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

Who Is The Designated Expert On You? Er, Yeah…It Had BETTER Be You

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:33:53 +0000

If you were asked who knows you best, who can tell you who you are, who knows how to make you feel good, and who can tell you what’s right and wrong for you, what would your answer be? If it doesn’t start and end with you, it’s saying that you have designated someone, possibly even a few or many people, to be the expert(s) on you.

They are your thought leader, opinion maker, instruction manual, personal mission statement, evaluator, coach, quality assurer, armchair psychologist, consultant, and authority on you. They are your designated expert.

It’s good to have people in your life that you have mutually fulfilling relationships with that you can bounce ideas back and forth with, seek advice, listen to feedback, and feel a high level of trust in that what they say is with careful consideration and thought that has you and your best interests at the heart of it – but they can’t live your life for you. They can’t make you ‘whole’, tell you how to be ‘good enough’, and do all the hard work of figuring out your life for you and making it all right. Even if they can help on this front, you still have to do the grunt work.

You can of course pay people for their expertise or find authorities on certain aspects of your life such as career, interests etc, but even then, aside from ensuring that they are qualified, authoritative and capable of their role, they still can’t create your life for you because you are the one who has to reflect their guidance in your actions and mentality plus you would still have the right to tweak and customise to suit you.

When couples assume that they know it all, they become complacent, forgetting that while it won’t be at the same rate as it was in the early days, that there’s always new things to be learned about our partners.

When individuals assume that others know it all, they become helpless and dependent on external sources of validation, which is like living your life hooked up to a ventilator or life support – you’re letting other people do your functioning for you. Lose them, lose your purpose, lose your identity.

What I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt is that only someone who is shady would be happy occupying the expert role in your life on a full time basis – for everyone else it starts to feel exhausting, draining and even suffocating. People who genuinely love, care about, and respect you, will want you to make up your own mind and for you to be you…not them.

Ironically, some of the very people that you seek ‘expertise’ from are not even experts in their own lives. There’s a disconnect between their actions, words, and values they profess to have and they’re possibly even deluded about who they really are – they may think that the sun shines out of their ass, possibly because you’ve stuck a pump up there and keep inflating them into someone who they’re not, which will only be exacerbated by you anointing them as an expert. It’s also why you won’t see through their bullshit because you’ll be too busy idolising them and imagining being a ‘better’ person by proxy.

There’s nothing more uncertain than a life based on the whims, opinions and agendas of other people.

If you offload the highest ranking expert role to other people, you immediately communicate that your own mind and opinion has no value. If you offload the responsibility to people who are actually under-qualified to be an expert on you in the first place, you also communicate that you’re malleable and an ideal ‘mark’ for being taken advantage of, or even abused.

I have people around me that know me very well and who I trust, but I know me and my own mind and have a final say on who I am and what I do. Any choices I make, any perception I have of me, is rooted in what I have learned about me. People can tell me things, but I’m not so desperate to offload my interior that I can be told something and then shelve my own thoughts to replace them with someone else’s.

Who are you giving the final say on who you are and what you do to? If you are in unhealthy relationships and are unhappy, you are giving everyone else but yourself the final say. You are not making your decisions and you’re not validating you.

Bearing in mind how caught up we all are in ourselves, it’s also important to remember that often, people who struggle with empathy, will tell you what to be and do based on their own insecurities instead of thinking of you.

If you don’t know who you are, and you’d be amazed at the sheer volume of people that admit this to me, it’s time you found out. Fast. Many people when given the chance to sit with their own thoughts and spend time in their own company, get ‘itchy’ and have to seek out something external to scratch it…and wind up in problems again.

If you can’t take the time to spend 3, 6 or even 12 months making a positive investment in you by getting to know you and building upon what you learn, you have no business chasing a relationship – it’s the equivalent of chasing someone to mould you. It’s also desperate.

Show up as a fully formed person instead of someone with a person shaped hole. Be the lead expert on you.

Open up your mind and become acquainted with all of your feelings, good, bad, and indifferent. Discover what you want to be, where you want to go, what you want to do, and how you’re going to get there. What are your values? Find out and then look at the ways in which you can live a life that reflects those values. Boundaries?

What makes you happy? What makes you sad? What doesn’t work for you? You have a life resume to work from to give you some vital clues. Think of times that you’ve been really happy for more than a few moments – write them down. Why were you happy? Are there other times that you’ve felt similarly? Do you have hobbies, interests, ambitions, plans, goals? Have you forgotten these while chasing tail and validation? If you have none of these, get them.

What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? We all have them – accepting that you have them and working with them to lessen the impact and even improve them is pivotal instead of writing yourself off. Learn how to make a decision. Find out what your ‘hooks’ are so that you recognise where you need to be extra self-aware.

Ask yourself:

What have I done for me lately?

