Dear Julia:

I am highly psychic and can often tell what other people are feeling or going through. Most of the time this is a good thing, but lately, I fear it's going to ruin the otherwise wonderful relationship I have with my fiance. The trouble is that I can tell when he is attracted to another woman, which happens frequently. When I tell him that I can tell when he is checking someone out even when he tries to hide it (and he's really good at hiding it), he usually lies about it. I can then tell that he's lying, and at that point, we usually get into a big fight. I'm starting to wonder if I should marry him or not, for he is attracted to other women and dishonest about it, and both of those things are driving me crazy. I would love to hear your spiritual advice on this one!

Brooke

Dear Brooke:

I know just what you're talking about, for I can sense when my husband is attracted to another woman as well as how it feels to have him lie to me about it. We're pretty much at peace with this issue these days, so hopefully, my own journey will prove helpful to you.

First, you're probably right in your intuitions that he is indeed attracted to other women, for our instincts are particularly sharp when it comes to protecting our "territory." Further, if he wasn't interested in beautiful women, he wouldn't be in a relationship with you to begin with. People who love to garden don't admire just one kind of flower; if they have an eye for beauty, they look for and see the beauty in all of nature. They may have a favorite kind of flower, of course, but just as we couldn't expect a rose gardener to stop finding tulips and daisies delightful, we can't expect a person to stop finding other people beautiful just because they're in a committed relationship.

Speaking of that commitment, it would be easy to be faithful if we never found anyone but our partner attractive. What makes commitment so meaningful is the fact that we do find other people attractive but we choose to refrain from acting on those feelings in order to focus our time and attention on the person we've decided to put first in our lives. So making a commitment is not about losing attraction for everyone else; we just choose to resist those fleeting desires in order to safeguard something we deem to be more important.

If you want to be a happy psychic, you're going to have to find a way to raise your vibration in order to see the divine beauty and perfection in everyone you meet, for you're going to see all the "unacceptable" stuff we've been conditioned to hide from others' view.

This brings me to my key point, which is that we can't help how we feel. Your fiance lies to you when you confront him about checking out other women because he feels attacked, and also because he doesn't want you to feel slighted. Since your fiance can't help how he feels any more than you can stop feeling jealous, what can you do?

First, it's important that you don't repress your feelings, for then you will start to act in "crazy" ways and things will just get more confusing. We've all been down this road before, where we try to repress or deny our anger only to totally lose our temper over something insignificant. Repressing our feelings doesn't get rid of them; it just lets them fester and slowly poison us from the inside out. Further, if you decide to try to hide how you are feeling, you will tend to pull back while you process, and may even try to love him less in order to protect your heart. This is not the answer if you want a vibrant, fulfilling relationship.

The key to a warm, intimate bond is for both of you to feel free to feel how you feel and let your feelings show. This will also naturally lead to personal growth and healing. To feel connected to each other, you must feel safe to gently express how you feel and he must feel the same. This doesn't mean he has "made" you feel as you do; in fact, it's important for you to tell him that you don't expect him to make you feel better and that this is your own issue - you just need to express how you're feeling in order to feel close to him. If you can lovingly tell him that you know you are feeling this way because he is so important to you, all the better.

When we stop trying to blame one person for being wrong, relationship dynamics get much lighter. We have gotten to the point in my marriage where I can indicate that I'm feeling jealous in a light and playful way because I know it's my own issue. When I take this approach, my husband wisely chooses to see this as a sign that I really care and usually responds by reassuring me that he would never want to lose me either.

Instead of viewing jealousy as a sign of trouble in an otherwise wonderful relationship, we're wise to stop when we feel insecure and look at our upset as a sign pointing toward some fear or issue we are being personally called to work on. When we feel jealous, it's because we're afraid of losing our position in someone's heart; we're afraid they will find someone they like better than us, and we will be alone or things will change for the worse.

Here's the deal: everything changes, so resisting change is a recipe for suffering. Further, nothing lasts forever except for true love. Only when we make peace with this truth are we able to really love and build a deep connection on a soul level, for we can't mandate that someone love us as we want to be loved, and when we try, we usually just destroy whatever love was there to begin with.

It is wise and empowering to trust that whatever happens, all is well. If we stay together for the rest of our lives, that is good; if we don't stay together for the rest of our lives, that must also be good, for everything happens for a good reason. Getting past fear by finding faith in this truth empowers us to love from love instead of from fear, and then our relationships become blessed and harmonious.

So to truly love another person, we can't come from fear and a sense of needing them. As nothing lasts forever, we're wise to give thanks for the love and blessings in our lives today and make the most of them. This approach tends to keep relationships warm and growing. When we cling to someone out of fear, we become like a parasite, strangling the relationship. This is what happens when someone is constantly jealous and angry: instead of drawing others close, they drive them away because they aren't coming from love but from fear and self-concern.

Instead of trying to ferret out and forbid your fiance's attraction for everyone but you, I recommend you make peace with your jealousy as well as your fiance's natural attraction to the beauty around him, whether that beauty is in a sunset, a flower or another woman's figure. To expect him to be open to your beauty but closed to the beauty in every other female is unreasonable. When people demand this of their partners, they may get it, but at the expense of their partner's attraction to them as well, for the partner closes down and stops looking for beauty in general because he has been conditioned to associate feelings of attraction with being punished.

When someone beautiful comes along, you can let your own beauty shine through by admiring them too. Look for the beauty in what your fiance finds attractive and try to appreciate it. Above all, remain thankful for the fact that even though your partner may find other people beautiful, he is choosing to just watch them pass by while he makes a life with you.

- Julia

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