Dear Candace,

My fianc and I just broke up, and I need to know if this was the right thing to do or not. I love him more than anything else in the whole world. We were planning on being married in April. I just felt like he put himself above me in his priorities. He would make plans with me and then go play golf instead, or he would simply forget to call because something more important came up. I love him and miss him very much, but I feel like maybe it's best for us to be apart until he can change this selfish aspect of his personality. Should I be patient and stick it out or move on? ~ Nicole

Greetings and blessings to you precious one. To say that this person has a tendency to be selfish and to have the idea that you can change his personality, or that he can, is perhaps not very realistic. What is more realistic in making a lifetime commitment to someone is to make a commitment to who that person is in their entirety, to accept the things about them that you cannot change, and even different than that, to accept everything about them as potentially something that can never be changed, that who you know and see before you now is the person you will spend everyday of your life with. It is important to marry who is standing in front of you today and to not marry them for who you think they will become or to not marry them for who you are afraid they might turn into. It is the one in front of you who is real and who you would be spending your days with.

If you cannot live with the selfishness of this person now, it may only be magnified over days, weeks, months, or years in a marriage. Can you imagine yourself in this relationship with these tendencies multiplying over time? Or can you see yourself making peace with this and not having this persons selfishness impact you? Are you strong enough to not be affected by this persons selfishness? Or would you rather make a lifetime commitment to someone who does not have selfish tendencies? If this person is selfish with you, what will they be like with your family, your children, or over a lifetime?

This is an opportunity for you to do some soul-searching. If you experience this person as selfish, in what ways does his selfishness make you uncomfortable because you are selfish? What kinds of things about yourself would you like to change? What types of things about you would you like to experience differently? In what ways would you like to be different in a relationship? It is important for you to focus on you and to focus less on this person, their flaws, and the changes that they should make. Take this time to focus on you. What shifts can you make so that you like you better? In doing so, you will come to like yourself in such a way that you will attract and keep someone who equally likes themselves and who is equally committed to knowing themselves and working toward being the best person they can be.

Have faith that this process is one that is serving you in every way. Blessings to you precious one. Amen.