Relationship Advice Expert

All people want love, then when they get it they become afraid and start running in the opposite direction. On the one hand, they want love and to be in a relationship; on the other hand, they are relieved to getaway. It always seems to as if relationships are difficult; difficult to find, difficult to keep and difficult to enjoy.

The fundamental truth is there is never a scarcity of relationships, there is never a scarcity of love. Love is our natural condition. Why aren’t we in it all the time? What is it that makes us run from the love we are so hungry for? What drives people from the arms of each other, and what would it take to keep them there? In order to answer this question, first we have to understand the difference between Real and Counterfeit love.

Most of us live with the mirage of love rather than the real thing. Like a mirage, Counterfeit love is false and can never bring true satisfaction. Like all mirages, when Counterfeit Love is seen for what it is, it evaporates, leaving no room the real thing. No on runs from love that is real; they cannot. It’s too nourishing and too rare. But counterfeit love traps you, scares you, keeps you on the run.

Counterfeit love gives a mirage of water in the desert, and we all know that a mirage wont quench your thirst.

Many feelings masquerade as love; dependency, attachment and possessiveness are just a few. Below I have offered several touchstones to love, which are touchstones to help you separate counterfeit love from the real thing. To begin, we will first look at some needs and patterns inside people that keeps them from really being with the other people, and potential mates, in front of them.

Waiting For The Perfect Partner

Many people have a secret fantasy which whispers that a perfect partner is somewhere, waiting for them. This perfect partner will not only accept them fully as they express the parts of themselves that are hidden, but will also bring out the best in them. Rather than criticize, demean and demand from them, the partner will give unconditionally and fulfill his/her needs. Fantasy should not be discounted, as it constitutes much of life.

Exercise: Touchstone 1

Rather than looking for perfection outside of yourself by seeking another, find the perfection in yourself right now. List five things you accept and like about yourself.

TIP: stop reading now. Take the time to practice this exercise. Sit silently with a pencil and paper, and allow yourself to experienced its full benifits.

Make sure to add to this list everyday. Focus upon what is good in yourself, and the parts you don�t like will fade away. No other person can make you whole. In order to find your perfect partner, you must become what it is you want to find.

Exerise: Touchstone 2

Some use the quest for a perfect mate as a way to rejected and avoid being with the real people who come into our lives now. It is a way of avoiding fears that we may have of relationships. See if that is what you are doing. Is it safer to have a fantasy than a real flesh and blood person to build a life with?

Answer the following questions. What are the advantages to having a relationship? How will it improve your life? List as many as you can think of.

TIP: stop reading now. Take the time to practice this exercise. Sit silently with a pencil and paper, and allow yourself to experienced its full benifits.

What are the disadvantages to having a relationship? How will it affect your live negatively? List as many as you can think of.

TIP: stop reading now. Take the time to practice this exercise. Sit silently with a pencil and paper, and allow yourself to experienced its full benifits.

In order to resolve any concerns you have about relationships, you first must be aware and understand of them. Now that you have made your lists, please examine the disadvantages. Fantasy is a way of avoiding confronting such feelings. They must not be discounted, and you should ponder them closely. They constitute important obstacles standing in your way of having the relationship you desire. With this new awareness, you are now enabled to begin to resolve these concerns.

Touchstone 3

How to deal with people who are waiting for the perfect mate.

Be aware when a person is seeking an image, know that you will never perfectly fill that bill. Be who you are. Don’t turn yourself into someone you think he/she will enjoy. They will know what you are doing, lose respect, run away.

Be warm and caring. Touch your mate softly. Don’t reject his/her fantasies. If he/she is a person who is controlled by his peer group, see if you fit into his/her group image? For some people, the perfect person is stable, without too much passion. For others, it’s just the opposite. Find out who the person is. If you do not fit his/her image, say good-bye, don’t conform.

