Everyone Needs to Win

This is Relationship 101. No one likes to lose. Losing sucks and if you feel like your mate wins every argument, you won’t stay there long. Some folks try to deal with this winning-losing issue by never fighting, but this just doesn’t work.

Like it or hate it, all relationships have conflict. Even if you search for a mate with whom you share all values and even if you try to share all thoughts/perspectives/opinions, you still won’t agree about everything. Disagreeing about issues is natural and won’t kill a relationship, believe it or not. Having differing views of life issues isn’t always a bad thing. You need someone of the other end of the teeter totter.

It is bad, though, when your arguments always end with one person as the victor or if one person just agrees. Not only does this set the winner up with an incomplete view of things, it leaves the silent, loser half of the relationship feeling, well, like a loser. This is a pretty crummy place to be, particularly if you feel like you're always the loser.

While relationships can function for a while with this dynamic, eventually the loser gets tired of being the loser. Even if the mad feelings don’t stack up and choke the relationship right away, loser-ness will eventually, quietly kill the love. It just dies.

Everyone needs to feel like their point of view is acknowledged and valued. Winning an argument can be as simple as having your mate own up to the fact that you have a point. Apologies are nice, too, but only when they’re sincere. You can’t just pull an apology out every time you’re fighting. This gets old.

Sometimes, the winner in a relationship will claim that he or she just naturally has more logic or common sense or whatever. Don’t be hooked in by this admittedly comfortable thought. Sometimes, you are wrong. That’s just reality. Not always, but every now and then.

It is important to see that both of you have valuable contributions to the relationship. Even when you disagree, you’re both usually partly right. This is typically easier to see when you assess what you both want—i.e. even if you argue about money, you both want to be out of debt, you both want your in-laws to get along, you both want both of you to be happy in your jobs, you both want your children to do well. Whatever.

The point is that you’re not so far apart on most issues. You may have different concerns and you certainly will have different things that you see as important. The truth is that these things are both important. Maybe to greater or lesser degrees, but still both concerns are, well, concerning.

Being right sometimes is massively important, though. Don’t just give in because you don’t like the messiness of fighting. Arguing isn’t usually fun, but talking about your different opinions, bringing different views to the table, that’s important.

Just make sure everyone is hearing and heard. Losing all the time really hurts the relationship. If you’re both sharing your take on things, you both have a say in the relationship. This will take effort, but it pays off. Don’t give up. Just remember teeter totter. It’s more fun when someone’s on the other end.

Feeling Inadequate

Don’t be too harsh with yourself. While you are aren’t perfect, you aren’t horrible, either. You’re actually a lot more capable than you think.

Self-image is a difficult area for most. You probably started of life with some glaring inaccuracies—things your parents said(whether they meant these to be taken to heart or not), things you heard from unkind classmates or those things you decided about yourself based on a small child’s limited reality.

You were a kid and you didn’t see yourself or the world fully.

Individuals frequently believe things about themselves that are just untrue. Finding objectivity when you’re looking at yourself can be very challenging. You may have very truthful, very honest people telling you good things about yourself and you will tell yourself they’re just being nice.

Raising self-esteem requires you to do your best to shake up and re-examine your beliefs about yourself. It also requires you to take action. You need to walk toward your conflicts and challenges and prove to yourself that you are adequate and capable by handling these. You can do this. Yes, you goof up sometimes. You won’t always handle things the way you later wish you had, but you won’t mess up every time. When you do make mistakes, these usually aren't as horrible as you’ve feared.

It’s hugely important to note your successes. Sometimes you are right, you do well, you make the right choice. Don’t miss the moments you make the best decision. Sometimes, you do the right thing, you see the potential mistakes in judgment before you jump. Every now and then, you make a home run.

Don’t miss it. Don’t dismiss it.

Yes, you’ll also make mistakes, too. Screwing up is part of the process of living. Everyone blows it sometimes. This is unavoidable and simply a part of moving through life. Don’t expect yourself to be perfect. Mistakes will be made; the real challenge is to learn from them. A poor choice or series of choices that lead you to learn isn’t a waste, at all.

Failure is in not risking, not believing in yourself enough to take the plunge. Believe in yourself, even when it’s hard. Even when you’ve messed up before. You aren’t nearly as inadequate as you think.

New Love, Old Love

Break-up, then go out and find a new love. Then, when that love grows stale and unfulfilling, the cycle starts again. This is the pattern many people fall into. Relationships are hard, perhaps the hardest thing individuals do and many of them fail. Some relationships fall apart while you’re still in them; others end with a bang and everyone limps away.

New love, though, comes in a shiny package filled with hope. You meet another person who seems totally cool and—most exciting—totally into you. There is a drugging, hypnotic power to the initial excitement of finding a new love and some individuals get stuck on this phase of relationships.

In the beginning, your new love thinks you are terrific and you think the same about him or her. Too often, though, what follows isn’t as beautiful or successful. Daily life intrudes into the perfect world of your love and you face the challenges of real life. You have career pressures, children and money. All these areas bring opportunities for conflict, which isn’t fun or pleasant. Many individuals try really hard to avoid areas in which they disagree with loved ones and never deal with the things on which they have different opinions.

