Dating, singles, relationships, sex tips and advice blog for men and women.

When You’re Convinced You’re The ONLY One That Knows The ‘Real’ Them

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 18 May 2012 21:12:19 +0000

Sometimes, you find yourself in the rather infuriating position of feeling like you know the ‘real’ side of someone and that ‘everyone’ around them is being fooled. You see them going on about their merry life as if everything’s hunky-dory and yet your head is still spinning from their treatment of you. In fact, your life may be in absolute tatters after your experience with them – your self-esteem may be shot and the last thing you can do at this time is attempt to go on your merry way. ; ;

Particularly if you work together or move in the same social circles, it can feel like mind effery. You might overhear someone praising them or have to be in the same room while your peers are killing themselves laughing at their jokes or smiling broadly at them and you want to scream, “Can’t you see who they really are? If you really knew, you wouldn’t be friends with them!” You might even want to blurt out a list of everything you know.

Maybe you see them prancing around with their new love interest, preening like a peacock without a care in the world. They seem loved up from what you hear, or maybe you know because you’ve been reading their declarations on Facebook and going through their photos and poking through their mutual friends…

“How can they be so frickin’ happy? I’m practically dying here and they’ve spat me out of their life, shown me their arse in more ways than one, and yet, I’m alone and they’re loved up! Is it me? Did something about me bring out a dark side in them?”

The likelihood is that you’ll experience doubt and blame yourself – Is it me that brought out their bad side? Why would they treat me this way but not others? Is it something I said? Is it something I did? How the hell can they not see who they really are?

And of course you know that it’s not your imagination, that you’re not going crazy and that you haven’t ‘made’ them treat you badly, so as you try to recover from the experience, you may be bristling with indignation or like a pressure cooker full of suppressed anger, consumed with this idea that they’re getting away with it and that no one knows who they really are. But is this really true?

You see the thing is, unless they fell out of the sky into 2012 with no previous history and a ‘clean bill of health’, you are not the only person who knows who they are. You’re not. Not everything is about you.

When you convince yourself that you’re the only person that knows the real them, you’re actually still making out like you’re the exception to the rule, and you’re carrying on as if to say that not only did your relationship with them exist in a vacuum, but something about you and your relationship makes their character and behaviour specific to you – this is inverted ego issues.

I know it’s nice to think you are that special and your relationship and ‘connection’ was out of this world, but the only reason why you’d want to convince yourself that you’re the only person that knows the real them, is to actually remain stuck on it being about something being wrong with you.

Of course, what you fail to realise is that you’re giving yourself a hard time about, for example, experiencing an open and shut case of assholery and feeling bad about knowing the ‘real them’, and hoping you get the ‘fake them’ back, or convincing yourself that the ‘real them’ is actually the ‘fake them’, and that your flaws brought it out, and hoping to get back the ‘real fake them’. Exhausting.

If you don’t know what’s real or what’s fake, or you feel like you’re the only one that knows the ‘real them’ which has opened you up to being abused or taken advantage of, you don’t need to play Columbo or try to be their friend or attempt to win them ‘back’; you just need to get out. Fast.

Somebody somewhere knows (possibly a few ‘somebody’s’ who may even be in their harem or blaming themselves like you)…you just don’t know it, probably because your perspective is based on you focusing on your experience, your sense of rejection, and your perception.

You ever hear about a breakup or divorce and say “But they seemed so great together!” or “I can’t believe it!” or “Man, if those two can break up, it doesn’t leave much hope for the rest of us!”? If you’re saying stuff like this, it’s because you don’t know them or their relationship as well as you think.

Someone’s work persona may be very different to their relationship persona or even to their social or family persona. You see different sides to people in different situations plus there are some who are very good at ‘presenting’ a persona that helps them win friends, influence people, and keep their insecurities and even shady shenanigans behind closed doors.

What I do know is that people who behave in shady ways and even go to the trouble of messing with your head, have got ‘form’ for it – you just don’t know about it. You’re not looking in the right places for the information. What? You really think every ex had a perfect time with them and that no one, anywhere has ever seen what you’ve seen? Come on now!

You may have missed some code amber and red alerts that indicated who they are, or may have skipped that discovery phase of dating where you could have sussed out their past. Sometimes, we can be so enamoured and propelling them up onto a pedestal, that they could tell us that they’re The Most Perfect Person On Earth That Does Platinum Coated Poos and we’d believe them – that doesn’t make it so though.

Of course they might like you to think that you’ve been struck by assclown lightening and that they’re a wonderful person of high integrity that’s been provoked into deviating from their good selves due to you not being good enough – not buying it. If they were so frickin great and good, they could have deviated their way out of your life without mistreating you.

Let’s be real: In my time of writing Baggage Reclaim, I’ve heard from thousands of men and women who have been in relationships that they claim others wouldn’t associate them with and would actually greatly contradict the perception that’s held of them. There are a lot of people whose relationships don’t reflect values they claim or appear to have.

You can go from here to eternity worrying about whether ‘everyone’ is in on your reality – what’s the point? It’s like trying to control the uncontrollable. Why do you need them on ‘your side’? Get on your own side!

You’re not alone – you know the real them. It is not your job to do a Samantha Jones equivalent and pin notices around your neighbourhood to out them while wearing a mac and a wig. You know – that.is.more.than.good.enough. ; ;

The good thing is that if you heed the warning signs from their actions instead of trying to get a Ph.D in Why Did They Do This? Is It Me?, they won’t ever have an opportunity to get close to you again. You don’t need social proof, nor do you need to have witness statements to corroborate your findings – it is only you that needs to judge your experience and take action.

Your thoughts?

Turning ‘Rejection Talk’ On Its Head – Looking At Your Rejection Experiences From a Different Perspective

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:27:04 +0000

If you’ve been ‘tending’ to a rejection by watering it with copious amounts of rumination expenditure, it’s time to turn your ‘rejection talk’ on its head and look at your experiences with a fresh perspective. Every day I hear from people who are literally holding onto a rejection (that often isn’t quite the rejection they think it is), like a security blanket and I’ve gathered a few of the most common rejection scenarios…

“Dating is so hard – I find it difficult to deal with rejection.” Yes dating involves some rejection but the fact that you’re not in a relationship yet doesn’t mean you’ve been rejected and are ‘rejectionable’ – you’ve rejected people too and you haven’t found a relationship more fitting, which is what so-called ‘rejection’ paves the way for.

“I’ve avoided relationships because I don’t think I can handle the rejection of another one not working out. ”A relationship not working out isn’t the same as rejection. You may have had different values, which ultimately rendered you incompatible, or one or both were behaving counterproductively to the progression, commitment etc of the relationship, or you both may have loved and cared but you ultimately wanted different things – that’s not rejection; they’re very valid reasons for a relationship to end.

“I don’t understand why they didn’t call after they said that they would – what did I do to make them reject me?” They said they would call but they didn’t – why are you making it about you being rejectionable, when ultimately they are the ones that failed to follow through plus why are you assuming that it had to be something about you that caused it? The message is clear – you think people mistreat when given a reason by others. Not true.

“I can’t stand the feeling of rejection – I just want them to respond to my text, to call me, to want me back.” But this is short-term gratification – the pain will return afterwards and your ego isn’t going to recover if you keep pacifying with attention seeking. It’s also not rejection if them not responding to your text etc ultimately leads to them and you doing the right thing by you. I’m glad my exes stopped getting in touch and I had to sort my ego out instead of focusing on ‘rejection’ and chasing highs.

“I can’t get over this because I feel so rejected – it’s like everything that I am was tied up in him.” You can’t get over this, not because you were rejected but because you invested your entire self, tied yourself to them and then drowned when the relationship ended. That’s codependency, not rejection, which you wouldn’t see it as if you had healthy boundaries and your own identity in the first place. Reclaim yourself – inside you is a great you to discover.

“There must be something seriously wrong with me for him to just disappear – the rejection is just so hard to take! It’s not even like I got to reject him first!” Hello! They disappeared! It’s the cowardly way out – no conflict, an opportunity to make up whatever crappy justifications there are for lacking the brass balls and decency, and ultimately it’s the easiest way of exiting and pressing the Reset Button. That’s assholery, not rejection – FLUSH!

“If I’d had any sense, I’d have rejected her before she rejected me.” But it’s not a game. Your job in life isn’t to ‘get there first’. You’re not Charlie Sheen “winning”.

“I must have had about a thousand approaches from dating sites, which I suppose should make me feel good but I don’t have a relationship yet – what’s wrong with me?” How can someone who has 1000 approaches be focused on rejection? Maybe instead of collecting attention, it might be better to tweak your profile if needed and go on some dates. Don’t get addicted to the approaches – you need to be a ‘closer’!

“He’s moved on as if I barely mattered whereas I’m still here hurting. Why does he get to move on? Seeing her talking about their relationship on Facebook leaves me feeling like crap and rejected.” But their relationship has nothing to do with you. If you’re still hurting, you’re still hurting – he doesn’t have to recover on your beat and may actually have knee-jerked himself into a new relationship to avoid his own feelings. You could do that but you’re not (which is good), but also – if you keep track of him on Facebook and use his new girlfriend as a paddle to whack your self-esteem with, then yeah, you’re not going to move on and you’re going to feel like crap. Why open yourself up to self-rejection by using Facebook to take other people’s fakery and attention seeking as the inspiration for the I’m Not Good Enough story?

Focusing on rejection talk is actually a means of lying to yourself, which depending on how illusion inclined you are, can have you caught up in a fantasy that will actually send you back to the same pain source, or have you trying to right the wrongs of your rejection past on your next relationship due to making a judgement about you that in turn gives you a distorted perspective. This is self-rejection.

When all is said and done, the more oxygen and brainpower that you give over to a rejection, means that most of the rejection actually comes from…you.

Talking about your relationships in terms of ‘rejection’ is indicative of the fact that you were using this experience and possibly others as a way of gaining acceptance, or that certainly post breakup, you perceive it as a ‘lost opportunity’ for acceptance. It may not have been a conscious mandate, but it was there.