What do I think, need and want? You do know that it’s not just about what others think, need, and want…don’t you?

Be committed to you because being an expert at anything requires commitment, which is all the more reason why you should never allow someone who isn’t a committed, loving, caring, trustworthy stakeholder in a relationship with you, whether it’s in a friendly, familial, or romantic relationship capacity, have any expertise and decision making responsibilities in your life, unless they’re going to give you the down low on how to get rid of them out of your life…

If you’re trying to have relationships without your own life in hand, you’re effectively looking around for someone to make your life for you – that’s just too much to expect. Become the expert on you and stop letting everyone else pull your strings – if anyone is going to have their hand up the backside of your life and be behind the controls, it’s got to be you.

Your thoughts?

Chasing Crumbs & Perfection: In Pursuit of The Fantasy

Natalie (NML) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:15:14 +0000

Imagine an existence with…

No responsibility.
No accountability.
No conflict.
No problems.
No rejection.
No mistakes.
No risk.
No failure.
No fear.
No ‘abandonment’.
No disappointment.

No uncomfortable feelings.
Permanent fluffy clouds, joy, and cuddles.
Complete control of everything.

For some, what I’ve just described would be a perfect existence. However, if you want a life without all of these things, it doesn’t exist… unless you’re in a fantasy relationship, which to be fair, doesn’t exist either.

In reality, the very things that you desire in a fantasy relationship, whether it’s consciously or unconsciously, mean this:

No responsibility —> No achievement, no stake in anything whether it’s good, bad, or indifferent, no remorse.
No accountability —> No ownership (you can’t just own the convenient and good stuff), no honest account of your experiences, no growth.
No conflict —> No voice, no resolution, no judgement which may simply come down to judging the situation and making a decision, no growth.
No problems —> No opportunities, no differentiation, no stretching, no opportunity to deal with a problem and be proud of having made yourself a part of the solution and come out the other side.
No rejection —> No acceptance, no limits, no deciding what you say YES and NO to.
No mistakes —> No feedback, no learning, no awareness.
No risk —> No stretching, no gains, no pushing, no ambition, no trust, no common sense, no managed risks through intelligence, awareness, observation and action.
No failure —> No success, no joy.
No fear —> No drive, no ambition, no healthy fear, no vulnerability, no new experiences.
No ‘abandonment’ —> No personal security or security with another discovered through mutual trust, no strength, no thriving and surviving, no being in control of whether you stay or leave. And no, you don’t need abandonment in your life, but yes, sometimes people will decide to leave a relationship.
No disappointment —> No surprises, including the very pleasant and wonderful ones.

No uncomfortable feelings –> No outstanding feelings – it would be like having static, flatlining feelings.
Permanent fluffy clouds, joy, and cuddles —> No contrast, no seasons, no down time to rise up again.
Complete control of everything —> No-one else has responsibility, accountability, or free will – it would just be you at the controls and dials. Yep…it would all be on you.

This right here is what fantasy relationships and fantasising are about – avoidance, except for the only thing is that you end up avoiding life itself, which means that you miss out on the wonderful aspects of life that come along with being present and accountable. With the exception of abandonment, everything else are necessary parts of life.

You may not even recognise that you’re in a fantasy relationship but if you tend to build sandcastles in the sky, are cloaked in illusions, and are very comfortable living off a diet of denial, rationalising, minimising, and excuses, you’re at the very least dabbling, if not knee deep in spending too much time out of reality.

In truth, you’re pursuing perfection and the relationship you claim to want, out of crumbs. Nirvana for you may equal getting love against the odds – putting a dodgy relationship through the fantasy oven and pulling out what you want – the fantasy.

Whatever type of relationship you’re in, as an individual you have to be responsible, accountable, deal with mistakes, conflict etc – you can’t cherry pick a rosy life, although you can lessen stuff like rejection and the impact of it, plus the results of unhealthy relationships by ensuring that you hold your own.

You may recognise that there are things that you really want, but you’d rather skip over the possibility of going by Junction Conflict on the M Dating Motorway or Junction Mistake, or Junction Rejection. What we all fail to remember sometimes, is that conflict is unavoidable even when we attempt to compromise ourselves to keep the peace, mistakes are unavoidable end of, and yes, you might have to come off at Junction Rejection sometimes, but you might not.

If you’re not out there in the first place, how will you know what you stand to miss or gain? Yes, you have been hurt before, but it’s up to you to decide if you’re going to pursue the same route or variations of it, or set out a new route – you could be out there with your eyes and ears open with your boundaries, values, and awareness of when to fold packed into your ‘life kit’.

You get to choose. You can be in control of what you want to be part of – this can’t happen if you’re immersed in LaLa Land.

