yourself to move through those feelings. What am I needing right now? Right, what do you need that you can give yourself and put that at the very top of your priority list today, very top, first thing, before you do anything else. And what do I know that I need to put first on my list every single day if I am to show up as my best, the best possible version of Myself available to me each and every day. Right, because that'll change from day to day, and that's okay, Right, and the very first thing you should be putting on your list every day is asking yourself all these three questions. That's the first thing on your list. Ask yourself these questions.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 24:20

And then there's other things that you might need. Maybe what you need is, you know, a healthy meal plan, right, a nice, healthy, balanced meal plan to make sure that you're meeting all you your nutritional needs and you know, you're not Binging on carb snacks at 11 pm Before you go to bed, right? Maybe you need more sleep. Maybe you need a Break in the middle of the day to clean out your inbox, because you know it's, you know you've accumulated so much and it's making you feel chaotic at work. Maybe what you need is, you know, some self reflection time in the middle of the day to kind of, you know, process your morning and kind of figure out a game plan for the afternoon, right? Maybe what you need is a gym membership or another, or some way you can decompress with physical activity. Maybe it's dance lessons, maybe it's an art class, maybe, who knows?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 25:16

Like I, want you to really think about what it is that you are needing on the regular In order to be the best possible version of yourself, each and every day and again, recognizing that that'll be different from day to day and that is okay. But that needs to be your priority. And you're gonna be so tempted to put everyone else's needs work needs, children needs, family needs, husband needs, sister, brother and uncle cousin, fifth cousin once removed, I don't even know Friends, networking groups, whatever You're gonna put all of everyone else's needs top of your to-do list. You're gonna leave yours last, and I know because I've done this. You're gonna leave yours till the end of the day and then guess what happens? You're so tired. Oh, fuck it, I'll do it tomorrow. So you've taken care of everyone else's needs, but your needs are like you keep pushing them off. Pushing them off, pushing them off. They need to be one of the first things you do each and every day.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 26:34

And when you start to feel like you've given too much, like you're now becoming resentful, oh my God, I'm giving, giving, giving, giving, giving. Am I not getting anything? Stop, check back in, even if it's the middle of the day, even if you've already done it today, you need to do it again, asking yourself what am I feeling right now? What am I needing right now? What do I need to prioritize right now in order to shift how I'm feeling and to make myself feel full? This needs to be a constant thing, and it's the very thing that we're taught not to do. It's the very thing that we're taught is selfish, is bad, is not nice in relationship, but it's the very thing that's actually going to make our relationships thrive and create the loving and fulfilling that relationships that we're all longing for. And that is because when we start to give to ourselves, other people are gonna start to mirror that back to us. See, what's happening is an energetic. It's an energetic mirror.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 27:45

The relationship that we have with other people is a direct reflection of the relationship that we have with ourselves. So if people aren't giving to us, it's because we are not giving to us. If people are not making us a priority, it's because we're not making ourselves a priority. This is literally the basis of my work and this is why I always teach relationship healing through radical self-love, because it's through radical self-love inwardly that we experience radical self-love outwardly. Do you get what I'm saying?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 28:19

It is so important. It is so far beyond just radical self-love is so far beyond taking yourself from many patties on Sundays which is nice, by the way, I do that too, but it's not the be all end all. It's so much more important than that. It's about really knowing who you are and loving yourself as you are and prioritizing what it is. You need to be your best self and when you make the decision to do that, other people will follow and you can give to them and they can give to you and you can be in this beautiful, harmonious exchange with the relationships in your life, and that's exactly what starts to happen.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 28:59

You know, I've been in relationships with people who had so much to give and would give breadcrumbs literally breadcrumbs and then I was in relationships with people who had so little to give, who would bend over backwards to give whatever little bit that they could because of their love for me, and that meant so much more to me than any of the breadcrumbs, and I received it from any of the other douchebags that I dated. You know what I mean. So I really take this in and really give it some thought. Where are you prioritizing everyone else's needs in your life? Where are you giving way more than you're receiving and where are you feeling that resentment show up? Pay attention to those relationships because they're asking you to transform them and then ask yourself what am I feeling right now? What am I needing right now? What do I know that I need to put first on my list in order to show up as my best self? Okay, so I want you to reflect on those. Let me know in the comments below or on my social media or wherever you're seeing this.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 30:15

You know what you take away from this episode. If you love this episode, please, please, please, leave a positive rating and review and don't forget to share this with anyone else who you think needs to hear this. If there's anything else that you're struggling with, curious about or dying to know, hit me up at thefemcastcom. Who knows, you might inspire the next episode of the Femcast. And if you're ready to ditch the cycle of its complicated relationships and become a magnet for more healthy, fulfilling relationships and you want some support, send me a DM or an email at maria at thefemcoachcom and let's have a chat. I have a few spots available for private coaching. That is it for now, you guys. Until next time, massive love.