Now you can keep focusing on this idea that you’ve been rejected and flog yourself with it, or you can choose to let it go and claim back your identity. You haven’t ‘failed’ as a person and you’re not ‘rejectionable’ – there is another view, possibly even several views that you can look at an experience and gain an insight that you can in turn use to apply positively into your future. It requires you to choose and keep choosing that view.

Your thoughts?

Check out my book and ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl.

Sitting On The Fence: The Position You Adopt When You Fear Making Mistakes By Committing To Decisions

Natalie (NML) — Mon, 14 May 2012 22:00:41 +0000

When you have issues with commitment of any kind, there is this perennial fear that if you make the decision that you’ll get it ‘wrong’ and then it’s like a black mark on your ‘life resume’ or it can’t be undone or managed, and your whole life will go down the tube off the back of it.

Ever been involved with a flip flapping Mr / Miss Unavailable that can’t commit to being with you but won’t commit to leaving you the hell alone? Their behaviour probably drives you crazy and even causes you to question yourself, but it’s important to recognise that the reason why they won’t make and stick to the decision, is that they fear that they may make a mistake and you’ll get snapped up by a better person who will put you in a better relationship, and then they’ll be kicking themselves for not realising your value. If they don’t commit and persist in keeping their foot in your life, messing with your head and essentially keeping you in their back pocket and unavailable for an available relationship with someone else, then they can actually assure themselves that they haven’t made a mistake, because if they had, in their mind you wouldn’t be there. A-ha…

This is a fundamental motivation for avoiding making decisions – it gives the mistaken impression that you have a mistake free life. This of course, is an illusion because not making decisions is actually a mistake in itself plus the effects of decision avoidance are reflected in the results of your life.

And here’s the interesting thing: It is really, frickin’ annoying when someone won’t commit and won’t make and stick to a decision, even if it’s an outcome that we won’t like, but, have you noticed something that’s very wrong with this picture?

Every person who is impacted by someone who sits on the fence, won’t commit, and who basically fannies around, is also sitting on the fence themselves.

It’s the age old thing of us often complaining about things that we’re guilty of – being mad at someone for not making a decision that we could have made ourselves, but choosing not to because we hoped that if we gave them bonus time, that they’d make it easy for us and do what we want. Even when they’ve made half-arsed decisions or even bitten the bullet and put themselves behind a decision, if it’s not the outcome we want, we go back to sitting on the fence in denial and steeped in rejection.

The thing is, handy as it might be, we (and they) cannot sit on the fence in our lives, collecting up people and delaying opportunities to stave off the possibility of a mistake they (and we) can’t handle or ‘failure’.

“Oh sorry. I don’t do mistakes so I know you’d love to know where we stand and be spared from my dipping in and out of your life and your bed for months or even years on end, but that’s just not a decision I can make. What if I become available or decide to change and then you’re not around anymore? What if I have regrets?”

We also cannot sit on the fence in the hope of tipping the other person off the fence or weighing them down with our presence in the hope of getting them to do things on our terms. We definitely cannot expect to have iron clad guarantees, especially because we’re not exactly running around providing them ourselves.

There are very few things you can have an absolute guarantee on – even products tend to come with a limited warranty that expires after a period and is subject to certain conditions. If we could all be guaranteed that whatever decision we make is right, none of us would have to use our brains – we’d just pluck a decision out of our bum and see what unfolds.

Part of being a mature, responsible, accountable grown-up involves making decisions, and yes at times, experiencing mistakes. You’ve got to be brave.

Life is one big learning experience so if you use the insights gained from your journey, then actually, you end up growing out of your so called ‘mistakes’ (which by the way, when it comes to unhealthy relationships are actually blessings in disguise when you get out and a success because you’re not still continuing), because these are what actually pave the way to healthy success.

How the hell else are you supposed to know what is and isn’t working? You also cannot expect to even begin to fulfil your potential and avail of opportunities, if you live in fear of choosing and using your faculties to make decisions.

Many of the things we struggle to make decisions about aren’t black and white, although that being said, they’re often nowhere near as complicated as we make them out to be. When we fear getting it ‘wrong’, we have to recognise that when we make a decision, it’s about deciding about what is ‘right’ for us based on the knowledge we have at that time. What is the point in kicking ourselves for something that we don’t or didn’t know, and being angry for not possessing the knowledge and awareness to not look a gift horse in the mouth or to be a psychic looking into a crystal ball?

Decisions take courage as does admitting when something isn’t working for you and doing something about it – when you sit on the fence, you never truly have a stake in anything and you at best have a half life.

The last thing you want to be doing is looking back on your life wishing that you’d been more brave, said YES, said NO, taken leaps of faith and believed in yourself. And remember: making decisions is like using muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it gets. You don’t ever get to learn how to do anything without actually having a go at doing whatever it is and being prepared to learn from what happens.

Your thoughts?

Find out more about what happens when you don’t make decisions in my books Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl and The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship.

Tips For Avoiding Text, Internet & Other Lazy Communication Based Relationships

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 11 May 2012 22:12:23 +0000

In this adapted excerpt from my latest ebook The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship , I share my tips for kicking the virtual relationship habit, which is when you’re too reliant on texts, instant messenger, email, Facebook, sexts et al and making loaves out of crumbs…

Shorten your meeting time.

The amount of time between meeting someone online and meeting face to face should be short. The longer it is, the greater the fantasy. There is no need to go through this pre-vetting process by having long drawn-out and misleading conversations via text, email, and even phone, without setting the date. You’re not a hotline for stroking the egos of strangers. Dating is a discovery phase – use dates to discover before you invest into having these lazy communications with someone you hardly know. Shortening this time period will save you a hell of a lot of pain and illusions.

It’s time for a lazy communication diet.
You’d be amazed at how quickly you’ll see how things really are when you opt to pick up the phone instead of texting or emailing, or opt to meet up instead of spending your days chatting.

Take at least a 3-6 month break from dating sites.
If you have a string of virtual relationships over an extended period of time, a 12 month break to reconnect with the real world is highly recommended. Don’t go back on dating sites until you’re ready to have hide of rhino and be the Columbo in your life.

If you have an extensive history of virtual relationships, I’d take a year’s break. Delete your profiles so that you don’t feel tempted to reconnect with those who track you down or to collect attention.

If texting, email, IM, and dating sites didn’t exist, and it was, for example, 1998, what would you do in the same situation?

Accept that texts, emails, etc., are not the bread and butter of a healthy relationship that requires regular and increasing human interaction; they’re the crumbs.
In an otherwise genuinely effort-filled relationship, these means of communication are fine, but otherwise, they are a deluding and unproductive use of your time that stunts communication.

If you’re not touching them more than you’re having lazy communication with them, this is not the relationship you think it is.

Stop being so words-focused – if you haven’t got actions and a relationship to match, you’ve got nothing but words and hot air.

If it hasn’t progressed into a face to face, bonafide relationship after a month of this contact, cut it off.

It won’t be over because you forced a meeting; it’ll be over because it was dependent on not meeting and you were both passing time.

No sexts, no arguing, and no discussions via text and email.
People who are in a relationship don’t have to rely on sexting to have a sexual relationship. It is completely inappropriate and quite passive aggressive to argue or attempt to have a meaningful discussion via text or email – face to face or voice to voice. If you want to clarify points post-discussion or argument by text/email, that’s one thing, but the truth is that mature, available adults don’t use these means to have meaningful discussions about meaningful relationships. You must learn to communicate on a level with people and face your fear of conflict and rejection.

If you are transitioning from a breakup, divorce, etc., deal with this first.
Stop using these involvements as a distraction. Texts, etc., are not going to get you over your breakup or provide you with the better relationship that you deserve.

No long distance relationships.
One to three hours travelling is do-able as long as you have the means to regularly make the journey. Some people are not cut out for long distance relationships – Dreamers fit that bill. The lack of face to face interaction and the distortion caused by it being long distance, which adds a tension that wouldn’t exist otherwise, is too dangerous for you. If the distance becomes too much and you spend more time thinking about the relationship than living it, let it go.

Be careful of being with people who spend a lot of their time travelling.
Certainly in the early months, this is a vulnerable hotspot for you and leaves you too wide open. You need to be with someone who you can see regularly both during the week and at the weekends. This isn’t to say that people who go away are unavailable – this is about you. Until you’re in the position of being real and fully accountable, it is dangerous to have relationships that give you an excuse to have too much alone time with your imagination and a legitimate reason to engage in crumb communication.

Accept that sex with primarily virtual contact isn’t a relationship; it’s a booty call with some window dressing. Nuff said.

Don’t create new ‘rules’ to justify the lazy communication.
Most Dreamers, especially Virtuals, have come up with all sorts of justifications for their behaviour based around modern dating. If you think that people are forging long-term relationships, getting married, having children, building lives together, by spending most of their time emailing, texting, IM’ng, and waiting around, think again. Nothing has changed – in order to create a mutually fulfilling relationship with love, care, trust, respect, and shared values, that has progression, consistency, commitment, balance, and intimacy, you both need to be in the real world, seeing each other regularly and putting in genuine physical and emotional effort that matches your words. It does not matter that texting, dating sites, Facebook or whatever exist – it’s only someone who wasn’t intending to commit and has found new means to make it easier to make a big deal out of crumbs, who will rely on these means.

If you feel like you want to keep a safe distance, you probably shouldn’t be involved.
You’re going to get to know someone by getting up close.

Respect your current relationship and no matter how innocuous you think it is, don’t entertain inappropriate interactions with people outside of your relationship.
If you couldn’t show your communications to your partner and they, in fact, have no knowledge of the person’s existence, it is inappropriate.

Sort your problems out.
Every person who is in a virtual relationship has problems that, instead of solving, they avoid by seeking attention and making a big deal out of crumbs. This is how you end up with bigger problems than what you started out with. Sometimes we do need a distraction in order to gain perspective so that we can approach a problem with renewed vigour and focus; having a virtual relationship is not a means of doing this.

Bid farewell to your exes, especially the ones from long ago.
Unless they add genuine, positive, out in the open and respectful value to your life, cut ‘em off. This will mean grieving the loss of them, but you’d be surprised at how short this will be when you can grab back the power for your life and you realise that you’re letting go of the best thing you never had so you can focus on experiencing the best thing that you can have in your future.