Realize that everything changes. What seems perfect one day will seem flawed the next. Examine your feelings about yourself, the ways in which you feel imperfect. Work on these issues directly; Another person can never complete something you are lacking within. See if your desire for perfection is simply a way of avoiding falling from love. It is easier to focus on what is wrong with a person than on what is right? Make a practice of finding everything that is right about all the people you meet, day after day. This will bring you an entirely new perception of people and of life. Accept your own flaws, do not judge them. The more you love and accept yourself, the more perfect others will seem.

Rather than look down upon others, make an effort to focus upon their beauty and goodness. Even if he/she isn’t the right one for you, you can train yourself to find reality positive and comforting.

Did you know that positive thinking, coupled with positive
action and expectation, are the keys to getting what you want in
life? It is not enough just to think positively, as most
self-professed experts will have you believe. You must start
with the foundation of thinking positive thoughts in order for
your outcome to be a positive one, but you must go to the next
step of taking positive action, and believe that your positive
action will produce the expected positive results.

Now you are wondering what positive thinking and positive action
has to do with getting the kind of love you want from your man.
The answer? Everything. Men are really easy to please, if you
understand their needs and exactly how to satisfy them, which is
precisely the subject matter of my e-book. In Passion Keys, I
lay out the keys to unlocking the passionate love that resides
in the hearts of all men. Yes, all men have plenty of love to
give, if you know how to tear down the walls around their
hearts.

In today’s issue of my newsletter, I will give you some of the
tools you can use to get the kind of love you deserve. Before I
give you this information, you must bear in mind that just one
issue of this newsletter is not enough to give you the detailed
information of how to apply them. Having said that, I will give
you four keys you can use to begin the process of unlocking the
love that is hiding in your man’s heart.

1.Warm and respectful communication - I could have simply said
communication, and left it at that, but I feel it is very
important to qualify communication, so that you are certain of
the kind of communication that will get you the positive results
you want.

Warm communication is like hot chocolate on a cold winter
morning. It is uplifting and makes you feel good all over. That
is exactly how the way you talk to your man ought to make him
feel. If you talk to him with the kind of derogatory language
that a lot of people use in their relationships, then you will
get the same old results most people get, which is the kind of
love that is always on the verge of breaking up. Use language
that is kind, considerate, uplifting and you will get the same
back with love as the icing on your love cake.

2.Kind and thoughtful acts - I call these acts of love. If you
expect love from your man, you must act in kind and thoughtful
ways. How many times have you gone out of your way to do
something for your guy without him asking? Have you taken care
of an important chore that he hasn’t been able to get to,
without his requesting you to do him a favor? Surprise him with
gifts when nothing special is happening, his birthday, your
anniversary, or special holidays. Sometimes it is not what you
do for him directly. It could be something you do for a member
of his family. Blood is thicker than water, and when you do
something that positively impacts one of his loved ones, you
have also positively impacted your guy as well. Sounds like an
ancient Chinese philosophy, but it is not. It is a universal
principle.

3.Never Nag - Nagging is one of those areas in a relationship
where women are not sure when they have slipped into the
proverbial black hole. Let me quickly give you some pointers on
what it means to nag. You are nagging when you complain
constantly about what your guy should have done but did not do,
or what he repeatedly does that is making you sick. You are
nagging when you constantly yell when you are dissatisfied or
disappointed by how your guy has handled or failed to handle an
issue your expected him to take care of differently. The point
is not that you should not be dissatisfied or disappointed when
your guy is not rowing his share of the boat. But the way you
express your discontent is what makes the difference between a
nag and someone that can effectively get her point across.

4.Be affectionate - Shower your guy with loves of hugs and
kisses. Men, like women, enjoy the attention they get when their
woman initiates affection. Do it often, but do not smother him
with it.

That is all for now. To find out how to make your man fall madly
in love with you, please visit: http://www.smartwomansguide.com.

This week I finally got round to watching “The Wedding Date” an
enjoyable -if slight - romantic comedy.