The other thing that’s often forgotten is that yes, sometimes the other party will take you off at Junction Rejection, but actually, you’re a person with choices and rights too – you might want to take yourself off there because you are not a passenger waiting for people to choose you even when you don’t really want them.

It is a fantasy to persist in believing that you can scrape around on the fringes of life avoiding anything that represents the more uncomfortable aspects of life. It’s also a fantasy to persist in pursuing a relationship that you know represents unhealthy in the hopes that by putting it all on them to make it right, or putting it all on you to be the match that spontaneously combusts them into someone else, that they’ll change. It’s also a fantasy to go with variations of the same type of person – like gradients of the same issue, convincing yourself that ‘this’ is better than the last person and that you can ‘handle it’.

All this fantasising gives the illusion of feeling and being certain things, however by not participating in and nourishing your life, you’re creating problems and pain for yourself as a consequence of choices directly related to your fantasising and refusal to take action in reality, which is self-rejection.

I went to a meditation workshop this past weekend and the teacher explained how mindfulness is about not trying to anticipate what’s next and not worrying about what might happen or isn’t happening. This makes sense to me because people in fantasy relationships can’t handle the ‘now’ that represents reality.

What are you so afraid of facing? What are you so desperate to avoid in real life that you’d mentally check yourself into an unavailable relationship that gives you enough free time to fill up your imagination with the relationship you’re not getting in the real world?

Interestingly, when you go to the trouble of avoiding reality, you have the illusion of being in with a chance of winning the long-shot relationship, but the very real problems that happen in your life are not caused by reality – they’re caused by the effect of you acting in sync with your fantasising which can have you engaging in some very self-destructive behaviour.

Think about it: Which one is causing you more problems – pursuing the fantasy or the reality that you’re going to painstaking lengths to avoid but is continuing to happen anyway?

It’s time to re-engage with yourself and your life, and yes, initially, because you’ve left your life unattended, there are some uncomfortable things to face and feel, and it’s going to hurt, possibly a lot. Don’t fear it – grab it, face it, grieve it, deal with what has brought you to this juncture – something has.

Aside from taking steps to distance yourself from anything or anyone that acts as a ‘prop’ to your fantasising and where needed seeking professional support, what you should invest in, is spending some time learning how to deal with the very things that you avoid.

Let.Go. This will allow you to focus your energies positively on you instead of fighting so hard for something, that doesn’t exist. With distance comes objectivity comes reality. With boundaries, those you give yourself and others, also comes reality.

Your thoughts?

Also check out my posts on Letting Go of a Relationship That Didn’t Exist and Dropping The Illusions To Be Action Focused

Are You Waiting To Be Chosen? Why It’s Time To Put Away Your Choose Me Stick

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:51:25 +0000

When I listen to people explain their frustrations with dating or how they’re feeling rejected after a possible date didn’t materialise, or not getting past a date or few with someone, what I realise is some of us are waiting to be chosen.

In these situations, the dynamic is imbalanced from the outset because you’re putting your fate into someone else’s hands, because you assume that if they choose you that it’s something you want to be in, and on the flipside you assume that if you’re not chosen that it must definitely have been a relationship you should have had.

The trouble with all of this is you’re not showing up as someone who is holding their own and owning their right to choose and go through the discovery phase of dating. Instead, you’re taking a more passive role where you’re happy to be the passenger on whatever journey the driver takes you on, just as long as they take you on a journey and keep driving. If ‘chosen’ for their journey, you may be happy to make their agenda your agenda, or you’ll privately decide that when you’ve got your feet well and truly under the proverbial table, that you’ll be so valued and loved, that they’ll be willing to change.

In effect, it’s like handing over a Choose Me Stick – when someone is in possession of it, they have the power to choose you, validate you, and even shape you.

Why? Because when you’re not showing up to your dates and relationships as an equal party with their eyes and ears open with the right to choose, the only choice you have is to subconsciously and possibly even consciously adapt your behaviour to increase the chances of being chosen.

Think about it: While it’s very possible that initially you might be yourself, as soon as you start to feel like they’re ‘pulling away’, or you’ve already stuck your pump on them and started inflating who they are so that you can think that they’re way more special than they actually are while they look down on you from that pedestal. If what’s on your mind is to be chosen, then you’re going to reflect that in your behaviour which essentially boils down to being and doing things that contradict your values to hold onto someone you haven’t positively chosen, at all costs.

Whatever it is, you change, morph, adapt, twist, and contort to be chosen. You also go into a holding pattern circling over the possibility of the relationship that you want, hoping that air traffic control will give you the signal that you can land and take up your slot.

Waiting for someone to make you a priority, to proceed to a relationship, to not breakup, to leave a different partner, or whatever it is that you’re waiting to be chosen for, just de-prioritises you. If you prioritised you, you’d never be in a situation where someone not only has the power to decide your fate, but to leave a crater sized hole in your life, because by handing out so much power, you’re bound to feel very rejected when it all goes tits up.