The ex from long ago that screwed you over or married someone else when you think you were so much better – let them go.
They have made their choice and they’re really not that special. Stop waiting around on the off chance that they might call you up after they’ve seen the light or tap you up for the role of the Other Woman (or guy). Stop stroking their ego, sending nude shots, or waiting around for them to send you dumb texts about the weather or your shared favourite sports team. It’s all bullshit.

Your thoughts?

The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship is now available from my bookshop along with with Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl.

You’re Not In Pretty Woman: Do You Believe In The Booty Call ‘Fairy Tale’?

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 09 May 2012 21:23:48 +0000

If you’ve stuck like glue to an unhealthy relationship, or have devoted your energies into upgrading a one night stand, booty call, Friends With Benefits or ad hoc fling, into a full time, bonafide committed relationship, it’s safe to say that you very much believe in the fairy tale and the fantasy.

You seek to be the exception to the rule. In fact, you seek love against the odds.

The sheer number of people I hear from who are residing in some sort of sexual hell because they participated in casual arrangements is astounding. Not only does it tell me that there’s a hell of a lot of people out there seeking to be anomalies (which defeats the purpose really), but all of these people have reduced themselves to attempting to be Vivian in Pretty Woman.

Just in case the film has escaped you, single rich guy Edward (Richard Gere) needs an escort for a week of social engagements and picks up Vivian (Julia Roberts), a prostitute, while cruising, I guess because it must have been really hard in the early 90s to be a rich man without a date… They hang out, he thinks she’s doing drugs in his bathroom when she’s really flossing, they sleep together (no kissing), the following day he gives her money to buy clothes for the social engagements, some of the staff are rude, he then takes her on a spree where it’s like giving the bitchy sales assistants the proverbial two fingers, they have a great time while out, he falls in love, at one of the events, his friend figures out that she’s on the game and tries it on, she storms off, packs up her stuff and goes back to her busted up apartment, he swoops in by limo at the end shouting out of the roof of it, then climbs a trellis with a bunch of roses and yada yada yada.

Now I’m not suggesting that there aren’t more than a few escorts that have landed on their feet, but unless you are in that line of business, it’s time to ask yourself why your fairy tale has a beginning of:

“Once upon a time, I lay on my back and decided to go for a casual relationship in the hope that they’d get to know me without ‘pressure’, we’d have a good time, and then they’d basically be unable to survive without me because somewhere between late night texts, the ambiguity, and sometimes the requests to partake in shady sexual shenanigans or even having to compete with others, they fell in love with me.” ?

If you’re the type that really values sex, makes assumptions about what you think is likely to happen as a result of the sexual interaction, and in fact make the dangerous assumption that a sexual connection is an emotional connection which will lead to a love connection, the casual sex trap is waiting to grip you in its lubricated jaws.

This isn’t about whether it’s ‘bad’ to have sex on the first date or whether you should ‘hold out’, or wait for X amount of dates, or develop cobwebs in your pants by waiting around for someone extra extra special before you get down; the issue with casual relationships is that many people use sex as some sort of currency that they think generates an IOU that they can cash in for a relationship.

Sex without the love, care, trust, respect and mutual relationship to go along with it, is just sex. When you allow someone to treat you like dialalay.com or even textalay.com and arrange a shag with the ease of ordering a pizza, something is very wrong.

I hear from people who have been in casual sexual arrangements for years! YEARS! That’s just pure f*ckery, excuse the pun! Do anything over a period of time and it becomes habit. You start to have relationship ideals that outpace the true nature of the ‘relationship’.

Hard as it may be to hear, if you allow yourself to be someone’s sexual plaything and you actually want more and you are being emotionally impacted, it’s actually like being an unpaid hooker.

Yeah you might get some trimmings around it like gifts, dinner, weekends away, or being wheeled out to a social occasion, but really, that’s just so they can be assured of your complicity to get the shag and then the likelihood is that you’ll be on a bit of a high afterwards and will remind yourself of the gift, or the dinner or whatever, until it wears off and you realise that you’ve been ‘done’. Literally.

That’s not to say that it would be better for cash to be left on the table, but when you recognise that you’re an unpaid hooker or escort, instead of feeling outraged and then committing yourself to a vocation of making them see that you’re worth more, you should be outraged and flush them out of your life.

Also, let’s be real – they’re just not that special. You can buy your own gifts, dinner, and have some company without having to cough up a shag. You’re not that desperate.

And really – it doesn’t matter when you have sex; it matters about how blinded you are by it, what assumptions you make, and whether you bother to go through the discovery phase of dating and find out about the person anyway. A lot of people operate with I got laid —>; It must have been for a good reason —>; OK let me scratch around for reasons to justify it.

When someone can get what they see as their needs being met, whether it’s sexual, attention, ego stroking, or whatever, and they don’t even have to stump up a committed relationship and some love, care, trust, respect and the other landmarks to go with it, let me assure you that they’re not going to have an attack of conscience one day and say “Right, you’ve given me sex on 46 occasions, responded to my texts within 3 minutes on 95% of those occasions and have shown me loyalty while enjoying the pleasure of my company, so I now grant thee a relationship.”

Sex is not a currency that you can negotiate a relationship out of. You start out booty or you reduce down to booty, you stay booty.

When you use casual relationships as a back door route to a relationship, it’s a gamble that will yield diminishing returns. It’s also safe to say that nobody in their right mind evaluates the potential for a relationship on how well you sex them, because vaginas and penises actually give no indication of what someone’s qualities, characteristics, and values are…and whether they’re congruent with yours. Being a superb lay hasn’t stopped some people from being deficient in character or ability to commit to a relationship.

You.Are.Not.In.Pretty.Woman. Or that Friends With Benefits film with Mr JT. This is real life and it’d be one thing if the booty call grew organically into a relationship (unlikely but let’s pretend), but mutual relationships aren’t born from force.

Casual arrangements (calling it a ‘casual relationship’ is an oxymoron) are really short term dalliances that are best reserved for those that have the self-esteem to know their limits and not go from here to eternity twisting themselves into a pretzel so that they convince the other party of their worth, which is a bit like closing the door after the horse has bolted.

A person should treat you as a worthwhile individual deserving of love, care, trust, and respect – not assume a low value or manage down your expectations to get down to their level. More importantly, you should know your value and live it.

If you’re enjoying your booty call and want nothing more – rock on. I certainly wouldn’t continue if you’re experiencing any disrespect. From the moment you start trying to convince them of your worth or convince them into a relationship, it’s time to pull your pants up and get off the booty ride. And stop selling yourself short – you deserve better than putting yourself on the street corner of someone’s life.

Your thoughts?

Find out more about the perils of casual ‘relationships’, ambiguity, and selling yourself short in unavailable relationships in my books Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl and The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship.

Image source: Mettel Ray

It’s Time To Stop Playing The Relationship Slot Machine

Natalie (NML) — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:28:28 +0000

I was reading an article about pattern breaking this morning and the author Chris explained how use of social media like Facebook and Twitter are similar to the dynamics of playing the slot machines. “Hit with even a small win every once in a blue moon, and you’ll reinstate that pattern incessantly”, which is basically how casinos make their money basically bleeding you dry.

When you’re inclined to talk about ‘good points’ and ‘good times’, or you chase a ‘feeling’, you are someone feeding their energy, emotions, and esteem into your Relationship Slot Machine. The tendency to talk about ‘points’, times’ and those feelings is highly indicative of an non-mutual relationship, which you’ll notice that like an actual slot machine, it’s one-way traffic.

I’ve heard from countless readers who will invest everything including their dignity into a relationship, while leaving a scorch mark and dust where their life and identity used to exist, even thought the object of their affections is actually only putting out crumbs.

Experiencing a ‘win’ in these ‘relationships’ is mind effery though because:

1) Over-giving magnifies and distorts what’s actually going on. If I’d been pumping everything into someone who was giving back minimal returns, I’d make a big deal out of something that in a normal context, I wouldn’t see it as such as big deal. You also have to recognise that when you’re in the territory where you’re actually neglecting yourself in pursuit of the ‘win’, then really, them giving you a minuscule amount of attention is going to make crumbs look like a golden loaf, as contextually, you’re not giving you very much either.

2) A ‘win’ suggests that there is the capacity and likelihood for more to be experienced. If your imagination and hopes go into overdrive, you’re also likely to forecast and expect that the subsequent wins will be bigger and better. In your excitement at experiencing these occasional ‘wins’, you may fail to realise that the win is the same or even less than before, especially when you factor in the amount of time, energy, emotion etc that you’ve been pumping in.

3) You don’t realise how bonkers the whole thing is. You focus on the reward, the feeling of the win, the buzz of the mission, and in truth, you also prefer thinking about and pursuing all of these things than dealing with your fear of rejection, or what you’d have to do with your time otherwise, or even some uncomfortable truths. It’s bonkers though, that you would have to gamble for someone’s affections and invest so disproportionately in the first place.

4) The ‘house’ always wins – what you ‘spend’ along the way may mean that when you ‘win’, you end up losing because you’ve cost yourself you in the process, often doing things that at best leave you feeling embarrassed and at their worst, humiliated.

Ever watched that episode of Friends when Phoebe is in Vegas and there’s a lurker hanging around that swoops in and nabs the jackpot each time she moves away from her slot machine?

Well the reason why you’ll be reluctant to walk away is that aside from the whole coming so far and investing so much that it seems too big to turn back, it’s actually the perennial fear, that someone else will come along and your Relationship Slot Machine will decide to spit out a committed relationship and change of character jackpot. And let’s be real – you may even be aware of the lurker that’s waiting to swoop in.

But really, how long will you hang around keeping an eye on your shady investment on the off chance that it will give you a big enough win that will secure you ‘permanency’? Do you really want to live your life being afraid that the moment you walk away that they’ll spontaneously combust into a better person in a better relationship? It doesn’t matter what they might or could be in your imagination and based on your fears of what you think you’ve done to ‘make’ them this way (trust me, it’s not about you) – what matters is what’s happening right now and before, which gives strong indications of what comes next.

