Seth and Lisa consulted with me because they had been married only a year and were having problems. Seth was often angry at Lisa, and Lisa felt shut down to Seth.

“Seth,” I asked him, “What are you wanting from Lisa that you are not getting?”

“I want her to be my dependable source of love. She is my wife and she should be my dependable source of love.”

Seth was doing what many people do in relationships – he was making Lisa his Higher Power. Having no spiritual connection of his own, he kept trying to access love through Lisa. Lisa, feeling pulled on by Seth to fill the emptiness caused by his self-abandonment, had withdrawn.

We all need a dependable source of love, but to expect another to be that dependable source creates the codependency that leads to the relationship difficulties that Seth and Lisa were experiencing.

When we were small, our parents were supposed to be our dependable source of love. Unfortunately, most of them didn’t know how to love us in the way we needed to be loved, nor did they know how to be a dependable source of love for their own inner child. Not receiving what we needed from our parents or other caregivers, and not having role models of how to bring love to ourselves, most of us never learned how to tap into the one and only dependable source of love.

Between media and fairy tales, we may grow up expecting that our partner will be that dependable source of love, and, like Seth, we get angry when this is not what’s happening.

Another person cannot be your dependable source of love, for many reasons:

• They are not with you 24/7.
• They likely don’t want the job.
• They might leave or die.
• They might feel pulled on, like Lisa, and resist and shut down.
• They might not even know how to tap into their own dependable source of love, so they don’t have love to share with you.
• They might expect you to be their dependable source of love, and may be angry at you when you aren’t.

As an adult, it is risky business to rely on another for your dependable source of love.

Another Person Was Never Meant To Be Your Higher Power

And why should they be? You have your own Higher Power, your own dependable source of love! The challenge is to let go of trying to get the love you need from your partner or another person, and learn to open to Spirit for your dependable source of love.

It took me a long time to learn this. For much of my adult life, until Inner Bonding, I had no idea that it was my responsibility to open to Spirit for my dependable source of Love.

Not that it isn’t wonderful when others are loving to us. I’ve often said that the sharing of love is the highest experience of life. But when you are needy and dependent on another for your dependable source of love, you not only can’t share love, you will never feel the safety and fullness that comes from opening to THE dependable source of love.

When you shift your intent from getting love from another to being loving to yourself and others, your heart opens to the love that is always here for you. The moment your intent is to be loving, Spirit fills you with the light of love that is infinitely more powerful than anything you could ever get from another. And that’s when you get filled up with love to share with your loved ones!

Heal your relationship with Dr. Margaret’s 30-Day online relationship course: Wildly, Deeply, Joyously in Love.