The plot, for anyone not familiar with it, has reluctant
singleton Debra Messing attending her step-sister’s wedding with
a male “escort”, Dermot Mulroney, who combines perfect eye-candy
looks with gentlemanly charms and a comprehensive fee per
service policy.

The Messing character needs to have Mulroney in tow because her
ex, who inexplicably dumped her, is the best man.

The action is simple and predictable: girl meets boy, girl and
boy connect at some profound yet unclear level, they fall into
bed together, argue, break up and then end up back together, all
smiles and tears while we the audience buy into the idea of them
toddling off into the sunset of Happily Ever After.

This is indeed the stuff of “rom com” and romance, according to
The Oxford English Reference dictionary, is about “an atmosphere
or tendency characterized by a sense of remoteness from or
idealization of everyday life”. Quite. Except that we don’t
entirely suspend disbelief even when we are watching romantic
comedies.

At some point, every one of us has longed for that fuzzy
ultimate feel-good sense of being regarded as the perfect
inhabitant of a perfect world by our perfect partner.

Whatever the problem is, love is the answer. Love is all you
need, after all. So Mulroney is a male sex worker. Not a
problem. He gets all the best lines, from the philosophical:
“You get the relationships you want”, to ” I think I’d miss you
even if we’d never met” and this line that would sit well in the
mouth of any abuser: “I’d rather fight with you than make love
with anyone else.”

Aaah! And yuk! Aaah because both leads are so good looking (and
toned and well dressed) that they’re just bound to be happy
together ever. Yuk because flimsy love stories still impact on
our psyche at the subliminal level, teaching us that you can
build strong relationships on hopelessly inadequate foundations.

Sooner or later, we all try it, are amazed when it doesn’t work
and punish ourselves. Often before repeating the same process
with the self-same outcome.

Michael Gerber’s “The E-Myth Revisited” - Why Most Small
Businesses Don’t Work And What To Do About It” urges business
owners to develop strong visions for their companies.

How does that translate to women (and men) who have survived
abusive relationships? Surprisingly well. Since we are all,
first and last, flawed human beings, our design flaws in any one
area of life are likely to impact on other areas also. And so it
is that Gerber’s comments about replacing assumptions (and
aspirations and dreams) with clear-sighted strategies relate to
our emotional world also.

Gerber writes:

“Most of us have had the experience of being disappointed by
someone in whom we have put our trust… trust alone can only
take us so far. Trust alone can set us up to repeat those
same disappointing experiences. (my italics)

Because true trust comes from knowing, not from blind faith.

And to know, one must understand.

And to understand, one must have an intimate awareness of what
conditions are truly present. What people know and what they
don’t. What people do and what they don’t. What people want and
what they don’t. How people do what they do and how people
don’t. Who people are and who they aren’t.”

It becomes possible to develop ‘an intimate awareness of what
conditions are truly present’ when you are prepared to leave on
hold the romantic justification: “Love is all you need” for as
long as it takes to work through the various stages of
relationship building - which Gerber defines as ‘Infancy’,
‘Adolescence’, ‘Beyond the Comfort Zone’ and ‘Maturity’.

“And how am I supposed to manage that, Clever Clogs?” you might
be wondering. Once again, Gerber has a useful answer - if you
are prepared to replace the term “relationship” with “business”.

Gerber talks at length about working on the business rather than
in the business - a fascinating concept for anyone who has ever
spent time trying to pick up the broken pieces of a relationship
in the wake of a partner’s abusive outburst.

Gerber says: “Simply put, your job is to prepare yourself and
your business for growth. To educate yourself sufficiently so
that, as your business grows, the business’s foundation and
structures can carry the additional weight. And as awesome a
responsibility as that may seem to you, you have no other choice
- if your business is to thrive, that is.” (my italics)

Having spoken with hundreds of abused women over the years, I
can say with confidence that abusive men do not change their
spots. They may use concealer when you first meet and fall for
them, and their spots may proliferate over time, but still those
spots are there from the start.

