The #1 Reason People Stay in Bad Relationships

In a beginning relationship, it should be easy to exit if the partnership isn’t working out for you. Yet new research shows that many of us refuse to leave a bad relationship for fear of being alone forever and ever. Yes, fear of being single causes people to stay in unhealthy or mismatched relationships. As a therapist, I learned that people stay in bad relationships because they hope their partner will change, but this new result takes a different direction.

For those of you who are dating and find yourself in a bad partnership, I say, “Leave before it goes further.”

If you desire a healthy partnership and love that lasts a lifetime, you may have to make some changes to attract the love you deserve. You can read more about the study here:Study Says Fear Of Being Alone Keeps People In Bad Relationships.

Good news! I’ve written a book specifically for those who are experiencing serial bad relationships. The information is exactly what a person who is afraid of being single needs to acquire before entering a new relationship. I wrote The Science of Finding Love That Lasts for the single person who has watched one too many relationships circle the drain.

 

You will find what and how to change in order to assure that you attract and keep the relationship you deserve. With courage and the right information, change is always possible. If any of this speaks to you, immerse yourself in this book. When you come out the other side, you will no longer lower your expectations and stay in a bad relationship for fear of not being able to find the relationship you deserve.

Pull the plug on a bad relationship and  open the tap to a different approach.

Maybe you’ve heard the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Maybe it’s time for a change. Share the love. Make this book a present for single friends who stay in bad relationships for fear of being alone forever. Click on the photo and you will go to Amazon where you can read a free selection from each chapter. I hope you like what you see. Information creates empowerment, and empowered individuals attract other healthy people. Don’t leave something as important as a lifetime relationship to the luck of the draw.

Tip 44: Single? Kiss More Toads On-line

Are you promoting shallow involvements if you kiss your toads on-line?  Some experts say that social media results in superficial connections. They remind us that real relationships are mutual investments, and must be stronger and more meaningful. I agree that society needs more real and meaningful relationships, but, in my opinion, social networks are a great way to initiate and build these partnerships. Let’s look at dating as an example.

In the old days, singles threw their nets into  a small geographical pools  to find available toads for kissing. Now, with the internet, the pool of toads has expanded to include most of the world’s population of toads.

Are your on-line toads different from than their off-line kissing cousins?  Off-line you’ll find a small number of toads with warts similar to your own—in reality those bumps are  parotid glands—, while on-line you’ll find a greater number of toads, but with more diversity of warts. Toads every where? Here’s how to manage yours.

Try this…

Step up to the lily pad and kiss your quota of on-line toads.

It’s a great way to find out if your warts match enough to warrant an off-line meet up. If you see possibilities, you’ll want to meet face to face to see if there is a chemistry match. If there is a match, you’ll want to date in real life to see how well you two, as a couple, can play with others.  When you communicate on-line you know how a person likes to present him or herself, but it takes times and experiences to find how a person really responds to life.

If you find their warts are a better match for someone else, it’s easy to terminate an on-line pre-dating relationship than in real life. What’s that? You want to know how? Here’s what you say:

“This relationship isn’t going to work for me. Good luck in finding your perfect match”.

What’s that? What if they ask why? If they do ask, they are being pushy. After all you haven’t even met face to face. In this case, here is your very last communication.

“I’m really not what you are looking for.”  Click

When you communicate on-line you know how a person likes to present him or herself, but it takes times and experiences to find how a person really responds to life.

How not to screw up this lovely advice…

The biggest and most frequent mistakes people make on-line has to do with acceptance. If the person is not right for you, cut it off and let them move on. Give them the same courtesy if you are not a match for them. If you feel it’s time to meet face to face and they are reluctant, its time to let go.

Affirmation…

My real relationships progress step by step whether they begin in real life or on a social network.

Today’s tip comes from The Science of Finding Love That Lasts,  by Dr. B, and available on Amazon, Kindle, and most other eReaders.