Going back to the idea of sticking with an incessant pattern, it’s also important to recognise why it’s called a pattern – even the spitting out good times, or good points, or highs is part of the repetition, but it’s not about to do it all the time, which means that you’re never going to win in the way that you want to:

- an all round person instead of ‘good points’ person

- a steady relationship

- intimacy and just being instead of chasing and trying to recapture a feeling

It’s better to be with someone whose pattern is to be consistent in character, action, and ‘meeting’ you in the middle of a mutual relationship. Do you want to be ‘high’ on a once in a blue moon win while battering your self-esteem in the meantime, or do you want to be in a mutual relationship with love, care, trust, respect, and shared values in it?

I’ve never had much to show for any of my shady investments besides a very distorted view of myself and love, less money, some clear heeled hooker shoes, a fat headache, and plenty of “What the eff was I thinking?” memories.

Relationships aren’t about gambling in the sense of you attaching yourself to someone and a situation that represents ‘winning’ love against the odds and basically getting them to make you the exception to their rule of behaviour. Relationships do require a certain amount of healthy risk, but it’s two-way because they’re copiloted and if it’s not mutual, rather than bankrupt yourself, it’s better to know your limit and your value and walk. Leave the unhealthy relationship casino – there’s a fabulous you that already exists within you plus a better relationship, to discover outside of it.

Your thoughts?

The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship is now available from my bookshop along with with Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl. Both books contain lots of tips for breaking unhealthy patterns.

When Someone Thinks That It’s Okay To Keep Disappointing You … But Not Others. Er… No It’s Not

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:01:03 +0000

If you’ve been involved in an unavailable relationship, or been frustrated by certain friends, family, or coworkers, you may have noticed something which if you don’t heed the real meaning, you’ll instead take it as some sort of indication of your worth:

These people are often very comfortable with disappointing you by failing to meet your hopes and expectations, plus promises and plans that they’ve made, yet they’ll practically break their neck to ensure that they don’t disappoint certain people. They’ll do things like:

- Thinking that it’s OK to cancel on you if a better offer comes up.

- Thinking that it’s OK to leave it till the last minute to ask you out / to do something because they’re exploring all other options.

- Expect you to say YES. Always. Even when they know that they’re disrespecting you.

- Expect you to be all adoring, accepting and forgiving no matter what they do so even when they eff up, they don’t exactly go out of their way to genuinely apologise and show remorse, often expecting you to ‘move on’ (read: hurry the eff up and get over it so that they can press the Reset Button).

- Breaking it off with you to go back to the same person and then coming back to you when it goes tits up. Or just ditching you every time a better offer comes up.

- Claiming that the reason why they treat you as they do is because, for instance, you’re the ‘strong’ one in the family or don’t need as much as the others, or some other weird reason to justify why they treat you differently.

- Failing to do something for you and then doing the exact same thing or similar for someone else even though you’re still waiting on them. Often they’ll keep telling you that they’re going to get to your job eventually but in essence they keep bumping you when something that they’re afraid to jeopardise their image over, comes along.

This can feel like a smack in the teeth and if you’re prone to internalising these experiences and inclined to correlate them to your worth, you’ll wonder “What’s wrong with me? Why are they being so nice to them / doing stuff for them but they’re not for me?” You may even feel like a fool and wonder why you’re the ‘exception’ plus it will cause you to question your judgement because even if you know that they’re just not that special and have in fact experienced some rather shady behaviour on their part, them pulling out the stops for someone else makes you wonder if you’ve misinterpreted their actions, or have missed the memo that informed you of what you’ve done to piss them off.

Their behaviour isn’t pretty, clever, or flattering and it’s only natural to feel away, or hurt and angry about it.

No matter how much self-esteem you have, in the first instance it smarts to experience that moment when you realise that really, you’re not a priority. You don’t rank high on their Best To Avoid Disappointing Index.

After the realisation strikes, it’s important to step back and see these situations for what they are – an opportunity to learn about the flipside to a person and how comfortable and confident they feel about maintaining the respect, trust, and affections you have for them no matter what they do. They know that you have them on a pedestal and that you have more confidence and love for them than they deserve.

People, rightly or wrongly, get a sense of how they can treat you and what they can get away with via their own actions and your boundaries which you demonstrate with your own actions and words. When you’re someone who strives to match their actions and words, as well as living congruently with your values, it’s very difficult to habitually disappoint people or even have one of those switchy personalities that picks and chooses who they want to roll out their nicey-nice and assholic character for, which is very inauthentic.

When you make a judgement about you based on how someone treats you, instead of judging their actions or at least the situation, you’re actually agreeing with what you think their assessment is and feeding into a widely held belief by people who struggle with low self-esteem, that inappropriate, unhealthy or even abusive behaviour has a rationale and can be accepted when the recipient of it isn’t worthy of something better, as if you’re communicating your worth and influencing their behaviour.

What you can learn from people who seem to think that it’s OK to disappoint you and to keep disappointing you, while appearing to be more conscientious with others, is that they’re clearly aware that they can and should act better and are actually capable of it, at least on a surface level, but they’ll show their real selves and let it all hang out to someone who they think will take them any which way.

The question you then have to ask yourself is: are you being the person who will take them any which way? Is it ok to disappoint you?

I learned from first-hand experience that if a person thinks that you’re blinded to who they really are, or you do know but don’t seem deterred, or they’ve been manipulative with their compliments to sell you their behaviour – “You’re so kind, generous, understanding, and supportive..” or even “I’m so glad you’re not like everyone else making demands on me..” – which you lap up and see as a compliment while they’re slipping their shady behaviour under the radar, they will gradually become increasing complacent and even careless about your feelings and your relationship. They’ll also feel free to disappoint you if they know that you’re validation hungry.

If someone believes that you’re so enamoured with them that you won’t leave, create conflict or consequences, or at least tell them to jog on (and mean it) when they try to push the boundaries, not only will they relax, but they just won’t value you enough to genuinely fear the loss of you.

When they can keep disappointing, it’s because they’re being believed in and given another chance, when really they should be getting the heave ho or at the very least, an increase in boundary security.

Of course disappointments can and will happen in life, because it’s inevitable that people, things, and situations will fail to live up to our hopes and expectations for them. That said, what you don’t want is certain people keeping you in their mental It’s OK To Disappoint Roladex.

No it’s not OK and actually whether you say it verbally or through action, make sure that you communicate this and stick to your guns, because when someone experiences medium to long-term consequences as opposed to short-term, hollow ones that they can eventually brush off and weasel their way back in on, they know to think twice about letting you down or recognise that they need to move on, because even if they appease you on a surface level like they do others, they’re never actually going to stump up with substance anyway.

And that’s something else to remember here – yes it would be nice if they saw fit to not disappoint you, but all that glitters isn’t gold and when you take them off their pedestal, you’ll see that due to their surface action, they have very little, if any, genuinely intimate, healthy substantial relationships. Even if you got what you think that they give everyone else, they’d still disappoint you on a deeper level.

The greatest amount of disappointment actually comes from continuing to hold out hope after someone has shown and told you who they are. Trust the feedback from their actions (or lack thereof) and instead of lowering your self-esteem, it’s time to adjust your perception and expectations of them, and act accordingly.

Your thoughts?

The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship is now available from my bookshop along with with Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl.

Learning How To Deal With Criticism & Conflict For Improved Self-Esteem & Relationships

Natalie (NML) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:00:30 +0000

Photo credit: Amminopurr SXC

If you’ve found yourself associating conflict and criticism with rejection and have compromised yourself in unhealthy relationships as a result of avoiding experiencing them / reacting poorly, I share my thoughts on changing the meaning of criticism and conflict in this adapted excerpt from my new ebook, The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship…

You receive ‘feedback’, both positive and negative, not just verbally or through people’s actions, but from life itself. When you keep experiencing the same situations, it’s life throwing up the same lessons until you learn them. It may seem like ‘negative’ feedback initially because you may experience what appears to be an unfavourable result, but it then paves the way to positive feedback through the subsequent results and lessons learned.

You can only learn to handle criticism and feedback with reality, which gives perspective.

Change the meaning of criticism from “I’m not good enough” or “I’m a failure” to “Someone is asking me to listen …” If you don’t, you’ll focus on bathing in a sense of inadequacy and withdraw into yourself.

Listening doesn’t mean agreement and criticism doesn’t equate to “I must change to stop disapproval”.

Sometimes, in fact often, what you perceive as a potential conflict really isn’t. It’s important to calm down and not let yourself get carried away with what you think that the other person is thinking or overinvesting your time and energy into formulating a response or even a ‘defence’.

Even if feedback is negative, if you can look beyond your nose and recognise the lesson, whether it’s from the feedback itself or what receiving it means about the person/situation, you only stand to gain.

Criticism isn’t the same as disapproval of you as a person or rejection. Listen to the feedback. Is it actually a message saying that you are a ‘less than’ person? Or is that how you see it?

Let this idea go that experiencing conflict is a sign that you’ve done something ‘wrong’. It could easily be the other person, or both of you, having a misunderstanding, or something of nothing. You don’t get to know this if you’re already going “Wah wah wah it’s me!”

Criticism and conflict also doesn’t mean that a relationship is over or on the way to being so. Part of being a mature adult in a relationship is being able to have a disagreement or not always hear what you want to hear, and not put the relationship in jeopardy each time. You’re then both free to be available and truly intimate with one another.

Someone’s criticism isn’t always accurate or the right thing for you. You can listen to it, let it percolate, consider the suggestions and look at where it fits with your agenda and your values, and then choose a course of action that’s right for you.

Let me assure you: any form of ‘feedback’ that involves you screwing yourself over while busting up your boundaries and values, is not in your best interests.

Criticism or feedback is not an opportunity to be disrespectful or even abusive. It’s not a free pass on decency. When done in a mean-spirited or abusive manner, it’s their character.

“Who are you to judge?” should help you work out in your mind whether the person is qualified to critique you. If they are someone who has consistently treated you with care, trust, and respect, or a customer, or you know there’s a genuine basis for the criticism, hear them out.

If they are someone who claims to be trying to help you and being ‘honest’, while being dishonest about their own part or even deluded about who they are, they are not qualified to be telling you who you are or giving you improvements tips.

