Find the Woman Who Will Love You Through Your Struggles
By: The Good Men Project
Tags: Relationships, Struggle, Life Lessons, Love, Dating

Find the Woman Who Will Love You Through Your Struggles

She accepts you as a work-in-progress and sees your future greatness.

Photo credit: FatCamera on iStock

By Jamie Rea

I’m an entrepreneur and artist who’s constantly grinding to try and make something of myself. You could say I’m on my path, but I’m miles and horizons away from the place I really want to be. So naturally, this is going to make dating and finding an amazing woman who will have me that much more difficult.

The conversation trying to explain to them what I’m doing with my time and what I’m trying to accomplish becomes completely exhausting. And in the end, some women just don’t get it. They move on to some other more established guy who’s already made his mark on the world.

So how do you find a woman that will not only appreciate all the work you’re putting in for such little tangible rewards, or better yet, understand everything you’re going through? So how do you find real, lasting love when you’re still learning, growing, broke, and in the process of becoming the person you want to be? Well, you find the kind of girl who will love you through the struggle.

Who is this woman, exactly?

She’s the type of woman whose awesomeness shines through in very subtle ways, such as her ability to understand, accept, and support somebody who’s a “work in progress”. Because success isn’t just made overnight, and if you want to achieve a high level of success, a lot of the time that requires a high level of struggling at some point in time.

This woman is rare and special because she’s a little like a talent scout or an expert character interpreter who has a skill at sizing people up very accurately. This woman is able to see the potential, and she can date potential. She doesn’t need you to be the man about town or the kind of guy who can get her at the top of the reservations list at the new hottest restaurant in town. She’s perfectly fine with standing by your side, holding your hand at the back of the line.

She doesn’t need some guy who’s the epitome of status, who will inflate her reputation in her social community by dating him. In fact, she is happy to foot the bill when you’re in the financial gutter and makes jokes to the waiter about playing the part of “sugar momma” tonight. She understands your process and knows exactly how hard you’re trying to become successful, better yet, she wants to help you become successful every which way she can.

She’s the type of woman who’s aware of things. She’s adept at understanding the ways of people, she has layers to her, and she can see the layers of others. She doesn’t take the world at its surface appearance, but looks a little further and with a more investigative eye. She’s a real person, who is genuine and doesn’t get tangled in surface qualities of power, money, and status. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, which helps her associate with the right kind of people (again being a talent scout).

She doesn’t get bogged down by the smoke and mirrors images of guys who flaunt their possessions to attract women. In fact, this girl despises this sort of exchange, as if dating was some sort of hollow and peripheral bartering system that can be handled with a business-like mentality. This is because this woman grew up fending for herself. She grew up a strong person, who was able to carve out her own space in the world. For this reason, she is desirable, real, and most importantly, she understands the fight you must endure to make a name for yourself.

Now the process, this is the big one. This woman understands the process you’re going through in trying to become successful. She understands and respects what you’re going through because she’s going through this exact same process herself. This woman wants to be successful just as badly as you do. This girl wants to become an individual person in the world, not just some half of a man’s income, or prize that can be shown off at dinner parties.

She appreciates all the work you’re putting in to get to where you want to go. Not only that, but she supports, and offers solutions, ideas, and strategies to help you get there. And the biggest thing is that she gives you the space you need to work on your stuff. She’ll tell you, “Babe I’m busy, too…just do your stuff and we’ll get together when it works”. There’s no passive-aggressive sub-text, nothing to fumble your focus. She doesn’t need 24/7 upkeep and attention, but rather she’s perfectly fine with just listening to you ramble on about your day, both struggles and triumphs. This gives you enough space to grow within your relationship, to the point that you can make both a relationship and your personal development work, better yet you can make both flourish. This makes her the ultimate cheerleader, but with brains and wisdom to boot.

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My friends always say, “Oh just think of the girls you’ll be able to get once you become super successful”. Or they’ll just say you should become a “work monk” and swear off dating altogether until you’ve made your fortune, or achieved some level of notoriety that will increase your value on the dating market. But I disagree. I don’t think you should swear off women just because you can barely afford to buy them a decent dinner or buy them a drink at the bar.

You need to find the woman who loves you for who you are now and will respect and admire you for the person you’re trying to become. You don’t want some girl who will only know the polished and refined version of you, after you’ve already gone through all the blood, sweat, and tears. Find a woman who’s willing to take the journey with you. The type of woman that will be by your side when you reach your goals, when you check things off your list, as you fight every day to be the right kind of man.

Find the type of woman who will love you when you’re rough around the edges and in the depths of your struggle. For the one who will put up with you through that time is the most special kind of woman.

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A version of this Story appeared on the author’s blog and was republished on The Good Men Project.