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For more tips and articles on relationships check out my blog at Totally Win at Love: Smart Talk About Sex and Relationships

Romance Not Working For You? Maybe You Don’t Have the Right Tools

 Your present and past experiences, thoughts, and beliefs— even your biochemistry– seem to push, pull and even fight each other for domination of our relationship destiny, making it difficult to find a love that lasts. The free and powerful tools of Time and Privacy allow you to build more intimacy when you want to move a relationship forward and easily limit intimacy when you want to slow things down. Pretty handy tools, eh? If you are looking for a love that lasts, these are the tools for you.

Mark: I never know if I should continue making advances, so I just keep asking her out and making moves. I don’t get any feedback from her, so I have to guess if she wants me to continue.

Logan: I’ve been out with Mark a few times, but I’ve never called him or invited him to do anything. I never respond to his advances. You’d think he’s get the hint.

Adam and Eva demonstrate

Time:  In a beginning friendship or romantic relationship, one person may offer to get together for a specific period of time. Offers of time ideally start small and increase gradually as the couple desires more closeness. Adam invites Eva to a movie. It’s a relatively short time period as compared to inviting her to a weekend to his parents’ cabin at the lake. Meeting for coffee at Starbucks would be an even smaller time commitment. It takes time for intimacy to develop, but if initial time offers are large, like the weekend, the person being invited may feel pushed into greater intimacy than they desire at this time. If the relationship were more advanced, a weekend could be appropriate.

Privacy: Privacy is freedom from the attention of others, a way to focus on each other without prying eyes and ears. Offers of privacy increase as one or both of the pair desires more intimacy. During the movie, Adam and Eve had a small amount of privacy as they were able to sit closely and exchange a few whispered comments. If desired, they could exchange intimate touches, and perhaps more if the film were sparsely attended. Later, at the coffee shop, a corner table kept them away from earshot of others. They lacked physical privacy as they were in view of the crowd, but they did have considerable conversational privacy as they were out of range of any curious eavesdroppers.

Time and Privacy Work Together: When time and privacy intermingle; the level of one affects the perception of the other. If Adam had invited Eva to the cabin along with his parents and friends, Eva’s perception of the time factor may have appeared less intimate. Of course, the sleeping arrangements would affect her perception of the level of privacy.

When you want more or less intimacy: When you want more from a friendship or potential romantic relationship, slowly increase your offers of time and privacy. Make sure you give the other person time to respond with an invitation or some other expression of interest. If the other person does not accept your offer, be sure not to increase your offers. Increasing without receiving a return offer may be perceived as intrusive. If you want a relationship with someone who cares about you, you must respect the law of reciprocity. Let the relationship level off at a place that is comfortable level for both of you.

When you want less intimacy, make offers of limited time and privacy and decline invitations that are too private or involve extended time periods. Long term good friends and romantic partners enjoy extended investments of time and privacy, but they develop their deep relationships in a step-by-step manner over a period of time. The more mindful you are in harnessing and respecting the time and privacy dimensions the closer you come to developing intimate and meaningful relationships.

Try this

• Use the tools of time and privacy to increase or decrease offers of intimacy.

• In all things take baby steps, allowing time for the other to respond.

Look for the next post where we’ll look at using the tools of time and Privacy to turn a cooled down sexual relationship to its former sizzle.

Single? Check out  my new book The Science of Finding Love That Lasts.

Attracting a Partner to Heal Past Hurts

Do you attract a winner, only to find that one more time you  ended up with a loser?

Unbeknownst to them, most people who attract ill-chosen partners are trying to attract a relationship to heal a relationship from the past. Like riding on a merry-go-round, no matter how many times they change horses; they still are pointed in the same direction and still are going nowhere. You are not alone if you habitually attract wrong people into your life. The reasons vary, but for most, the process is subconscious. In all my years of providing relationship counseling, I never heard a person say they intentionally attract Mr. or Ms. Wrong. Most believe that, for some mysterious and magical reason, inappropriate partners find them. Denial helps us avoid the pain of self-realization and results in statements like these:

“How do all these losers find me?”

“I can’t help it; I’m drawn to unavailable men.”

“I’m a psycho-magnet for every insane woman in town.”

“When I’m in a new relationship, I always have high hopes, but sooner than later I find it is all wrong for me; even worse, he finds I’m all wrong for him.”