The Love-is-all-you-need approach will blind you to the spots.
Working from the outset at establishing a foundation of
reciprocal care, respect and equality will quickly enable you to
see the face behind the concealer.

I’ve yet to encounter an abuser who can manage selflessness for
longer than it takes to earn a few vital brownie points. And
even then they don’t just do it, they make a 10 course banquet
of it.

Nor do abusers do solid foundations. Love is all they need. What
they term love - over time increasingly a justification for all
manner of bad behaviour - is most unlikely to be all you need.

That said, would I turn down the chance to parade Dermot
Mulroney at a family function? No way. He would add a whole new
dimension to a forthcoming bash at a Kosher Chinese restaurant
in suburban London (truly!).

But I’d like to think that if he came out with a killer line
like: “I’d rather fight with you etc.etc.”, I’d do the
honourable thing and drag the sole of my hobnail boot along his
shin. Hard. Because I’m not too sure where that would fit with
my compelling long-term vision of a possible relationship.

(C) 2005 Annie Kaszina

To contact Annie, email: annie@joyfulcoaching.com To subscribe
to Annie’s bi-monthly ezine, or order her eBook “The Woman You
Want To Be” go to www.joyfulcoaching.co

Relationships are hard work, but when you add distance between the two of you it can become even more complicated. Long distance relationships are quite common these days as the Internet brings people together from all over the world. Other people have to endure long distance relationships because of job obligations that take them away for extended periods of time. Many people won’t even attempt to pull off a long distance relationship while others are totally committed to making it work. Some of us know that we just aren’t built for this type of relationship while there are others of us that believe that love can endure.

Long distance relationships can work, it just takes the commitment of both people for it to last. Both people involved have to be committed to communication, whether it is through the phone, through emails or written letters. Communication is something we all take for granted when we are in the presence of one another, but when you are dealing with a long distance relationship you do not have the benefit of body language to help guide you. Communication is key to making these relationships work. Without good communication you will lose track of one another and when you do finally come together you will be living completely separate lives.

Also important is to establish some ground rules. We all have a need to be social, to be loved, and to be touched so you must come together and decide what you are each comfortable with the other person doing in their social lives. Is yours a totally committed relationship with no room for flings? Will you send lust filled letters and participate in phone sex to meet your physical needs or can you each turn to casual sexual relationships for these needs? These are topics that may be a bit odd to discuss, but if you want to make your long distance relationship work you really need to touch on these subjects and know where the other person stands.

All relationships take work, but long distance relationships take a bit more work in the way of communication, compromise, and understanding. Many people believe that long distance relationships simply cannot work, but many have in the past and many will in the future. It’s true that a large number of long distance relationships fail, but this is true of relationships that do not deal with distance as well. Relationships are hard, and if you are in the position where you are considering a long term relationship you really need to think about how well that will work for you, for the other person in your relationship, and how well the needs of both of you can be met through a long distance relationship.

Far too many people, both men and women alike, confuse lust for
love. Physical attraction alone will not withstand the test of
time in relationships. Physical attraction is an important
factor but must never be the only factor you rely upon when
choosing a mate. Many make the mistake of confusing lust and
love and end up broken-hearted when the relationship doesn’t
last.

Perhaps you’re wildly attracted to someone and thoughts of that
person dominate your mind a good portion of the day and night.
Perhaps you can’t wait until the next time the two of you will
be together again. When you are together you can’t keep your
hands off one another and when you’re apart, you fantasize about
the next time you can see one another. True love and lust are
easily confused because they are so much alike.

As a rule of thumb, if you share few other interests and have
nothing in common other than an overwhelming physical desire for
one another…it may be lust. If you have nothing of real value
to say to one another and have difficulty relating to one
another outside the sexual arena…it may be lust. If you don’t
particularly enjoy one another’s company unless you’re having
sex…it may be lust.