Accept that you cannot like or love ‘everything’, just like you cannot be liked and loved by ‘everyone’. If you have this burning desire to gain someone’s approval, question it. What do you think you’re going to experience?

Even when you do express actual disapproval or they do, it’s not the end of life as you know it. Whatever the disapproval is, it doesn’t put a final judgement on someone. What it may do is show a difference in values, which means you’re incompatible. Buh-bye!

When you refuse to accept feedback and yes, at times, criticism, you’re saying “I have nothing to learn” and “You cannot say anything that I don’t like because you’ll upset me.” No relationship of any kind, romantic or otherwise, can progress even an inch without the room for respectful feedback and at times, yes, criticism.

When you accept that you can and will experience it, you can prepare positively for it, by having the self-esteem and perspective to take it.

Don’t react immediately. One of the first things you’ll learn by not having an instant reaction and running with it, is that the sky doesn’t fall down and whatever you think that the worst is, isn’t happening. Don’t reply (if you’re face to face) until you’ve taken a few breaths, relaxed into yourself and feel a bit more balanced. Definitely don’t fire off texts or emails in anger.

If you immediately react angrily or defensively, you’ll likely end up feeling regretful and then believing that the criticism or manner of conflict was justified even if it wasn’t. You’ll then focus on your reaction and making amends for that, instead of the issue at hand.

Someone who adds value to your life, will bite the bullet and say the necessary and the uncomfortable because they want to see you succeed. You’ll also find that someone who is genuinely offering you feedback, isn’t basing the need to or desired outcome on something to do with them.

Make sure you manage your ‘frequencies’ and ‘filters’. Short of running off every time you sense criticism, you will have to experience and handle it. How much of a negative impact it makes on you, and what you stand to gain (if anything), is greatly altered by ensuring that you know who to tune into and who to filter out their crap.?

Just because someone does give you feedback though, it doesn’t mean that you have to implement it. It’s feedback, not a directive or a court order.

When you deem that someone disapproves of you, whether it’s because they’re not interested, or they make a criticism, or they don’t want the relationship that you want, that doesn’t mean that you are unacceptable. They’re just one person, who I must point out again, are just not that special.

Sometimes criticism really isn’t about you, which of course is weird to hear when it appears to be directed at you. Sometimes when people lash out, it’s also about their own circumstances, especially when you realise that their reaction is so disproportionate to the matter at hand, it sure as hell isn’t all about you.

People see things from their perspective. Many people when they express concern, opinions, and criticism about you or your life, are not thinking about you; they’re either thinking about what they would be like under the same circumstances or are objecting to your actions inconveniencing them.

Sometimes criticism means “Please stop making it difficult for me to eff around with you and do things on my terms.”

Is there any truth in the criticism? What is it that you don’t like about it? You don’t have to accept a criticism in its entirety, but if you do recognise the truth, don’t ignore it.

It’s OK to compromise, which is finding a solution that you can both live with, but this is very different to compromising yourself by sacrificing your boundaries and values. Make sure that you recognise the difference.

You’re not a child anymore, so make sure that you look at criticism and conflict through adult eyes and adjust your perspective. Now that you’re an adult, how would you teach a child how to cope with not always hearing what they want to or dealing with conflict? Now pass some of that advice on to you.

Own your right to express disapproval and to deal with or even instigate conflict, and you will respect the right of people to express their disapproval or to instigate their own conflict. You don’t have to like it and neither do they, but this is better than feeling victimised when you silence yourself or go against you.

Your thoughts?

Never Judge You Based On A Perspective Gained From Being Treated In a Less Than Manner

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 22:34:46 +0000

It doesn’t matter if you think that they’re The Most Amazing Person That Ever Did Live™;they’re just not that special.

That means that they’re just not that special that you should resign all of your power and worth over to them.

They’re just not that special that they get a special pass on behaving in a decent manner.

They’re just not that special that you being treated in a less than manner is justifiable. It’s not and I don’t care whether they’re platinum coated with a chocolate centre with an off the charts IQ, great looks, a great lay, an amazing job, or liked by ‘everybody’ – they’re still just not that special.

They’re just not that special that you should pump them up, put them on a pedestal, and then stand beneath it looking up at them.

They’re just not that special that for however long that you’ve lived on this earth, this person has the rights, the opportunities, and the power to basically change you.

They’re just not that special that you should swap your perspective for their perspective, especially because often what you think is their perspective is actually your perspective gained from the meanings you’ve attached to their behaviour.

They’re just not that special that they get to tell you who they are while defining themselves as an expert on you – you’re the expert on you.

Rejection is a hell of a lot easier to deal with and reject the impact of, when you get your self-esteem house in order so that you can hold your own. This is as simple as operating from a basis that you will treat you with love, care, trust, and respect at all times. This means that when someone doesn’t do this, you’ll step in and opt out or distance yourself instead of taking up a vocation in trying to prove them wrong and demanding that a grown up treat you better.

The fact that someone who you are in essence blowing smoke up their arse and putting them on a pedestal, would treat you in a less than manner, isn’t down to you being a less than person and is in fact down to their character. It’s not about you.

This all goes awry from the moment that you receive the ‘feedback’ from them saying or doing something and you take it as meaning something about you, question what you’ve said, done, or been to ‘provoke’ it, and then in turn make a judgement about you.

From the moment that you’re not receiving the feedback from what someone says or does (or doesn’t say or do) and you’re not relating that information to them as a person and judging the situation and them, you’ve got problems, not least because it has a domino effect.

You make that first judgement call and after that, whatever they say or do gets the same meaning plus often unbeknownst to you, you adjust your behaviour to accommodate the judgements you’ve made. This is dangerous. Next thing you know, you don’t know who you are anymore and you’re blaming everything on the rejection that you feel wouldn’t have happened if only you’d done X,Y,Z.

Many people are under this mistaken impression that everyone has different characteristics, qualities, and values that they bring out for different people. “Oh you’re attractive enough, I’ll roll out my nicey-nice character. Oh I sense that you’re a wrong-un, I’ll bring out my using character and take advantage of you because you don’t deserve my better side. Obviously if you want to jump through hoops and run naked through fire in order to prove yourself to me, I won’t stop you but I’ll neglect to tell you that it won’t make a difference anyway.”

Aside from this giving the impression that the world is overwhelmingly populated with people that have multiple-personality disorders, it also gives the impression that lack of authenticity and character is acceptable when the recipient of it is not worthy of something better.

You are living under a premise that inappropriate, unhealthy, or even abusive behaviour can be explained or even accepted when you believe that a person’s worth is influencing it. Most people do not have a natural aptitude to read people’s mind’s, to automatically know who is trustworthy, friend worthy, or even relationship worthy, and many of us don’t even know what the hell we’re thinking half of the time – don’t you think it’s more than a little bonkers to lead with this assumption that people who treat you in a less than manner are privy to some information about your worth that is seeping out of your pores, or transmitting coded information over a hidden frequency?

Let’s say that they have gotten to know you – why assume that what someone thinks they know or how they treat you is right? The only reason you would believe this is because you are already inclined to be swayed in this direction about you anyway. It’s either that, or you’ve idolised them so much (which would only indicate that you’ve invested far too much self-esteem stock), that when they start chip-chip-chipping away at you, you’re so eager to please and restore the ‘sunshine’ that you don’t see the shady wood for what appear to be the glittering trees.

People don’t always value others or even their things. That doesn’t mean that the person or the object lacks value – it just means that the person doesn’t value it because of their own relationship with themselves and their value system.

Whatever perspective you’ve gained from being in a shady relationship or being mistreated by someone, it’s important to recognise that if you don’t have the self-esteem and the perspective to go with it, it means that you’re viewing yourself through Shady Vision. I’ve seen bad things happen to lovely people – they haven’t, for instance, invited people to commit crimes against them because their worth was being transmitted out to criminals in the area. Part of the recovery for these people is about processing what’s happened and regaining a perspective with their sense of self as opposed to the crime that happened at the centre of it.

Don’t make judgements about you based on a perspective gained from being treated in a less than manner – spend more time regaining your sense of self and nurturing you, than you do trying to legitimise crappy treatment by ripping your character apart.

You never deserve to be mistreated – don’t continue the mistreatment by mistreating yourself in the aftermath.

Your thoughts?

They Don’t Own You: When Someone Thinks That They Have A Claim On You

Natalie (NML) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:45:12 +0000

When I listen to people discuss their relationships, particularly with regard to exes, I realise that those who have unhealthy relationship beliefs and behaviours are inclined to have a ‘claimant’ mentality. You’ll know this all too well if you’ve ever been with Mr/Miss Unavailable – back off when you want them, chase you down when you tell them to take a run and jump or they see you trying to move on with their lives. Then you go and take them back after all of their desperation, grand gestures, and promises to change, only to find yourself back at square one days, weeks, or months later, or even for them to disappear as soon as they get confirmation that you still want them.

It’s as if by getting involved with a ‘claimant’, that unbeknownst to you, you’re entering into a contract where you sign over your relationship rights and provide them with the option to swan back into your life at any time irrespective of what you want and regardless of whether they’ve even earned the right to think that they should have any space in your life. The likelihood is that the more that you’ve pumped them up by overextending yourself for them and the more poorly you’ve been treated is the more entitled they feel to their claim.

You would think that this ‘claimant mentality’ only extended itself to relationships, but I know people who still get calls, emails, and texts from people that they had one date with five years ago after meeting them on a dating site, who seem to think that they can show up anytime and pick up where they left off or just tap them up for an ego stroke or a shag.

There’s a level of arrogance involved with this along with some ego issues that suggest that their self-esteem is founded on the ability to amass ‘property’ and access it for validation or to avail themselves of goods at their disposal … even if they don’t treat the ‘property’ right.

Of course, this territorial sense of ownership is largely about control – “I touch it, I own it. I sleep with it, I own it. You expressed interest in me, I own you … even if I’m not really that interested in you. Someone else wants you, I’m now interested, I have to own you.” When a ‘claimant’ experiences something going awry in another area of their lives (maybe one of their ‘properties’ knocks them back, or they attempt a takeover and get rejected), you’ll notice that they check in on their ‘assets’ which gives them the illusion of being in control and validates their ego.