Some couples are proud to say they never fight, never disagree and never argue. This just means there are issues that aren’t addressed and don’t get resolved. When disagreements aren’t dealt with, effective communication comes to a halt. This isn’t always obvious, but the foundation of relationships are weakened by not learning to resolve the problems that arise between individuals. You may love your partner, but not feel “in love” or truly happy with this person.

When relationships have no functional foundation or the basis of them has rotted away, individuals move on, either physically or emotionally. Usually both. One relationship ends and generally another starts, sometimes within a week. Even if you take a breather between dating different people, when you dive back in, you probably fall into the same patterns as with the old love.

Maybe little changes other than the names.

You struggle with the complications of each relationship, the love you felt for each mate fading away over time. The challenges that come with individuals living together and sharing lives can make it difficult to stay connected with one another and you might find yourself wondering why you stay. The incidence of infidelity is high, but extra-curricular relationships don’t solve problems. They just add to them.

Resolution might not be possible in every relationship--after all, you both have to be working on this--but you need to give it a serious shot. If your partner doesn’t want to address the problems, start on your own issues. You have complete say-so over what you do and don't do. Invest in learning about yourself.

Listen to the Panic

Your heart starts pounding, you feel sick to your stomach and you wonder if you’re having a heart attack. You rush to the Emergency Room…and the physicians rule out a cardiac event. This is a relief, but you wonder what the heck happened. Something happened, for sure. The medical personnel may tell you that you just had a panic attack.

There’s no “just” to panic attacks. Individuals who struggle with this overwhelming experience are typically consumed by the fear that they’ll have another attack. They worry about this until the worry becomes as bad as the attack. If you’ve been in this spot, you may find yourself avoiding situations that might trigger a panic attack, but these might have come out of the blue. You have can see no reason why you feel the way you feel.

Panic usually comes from one of two angles. The more common of these is that, for some reason, life suddenly seems to be more than you can handle. You doubt your own ability to manage even the slightest challenges and you feel paralyzed. Individuals with this experience are usually confused, saying that earlier in their lives, they felt fine. They will also report that life has, in the last few years or months, dealt them some blows. Failed relationships, an illness or the death of a loved one. Sometimes, all of these at once.

In these circumstances, a wave has crashed over your head and you don’t feel capable of coping. You might have been “the strong one” in your family or at your job. Suddenly, you can’t go to the grocery store without your windpipe constricting. You might feel overwhelmingly anxious driving on the highway and start narrowing your life until home is the only place you feel safe.

Some suffers of panic disorder still maintain jobs and must function despite their distress. Some are accustomed to being in charge in many areas of their lives and not spending a lot of time worrying. On the other end of the continuum, some people with panic disorder have always doubted themselves. While the experience of panic is similar for both, the underlying psychological causes can be different.

Highly-competent, very logical individuals have had a tendency not to listen to, or be concerned about, their emotional experience. They’ve told themselves to “get over it” when fear and worry spring up and they’ve marched on, doing what they’ve had to do. Until now.

Panic disorder can be treated. Some individuals rely on medication to calm their anxieties and this can be a tremendous benefit, but the best long-term method is in dealing with the source of the issue. The greater majority of panic disorder suffers need to prove to themselves that they can handle even very difficult life situations. They tend to disregard successes and fasten on their failures as proof that they are weak and incapable.

The process of reclaiming your life will require you to do some things that scare the spit out of you. You have to risk in order to prove to yourself that you can handle it. Looking at and changing non-productive behavior increases your odds of success.

You can do this. Don’t give up. This doesn’t have to rule your life. You can listen to your feelings(and need to) without being ruled by them.

Disconnected Connections

With as many communication options as you have now, you’d think connecting with others would be easier than ever. Texting, cell phones, MySpace and more. It’s not like most of the interactions that take place through these portals are brilliant. Sometimes, you just want contact with another human being.

Relationships are complicated. Whether you are talking with your friend, your lover or your sister, things can get messed up. They don’t hear what you mean to say or get huffy because you said what you said. Lovers now have one angry conversation after another, punctuated by hanging up on what the other is saying.

Try something different.

Tell them what you feel. This is harder than it sounds, because you can’t say “I feel that you….” This isn’t a statement of what you feel. It’s telling them what you think they’re doing or what they mean. You need to focus on communicating your own emotions. Try just saying “I feel _____” and filling in the blank with an emotion word. Angry, loved, hurt, unimportant, scared, whatever. There are lots of words to communicate emotions, but you have to talk about your emotions, not their actions. Yes, their actions are important, but not now. When you need to tell them what’s going on with you, go for emotion. “I feel_____.” Then pause, take a breath, a drink of water, something, but stop talking. The other person will get a better sense of what you’ve said, if you don’t run on.

Be clean with your communication. Don’t muddy it up by making accusations (however justified). If you do this, it’ll be easy for them (lover, mother, brother, friend) to react to your accusation and completely disregard the emotions you shared. You need them to hear how you feel.