On the other hand, if your relationship is based on factors
other than physical attraction and sex is not necessarily the
number one priority…it may be love. Most long-term
relationships are built on a strong friendship which turns into
love over time. Having sex is not the driving force behind the
relationship, but is a nice sideline to it.

There really is such a thing as “love at first sight”. It
happens to many people and the relationship may last for the
rest of their lives. A budding relationship based on lust feels
much the same as one which is truly “love at first sight”. So
how do you tell the difference?

Ask yourself the following questions. Read each question
carefully and really think about it before answering. When
answering, try to be as truthful as possible. If you can
honestly and sincerely answer “yes” to all or nearly all of the
questions, it may be safe to assume what you feel for the other
person is actually love and not merely lust.

Keep in mind, these questions are quite general and are in no
way a total and complete checklist.

1. Do you share similar ethics, values, and morals? 2. Do you
find it easy to talk to one another and can you talk freely
about almost anything? 3. Do you enjoy the time you spend with
one another, regardless of the activity? 4. Do you enjoy even
the most mundane activities when you are together, simply
because you ARE together? 5. Do you have a genuine concern for
the happiness, safety, and well-being of the other person? 6.
Are you able to work out any differences you may have with this
person to the satisfaction of both of you? 7. When disagreements
arise, are you able to discuss them openly and frankly without
losing your temper? 8. Do you find yourself longing for this
person’s presence in your life in terms other than a sexual
relationship? In other words, do you feel a need simply to be
with that person and spend time with them even without having
sex? 9. Can you laugh together and at one another, share jokes,
and generally have fun together? 10. Does spending time with
this person make you feel good about yourself? 11. Does this
person give you a heightened sense of self-confidence and
vitality? 12. Can you look at this person even when they are at
their worst in their physical appearance (such as when they are
sick) and not feel repulsed? 13. Do you share a strong mutual
respect for one another? 14. Are you willing and able to share
both good times and bad with this person and work through life’s
ups and downs together as a team?

There is a very fine line between lust and love because the two
of them are closely related. Being able to tell the difference
can save you from wasting your time pursuing an unhealthy
relationship which is doomed to eventual failure.

If your long-term goal is to seek out a partner with whom you
can build a solid, lifetime commitment, knowing the difference
between lust and love is an essential and vital skill you’ll
want to master. Learning to accept a relationship for what it
really is can mean the difference between a broken heart and a
happy, fulfilling, lifetime of bliss with your partner.

Copyright 2005 Deborah Willis All Rights Reserved
http://moonshadowmarketing.com/attractwomen.ht

If you want to get lucky in your love life, you’ve got to become convinced of one thing. That one thing is that luck has nothing whatsoever to do with it. You have to be smart, you have to be clever, and you have to be a good person who is open to romance.

Women especially can think that they are not able to get lucky in their love life because they’ve tried before and failed. More than likely that wasn’t about failing to get lucky, as much as it was about making dumb mistakes in their relationships.

Here are some of the dumb things women do to sabotage their chance to get lucky in their love life.

The first mistake that can sabotage luck in love is getting inebriated on a date. Especially early on in the relationship stick to one - maybe two glasses of wine.

Getting sloshed doesn’t make you witty or brave. It makes you loud, unattractive, brazen and more often than not, saying or doing something that will embarrass you and end the relationship.

Don’t get nervous on your first or second or third date and just keep talking and talking and talking.

That little Eveready bunny can keep going and going and going and it’s cute and he might still get lucky in his love life, but you’ll just look self-absorbed.

Share something about yourself, but spend more time asking about him and then be quiet and listen. With a little luck your love life will bloom from your willingness to be his confidante and your decorum in public.

Another thing that can be really tacky and not help you get lucky in your love life is to appear cheap. It’s okay to sometimes pick up the check or go dutch. You don’t want to appear like an over spender either, but always ordering the salad and water may make you look like a real penny pincher and that’s not attractive.