When you’re not co-choosing in a mutually beneficial relationship, it all becomes about one person working harder than the other, which by default assigns greater ‘value’ – they’re just not that special.

You may go for the easy, low-hanging fruit option and choose people that you perceive as being more likely to be with you. It could be that you recognise certain things that would register as issues to avoid with someone else, but you see it as an opportunity. Of course, when it doesn’t pan out, it’s like “I can’t believe someone like them doesn’t want me – what’s wrong with me?”

Or you’ll choose a challenge in the form of someone who you think is unlikely to choose you, which may be simply based on the fact that you’d have to convince them to make you the exception to their rule of being unavailable.

Waiting to be chosen is a bit like how some people go about job hunting – they put so much energy into being the right person for the job, it’s assumed that it’s the right job for them. Interview processes do actually involve you evaluating whether it’s the right job for you, which will arise from the questions you ask and what you glean during the interview process plus any other research you do. Instead they get the job offer and then start evaluating whether it’s actually the right opportunity for them. If they don’t get the job, some take it as a huge blow of rejection.

Of course it’s not as great an issue with your job hunting unless you end up miserable in a job that you knew wasn’t right for you but felt compelled to take it because you were asked, or you feel blah about your career, or you end up floating around getting job offers but never staying in a job for any decent length of time and always have a foot out the door…

With dating and relationships, once you start dipping into the Illusions Account, the High Growth Sexual Activity Fund and start planning a future around this idea of what it’ll be like to be The Chosen One, you can see why you will struggle to deal with rejection.

We don’t spend enough time asking if it’s the right job for us, just like we don’t ask if it’s the right relationship for us. It’s like there’s a job going that’s in your field – you want it. Someone in your common interests, appearance or whatever ‘field’ has a vacancy, you’re on it without even truly evaluating what the ‘opportunity’ is. “I’m on it! I’m on it!”

You’re just not that desperate.You technically have a ‘vacancy’ too – surely you don’t want to give it to any ‘ole muppet off this street?

One of the things that job interviews and eventually dating and relationships taught me, is that anything that you get ‘rejected’ by through the process of not being ‘chosen’, there’s normally a very good reason why you wouldn’t have chosen them either. The overwhelming majority of the time, you are already aware of these reasons, it’s just that you get sidetracked by your ego that needs that gold star of someone choosing you. It’s like “I want to be chosen so I have the option of telling them to bog off.”

Newsflash – you have that option already.

What may come as a surprise to you is that your ego needs you to own your power and get on with your life, more than it needs you to bust your proverbial balls, hollow yourself out, or ruminate yourself into a Ph.D on A.N. Other so that you can figure out why you weren’t chosen to be on the rowing team of a boat you don’t even want to be on, or a boat that you’ve already worked out is a bad ride and that you need to get the hell out of.

I’m thankful that whether it was through actions or ego, that I eventually steered myself out of various dodgy dating situations. I’m also thankful that I wasn’t ‘chosen’ for certain relationships – when I was ready to own my power, it left me free to choose and be chosen for a relationship I genuinely wanted for healthy reasons.

This is your life – you must be the primary driver of your choices. Hold your own and put away your Choose Me Stick and stop playing a role in life that says “How can I be the right one for you?” You have control over what you do and don’t participate in – choose (positively) instead of letting life happen to you!

Your thoughts?

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

Which Do You Prefer – The Problem or The Solution?

Natalie (NML) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:39:53 +0000

Recently an acquaintance was struggling with a technical issue at work. I offered to take a look, expecting to spend a 10-15 minutes checking it out. They immediately took me up on my offer, while wasting no time informing me that it was a waste of time. “Oh OK then – I’ll leave you to it” I said, only for them to backtrack. After a quick fiddle around with it, they asked if we could have a quick call – one hour of basically saying over and over again that they’d “tried that”, they’d done “everything possible”, and essentially telling me that they didn’t think that it could be resolved. Every.single.last.suggestion was shot down and during and after the conversation (I use that word loosely), I couldn’t help but wonder:

If you think that you know it all, or that you’ve done it all, or that nothing else can be done, why are we having this discussion? Why are you trying? Why are you appearing to be searching for a solution? Or are you just going through the motions so you can tick off your effort checklist?

In truth, it was much closer to them being genuinely frustrated by the issue and wanting a solution, but based on what they’d done up to that point, they believed this to be ‘everything’ and they’d actually gotten very comfortable complaining rather than doing. Interestingly, with a bit of delving, it seemed that they’d been doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Sound familiar?

Why do we basically engage in insanity in these situations? Because we’ve gotten behind a course of action, which in spite of the fact that it’s not working and that there are in fact compelling reasons to change, we still believe that we are ‘right’ or at least that we have exhausted everything in our power.

