More than Just Sex (27 page)

Back at the beginning, it was ‘Do I want to see him again?’ Now it is ‘Do I want to see him permanently?’ You are being judged and, more importantly, your reactions are being judged. While she wobbles, if you really are interested then you MUST stand strong and true and be Mr Reliable, Mr Dependable and Mr Consistent.

There is nothing you can do to stop her from wobbling, so please, more than ever, avoid chasing your fixing fix and just allow her to know that you are there and not going anywhere. Don’t get caught up in her wobble; it’ll only end
up becoming a speed wobble, which will throw you off faster than a high side on a hog.

Never threaten the relationship! (Unless you really mean it)

One of the most destructive things you can ever do is to threaten the survival of the relationship itself. Quite apart from the obvious pitfall of crying wolf, if you are saying something that you don’t really mean in order to try to control the other person then you are getting very close to straying into abuse territory.

I know ‘abuse’ is a horrible word, but think about it. You are trying to control someone against her free will, and that’s abuse. You might think that you know best, you might think that you can see the best way through a situation and you might well be right and have very good intentions, but if the other person is not on the same path as you, then trying to control her is not the answer and will ultimately lead to the thing you are trying to prevent inevitably happening.

Effectively, you run three risks, and you have to realize that people almost always do the best they can, given their state of mind at the time. She is doing the best for her, just as you are trying to do the best for you, but if those good intentions don’t match up, no amount of controlling is going to change that.

The first risk
in threatening the relationship when you don’t mean it is that she turns around and says, ‘Fine, I’m off’ and there is nothing you can do about it.

The second risk
is that she doesn’t know how to do things differently, and so you lose her that way, too.

The third risk
is that she realizes that you are, in effect, trying to control her, and pushes back against it.

Let me be quite clear: if you do mean it, then she must know where she stands. If someone doesn’t know where the boundaries lie, it is a little unfair to punish them for straying outside of the rope.

Some time ago, a good friend was having a bit of trouble with his teenage daughter – 13 going on 23, if you know what I mean? They were a very open and loving family, and encouraged their kids to have their own minds and voices, but on one particular occasion he had to rush home because she had been particularly abusive to his wife and had used language that she found deeply offensive. They got to the root of the problem reasonably easily, but the issue of language and the hurt it had caused remained present. A family meeting was called and their daughter’s response stunned everyone even more than the language itself.

‘I didn’t know that it was so wrong.’ After the initial round of ‘Yeah right!’ or words to that effect, it became clear that, while her parents definitely had an expectation of what was acceptable behaviour and had assumed that everyone (especially their children) knew that, they hadn’t in fact defined what was and wasn’t acceptable in the home.

WHAT’S OK WITH YOU?

It is only when someone knows what is and isn’t OK that they can make the choice either to behave in a way which
is acceptable or not. And if you don’t tell them, how are they supposed to know? Your responsibility, and the bit you absolutely can and should control, is not them, but knowing what is and isn’t OK with you. Let them know the boundaries so that they can make choices, which you can then choose to live with… or not.

Don’t you go changing, though! OK, you can change some things, but again, know your boundaries and what’s you and what’s your behaviour. They’re different – you can change your socks but never your soul. And always be true to yourself and what you are feeling.

‘The one piece of relationship advice I would give to a man is, to be honest. Honest in the most, frank, candid and purist form. Say how you feel, when you feel it – at all times. No grey areas or miscommunication. Say how you feel in its truest form always. Even if it’s not something a man thinks a woman will want to hear, I’d still say – just say it.’

‘Often, when you speak to a couple after a split, one person (usually the female) will say, “I had no idea he wasn’t happy”, and by the time the man is honest with the lady about how he really feels it’s waaay too late to fix anything.’

‘I’d say be as honest with her as you are with yourself – communicate every step of the way exactly how you feel – bad and good. I was with my boyfriend for five years and I felt like the split was when I finally got to actually know him. Sounds weird, but I don’t think I’m alone in that feeling.’

Joanna Abeyie, journalist and founder of Shine Media

You are you, and that’s that! While I am all for personal development and self-improvement, the key is in those two aspects: personal ‘development’ and self ‘improvement’. It’s not personal
destruction
and self-
abandonment!

Everyone is unique, and so is every relationship. What is OK for some people is really not for others. How would you feel if your partner wanted an ‘open’ relationship? Some people are fine with it, but most are not. How would you feel if your partner wanted to keep in touch regularly with her ex? How would you feel if she drank too much when you weren’t there, and did things she regretted in the morning?

Some people are OK with those things and many, many more and some are not, but what matters is
what matters to you
. The only part over which you have any control is communicating where the boundaries are and then allowing her to make her choices knowing the consequences. It’s as simple as that: control what you can and let go of what you can’t. No one is perfect, and so if it doesn’t matter to you, then it doesn’t matter. If it does, you must tell her and be ready for her choices.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ‘PERSON’ AND THE ‘BEHAVIOUR’

Even really lovely people act weird sometimes. It doesn’t make
them
weird; it makes their
behaviour
weird. People don’t change much, but behaviour does.

