Sleeping in the same bed with her partner Damien at night could be ‘heavenly’ or ‘beastly’ for thirty-seven-year-old florist, Annabel. Sometimes she wanted to mold her body around his, but at other times she felt suffocated by his very presence in the bed. At those times turning her back on him was the only way she could doze off.
Are you frustrated with having good people in your life but no one that sparks that romantic fire? Do you find yourself irresistibly attracted to someone who is hot and steamy, but does nothing for you in the friendship department? Perhaps you wonder whether you will ever find a person whom you could trust and rely on while also having good sex. It's probable that you are keeping these two needs so separate that you have to split yourself in half in order to satisfy both parts. But it doesn't have to be that way - if you figure out what purpose it serves to tear yourself into two pieces.
At 38 years of age April was divorced with two preteens and a boring job that paid the bills. But she was no nearer realizing her goals of becoming a fashion designer, with boutiques all over the world and the glitterati salivating for her next collection. She kept telling herself that one day she would go to college, get her fine arts degree and then set fire to the world with her brilliant clothes. Yet something always got in the way – the kids needed her – she was too tired to go to college and bring up her children – it cost too much – it would take too long – she was too old - no one would like her designs – she didn’t want to market her work – she didn’t have the money to invest in a business, and on it went. April was highly skilled in creating obstacles that felt insurmountable just when it seemed that there was no excuse for not following her dream.
If you are struggling with finding a lasting relationship that you can enjoy no matter how stressful the ups and downs, it's likely that you have some deep and powerful unconscious rules about what makes people stick together. You may think that love and attraction are enough to maintain commitment and loyalty but underneath you probably believe that you have to be a certain way, act and think in a specific fashion AND MOST OF ALL that your partner has to do the same. These rules prevent you from giving the relationship a chance to find it's feet. You can't even get to first base because your unconscious relationship rules make you heightened to WHAT IS ABSENT rather than build and shape healthy intimacy, trust and security.
Are you in a constant state of anxiety about not being good enough for your partner? Do you find yourself alert to everything and anything that may make your partner upset and then try and fix it right away? Then your unconscious rule about relationships being based on rescuing your partner from every tiny negative feeling or experience will sour the connections.
Do you often wonder if your partner finds you exciting enough or good enough? Are you constantly worrying about proving your love, commitment and loyalty? Are you living with the fear that they will find someone better and then going overboard to try and make yourself indispensable? Then you are probably insecure and have an unconscious rule about how to feel more secure. That rule may be that you have to fulfill all your partner's needs so that they become dependent on you, and that way they will never leave. Unfortunately it is a fear based rule which only adds stress and conflict to the relationship, making it more likely to end. You are probably experiencing a never ending cycle of fighting and making up and then fighting again.
Imagine your excitement planning the best celebration ever for your spouse on a big occasion. Everything is perfect and you have spent days and tons of money that you saved up for this event. You have been imagining the delight and joy on your partner's face. You looked forward to eternal gratitude, great sex, and your virtues being praised to all the family, friends and colleagues around. But your vision is destroyed when your spouse says thank you a few times and leaves it at that. Your disappointment that your partner is tired and doesn't want to keep celebrating is huge. You get angry that your partner is ungrateful and didn't show enough pleasure and for long enough to make your efforts and kind heart worthwhile. You start to show your resentment and your partner is at a loss as to why you are wanting more. The relationship gets tense, stressful and conflict is now the name of the game. And it's all because you had an unconscious rule about how your spouse should respond to your goodness.
If you have a rule about not being needy in your relationship then you are likely to set up tension, cause arguments and wear the relationship down to the bone. That's what happened to one man who ended up frustrating his wife to such an extent that she avoided being in the same room as him when they were at home. Learn how this one very common rule about pretending not to be needy drove the couple to marriage counseling and finally got discovered, unraveled and discarded for more flexible and joint rules that reunited the couple.
Do you feel that all your efforts to get close to your partner fail because you can't synchronize your times to communicate? If you get mad that your partner isn't ready to share and iron out stuff between you at exactly the same time as you are, you may feel unequal and rejected. But, you may have an unwritten rule that says that relationships are supposed to work both people feel the same way at the same time which leads to massive disappointments and fear that the marriage is going down the drain.
If you date a lot but still come up short in meeting the right one for you, it's not because all the good ones are taken or that you are just picky! You are probably imposing a ton of strict one-sided rules about how you and a prospective date should behave. Your protocols strangle the natural flow of chemistry between you and you end up feeling like you have done your bit, but come up empty handed once again. Your clock is ticking out, and you are getting more and more desperate. Fear no more. Just watch this video and discover how one woman's constricting rules made sure that she would never be picked by someone who she was attracted to, and how she would never want to respond to a guy who seemed interested in her.