Claimants associate feeling out of control with desire, so of course when you’re behaving as expected, they lose their ‘relationship erection’.

What is of course completely bonkers about this, is that the claimant’s seem to think they wipe out all of your prior involvements and that they can liberally erase or cock up any subsequent involvements. It gets even more bonkers if you’ve been with several claimant’s so they all seem to feel that they have ‘rights’, are holding on to their ‘key’, but they’re not actually willing to occupy a mutually fulfilling relationship with love, care, trust, respect, and shared values.

They desire you when they feel in danger of losing you or when someone else expresses interest – you tell them to step up or let you go, only for them to step back once they’ve secured ‘control’ and validation again. They feel territorial but what they don’t seem to feel and demonstrate is love, care, trust, and respect. They want to own you but they don’t want to truly value you.

Claimants assume that:

You’re besotted with them.

You’ve never got over them.

Even if they effed you over and broke your heart fifty years ago, that they have a right to another shot when they demand it and that you’ve been fannying away your life waiting for a rejection retraction and reconciliation.

If they’ve decided to feel bad about their past actions, that you must be consumed by thoughts of them, and are still hugely impacted and waiting on them.

You’ll ego stroke and listen to their problems.

They still know the right moves.

You’re still horny for them.

You think they’re the best you’ve ever had and nobody ‘gives it to you’ as good as them.

Nobody has ever measured up in character to them.

They make your life oh so much better, even with their crumbs.

They have the right to lose interest or park it, only to resurrect their interest when someone new is sniffing around you.

They have a right to pee a ring around you and block parties they know from approaching you.

Claimant’s, often without truly realising it, have delusions of grandeur. They’re living off this premise that everything is about them and that even if they’ve had you on a crumb diet, that they’ve been stuffing you with golden loaves.

You are not someone’s medal or trophy that reminds them of how great they are or how they can’t be ‘that bad’, nor are you a discarded plaything, an unreturned library book, or furniture and bric-a-brac with a cloth over it in a dusty attic. You certainly shouldn’t allow yourself to be the mannequin in someone’s House Of Ego Horror’s.

They don’t own you just like you don’t own anyone else. This means that you shouldn’t be selling yourself down the river to the lowest bidder and settling for less than you deserve.

Claimants never step up and treat you right. After a while, they make enough claims on you that they feel confident that they’re in no true danger of losing you. This is when you notice that their chasing efforts get feebler and lazier.

Whenever there is a sense of ownership, particularly when there is no actual relationship or they don’t treat you as a valuable, worthwhile person, you know that not only are you not in a mutual relationship, but this person is not the one for you. Control including jealousy and possessiveness isn’t love; it’s control.

The key thing in all of this though is that you shouldn’t render yourself helpless by behaving like someone else’s property. When it’s over, it’s over - don’t allow people to continue to enjoy the same access to you and certainly don’t remain open to the possibility of them coming back because it makes you unavailable for an available relationship. Next time, it’s petition for the claimant denied – next!

Your thoughts?

PS If you want to see a claimant in action and are in the UK, check out Spencer Matthews on Made In Chelsea

Your thoughts?

The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship is now available from my bookshop along with with Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl.

Excerpt From The Dreamer & the Fantasy Relationship On Getting Over Controlling The Uncontrollable

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 22:14:22 +0000

I’ve released my first companion guide to Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl – The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship – and I wanted to share an excerpt from the moving forward section as I see so many readers (fantasy relationship or not) rendered helpless by trying to control the uncontrollable, seeking perfection, and choosing ‘safe’ but unavailable and often shady relationships where they don’t have to put themselves at major risk. This excerpt is from the chapter Getting Control Under Control…

I can tell you right now, that most of the angst that people experience around unhealthy relationships is about not being able to get inside the other person’s head, to control their opinion, what they’re thinking, and what they’re intending, and the inability to influence and direct another person’s behaviour by throwing your love, attention, sex, imagination, and even texts at them. You’re not about to be able to read people’s minds or take over the controls, so it’s you that has to get a grip on trying to control the uncontrollable. The funny thing is that when you align yourself around people who have similar values and are a reflection of a healthy relationship with yourself, while you still will never know every thought in their head or be able to control their actions, you have a greater sense of trust, both in you and in them, which allows you to get on with exerting influence over your own life.

Love is not about having the power to change or control someone. It’s also not a power struggle so rather than vying to control a relationship that you feel has left you helpless, it’s better to go and be in a relationship where you can accept and respect both you and them, that you’re both copiloting.

I know it feels like everything is about you because you are you and it’s your life, but not everything is about you. The only thing that is about you is you and your actions. Everybody else’s actions are about them. You’re just not that powerful that you’re making people be and do certain things. You’re certainly not causing a radical change in personality – people be and do what they’re already inclined to do. The world is not manoeuvring to your I’m Not Good Enough Record – people are far too caught up in themselves.

Learn how to trust you.There’s no easier way to feel out of control than by placing all of your trust in others, and very little of it in yourself. You learn how to trust you by exercising your judgement through experience. This is how you learn to have confidence in yourself because you can trust you to look, listen, and act in your own best interests. It also means that even in the face of ‘bad news’, you’re OK because at least you hear and see and know it’s bad news and are acting upon it so it doesn’t become something considerably bigger and unnecessary.

When you learn how to trust you, you learn to trust your capabilities in various circumstances. I, like many, have told myself many times in the past that I couldn’t handle something and then subsequently became obsessed with being in control of ‘everything’ to prevent me from having to deal with what I was afraid of. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.

Perfection doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as a perfect life or a flawless human. Trying to control ‘everything’ in an attempt to make things the way that you view as perfect, is far from ‘perfect’ behaviour. Many people spend their whole lives not appreciating themselves or their lives because of a goal of perfection. When you relax into yourself and your life and seek to feel good and happy instead of perfect, there is a whole life waiting for you to enjoy, including bouncing back when things don’t always go how you’d like.

You do not need to get all of the details of your relationship ‘right’ or look for ways to correct them through new encounters – let yourself and your experiences unfold. Let even your ‘mistakes’ unfold because you’re too busy trying to correct along the way, often using your ego as a basis for your actions, before you truly see what insights you can gain from the experiences. If you keep trying to control everything, you just don’t step back enough to have an objective view.

See the wood, instead of the trees. When you’re busy trying to control other people’s opinions or actions, or limiting yourself in limited relationships so that you don’t have to stretch you emotionally, you miss the big picture – that this relationship isn’t working for you, or that you aren’t actually getting any genuine happiness and fulfilment out of these unproductive uses for your energy, or that your life is passing you by. Is it really worth devoting weeks, months, or even years of your life trying to ‘correct’ a person’s opinion or win back a relationship that is over for good, healthy reasons?

?Pseudocontrol isn’t control; getting behind the wheel of your life and driving it is. Being in control in your head is of shag all use to you – you need to be influencing and bringing about change in your own life, through your own actions.

Look at what you’re trying to control in others – how could you create this in your own life? One example is that when you try to devote your energies to controlling the opinions of others, it’s because you are exerting little control over the opinion of yourself – you’re just letting your negative self-talk run riot. Another is when you try to control another person’s agenda and keep tabs on them because it feels like they’re off creating their own life while you’re stagnating. Stop tracking them, stop stagnating, start creating your own life. Watching over them isn’t going to do it.

Remember that when you refuse to accept that the relationship is over or attempt to coerce them into doing things your way, you’re attempting to control their agenda and possibly even bombarding them with attention. This will alienate you. Breakups are not a democratic decision and people have their own agendas, which means that they don’t need your agreement to break up and you have to step back and get on with your own agenda, without them. In a mutual relationship, you have a joint agenda. Stop wrestling with this person for power – let them go.

Practice acceptance. I don’t mean accept bullshit behaviour, but what I do mean is to accept how things are, instead of rejecting it in favour of complaining about how you want things to be like how they used to be or how you believe they should be in the future. You cannot control the past and you certainly only have control over what you choose to do in your own future.

Accept that you cannot control others but you can control you. This is natural, normal, and nothing to be ashamed of. It doesn’t mean you’re not good enough or that you’re a failure or that you should have tried harder or whatever else you’re telling yourself. There is no person on this planet that you can control other than you. When you recognise that you don’t have this power, while your first instinct may be to feel helpless, what you need to give way to, is you not blaming yourself for other people’s actions and not being able to do something that nobody other than abusers can do, which means that you can claim the power that’s rightfully yours. Trying to control others does create a feeling of helplessness but every day you have to make a choice between being helpless by trying to control others you can’t control, or being powerful by empowering you in your own life.

Nobody else should be directing or influencing your worth or your life other than you. This is the same for everyone else, so you need to get on with assuming responsibility for yourself and leave everyone else to do theirs.

Your thoughts?

The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship is now available from my bookshop along with with Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl.

NO Isn’t A Dirty Word

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:13:17 +0000

When you’re averse to saying and sticking to NO, you have longstanding negative associations with it and boundaries, which means that when you’re faced with the prospect of having to decline something, it builds into Dynasty levels of drama in your mind.

You imagine them being slammed into the wall by the force of your ‘rejection’. Often, from the moment there’s a hint of NO or conflict, you’re already wounded and unbeknownst to you, have begun adjusting your behaviour to protect yourself or to ward off potential conflict.

You imagine them feeling bad about themselves. This is because you can’t handle hearing NO so you imagine that everyone else can’t either. You make a judgement about you when you hear NO instead of judging the situation.

You imagine people thinking badly of you. You often think badly of people who have said NO even if they had legitimate reasons. You also might associate getting a NO with the assumption that they must think badly of you if they’re saying it – not everything is about you.

You imagine the sky falling in. This is because when you experience NO, this is how you feel.

You worry that if you say NO, that no one else is going to say YES. There can be this assumption that you’re being asked because otherwise no one else can do it. I know it’s nice to think you’re that special, but really, you’d be surprised how many others will say YES to boundary crossing…

You worry that if you say NO, that someone else will say YES, which will then make you wonder if you were wrong for saying NO. Your NO isn’t good enough for you. If someone else would say YES to the same thing, even if it’s the sh*ttest thing you’ve ever been asked to do, you invalidate your boundaries and your judgment.

