MEAGAN'S STORY

As a teenager and Christian, she was taught to wait.

Because of this, she was the last of her friends to lose her virginity.

But that idea shaped not only her identity as a woman but also the way she saw men.

She grew up in Canyon Country, north of Los Angeles. Her father was not in the home. Her parents had separated and ultimately her dad moved on with someone else.

 As a child watching her mother’s devastation taught her to treat relationships like they would always end.

 The message was “Never trust a man. Never allow yourself to be in a position to fall apart.”

She approached every relationship with the attitude that as women, we always get the shorter end of the stick.

A man can give us something—literally put something inside us—and we are on the physical and emotional end of however that works out.

 So in her twenties, she always treated serious relationships as 40/60. She gave only 40 percent so she could protect herself. She always needed to be 100 percent ready to pick up the pieces and be unaffected if and when things didn’t work out.

This is MEAGAN GOOD's story

"During this time, I discovered my essential nature as a woman: I found that I needed emotional connection less than most girls, but I think that may have been because I conditioned myself to need it less. I didn’t find myself at home crying because someone didn’t call me, because I would cut him off first.

 I would hurt him before he could hurt me.

I was avoiding failure and heartbreak. But I was also preventing myself from experiencing any real emotional or spiritual growth, because I wasn’t letting any guy of substance get close enough to challenge the way I acted or thought.

 That wasn’t and isn't a healthy way to date.

 If a guy challenged me when the relationship was in the early stages, I would try to be accommodating and submit to a degree.

 However, when the relationship got past the early stages, any proposed changes that I didn’t agree with made me resentful. This would ultimately lead to the relationship’s demise.

Those were the years that I thought I was very much in control . . . more in control than I actually was.

We all grew up in different home settings. Some were firstborns to absentee parents and you had to make sure your siblings grew into responsible people, at least your definition of good responsible people…some grew up with only their dads, some only with their mothers, some grew up at their grandparents, some at their neighbor’s ,some even alone.

Whatever your story is, it was to make you aware of the challenges in life but should not have much to do with you finding love.

It’s a tightrope many women have to walk: have sex and be called a slut, or withhold sex and get labeled a prude or a tease. It’s a no-win situation . . . unless you’re clear about why you’re handling your sexual and dating life as you are.