Some people are happier, or at least more content, putting their energy into defining and talking about the problem, than they are at seeking out and trying solutions. It gives an illusion of busyness.

Some people are also happier trying out one or a few solutions and then if it doesn’t work or proves to be trickier and more ‘resource hungry’ than expected, writing off their efforts and deeming the search for a solution to be a failure.

When the term ‘self-esteem’ is mentioned followed by anything to do with opting out of unhealthy partnerings, I often hear the stock phrase of “Easier said than done.” What does this even mean? Isn’t everything easier said than done until it’s done?

I talk with some people about their relationships and everything has an objection. Everything. Now when you think about the fact that this essentially boils down to objecting to yourself, you can see how self-defeating this is. How can you in one breath call someone an assclown and rattle off a list of misdemeanours that are scary to hear never mind experience, and then in the next breath object to the validation of how shady the person’s behaviour was and then even try to fend it off by suggesting ‘good points’ or pitching excuses?

When you spend a lot of time and energy diagnosing the problem and complaining about it, and then shoot down any solutions and pooh pooh anything that doesn’t let you remain in your comfort zone, it’s the equivalent of saying “Jaysus, when I was complaining, I wasn’t actually looking to do anything! Whadaya take me for? I’m just blowing off some steam and getting validation that the situation is shite/a pain in the bum/futile/whatever.”

You’ll know you’re a shooter of solutions, if aside from saying guff like “Easier said than done”, you also say:

Yeah I’ve tried that – Really? Did you try it a different way? How long was it for? Isn’t it a bit like going up to a door, trying it to unlock it and then declaring that the door is broken when there is not only a pile of alternative keys behind you or even another way in, plus there are people on the other side of the door, so obviously it opens?

It’s too hard – Why because it’s not easy or even instant?

It won’t work – But you’re not saying what will – you’ve already resigned yourself to a helpless outcome.

The town/city is the problem because X,Y,Z – Then a suggestion is made to move. You can’t because it won’t sell. Rent? Nobody rents (really in the entire place where you live?) House swap? Oh no you couldn’t let anyone in the house you don’t like anyway. Or you can’t move because it would be too hard, or people wouldn’t like it. In fact, insert any objection like “too old”, “too late”, too this and too that and put down all of your objections.

The last chance saloon has gone – How do you know – because you decided? So what happens next?

It won’t help – Well if you know why it won’t help, suggest an alternative.

I won’t meet anyone anyway – Well it doesn’t sound like you’re planning to!

But it’s me, isn’t it? I’m the problem (After being told that someone else’s behaviour was out of order.) – Somehow, you manage to bring it back to you, even when it’s about them.

This is all dismissive talk that allows you to stay and complain. It’s draining to be on the receiving end of, but it can be pretty draining to engage in it. Listening to it is like being in Groundhog Day – all routes lead back to “It won’t work” and “I’m not good enough.”

Ever picked up a self-help guide with exercises and tips and skipped them? Is it that you think you know everything? Or do you think it won’t work anyway? Or do you expect change to happen in your comfort zone without you stretching yourself?

You’re painting yourself into a corner. The truth is, you haven’t seen it all, you haven’t ‘done’ everything, and you definitely don’t know everything. None of us do, even the person that you believe is the most intelligent person to walk the earth continues to seek new knowledge and try new things – from the moment one starts assuming they know everything, they haven’t got anything left to do, which may suit you if you’re avoiding action…

If you take up a position of complaining and repeatedly expressing dissatisfaction, it gives the impression that you’re unhappy and would like to change the situation – not just to others, but also to yourself.

When it becomes apparent that you’re not an action person, over time it damages your credibility – you’ll give the impression you just want to sound off or even empty out on those around you, which eventually becomes draining. On a personal level, it’s also likely to fuel blame, shame, and regret, as you begin to recognise that you’ve been talking yourself out of exacting change in your life and that you’re not able to rely on you.

Don’t let complaining about your life be your purpose. What can you do? What are your alternatives? What do you know for next time round? What is working in your life?

It’s fine to identify problems in your life, but don’t become so enmeshed in complaining about them or even making them your identity, that you become inactive and stop assuming the responsibility that you actually have for your life. Just as you can be a part of the problem, you can be a part of the solution – devote your energy to the solution. Don’t palm off issues and make out like it’s all on someone else or external factors for your life to be better or that if you have to be responsible, then it’s ‘impossible’ or at least very hard – which would you prefer? Sympathy or happiness?

Your thoughts?

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

The Truth About Porkies: Are you comfortable with being lied to?