Lifting the veil of denial we find the naked truth:

A series of bad relationships don’t magically find us; we work hard to attract them.

Amy is a magnet for men who are emotionally unavailable due to alcoholism. Why does a bright and well educated woman like Amy do this? Underneath it all, she still feels that the emotional abandonment by her mother was her fault. So she works at her relationship, desperately trying to make him change. The little girl inside asks: “Have I tried hard enough? Have I been good enough? Mommy, do you love me yet?” If a partner would change for her, then wouldn’t she be special? Seeking this ‘special’ feeling led her to relationships where emotional availability was always the problem.

To Suzanne’s dismay, she realized that the controlling men she attracted had traits similar to her father. Unresolved father issues even dictated her rejection of her partners. Subconsciously, she again and again rejected her father’s control by dismissing even the men who could have been a suitable match. When she learns to set better boundaries with her father, she’ll be less likely to repeat the cycle of finding a controlling man just so she can break it off.

When Clint was a boy, his mother was unstable and needy. He recalls a time after his parent’s divorce when his mother threatened to take a gun from the mantel and kill herself. She screamed that she could not put up with the noise he made when playing with his brother. He took the gun from her and spent several hours comforting her. He believed he caused her problems and was responsible for helping her. Not surprisingly, he devoted his childhood to keeping his mother safe. As an adult, he is addicted to attracting unstable women and trying to help them. He subconsciously believes that if he could help a troubled woman become healthy, it would mean  his mother’s issues were not his fault. No matter how many women he helped it didn’t take away his childhood guilt. If a woman begins to become more self-sufficient, he’s gone. When he realizes how his mother’s illness manipulated him, he will attract a competent partner..

Besides sheer numbers, you can find if you are responsible for attracting bad relationships. Ask yourself this question: In how many relationships have you felt that everything in your life is riding on this relationship coming out right? If more than a few, you’ll want to get to the root of the problem so you can begin to attract individuals just right for you. Many times, awareness is all you need to repair the problem.

WHO DO YOU ATTRACT?

Think about the characteristics of the type of person you attract into your life.

Do you see a pattern of unavailability?

If so, what is the past relationship that you are trying to fix by attracting a similar relationship?

Does he have committment issues?

When dating, many women tend to translate a lack of interest to “he has commitment issues.”

Tip 35: How Men Read a Woman’s Lack of Interest

When dating, many men tend to translate a lack of interest to “she needs more attention and seduction.”

Today’s tip comes from The Science of Finding Love That Lasts,  by Dr. B, and available on Amazon, Kindle, and most other eReaders.

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For more tips and articles on relationships check out my blog at Totally Win at Love: Smart Talk About Sex and Relationships

Tip 32: Being Open is Not Always Your Best Option

Dating? Don’t forge ahead with a “tell all” attitude unless the other

shares at the same level.

Today’s tip comes from The Science of Finding Love That Lasts,  by Dr. B, and available on Amazon, Kindle, and most other eReaders.

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For more tips and articles on relationships check out my blog at Totally Win at Love: Smart Talk About Sex and Relationships

Tip 28: Leave Your Couch

Single? Enhance your arena of social contacts by getting out to a social
gathering at least three times a week.

 

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For more on singles read:

The Science of Finding Love That Lasts,  by Dr. B, and available on Amazon, Kindle, and most other eReaders.

For more tips and articles on relationships check out my blog at Totally Win at Love: Smart Talk About Sex and Relationships

Dr. B’s Relationship Tips

Every time you have sex with someone you don’t know emotionally and

socially, you run the risk of boundary damage—yours and theirs.

Three sex chapters in Dr. B’s new book for Singles:

The Science of Finding Love That Lasts,  by Dr. B, and available on Amazon, and Kindle

Dr. B’s Daily Relationship Tips

Feeling rejected? Instead, think of the person as unavailable to you.
The reason doesn’t matter and is none of your business.

 

Dr. B’s Tips are tweetable
Today’s tip is from
The Science of Finding Love That Lasts,  by Dr. B, and available on Amazon, Kindle, and most other eReaders.