Building Deep and lasting relationships

Building Deep and Lasting Relationships

A FREE 45 page booklet on relationships, including discussions about forming healthy, communication based pairings. There are questionnaires, suggestions and stories galore.

• Your booklet was very insightful. Certainly one I will keep in the archives for future reference when things get confused!!
• It is really very thought provoking. I gave my roommate the brochure that I printed out to read. She is in a relationship with someone right now, and I thought that it might be helpful for her. Their relationship has progressed very rapidly... almost too rapidly. But recently she has been having some doubts about where they are headed. As she started reading, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "This is wonderful." She now wants her gentleman friend to read it also, and to work through some of their "problems" using your techniques.
• Thank you very much for the relationships booklet. Very solid counseling. I am re- reading it and working on it!
• I felt this booklet was incredibly insightful. I know that I will need to read it over again to gain the most from it. I believe it will help me in many aspects of my life . . .  Thank you for making something so beneficial available.

Introduction

A couple was in my office the other day... young folk, together two years, and the passion, sexual play and fun had escaped from their marriage. The woman said: "He lied to me. When we started dating, he hugged me and kissed me and wanted sex all the time. Now, he never tells me he loves me, won’t hug or kiss me, and most of the time he’s not interested in sex."

I asked her how she felt. She indicated that she felt angry, thinking she was cheated and unloved. She told me that her response to these feelings was to refuse sex when he did get around to asking, an interesting form of punishment quaintly known as "Cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face."

I then asked the man for his version of all of this. He replied: "I grew up in a home where you didn’t touch or tell people you love them. I come home every night. I bring her my pay cheques. I don’t gamble or fool around. That should be enough for her to know that I love her. I don’t mind if she hugs me or kisses me, but I forget to do it to her. I’d really rather watch the Blue Jays."

I asked him about her recollections about their early dating days. "She’s right," he replied. "I did do all of those things in the beginning. I wanted her to like me. Once I got her, I figured I could go back to being who I really am."

Hopeless, right? I think not. But quite typical, really. Many of our expectations of whom our partners should be come from two strange areas: 1) they come from how the person behaved during the first several months of the relationship, and 2) they come from our fantasies of how we imagine our partner should behave.

Strange ideas one and two deny two truths: 
1) People are who they really are, and 
2) everything in life, including people, change. 
What we fantasize to be true often isn’t. What is real is what is real today.

We can’t go back to the beginning of your relationship and try to find a way to convince you to be honest with your partner. I wish we could. If everyone had the courage to state, loudly and clearly, who they are and what they know of their true nature, a lot of confusion and anger could be avoided later on.

As I work with couples, I’m struck by how differently the two people perceive the world. There are reasons for this discrepancy:

• The profound differences in world view that are unique to one’s gender.

• The understanding that people are the total of their experiences, and no two people have had the same experiences.

• The impact that results from the kind of parenting each person received.

Experiences, upbringing and gender all impact to make people who they are at the core of their being.

Here's How to Receive the Booklet:

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