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:06:35 +0000

Recently, BR reader Magnolia shared a lengthy quote on lying from which the first line stuck out for me“As soon as there is any kind of deception, stop everything.” (source: Boundaries in Dating) Experience has taught me and so many others, that when you’re eager to date at any cost, you don’t trust yourself, and you’re actually willing to participate in an unhealthy relationship, you don’t stop everything – you continue.

What this immediately communicates is that you’re very receptive to lies, which may shock you if you consider yourself to be a very honest person. It’s important to remember though, that honesty isn’t just about saying that you’re an honest person or believing you’re beacon of goodness while hanging out with a shady crowd and putting yourself on an honesty pedestal.

Honesty involves being prepared to hear and say things that make you uncomfortable, with respect. It also includes respecting reality.

Lying and our acceptance of it from others is about our own moral compass and where we are on the scale of acceptance of reality. When we accept lies, on some level we recognise we’re telling a few porkies of our own.

A lie is a deliberately false statement.

There is a tendency for us to become preoccupied with ‘intention’ in relationships but if your relationship and any perceptions you have about it is based on illusions, fantasy, denial, excuses etc, the whole situation is founded on a mistaken impression.

Intention is all about acting with conscious purpose. We can always rationalise that it wasn’t our (or their) intention to lie or that we’ve even lied with ‘good intentions’, but sometimes that’s a lie too.

The reason why liars can convince is because they insert a smattering of truth to make the lie plausible.

When you’re receptive to a lie, it’s plausible because it makes your own illusions plausible. The smattering of truth may also only be true when it suits the context of your illusions.

Example: They tell you a lie about how busy they are, pressure yada yada yada as to why they’ve been unavailable.

They have been busy (possibly) although they may be busy doing someone else or living up their backside, but it’s not the reason why they’re treating you as they are. It’s plausible however, because some of the busyness may be real but also because accepting the lie means that the illusion that they care and that this relationship is going somewhere can continue.

Lies are like weeds – let one in, more will grow. Admittedly also similar with rats and cockroaches…

What would you do if you had started dating someone and discovered that they’d been lying to you? Would you stay? Or would you go? Just so you know, this is false representation. Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that sometimes people panic, feel nervous, insecure or whatever, however what you immediately learn, especially if it’s more than one lie, is that they lie when under pressure or fearing being out of control, and more importantly, they don’t seem to think you have a right to make choices under honest conditions.

If someone told you they were going to be and do certain things and it didn’t come to pass, what would you do? Hang around and act like a bailiff collecting on a fantasy debt? Or force your feet back into reality and opt out? Talking up a future to gain an advantage in the present is Future Faking. If they put some intense action behind it, it’s also Fast Forwarding.

What would you do if someone lied, ‘confessed’ to ‘all’ the lies, then later down the line you discover that there’s more lies? Would you wait for the next dripfeed? Or would you bounce them and exit back to reality?

If you don’t exit on immediate recognition of dripfeeding, it’s like giving someone the controls to your life to paint your reality for you and then they keep changing the ‘set’ with each new revelation.

If someone told you that they lied to you because you might not have gone out with them, or you’d have left, what would you do? Rationalise it and even feel flattered? Or feel duped and even violated? When you’re lied to, so that you’re prevented from making honest decisions, it’s obtaining goods by deception.

What would you do if someone said something to you that you recognised as being untrue? Would you recognise what this means, process it, and apply it into your action? Or would you play Columbo investigating the crap out of them or even worse, investigating yourself for reasons to blame you?

When someone says something to you that’s untrue and you know it, either because it’s all or partially untrue (that’s enough), this is mind f•ckery, especially if they deny it, which is gaslighting. It’s use of The Outrageous Principle. This relies on the recipient of the lie having their own issues with honesty – lack of self-esteem and self-trust means that you quickly offload what you know to be true, to accept their lie so that you can proceed.

They (the liar ) need to have an almost steely confidence and lack a moral code, empathy, or remorse unless…they suddenly need to take the high road for themselves.The lie is so blatant, you suddenly think maybe it’s not a lie especially if lying so callously is something you feel that you wouldn’t do. It’s either accept the lie and realise they’re dangerous, or…lie to yourself.

Now I could go in deep on this whole lying thing, but let’s stick with the topline data:

If you accept lies in your relationship that actually change the truth of what you can assume and expect about your relationship, you basically believe that there are good reasons to lie and to even be deceived. You may even see it as a sign of ‘love’ and them being so enamoured with you, they didn’t want to risk you being in reality….

It’s time to ask yourself the crucial question: How desperate are you? Particularly if it’s a new relationship (you’re in the discovery phase anyway), what kind of frickin’ potential are you seeing in someone who is getting to know you with lies? It’s a fast slide down a slippery slope – how many excuses and lies you’re willing to put up with directly correlates to how deep you’ll get into an unhealthy or even abusive relationship.

Lies are a stop, look, listen and do not proceed until fully rectified. And/or opt out. If it’s early in the relationship or there are other examples of boundary busting behaviour, do not fear pressing your flush handle.