Another related no-no is asking for a doggie bag. Don’t do it until you’re way into the relationship, or until he does it first.

Discussions of bodily functions can really ruin the luck you might have stumbled into in your love life. There’s nothing like a little talk of constipation to take the passion right out of the evening.

The other thing that can really give you some bad luck in your love life is running other women down to him - especially if you don’t know who he’s dating.

Worse yet, no matter how much he trashes his ex-wife or ex-lover, never trash her yourself. You can sympathize and say things like, “I can see why that kind of behavior would be upsetting to you,” but if you say, “You’re right, she is trash,” you’re more likely to find yourself listening to him defend her. And you won’t look attractive to him right then at all.

You can get lucky in your love life only if you make your own luck.

Chris Rock and his powerful and VERY TRUE words about really being IN LOVE and RELATIONSHIPS… this is SOO TRUE and damnit learn something from this guys… This guy is a GENIUS!!

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Cupid raised his arrow, aimed and love hit the hearts of two people. A love so exciting that it exploded into possibilities. A family, a home and a life that can be shared. Anything is possible when two people are in love.

Romeo and Juliet loved. There love was so deep they could not live without the other. A love that pitted them against rival families who were filled with hatred. Families that would never accept their love.

William Shakespeare wrote this epic tail showing how love can be defeated by the quarreling surrounding families. Love can be devoured by hate to the point that the only hope of two people to hold unto their love is by going to their graves.

Today over fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. Husbands and wives end their marriages stating:”Irreconcilable Differences” as the reason for there demise. But I tell you that it has nothing to do with their incompatibility, it has everything to do with our present day world.

We are a society separated by differences from skin color to ethnic backgrounds. We live in a world where everything, from our religion to our country, chooses whom we can love.

We have also become a society of workaholics. We are so burdened by our desire for things that we are chained to our work. When our spouse needs us, we can’t give except in material things. So love that once united becomes cold and every day trials become disasters.

Love and affection takes work. It takes spending time together. It takes making love often and forgetting the work we must accomplish in our life. Paul realized the need for strong committed relationship when he wrote these words in the Bible’s renown ‘love chapter’.

1 Corinthians 13: 1- 3, “I may be able to speak the languages of men and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. I may have the gift of inspired preaching: I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains-but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned-but if I have no love, this does me no good.”

We live in a very complex world that fights against all forms of love. We are at war and couples are the favorite target of the unseen spiritual forces of evil. Because Satan is the god of this world, he roams the earth devouring love and turning cupids arrows of love into hate by turning couples against each other through fights and quarrels.

God is love and the destruction of love puts a stop to good in the world and allows the fallen angels of hell to inflict punishment on those who are not under the protection of God. Satan knows if he can destroy marriages he can stop healthy families from forming strong unions bound together with love.

Families who understand the fight and stay together no matter what they face in life. Couples who love even when it is hard to love. Wives and husbands that refuse to keep a record of everything their mate has done wrong.

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7, “Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up: and its faith, hope, and patience never fail.”

Satan’s influence destroys couples by using their emotions as a weapon to lash out. He keeps them in the clutches of jealousy and selfishness by reminding them how much time there mate spends with other people, instead of them.

But under the influence of the Spirit of God we are given another message. Truth teaches us to let go of each others faults, not to keep records of wrongs, and to allow forgiveness to heal our problems. The Spirit of God helps us to have patience and gives us hope that things will get better in future.

We live in a corrupt and evil world that demands that we serve it. In order to set up a house, we must work! The same must happen within the makeup of a marriage. We must constantly forgive and love and talk out our relationship problems so Satan doesn’t get a foothold into our lives and corrupt us through evil thoughts.

The only way we can do this is by holding tightly to the love we have for our husband or wife. We must recognize Satan’s influence in our thinking and fight for love.

