Relationship Advice - Is It More Painful To Stay Or To Leave the Relationship?

By Beverleigh H Piepers

Many people find themselves in this situation: they're in a relationship, they're unhappy, and they wonder if they should leave or stay. There is no doubt it is painful to think about having to start all over again, but it is also painful to consider staying in a relationship that has plenty of issues attached to it. So what do you do? To decide that, you have to determine which would hurt more, staying or leaving?

First, consider staying. What are the good parts of the relationship? Has the frequency of these good points deteriorated over time? Or have the total number of good points dwindled? All relationships settle, to a certain degree, over time. You just have to determine whether or not yours has deteriorated past a healthy level. Even areas that have dwindled can be revived as long as both sides are willing to put forth the effort.

You also have to be honest with yourself. Are you staying because you still see hope in the relationship working out or are you there only because you don't like the prospect of starting over? Even if you are biding your time until someone better comes along, it isn't fair to your partner. Don't stay just because it is the safe alternative.

Next, consider staying. What qualities does your partner have that you would miss? Are they still the same person they were when you first met them? Have you changed? If so, what caused the change? Was it because of something negative they did, or because you grew weary of the relationship and where you believed it was heading? Be honest, no matter how much it might hurt them.

When making this decision, remember there usually isn't a clear-cut answer. Each decision will come with its own bad points. You have to determine whether or not the bad points are enough to warrant the change. Ending a relationship is never going to be easy. If it were, then there would be no need to ponder over it.

The last thing you want is to be uncertain. Once you make your decision, it has to be final. Lives will be changed forever. There is no room here for guessing. The best rule of thumb is this: don't stay with someone because you can live with them: stay with them because you can't live without them. If you look at it from this particular perspective, then your decision will be much easier for you.

Are destructive emotions at the heart of the problems you are experiencing with your relationship. If so, maybe you need to get control of what you are really telling yourself. What are your beliefs about relationship problems and your part in them?

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Character Traits That Promote Intimacy and Avoid Marriage Problems

By Bryce Kaye, Ph.D.

Over the past 35 years, I have seen thousands of couples in marriage counseling. I thought it might be interesting to list out the personal traits and values of the most competent partners who do the best at maintaining their relationships. Instead of taking your partner's inventory I would suggest that you take an honest look at yourself. See where you might like to do you future growth. Here's the list:

·         Heterocentric perspective - The person intuitively weighs the best balance of welfare among competing interests. The person is concerned for the other person but also for his or her own self as well as the overall relationship. The person doesn't just consider self alone (narcissism) or just consider the partner alone (co-dependent self-sacrifice).

·         Future welfare is prioritized over immediate comfort - The person is willing to sacrifice the immediate emotional relief that derives from regressive behavior (e.g. blaming, attacking, raging, lying, hiding etc.) and instead promotes and protects the future relationship. The person uses self-discipline to tolerate temporary discomfort in order to do this

·         Truth is prioritized over appearance and pride - The person is willing to tolerate the shameful discomfort that accompanies exposing truth about his or her own limitations. The person practices healthy humility for the sake of truth. When the person makes a mistake, "loses it", behaves irresponsibly, etc. the person admits it and takes responsibility. Because the person values truth so highly, he or she is welcomes outside information to help the relationship. The relationship is an "open system."

·         Autonomous persistence - The person behaves constructively and works at cultivating the relationship even when the partner misbehaves irresponsibly. The person doesn't base their self-discipline on whether or not the partner "is trying too." The person's behavior is motivated by his/her desire for personal integrity.

·         Mindfulness of state - The person is able to notice more than the content of conversations. The person notices the background moods occurring in both self and the partner.. The person gauges when the background mood states are conducive for productive communication (e.g. Is the person or the partner too angry to engage in a constructive conflict?)

·         Pro-active creativity - The person comes up with his or her own ideas about how to share positive experiences with the partner. The person makes suggestions and invites the partner to share fun in different ways. The person doesn't just wait for the partner to arrange the common agenda.

·         Willingness to risk exposure - The person is willing to share his or her internal truths with the partner. The person discloses his or her more vulnerable feelings such as fear, shame, desire and wonder in addition to less vulnerable feelings such as anger and frustration.

·         Liberated curiosity - The person is able to stop being task-focused or defensive and periodically shares wonder, curiosity and uncertainty in the moment.

·         Long-term view - The person considers the long-term effects of their own emotionally driven behavior before acting or reacting. The person's intuitive wisdom checks impulses to either act out or to hide that would eventually lead to damage or imbalance in the relationship. The person's intuition creates a model of the probable future world(s) depending on what he or she will do.