Particularly after you recognise that one or both of you are lying and you don’t seek to immediately rectify the situation by reconciling the lie with the truth, taking responsibility, and moving into a position of honesty – one that respects the truth – it’s game over, no credits.

There’s nowhere to go because lies on top of lies on top of more lies and beyond, just digs you further into the ‘lie hole’. As it wasn’t nipped in the bud so that your relationship could be put onto a level footing, neither of you can truly trust in yourselves or the other that the truth is now ‘out there’ between you and that you’re not lying about about the fact that you’re now being honest, or even lying to yourselves. If you’ve ever been around someone who doesn’t have a realistic vision of themselves, they can actually be very convinced of their own lies so even if you decide to stick to facts, you’ll become surplus to requirements because you’re a reality check.

It’s better to start fresh and accept no lies from yourself or others – then you know exactly where you are.

Your thoughts? (Not porkies obviously…hehe)

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

Do You Have a ‘Not Allowed To Fail’ Mentality To Dating & Relationships?

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:05:28 +0000

When I was a product design student, I learned through theory and experience that it’s better to recognise mistakes, which are actually opportunities for change, or even ‘failure’, which although it’s a lack of success, it at the same time also represents another opportunity for change. Recognising when something isn’t working and applying that knowledge was better than deciding “I am a product designer and anything I make is right and must work.”

If you’ve ever watched something like Dragon’s Den, a British show where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to millionaire investors, you’ll know that some people are so invested in the potential of their idea, in spite of external indications that they need to tweak or abandon, that they’ll sometimes sink hundreds of thousands of pounds into bonkers ideas. Well sometimes, our attitudes to relationships or our lives in general can be like this – we don’t know when to fold and we also don’t process ‘feedback‘.

Too many people operate on a ‘not allowed to fail’ mentality which heightens a fear of failure. It’s like no mistake or lack of success can be admitted, and when they eventually are, it’s taken so deeply, it’s as if they’re seen as permanent marks on your ‘relationship record’ or your ‘life record’.

If you have a ‘not allowed to fail’ mentality, when you’re dating or in a relationship and recognise that all is not well or it doesn’t work out, your attitude is like:

“I’ve… given you my time, energy, spent some money, spent some ‘attraction coins’, kissed you like my life depended on it/forced myself to feel more attracted than I actually was, had sex with you at X days/weeks/months (and just in case you didn’t know, I wouldn’t have had sex with you if I didn’t think that we were serious or had the potential to be), used up my ‘trust fund’ (I find it hard to trust and now I don’t know how I’ll trust again), believed in your potential, cared about you, put on my best drawers, given you my game face, acted like I liked things that I didn’t, shaved my legs, been on three dates with you that took up a combined total of 11 hours and 27 minutes of my life, declined a date with someone who I wasn’t interested in anyway but who I might have forced myself to be if you weren’t around, didn’t take the number of that person that smiled at me on the train the other day (they could be the fricking one and you’ve robbed me of that chance), and extended some hope and fantasy credits amongst other things – you’d better give me my bleeeeep bleeeeeep [insert expletive of choice] relationship!”

If I focused on my various dodgy relationships that I clocked up, I’d see them as ‘permanent’ and this would actually become reality because I’d be dragging around all of my baggage and showing up to my relationships believing I brought less to the table, because I had a relationship or few that didn’t work out even after I tried to bust a gut, or I was the other woman. It would be like having to go out there and date like millions of others, but having penalty points and showing up with an ankle monitor sending a beep to me every time I dare to hope or try “Don’t get too carried away Natalie – you’re a failure.”

But my mistakes and ‘failures’ aren’t permanent – they’re events in my life that I had a part in, but unlike back then where I was experiencing them or in the aftermath and seeing my eff up’s as a sign that I was indeed not good enough, a failure, and worthless, now I see them as events that taught me what I needed to know when I was ready to watch, listen, recognise, and apply.

A critical aspect of dealing with mistakes and failures, is that the period of time from recognition of an issue to decisive action shrinks and that the period of time between relationships spent dwelling on a failure, also shrinks. It’s a bit of a Goldilocks ethos – not too short (for example weeks for a serious relationship) and not too long (years, especially if the time elapsed is greater than the relationship itself).

You are far more likely to be greatly impacted by even a brief acquaintance not working out if it takes you a very long period of time before you’ll work up enough confidence and energy to try again, or if you ricochet around from relationship to relationship avoiding your pain.

Yes you could sit out your relationships and wait to have the ‘perfect conditions’ – the truth is, getting out of your comfort zone, facing your fears, and putting yourself out there again means that discomfort comes with the territory. If we could all find a relationship without risk or without even leaving the house, what an easy time we’d have but as many of you have already discovered even with online dating, there’s no such thing as ‘risk free’.

