Singles Relationship Advices (Part 3)

What is the best way to exit a conversation?

What is the best way to exit a conversation?

First of all, you must always be polite! If it is someone you don't really have any interest in then you should politely excuse yourself to the restroom or to mingle with other people you haven't had a chance to talk to. If you are really interested in them and would like to see them, here are a few closing lines that should lead you in the right direction:

Your thoughts on ________ were very interesting, I'd love to hear more. Would you mind if we exchanged business cards?

We seem to have a lot in common, maybe we could meet for lunch or coffee sometime?

You're a great dancer, have you ever tried swing dancing? I could really use a good partner for this class I signed up for.

Hey, have you seen that new movie that is out? Would you like to go to a matinee next weekend?

Do you like the author _________, he's in town next week and I'd love to have you go with me to his book signing. I've heard great things about them!

I really enjoyed our conversation and would like to see you again, do you think that might be possible?

If you are interested in someone you've been talking to make sure you say something that shows that you are interested in seeing them again, if you don't you will regret it and you might miss your chance!

by author Penelope Frohart "the Book of Fabulous Questions". Great conversation starters about love, sex and other personal stuff.

Dating Our Parents and Recreating Our Parents

Dating Our Parents and Recreating Our Parents

By Stefan Gonick, Psychotherapist

How do we get into the kinds of relationships that we do? Many of us seem to keep repeating certain patterns in our partner choices. As much as we say that this time we'll make a better choice, we end up in a similar type of relationship again. What causes this?

According to Harville Hendrix in Getting the Love You Want, we form an image of our caretakers, which includes both their positive and negative traits, when we are very young. He calls this inner picture the Imago. He also claims that the negative traits are more influential in forming the Imago than the positive ones. This is consistent with learning theory which states that the strongest memories are formed around information with the strongest associated stimulation or emotions. Negative traits are likely to have strong internal reactions to them and, therefore, have a large effect on our Imago formation.

Since our caregivers were our earliest experience of a love relationship, our Imago feels like love to us. So we end up being attracted to people who resemble our Imago of our caretakers, which includes their negative traits, and end up experiencing the same types of unhealthy relating patterns we had with them. This makes a lot of sense, but I don't think that it is the whole story.

I believe that in addition to "marrying our parents," we also recreate our parents. I agree with Harville Hendrix that we are attracted to people with similar traits to our parents, but they may not have all of the negative traits to the same degree as our parents did. I believe that due to our early negative experiences with our parents and with our resulting fears, we actually bring out our partner's negative traits to a greater degree than would otherwise happen. The tendencies are there but through our behavior we magnify them. In other words, on a scale of 1 to 10, our partner may have a certain negative trait to a degree of 4. Through our interactions we may bring the degree up to an 8. An example will help illustrate how this might work.

Let's say that my mother tended to be very emotionally withdrawn and my father was often trying to be close with her. This is the common pursuer-distancer pattern in relationships where the couple is locked into one person pursuing closeness while the other is maintaining distance. We all have needs for both closeness and separateness. These couples polarize into separately pursuing the two different needs. I may then be attracted to a woman who also has distancing tendencies. However, while my mother was a 9 at distancing, let's say that my new partner is only a 4. This seems as though it would be an improvement over my mother, but the following dynamic may bring out the "worst" in my partner. Due to my painful history of having a mother who frequently distanced herself emotionally, I will probably be very sensitive to any subtle signs of distancing in my partner. This will cause me to overreact and start pursuing closeness very intensely from a needy or accusatory place. My partner feeling me "come at" her from this unhealthy place will naturally tend to react by pulling away more. Thus a vicious cycle will develop, and I will have succeeded at recreating my mother in this relationship.

In sum, my historically based special sensitivities to my parent's negative traits may result in magnifying those tendencies in my partner. In extreme cases I may even be able to create those negative traits in a partner who would not otherwise have them at all. Luckily, the same dynamic will probably also be true for bringing out one's partner's more positive traits. If I am used to certain positive traits to a level of 8 from my parent(s), I would be drawn towards someone with these traits and have a happy expectation of her having them. Positive expectation and appreciation can serve to reinforce and bring out more fully these positive traits in my partner.

What Can We Do About This?

What a yucky situation you may be thinking (or something to that effect). Are we doomed to keep repeating unhealthy relationships with our Imago matches? The answer is yes and no. It is true that it is very hard to avoid being attracted to our Imago. This is a subconscious process over which we have little control. All is not lost, however. There are some very helpful things that we can do about it.

The first thing to understand is that there is great healing potential in working out our relationship with an Imago match. We all have unhealed places resulting from interacting with the negative traits in our parents as described above. We have the opportunity in our current relationship to heal these places with our partner. We can do this by remembering that our current partner is probably much less extreme in a particular negative trait than our parent was (as in the example above). We are just highly oversensitive to it. We immediately see our partner as our parent full-blown and overreact. This is our side of the unhealthy relating pattern, and we bring this to all of our relationships no matter what. Here is where the important opportunity for healing is!

Instead of retaliating in our usual pattern way, we can talk about our feelings with our partner. This needs to be done in a non-accusatory way. Remember that we are exactly equally responsible for our half of the pattern and that our partner is not as extreme as s/he seems in that moment. This will help break the vicious cycle and provide an opportunity for both people to express their fears and hurt, be heard, and feel much closer instead of combative.

Sometimes, it's hard to talk this way when we are triggered by our partner's behavior. In this case, it can be very helpful to use a structured communication technique. One possibility is the one is described in the "Compassionate Communication" guide. Another very good one is the one described in Harville Hendrix's book, Getting the Love You Want. You'll be amazed at the amount of healing that can take place if you really do this. It can transform your whole relationship, helping you feel seen, understood and loved. I highly recommend it.