Do You Want a Successful Relationship?

With a divorce rate in this country that approaches
50%, and a fairly sizable percentage of marriages that naren’t particularly blissful, it’s difficult to avoid searching nfor the answer to the battle of the sexes.

Would you like to stop searching?

We’ve moved through the old paradigm of gettingnyour needs met in relationships and it has provennitself to be a miserable failure.

Why?

Attempting to get your needs met in your relationship ncauses some troublesome things to happen. First, it ncauses you to focus mainly on your needs and not non the desires of your partner. Secondly, it sets you up nfor disaster because it has you believing that you deserve nsomething that may well not be delivered.

All across this great country of ours, battles are ragingnbetween men and women: she needs to talk and connect,nand he needs his space and independence.

Who wins here?

The answer, of course, is that both lose because of a flawednview of what a successful relationship is all about. Whatnalso happens is that both people start to blame the other fornnot meeting their needs.

For those who are really serious about success inntheir relationships, it’s important to understand hownblaming your partner is an enormous problem itself. Itncreates a bigger problem and has you convinced that you’re nnot part of the problem.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Blaming has never nworked and never will. It may have you feeling justified in your nposition, but it will always hurt your relationship.

It’s particularly important to develop the realization that you
feelings can deceive you in your relationship with your partner.
This can be difficult for people raised during the “honor your nfeelings” era of relationships. Your feelings tell you things like, n“I can’t believe she could do something like that to me,” or, n“How could she treat me so badly?” These feelings are the result nof your own low self-esteem and your own personal history of nvictimization.

While it’s true that your partner may treat you in a way you don’tn like sometimes, it’s not true that you need to react to it with nstrong negative feelings. These strong negative feelings are a nreflection of your own esteem issues.

These feelings also have a way of keeping your partner engagednin the struggle with you so that you can continue to blame each nother. When you’re both engaged in the struggle, you’ll believenthat she needs to be fixed. She’ll think the same of you. Nobody nwins and everybody loses.

This isn’t very smart or effective.

What would happen for people in their important relationships if nthey gave up defending themselves and believing their needs nneeded to be met? What would happen if they worked at being nkind and caring with their partners?

I’ll tell you what would happen. They’d have great relationships!

After all, the only thing that you can do to improve a relationship nis to improve you.

So stop looking over at your partner and seeing all of her flaws.
Stop blaming her. She has issues just like we all do. But if you nsee her as a collection of flaws you’ll have no chance at a nsuccessful relationship.

And it’s successful relationships in life that make us truly nhappy.