You worry that you’re being rude even though the other option is being a doormat. This indicates a fundamental problem with having boundaries – you believe that it’s rude to decline something or have limits.

You worry that you’re burning a bridge that’s actually already burnt. This is why so many people are collecting exes and shady friends like dusty medals and junk cluttering up their home – you’re keeping them as a just-in-case-you-might-need them (or they you), or just-in-case-they-decide-to-spontaneously-combust-into-a-better-person-in-a-better-relationship.

You worry that saying NO means that you’re not being helpful or compassionate, or even empathetic, even though saying NO is actually often helpful etc to both parties if you’re prepared to look beyond the short-term. Just look at Hollywood as an example of why hearing YES all the time is incredibly dangerous.

Your brain plays tunes from your Greatest (S)hits Collection in advance of the prospect of saying NO. “You’re a bad, bad person don’t you know?”, “Maybe You Should Have Said Yes But You’ve Effed Things Up Again By Saying NO And Now You Deserve To Be Unhappy”, “You’re So Rude (I Bet You Think This Song Is About You), and other such tracks.

Most of the drama from saying NO or the prospect of it, is in your own mind. NO isn’t a dirty word.

If you have a poor relationship with the word NO, it’s time to nurture the kid inside you that wants to sulk, tantrum, or retreat due to feeling like you’ve had love withdrawn or been judged as being unworthy. It’s also time to recognise that limits aren’t a bad thing. There can be this reluctance to deny yourself or others, even if doing so is actually for the greater good, because you associate limits with being denied things that you want and think you should have. Next thing you’re thinking “I’m not going to deny myself anything like the way my mother/father did when they wouldn’t do X,Y,Z.”

You may have learned that NO creates negative consequences, either in childhood where you’ve become nervous of conflict, criticism (even if it’s constructive), or experienced punishment, or in adulthood where you think you think you lost out on a relationship because you wouldn’t participate in a boundary busting situation. If your boundaries were violated in childhood, you may never have learned that it was OK to say NO because you had basic human rights ripped from you.

However you’ve arrived at this juncture of being afraid of saying and sticking to NO, as a fully-fledged adult, you are entitled to own your right to say NO. Helplessness isn’t going to help you and as many can attest to, saying YES when you really mean NO isn’t going to help either.

If you don’t learn to say NO you will become a prisoner of giving negative YES’s – agreement given, not from a genuine positive place but out of fear and sometime’s or even often, a hidden agenda of trying to bend people to your will by always saying YES with a view to ‘collecting’ at a later date.

NO doesn’t always or even very often mean rejection; it means you want different things.

It means whatever is being proposed doesn’t meet your needs.

It means you may not be able to meet their hopes and expectations and that saying YES would be misleading and create far greater pain than the result of saying NO in the short term.

It means this isn’t good for you right now.

It means that whatever is being proposed doesn’t work for you in that format but that if it had been in a different format, you might have said YES.

It means that you have other things going on that take priority – that’s not about them; your priorities are your priorities.

It means you’re busy.

It means you don’t want to do something for whatever reason, and you know what? That is your right and you actually don’t have to explain why and justify yourself. Write down a list of everyone you know and ask yourself how many of these people run around justifying why they say NO – it won’t be many, so why are you?

It means that it’s not workable because it would make you uncomfortable and go against your values – it busts your boundaries.

And sometimes it just means NO.

People say NO because of themselves just like people say YES for themselves hence whichever one you choose, do it for you for the right reasons.

Write down a list of people who you’re afraid of saying NO to. Do they say or demonstrate NO to you? Yep! It is amazing how often the very people who have no problem busting up your boundaries, have their own that they have no problem enforcing.

Just like decisions, if you say NO and then don’t stick with it long enough to affirm your right and decision to say NO, you’re never actually saying NO – you’re saying a delayed, flip-flapping, knee-jerking, YES. You’re also teaching people around you that you’re full of hot air which gives them the blueprints to eff you over.

I’ve learned to say/show NO because even though I sometimes get anxious about it, it’s nothing compared to the anxiety and gut wrenching ache caused by avoiding NO. Try to say NO without justification, especially for stuff that would leave you being treated without love, care, trust, and respect. Other people with boundaries would say NO to it, just like others without boundaries would say YES – don’t opt for the path of least resistance.

Experience has taught me that 9/10 times when I experience anxiety about saying NO, it’s unwarranted. The rest of the time I can handle it. So can you. I would never have discovered this if I’d continued to say YES to screwing myself over – I’ve had more pain and anxiety from saying and showing YES than I’ve ever had from saying NO.

If you don’t learn to say NO, you have no objective, balanced place to say YES. Being a doormat isn’t sexy – learn to say NO and mean it.

Your thoughts?

Check out my book and ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl.

Perspective Takes The Sting Out Of Rejection: It’s Broken, You’re Not

Natalie (NML) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:17:04 +0000

Certainly for your romantic relationships, you can ease some, if not a lot of the sting of rejection by evaluating the ‘perspective’ that you’re using to judge yourself on. Having your own aspirations, desires, and goals is fine, but they’re actually separate to your dating and relationship experiences. When you take rejection hard, you’re making some dangerous assumptions that tie your worth and what you think you’re capable of to unrelated external factors. That and you look at life through a low self-esteem lens.

You have your own agenda as does everyone else and ultimately will find a greater level of happiness with someone who has a similar agenda. In over six and a half years of writing Baggage Reclaim, I am yet to come across one relationship where two people with different agendas worked out and are living harmoniously together.

I know you might want someone to have the same intentions, motives, beliefs and values as you … even if they don’t, but the truth is, it’s a lot easier to form the foundation of a relationship, to get on with enjoying yourself without waiting for ‘the catch’, and to be able to trust and be trusted, with someone who wants similar things out of life as you. It’s not that opposites don’t attract (they certainly do if this blog is anything to go by), but the opposites that attract and progress into mutually fulfilling relationships have different secondary ‘surface’ values, but fundamentally share similar values where it counts. Basically, they’re not that opposite when you get down to the nuts and bolts.

Everything else is like trying to turn a pigs ear into a silk purse, or squeezing a square peg into a round hole, or trying to drag a horse to water to force it to drink. You catch my drift…

When dates or relationships haven’t worked out, it’s not like they’ve been evaluating whether you should meet your aspirations, desires and goals – they have their own.

To assume otherwise, is to treat it like “This date didn’t work out. I’m obviously not good enough to have a relationship or get married or have children one day or even have a life.” That’s quite a leap – a big one. Of all of the people you’ve ever been involved with, who is really that special that you being involved with them and it not working out means “You are not relationship worthy, end of. This is because I’m not interested / or don’t want the same things as you / or would even like to muck up your life while extracting maximum benefit”?

If you take everything that doesn’t work out in the way that you would like as rejection, not only are you handing over your power by running with an immediate negative reaction and clinging hard to it, but you’re missing out on the opportunity to engage in that level of self-care that only comes with self-esteem where you speak with and listen with love to yourself.

If when things piss you off and disappoint you, or you make a mistake, you switch on the background music of “Why Can’t You Just Get Your Sh*t Together?” or “Shouldn’t You Know Better By Now?” or “I Can’t Believe You’re So Effin Stupid” or “I Knew You’d Eff This Up” or “You’re no good / good for nothing” and other such tracks from your Greatest (S)hits Collection, how the hell can you have any self-esteem left to have some perspective? Now imagine if you keep playing these tracks over and over? That’s torture.

It’s a change of habit, but it literally comes down to mentally pulling over and turning off the track and speaking mentally and verbally with yourself in more compassionate manner. And don’t pretend that you’re not capable – if you’ve ever done this with anyone else (you have), the ability exists; you just like to throw it at other people.

There’s a more balanced point of view in existence and I can assure you that it’s not the one that’s centred in this idea that ‘everything’ is about you and your fault. When you lack self-trust, you end up ruminating about the judgement’s that you think ‘everyone’ is making about you, which aside from distorting your perspective further, is really about you making judgements about you. It’s like unless you have a show of hands from everyone that something that you for instance, think about your ex is true, you won’t sleep easy at night. Isn’t your own proof good enough?

You don’t know what goes on behind closed doors – it’s best to concern yourself with what’s going on behind your own door. If you don’t like it, it’s best to show them the door and fix your broken windows. It doesn’t matter what everyone else does or might think about the same person.

Now while you have a pattern to your relationship experiences, don’t just throw them all into the relationship pot like a big fat rejection – they are all different, unique experiences, which, while they may share commonalities, have different feedback and lessons to take on board. Some are not even rejection; they’re just things not working out and for a very good reason that has nothing to do with your worth as a person anyway. You’re just not that powerful.

You don’t equal the relationship, so it ending or not coming to be, cannot correlate directly to your worth as a person.

Unless you’re going out with yourself, to persist in absorbing all of the blame and being “Oh I’m so rejectionable” is to neglect the existence of of the other party. If it’s all about you, where do they fit in? Why are they being left intact by you while you’ll bust yourself up? It (the relationship) is broken, you’re not.

Your ‘rejections’ may all look the same because you tell yourself the same message afterwards – that you’re not good enough, you’ve been rejected, you’ve failed, you’re not up to standard, etc. – but they are not the same and it will serve you well to distinguish between them as it will help you to not only deal with each experience, but to cut to the heart of the original rejection and overcome it.

Were there code amber or red issues? Did you have different core values? With just one of these issues alone, if you let go of the idea that it’s all about you for more than a few minutes or hours, and use the insights you gain by acknowledging the presence of the issue(s) and what they mean about the relationship, or your hopes for one, or the person, not only do you stand to gain perspective, but you only stand to gain from the lessons learned.

Hearing or experiencing NO doesn’t mean you’re not good enough or that you’re not supposed to have a relationship (or a job etc) ever, ever again; it means that you can and will have a healthy relationship (if it’s what you want) but just not this way or with this person. Take some time out, gain positive lessons and then try again with your new insight applied.

Your thoughts?

Check out my book and ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl.