We need to understand that Love is God and only through God can we stand firm and be unaffected by lives ups and downs. Because God is everlasting and eternal.

1Corinthians 13:8&9, “Love is eternal. There are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass. For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear.”

Love helps us to face all forms of tragedies from the loss of a child to facing a disease or disability. Love helps us to dig our way out of financial crisis from job loss or company reorganization.

By facing this world, within the establishment of a strong relationship, we have strength. Jesus said when two or more pray together, He answers their prayers.

As people of faith we must pray for our relationships and hold tight when tragedies rear their ugly head. Together, couples can achieve miracles through faith in God, but when couples fight without God, they fail.

1Corthinthians 13: 11-13, “When I was a child, my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a child; now that I am a man, I have no more use for childish ways. What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete-as complete as God’s knowledge of me.
Meanwhile these three remain; faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.”

We must put aside childish emotions that allow jealousy, evil, and all forms of strive to enter into our marriages and think like adults. We must learn to overcome adversity with love.

Love is not a Shakespearean tragedy that results in both parties dying. Love is a force that stands up against all opposition and wins. Love produces hope and faith that nothing is impossible when God is the head of our household.

Cupid’s arrows hit strong fortresses of love. Couples who would Fight For Love!

Eckhart explains the egos role in love relationships.

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Why is it that so often when we feel we are in love, we also feel we are in bondage if anything happens to shake the feeling of “security” in the love? Why does love so often make us dependent on the other person? Shouldn’t love be a marvelous and freeing feeling rather than these other sensations of need and fear and dependence?

Songs Say it All

Songs so often say it all: “Can’t Live, if Livin’ is Without You”, “I Need Your Lovin’”, “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone”, “I Fall to Pieces”, It’s You I Need to Take the Blues Away, It Must be Love, “Without You I am Nothing”, “I’m Drowning Without Your Love”, If you Leave, I Won’t be Able to Breathe”, etc.

The message each of those songs gives is that when the person we love is no longer with us, we can’t go on. We need that person to be able to stay alive…at least figuratively speaking. Without the person we love, we are nothing, we can not bear to live.

And while we all know that this is not exactly true, most of us have certainly been in the position of feeling something akin to those words.

So what does it mean? Does it really mean that loving someone implies that we need the other person so much that we simply feel we can not go on without them? Or could all that be a fallacy?

Typical Love Scenario

Let’s examine what happens in a typical love scenario…

Boy meets girl (man meets woman), chemistry, infatuation, bliss, love, we’ve all been there and know how that part of it goes. But what is really happening? Raging hormones answer only a small part of the question, even though they can create a vast impact. An article in the weekend supplement of Spain’s daily El Mundo (8/7/06) refers to University of Pisa’s Donatella Marazziti’s work on romantic love activating parts of the brain associated with addiction. She has found that falling in love is a bit like going crazy from the point of view of brain chemicals and hormones (see also New Scientist).

Jung and the Intelligent Psyche

Carl Gustav Jung said that our psyche is so infinitely intelligent that it attracts us to certain individuals (as certain individuals’ psyche causes them to be attracted to us) in order that we experience precisely that which we need to grow. (See my April 2006 Newsletter: Committed Relationships: Use Them to Grow Towards Self-Understanding and Real Love).

So how do we typically grow? By going through an experience of some sort that may not be easy. We grow at school by learning, studying, and taking exams. We grow in life by becoming more aware, and we generally tend to become more aware when some life experience obliges us to do so.

By extrapolating, we might say that in relationships we grow most quickly through experiences that are not necessarily easy. And going back to Jung, he clearly proposes that throughout the course of our lives it is our psyche that in its infinite intelligence leads us to be attracted to precisely those individuals who most have the potential to be instruments in our individual growth. In order for that to work, evidently we first have to be fully in relationship with those people. So we fall in love, we begin to feel that our happiness depends in some measure on the other person, and so begins our need of that person.