You also need to hear how they feel. This can be really, really hard, particularly if you don’t feel heard by them. Lots of people want to do the “tit for tat” thing to show them how it feels. While the desire is understandable, this is counter-productive and just doesn’t work.

You’ve probably gone around and around these arguments a dozen times. It may feel like you’re getting no where. The real key is to remember that these people are important to you and you’re important to them, even if you don’t feel that way. You both want to get along better. You both want each other to win in life.

Slow down your interaction. If you’re the fast one and you feel like the other person doesn’t say anything in response, you may need to slow down even more. Some people don’t respond because they think you’ll jump down their throats or just keep arguing. Do your best to listen to these concerns. Hear them.

Resist the urge to defend yourself. This can be very hard, but it’s important. You probably feel attacked by what they say, but you need to hear it and they won’t feel heard if you immediately jump into telling them they’re wrong about you.

Cell phones and MySpace might be easy, but effective communication is complicated. Do your part, though, and you might get somewhere.

Don't Rob Your Child

You’ll never stop loving your kid, no matter what, but it may be time to stop parenting.
This world can be tough. Whether your kid is eighteen and joining the army to fight the bad guys or twenty-eight and unable to find a career, you still love him. Even when you don’t like what he’s doing (or not doing), you love him.

That doesn’t mean that your child needs you to keep bailing him out financially or calling her boss to say she’s sick when she’s hung over. Stop ‘helping.’ Now, this is one huge gray area. The challenges facing your daughter may seem overwhelming and not her fault. In that event, you may find it natural to dip into your savings account and pay for the operation. Help sometimes makes sense, but when you are consistently jumping in to rescue your child, you’re not really helping.

Knowing when to stop offering assistance can be the most difficult decision you’ll face. You want the best for your child. You want him to have all the good things in life, but he’s going to feel better about himself if he earns those perks himself. In order to build a strong self-esteem, he needs to overcome his own obstacles and cope with his own crises. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help. But you need to be very careful what you offer.

Rule #1
Never offer to give your kid something that’ll leave you in a bind. Give only what you can afford to give. Be very, very careful about getting credit for her and committing your home as security against her debts. When you risk yourself to help your child, you may very well be hanging a major guilt-trip over her head.

Rule #2
Never do for him what he can do for himself. Yes, you love him and it gives you joy to do things for him, but he needs to feel strong enough to do things for himself. This is really important. It’s more loving to let him find his way out of difficulties, than to step in and be the hero. Your motives may be the purest, but you need to let him work out his problems.

Rule #3
Don't clean up his messes. He needs to feel the result of his own choices.

The hardest, most loving thing you can do is to let your child face the consequences of her own choices. This is how we learn. It’s the only real way to learn. Getting too much, too easily robs kids of the opportunity to believe in themselves. Facing challenge is like weight living for the character. It builds strength. Your child needs to know he’s strong. He can only realize this when he deals with his own messes and faces his trouble without parental intervention.

Resist the urge to rescue. Refrain from giving too much. You can be helpful, but you need to carefully examine whether your actions would actually benefit her or whether you’ll be helping make her weak.

Don't Dis The In-Laws

You and your significant other had a huge fight and the two of you are hardly talking. Maybe he left and spent the night elsewhere; maybe you’ve been apart for several days or weeks.

It may look like there’s large black cloud over the future and you two have issues you’re not sure how to fix. But breaking up and going your separate ways doesn’t sound good, either, when you cool off a little. You think about the jokes the two of you laughed at and the fun times you share. You might think about tender moments you’ve shared and wonder if you’ll regret ending the relationship.

It’s a very gray situation.

While you’re trying to decide if there’s any possibility for the two of you, you might want to consider your actions carefully. You may have moments when you think you’re totally done and won’t ever see him again…but think carefully before you dis his mother. Don’t say bad things about his best friend and don’t tell your girlfriend about his sexual quirks.

You might stay with this guy, after all.

Until you’re very, very sure that this is over, don’t do or say anything you can’t take back. Even the most smitten of lovers won’t easily forget you saying bad things about his dog. Don’t insult his truck. Don’t make nasty remarks about his sister.

Your best friend might have talked ugly about him when the two of you were split, but you don’t have to tell him what she said. Certain things need to disappear in almost-broke-up land.

There are comments you make and things your family says about him that won’t help in the event of an attempt at reconciliation. While said in the heat of the moment and, generally, under quite a bit of stress, this type of thing isn’t easily forgotten when repeated to your partner.

Relationships are challenging and dark moments occur in even the best. But just because you feel the two of you teetering on the brink of break-up, doesn’t mean you’re going over the edge.

Wait.

Don’t slam any doors, even if you really, really want to. You may feel very differently tomorrow and following your impulses now can lead to long-term problems. The relationship might be difficult now, but you don’t need to make matters worse. You may be able to work through the problems.

Saying angry, impetuous, unforgivable things can seem, well, unforgivable when you really, really want things to work out.