When Your Ex Returns AGAIN, It’s An Opportunity To Do Right By You

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 21:02:11 +0000

Five years ago, a reader got in touch after her Returning Childhood ‘Sweetheart’ breezed back into her life after nearly 20 years, Future Faked and Fast Forwarded her off her feet, gradually started to blow lukewarm, then cold, and then unceremoniously dumped her for a woman closer to home because he couldn’t handle the long distance…even though she was moving there. Devastated, as she thought this was her second chance after nearly a decade long dating hiatus, she couldn’t comprehend how he could bust her heart into a million pieces all over again. Yet would you believe it, just like Mike Myers in Halloween, this man is back for a third attempt.

Now at this point, there are two paths to choose between: the path of least resistance, or change? So what do you think happened next?

She went down the path of least resistance, re-engaged, and started contemplating a third future with him. He admitted that he has issues (no sh*t Sherlock) but then made no indication of whether he is dealing with them and in fact seems resigned to them. When he got in touch the second time, it was after his divorce and this time, he’s got in touch after his relationship with the woman he left he for has ended. Flattering, not. He doesn’t really have anything to offer, he hasn’t dealt with the issues that broke their relationship, he doesn’t like to be alone, and he’s basically looking for a quick fix from the woman he can always rely on to get a good reception.

I was horrified that she would actually even contemplate putting her hand back in the fire again, not least because this man has had her heart and her hurt for all of her adult life. Where does this end? She’s not alone – I heard from a reader who has been doing this for fifty years.

As I was shoving stuff into the washing machine, I thought of this woman’s mother who passed away recently and made her promise that she’d go and live her life. I then thought of some of the very heart-wrenching comments and emails that I read from so many others in the same situation and then it came to me:

When your ex who broke your heart for whatever reason, comes back into your life, it’s an opportunity, just not for what you think.

As I said to her “He could equally be back to give you an opportunity to make things right with you and knock this whole palaver squarely on the head. It’s a test of your resolve, your emotional backbone, and an opportunity for you to gain closure, not so much on him (although this will be gained), but also on the things that have rumbled around in your head all of these years. You have an opportunity to grab your regrets and knock the wind out of their sails.” This could be you.

Life keeps throwing you the same lessons until you heed them – what are you supposed to be learning here? What have you learned that you need to apply to this situation?

Just because they’re back, it doesn’t mean that you’re supposed to get back together – it’s an opportunity to close the door, firmly. It’s an opportunity to apply the insights you’ve gained since your last go round into affirmative, empowering action.

You can never have too much regrets when you’re willing to listen to yourself and the feedback from your life and grow as an individual – regret kicks in when time passes and you find yourself in the same situation and you realise that your mentality and what you’re doing hasn’t changed.

If you’ve blamed yourself during an ex’s absence and in spite of their actions, denied, rationalised, minimised, and excused very obvious indications of why you’re not supposed to be together, you are highly likely to miss out on this valuable opportunity because you’re too busy trying to be the exception to the rule and have your fantasy ‘ending’.

I recently heard from a Mr Unavailable, who was gutted after making a bid for his second go round nearly forty years after cheating on his ex and finding himself blocked and with a warning from the po-po not to get in touch again. He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t just inject himself into her life and have an attempt to redeem himself. He had his chance, it’s over, and it’s just not flattering to think that someone has nothing better to do with their time whether it’s been months or years, to do nothing but hope you might show up one day with a text, email, or even friend request on Facebook!

When you feel helpless to life, it’s easy to think that another entity with their own agenda that keeps showing up because they have the tenacity of a cockroach after a nuclear bomb, is where you’re destined and that it’s a sign of their love.

What it is a sign of, is that when they go through their mental Roladex of who is most likely to still hold them in high regard because they’re living in the past, they think of you. They tend to get in touch after they’ve hurt someone else, so that you can pump them up and give them a clean bill of health, like “Look, I’m not that bad! My ex who I’ve effed over a few times will still give me the time of day!” Then they launch themselves into their next relationship.

You have an opportunity. Use it well. You can draw a line under this and handle them with the high esteem you only wish you could have had the last time, or you can go for a repeat. You can give them all the power for how your life will be, or you can grab it back. Remember that nobody can breeze up in your life time and again and wreak havoc in it without your consent. They will stop contacting when you stop engaging because you’re no longer granting them access.

When life throws you lemon exes, make lemonade and squeeze them out of your life.

Oh and you’ll be pleased to know that the reader has flushed.

Your thoughts?

Check out my book and ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl.

Let The Breakup Bonfire Burn – You Can Control How Much More Pain You Experience Post Breakup

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:48:39 +0000

When you break up with someone, there’s the ‘dreaded’ pain that follows along with white space opening up where you thought you had a shared future. There’s likely a delayed reaction and it may take a day or few, or even a week before it hits you full force that it’s over. In the days, weeks, and possibly months that follow, you have to face the loss and your feelings about it so that you can pave the way to a different and hopefully better relationship. From Day Zero of your breakup, in the seconds, minutes, hours, and then days and weeks that pass, you, by way of your actions and mentality, have an opportunity to limit the amount of pain that you experience.

The limitation doesn’t happen due to you avoiding your feelings or trying to have your ex on some terms rather than no terms; it’s directly influenced by:

1) Whether you accept that the relationship is over and validate the reasons for it..even if you don’t like them.

2) How much you let your life spiral. The more it derails, the more things you have to deal with.

3) How soon you start to nurture you and allow the present to infiltrate your life – The happier you are with other areas of your life has a huge impact. If there’s problems with work, family, or even a current separation, you’re likely to attempt to avoid another problem or loss to deal with, to give yourself an illusion of control.

4) How much you blame and even punish you – if you absorb all of the blame, you are guaranteed an immense amount of pain. Don’t engage in blame – engage in honest responsibility and accountability.

5) How much access you provide to your ex, including type of contact you have and the frequency, sleeping together, ego stroking, lending money or trying to get it back, trying to get back even the most piffling of possessions etc. Less access, less pain.

6) Whether you internalise the breakup and make a judgement about you, which in turn negatively affects your self-esteem. Overcoming a breakup is hugely dependent on your self-esteem – you either need to have it, or you need to use the breakup as an opportunity to start developing it. Chasing someone down will not give you self-esteem – it will break it.

7) Whether you become trapped in and blinded by your feelings. If you do things that you later view as at best embarrassing and at their worst humiliating, you may feel compelled to return to the relationship to justify your actions, which will actually only make things worse.

How much time and energy is spent trying to have an illusion of control by tracking them on Facebook, Twitter, dating sites, or tapping up colleagues and mutual friends for info. Cut this stuff off – it’s like torture.

9) How much you occupy your life and how you cope with boredom, off days, conflict with other people – coming to a standstill, not having productive uses for your mind and time to reduce rumination, being unable to deal with the inevitable bad days and weeks that everyone has, and not being able to handle criticism and conflict, are often enough to trigger a fall off the wagon. Learn how to deal with these and you won’t try to self-soothe on your pain source.

10) Whether you’re still dealing with old losses and hurts that you’ve been avoiding by bouncing from relationship to relationship. If you have, you’ll find that breakups reopen old wounds and because they appear to be similar (they’re not – each experience is unique), you’ll react to the old hurts and what you feel is more messaging, instead of dealing with the current situation.

What all of these factors tell you, is that while you can’t control or change the fact that the relationship has ended or that you’re going to experience some pain, discomfort, and change, what you can control is how much more pain you experience as a result of what you choose to heap onto the experience.

Breakups are a bit like having a bonfire.

If you date, live, and love with your self-esteem in tow, while you’ll still be hurt after a breakup and it’ll take a while to get over it, all that is on the fire is that relationship. You have your memories, maybe some possessions that you keep back, but that part of your life is over – you don’t allow them to have an inflated amount of space in your mind or in your life by letting them or you keep a foothold.

You watch the fire burn for a while, weep, wail, eat your weight in brie, chocolate, and ice-cream or lose your appetite, spend a bit too much time in bed, pull a few sickies with work or take a well needed break, spend more time with your family/friends, try not to think about the relationship too much but then sometimes have conversations with yourself, and sometimes you have a damn good cry in the toilet cubicle at work and then have to leave when someone comes up in and does a #2 and you’re forced to leave or choke. Maybe you meet your ex for a last chat or for a catch up or to give back keys and life gradually starts to move on. The fire isn’t roaring and it’s beginning to burn down to its embers. In time, it will go out. Sometimes you don’t realise that it’s gone out until you look up from enjoying your life.

That is of course, unless you just won’t let the fire die because you keep throwing stuff on there to reignite it and fan the flames.

When your breakup bonfire starts, it’s actually catching on to the embers that you’ve been stoking from previous breakups and experiences – you’re already in pain and now you have even more pain. You keep thinking that the way to stop the pain is to get the validation you want – unfortunately, it just ends up creating further experiences to add on to the fire. Sometimes, it’s like you’re throwing fat or petrol on there.

Just as the embers are going out, you panic that the embers are going out and how it means that you’ll need to have a new purpose and focus on you, so you throw some stuff on it like a text, email, drunken phone call or showing up at the bar where they hang, and you feel better temporarily. You may feel so angry with yourself and may even be carrying anger towards others, that you throw open your proverbial storage shed and bring out blame and shame that you rescued from previous fires and throw that on there as well, which just adds even more pain.

Eventually you have to realise that if you want it to stop, that you’ve got to stop trying to keep the fire alive, stop trying to change the nature of the fire, and let it burn out so that you can face you, your present and your future.

You need to be helping you, not setting yourself back. It’s one thing if you give someone a second chance especially when it’s grounded in sound judgement, but it’s another thing when you keep returning to the same painful situation again and again and again, because you won’t let it burn and give your ego the opportunity to cope with and come out the other side. The more you keep going back, is the more it will feel like Day 5 or 10 or 30 even though months or even years have gone by.

Let it burn – I now have that Usher song stuck in my head.

Grieve the loss of your relationships and let them go. It doesn’t mean that you erase all memories both good and bad, but what it does mean, is that you say goodbye to that chapter of your life so you can say hello to the next one.

Your thoughts?

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Dating, singles, relationships, sex tips and advice blog for men and women.

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