If you want to be happy in a relationship, you have to start having some AWARENESS and GROWTH in order to break the bad patterns and create the kind of life you deserve. The strange truth is, patterns aren’t coincidences. They keep repeating in your life for a reason. They are meant to be LESSONS for you to learn from.

Here are three simple steps you can take right now to change your perspective, and hopefully take some action to improve your love life today.

It’s an all-too-familiar story.

You meet a guy and the connection at first is unbelievable. He listens to you, is on the same emotional level you are, and you feel that you can count on each other. But as time goes on, something starts to slowly “shift.”

It starts with the small things. He begins to depend on you more and stops doing the things he used to do that made you admire and respect him. You start to GIVE MORE in order to keep that close, connected feeling going, and it begins to DRAIN you. You feel like he’s taking you for granted. He doesn’t seem to pay the same attention or give the same affection that you give him, and it’s really starting to feel unfair.

And then it happens—you decide to have a “talk” with him about how you’re feeling and instead of hearing you, he accuses you of “nagging” him and creating “drama.” He withdraws from you and leaves you wondering how in the world you managed to find yourself in the same BAD PLACE in love…again.

I could give you 50 different reasons about how men are at fault and create these problems for you, but the reality is that kind of thinking never accomplishes anything. Instead, I’m going to walk you through a few steps you can take right now to change your perspective, and hopefully take some action to improve your love life today.

1. Recognize the negative relationship patterns you keep repeating.

By negative patterns, I don’t mean such things as, “I always pick the jerks.” That’s about HIM, not YOU. An example of a bad pattern may be the ways you “lose yourself” whenever you get involved with a man and how you end up resenting it later. Or how you seem to only be interested in unavailable men. Or how you begin to GIVE out of a need to GET, but it ultimately leaves you feeling resentful and angry.

By recognizing the pattern, you can steer in a different direction when you see yourself slipping into the same situation in the future.

2. Avoid “All or Nothing” thinking.

Do you know any women who complain how their relationship is a complete failure one minute, but a few hours or days later they’ve changed their tune 180 degrees and now EVERYTHING is great? That’s “All or Nothing” thinking.

Unfortunately the more common examples of this are much more subtle and difficult to spot, especially when YOU are the one having the thoughts. This kind of thinking sets you up to fail AND it tells the man that you have a hard time with communication skills.

3. Don’t just fix the symptoms.

Over the years there’s a fascinating mistake I see tons of people making in business, in relationships and in all aspects of life. When something isn’t working and they want to fix a problem, they fail to see it in the context of the entire “system.” That’s like thinking blowing your nose will cure your cold.

You need to start looking at the entire system of how you and your man connect and communicate in your relationship, and develop a more “holistic” approach. Then you’ll have the perspective to make choices and take action…instead of temporarily fixing some symptom of a much larger problem. A symptom may be that he “forgets” to call, but what’s really going on is that you have a hard time communicating in general.

If you want to be happy in a relationship, you have to start having some AWARENESS and GROWTH in order to break the bad patterns and create the kind of life you deserve. The strange truth is, patterns aren’t coincidences. They keep repeating in your life for a reason. They are meant to be LESSONS for you to learn from.

So, you have a choice. You can keep repeating the same bad patterns, and experiencing pain and frustration that comes with them. Or, you can choose to have more awareness and growth, which will bring you new ways of seeing—and best of all—NEW RESULTS in your relationships.

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Your Friend,
Christian Carter

Christian Carter, author of the e-book “Catch Him and Keep Him” offers a free dating advice newsletter for women that’s packed with all kinds of tips and insights into how men think, what attracts them to a woman, and how to create a fulfilling, committed relationship. ©2001-2007 Catch Him Inc, All Rights Reserved.

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