External vs Internal Needs

An external need, in others words, when we depend on something external to ourselves for our well-being, frequently carries within it the seeds of failure. In the case of a relationship, it may often be the cause of power plays between the two people, the less needy one being the one to dominate the relationship, and the needier one to resentfully accept this dominance due to his or her need for the other partner.

Obsessiveness, Possessiveness, or the Need to Control

Power plays are not the only manifestation of relationships mired in mutual need. Another frequent expression is obsessiveness or possessiveness, or a need to control. And you can imagine - if you haven’t been there - the kind of resentment and negative feelings that this can generate on the part of both people. Akin to any substance addiction, obsessiveness or possessiveness or the need to control can take people to hellish places in their hearts and minds that few of us would wish to visit. I have created an entire workshop on this topic, because although this type of addiction is often masked by a veneer of sophistication, it occurs more frequently than most people suspect, and makes the existence of those that suffer from it a living nightmare.

Does Needing Mean You Really Love?

So why do we become needy in relationships? Of the roughly 40% men and 60% women that come to my private practice, many would initially answer that â??needing’ your love partner is how it should be. But why should love imply a feeling that almost always develops into something negative, and at best, makes those who feel it, as said at the beginning of this article, that they could not live without the beloved, thus â??proving’ in their minds, that this is really love? Is that really what love is all about?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to assume that love means freedom rather than independence? (See my article Are You in Love, or Do You Love?). So what does needing our partner tell us?

Falling In Love With Yourself…

Let’s start with the falling in love part. What are we actually falling in love with? Stated simply, we fall in love with those bits and pieces of ourselves that we have not yet recognized, but that we find (via projection) in the partner. Is she tender and understanding? Is he funny and the center of the party? Is she strong and enterprising? Is he confident, with a great sense of integrity? All of those qualities may well be part of your partner’s character, but the fact that you fell in love with those specific traits, tells you that they are actually part of your own character as well.

Since you do not yet manifest those qualities, because you have not yet recognized them in yourself, you need your partner to be able to â??be in touch with’ that part of you. That is what â??hooks’ you on your partner. Your partner’s presence in your life gives you contact to those parts of you that you have not yet developed, making you feel that your partner is absolutely indispensable to your well-being.

When Your Partner Leaves

So then, when something happens to the relationship, or your partner leaves, or threatens to leave, is when the strong feelings of need arise. This is the time when you should realize that these strong feelings of need are a vast red flag letting you know something is going on inside of you that only you can do something about. If you ignore it, or translate it into “I was deeply wounded by my partner”, or “my partner did not return my feelings when I most needed him/her, so I guess that means I always choose the wrong people”, or “next time I will choose better, so that this kind of thing never happens to me again”, then instead of resolving your inner dilemma, you will merely perpetuate it by maintaining the status quo inside of you, falling in love with yet another person that puts you in touch with bits of you that you have not yet recognized in yourself, and thus setting yourself up to be â??needy’.

Can it be Solved?

So what is the solution? Simple to state, less simple to execute (mainly because it requires some of that inner discipline that most of us don’t want to exercise): work on those bits of yourself that you catch a glimpse of in the beloved. Examine yourself to see where they might reside in you. Work at developing them; growing them. If you do this, I guarantee you that the next time you fall in love, it will be with a smaller degree of external need, and hence, a greater degree of internal freedom. Or, if you remain with the same person, your love will grow into something infinitely more loving.

Note: look for an article in the near future about need in love relationships that is the consequence of an early dysfunctional relationship with one of the parents. This may cause the individual to grow up believing that love means hurting in some way. Then, when the individual finds someone who â??plays’ that role for him/her, that person becomes necessary to the first person’s emotional survival - or so it is believed. The need that arises from this has more to do with a lack of self-esteem or poor boundaries, than with getting in touch with unrecognized bits of the self, and thus the work that needs to be done is on one’s self esteem in connection with the construction of healthy boundaries.