If you think back to the neurological levels we studied earlier, ‘behaviour’ is the lowest and weakest level, and the
one most susceptible to change, whereas ‘identity’ is right at the top and not likely to be changed by anything other than an act of God, if you know what I mean. Right up at the identity level, you have the real you with your core beliefs and values supporting you, and it’s that higher you from which you should navigate. It has a voice and wisdom, and you would do well to listen to it.

This is the exact opposite of ‘small-head’ thinking. This is clear, true, big-mind thinking, and is much wiser than you think.

Put any two people in close proximity for any length of time, and things are never going to be plain sailing, not even on HMS
Authentic
. So you might as well forget that notion right now, because it just won’t be like that. Of course that doesn’t mean a wonderfully fulfilling relationship isn’t possible. It just takes some plotting of the right course, some patience and a bit of self-awareness (on both your parts, but remember you can only focus on you) to know how you react when things get a little choppy. Anyone can steer a ship on a flat sea, but knowing what you want to do when things get a little rough is the key to happily-ever-after.

You are doubtless familiar with the ‘fight-or-flight’ reflex. Psychologists have been waxing lyrical for centuries about the two extremes of behaviour when the going gets tough. The men with beards say that, depending on which way you
are wired, you will quickly size up a situation and then either run away, tail between your legs, or stand and confront the problem head on.

In the days of hunting sabre-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths fight or flight definitely made a lot of sense. If prehistoric man decided he was up for a fight he’d have a go, but without medical insurance, and the odds stacked against him, running like hell to fight another day was often the best option. We are not fighting wild animals now. Quite the opposite: we live in a world where the biggest fight most of us have is getting to the bar on a Friday night after a hard day in the concrete corporate jungle.

In years gone by, the object of threat had big scary pointy bits and was intent on using parts of our anatomy as a toothpick. Having evolved from the swamp to the city, now those six-inch pointy bits have brand names like Louboutin and Jimmy Choo.

So, while the good old fight-or-flight reflex might be useful in some situations, why does it come into play in the relatively safe world of relationships? The answer is simple: we just don’t have any other way of reacting. We either run away or we fight, and that’s just the way it is… or is it?

Lots of guys have evolved a third response, which is mostly reserved for romantic relations – fight, flight… and now f*ck.

I’m sure you’ve been there. Part of you doesn’t want to leave, but another part is unhappy. You don’t really want to run, but you’re sick of fighting… you need a third option. ‘Maybe if I just do what she wants then she’ll do what I
want’, you think. It appears to make sense, but you are just running without going anywhere and letting yourself be totally f*cked over. You’re giving away your power and compromising your authenticity for the sake of not having to deal with the pain of losing the good parts – or even just the fear of the unknown and being single and having to start over again – but that’s just the old scarcity mentality tripping you up again.

If you pulled a hottie once, you can do it again and again, as often as you need to until you find the ‘one’.

You have abundance now because you know how to create choices and opportunities for yourself, and you are externalizing the desirable you, and you have skills that you are getting comfortable using. Now you can get the result you want any time you want… Now
that’s
security!

If you’ve ever found yourself in the ‘f*cked’ situation, you might even try the option of smothering her in attention in an attempt to keep things together, but this is just death by a thousand kindnesses. Over time, you come to accept things that you would never have tolerated when you first started out together.

If that’s you, stop and think. What’s your favourite f*cked position? We are all creatures of habit and if you have ever found yourself making things OK that you know, in your heart, conflict with your core values and beliefs then chances are it’s not the first time either. You’ve come a long way and it’s time to break those old patterns for good, and you do so by holding yourself in the regard that you want her to hold you.

ATTRACTION VERSUS CONTAINMENT

The key to keeping the G.o.D. and keeping her happy is very simple and always the same. Just be the guy she wants to hang out with. And that means being you. If she doesn’t want to hang out with you, then that’s OK, too, but then it’s time for a new partner. Please don’t change.

Remember, it is definitely OK (even encouraged occasionally) to change your socks, but never your soul.

But equally don’t let your fear squeeze the life out of a perfectly good relationship… because the problem with relationships, and especially when they start to go wrong, is that they are made up of so many moving parts. When they start to break down, we tend to tense up and hold on, trying to control anything we can in order to stop it slipping from our grasp.

Think about it. If something is made up of moving parts and you hold on to one bit, you keep it stuck, stress builds up and the whole thing breaks. Imagine a machine where one of the cogs gets stuck. Something has to give, and the machine breaks at its weakest point.

Exactly the same thing is true in relationships. When one bit gets stuck, the relationship fractures along its weakest fault line, which is usually jealousy and fear, or you accept the ‘being f*cked’ option we discussed earlier.