·         Realistic expectations - The person avoids magical expectations of quick change or fairytale expectations of a perfect partner. The partner's acceptance of the partner's imperfection, negative feeling states and slow emotional change actually protects the relationship from toxic shame. The partner accepts that changing emotionally driven behavior involves time and only gradual results. Realistic expectations prevent an overwhelming amount of frustration and anger.

How did you do? Maybe you saw somewhere you could grow a bit.

Dr. Bryce Kaye invites you to visit his website http://www.loveodyssey.net where you can learn about the unique Love Odyssey marriage retreats. On a Love Odyssey retreat you can sail to different ports of call along the rivers and sounds of North Carolina while receiving private couples counseling to give your marriage a safe passage. The website has numerous articles and videos to explain the scientific basis for why these retreats are so effective.

Article Source: Here

Wise Mistakes in Marriage and Relationships

By Bryce Kaye, Ph.D.

For a good while, I've had to talk to numerous people about how to let go of harmful relationships. Getting out of harmful relationships has been a very hot topic in the press for several years. The topic seems relevant to the needs of many. However, there is a danger to such a negative outlook. With such a collective focus on avoiding or escaping from destructive relationships it's easy to overlook the natural and non-pathological ways that relationships often do not work out. Many times I have seen people blame themselves mercilessly for having pursued yet another ill-fated relationship, even when the relationship initially seemed to hold much promise. This self-castigation is especially prevalent among the people focusing on recovery from co-dependence issues. Like most self-blame, it's destructive as well as unnecessary.

Too many people view relationships from a pseudo-scientific perspective: If you make a wise choice in a partner, then the relationship will work out (assuming you make the "right" moves as well). If you hold this belief as being your own, it may be laying the foundation for accumulating shame and low self-esteem. The problem is that relationship skills are probabilistic at best. You can behave in "better" or "worse" ways to influence relationships but you cannot control them. They are NOT scientific and they don't rely on exact procedures. There are no "right" choices! The myth of control is dangerous even though it seems reassuring on the surface. If you assume relationships can be controlled, then when one doesn't work out you will likely conclude that you either did not make a wise choice in a mate (i.e. "dumb choice") or that you didn't manage the relationship the "right" way (i.e. "dumb moves"). These messages accumulate more shame and evidence of your being a defective human being, even though your investment in the relationship may have been a good risk.

You are better off with a broader concept of risk within relationships. Instead of assuming that risk is just a matter of feeling vulnerable., you can also assume that you are operating on very limited information. You can assume that there is a lot about your partner that you cannot know, and perhaps a lot that they may not know about themselves. You can assume that you can't perfectly predict how your partner's feelings will change as the relationship evolves. You can assume that changing life circumstances may influence either your partner's emotional investment or your own. In short, you can assume random and unpredictable influences over which you have little or no control. Which brings me to my main premise: That you can take wise risks for a relationship that doesn't necessarily work out. Even though you may be disappointed with the demise of a relationship, your initial decision to invest may have been a wise one. This is especially prevalent when one person risks investing with another who is undergoing personal change following a separation or divorce. The newly divorced person may be wonderfully receptive, compassionate, and loving but he or she may be understandably fearful of making new commitments and may not have a stable vision of what he or she wants. Investing with such a person has many risks but also much potential. Will it be worth it? There's no way to tell for sure. How much time do you have to find out? How important is a future commitment and how much do you want to emphasize the present? How vulnerable are you to the pain of possible disappointment? You may weigh these and other considerations when making a wise choice... and you may still be disappointed in the end. If you considered many of these factors, you don't have to blame yourself for being dumb or pathological. You can instead appreciate your limitations in being able to predict the future.

So how do you know when you are making a "wise" or an "unwise" investment in a relationship? I would suggest that it is unwise to ignore easily obtainable information that can help your decisions. For example, not communicating with your partner can help keep you totally in the dark. The most unsound choices are made when you are ignoring information that you already have on hand. If you ignore a long and consistent pattern of frustrating behaviors by your partner merely because you keep hoping that he or she will change, then you are certainly exercising unwise choices. The bottom line is that unwise choices will involve unsound consideration of available information. Wise choices involve consideration of available but limited information as well as the real possibility that you may still wind up with having made a wise mistake.

Dr. Bryce Kaye invites you to visit his website http://www.loveodyssey.net where you can learn about the unique Love Odyssey marriage retreats. On a Love Odyssey retreat you can sail to different ports of call along the rivers and sounds of North Carolina while receiving private couples counseling to give your marriage a safe passage. The website has numerous articles and videos to explain the scientific basis for why these retreats are so effective.

Article Source: Here