When you start to look at failure and mistakes differently, like me you’ll realise that they are and were just relationships. These guys were not my father reincarnated for me to validate myself, nor were they gods. Yes we have history, yes there were feelings, yes we could have all stood to do quite a few things differently, but it wasn’t just me in these relationships – if I failed, they failed, hence if they and everyone else can get on with their lives, so can I. So can you.

Unless two people have only ever been involved with each other, each of us have been with people, who’ve been with people, who’ve been with people. Believing that you’re a failure for making mistakes and having some failed relationships is a very distorted view.

We all have experiences where the sum of events surrounding them are ‘lacking success’ but you’re a living, breathing, human being with life in you yet, so every day presents you with opportunities to grow out of mistakes and to experience success. Writing yourself off as a ‘failure’ is a waste – what are you supposed to do with the rest of your life? Not try?

Not trying again and refusing to adapt and grow, looks more like failure than a relationship not working out.

You’re independent of the events – you are not your relationships and you’re not the other person. If your identity is intrinsically tied to these, you’re at the mercy of external factors beyond your control. This is why after a breakup, it’s the relationship that should be broken, not you.

Your mistakes and any failures (bearing in mind that with the benefit of hindsight, you’ll likely see them as blessings in (painful) disguise, pave the way to your successes. You’re allowed to fail – you can only learn from it. Don’t treat each relationship like it has to be right because of your presence – it doesn’t. Allow yourself to fail at things (and move on from them), so you can allow yourself to succeed.

Your thoughts?

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

When They’re Not Over Their Ex: A Lesson In Empathy

Natalie (NML) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:39:13 +0000

You meet someone, they ask you out, you enjoy yourself, you continue talking and spending time together, and feel the attraction and desire for a relationship building as the dates continue. Unfortunately, in spite of chemistry, common interests, apparent shared interests, direct and indirect references to the future etc, it becomes apparent that they’re not over their ex either because they tell you, or it becomes apparent through their actions.

Despite the new ‘evidence’ that scuppers your ‘case’ for a relationship, they tell you they like you a lot and that they want to be friends, even if you don’t shag. Or they try to get the fringe benefits without the relationship.

Here’s what empathy would look like: You’d put yourself in their shoes and immediately recognise that after a breakup, it’s a confusing and painful time where you go through a plethora of emotions – it’s time to get out of the way. You may even recognise that when you’re keen to avoid the hurt, it can feel oh so tempting to attach yourself to someone in the hope that they’ll distract, numb, or even excite, but you know that what they don’t do, is fix your breakup for you.

You’d recognise that not being over your ex, in whatever guise it takes, means still emotionally tied, whether it’s positively or negatively. It means that you might still be in touch with them, a reunion may still be under negotiation, and that you may be putting a lot of effort in to not making contact or swatting off their efforts.

It means thoughts popping into your head when you least expect them that you may feel like you have no control over. It means crying unexpectedly or feeling a sudden surge of anger or a deep wave of sadness.

Being empathetic means that recognising that they’re hurting but may be finding it hard to deal with it. There may have been no ill intention and that they were and are interested in you, it’s just they overestimated how ‘ready’ they are for a relationship. They thought they could handle this and didn’t want to miss out – sure you’ve met people when you’re not in the right place and been afraid of letting them go in case they get snapped up by someone else.

It’s recognising the futility of this three-in-an-emotional-bed-situation and wanting no part of it, because even though you are sympathetic and compassionate, this wouldn’t be good for them and it sure as hell wouldn’t be good for you. Of course they’re going to want to spend time and hold on to you (Who wouldn’t?!), but you have to do what they’re unable to do for themselves or you – the right and respectful thing, because you don’t do second best.

Here’s what not empathising looks like: You’d put yourself in their shoes and immediately recognise your pain and your experiences…even if their pain comes from a different place and they’ve in fact had entirely different experiences. You’d recognise that it’s a confusing and painful time, but reason that they’re ‘confused’ and that if you give them enough time, they’ll forget their ex. You recognise that it’s an emotional rollercoaster but you don’t trust your own feelings and judgement, so maybe they have it wrong too.

You may reason that you’ve often dated or even had relationships when you were still emotionally invested in an ex but you believe that the love you had to give was still a lot, even if you were divvying it up on the quiet – it’s not though; you’re overvaluing what you bring to the table.

You may believe that it’s the job of the next person you date if they’re that fabulous, to make you forget about your ex, so by the same token, if you snatch the hot seat, then you’re validated as being ‘good enough’. Then you’ll think “What? They’re telling me that they’re not over their ex! We were having such a great time but I obviously wasn’t good enough to make them forget about them. I feel so rejected! I just need some more time to show them!”

While not being over your ex means press your eject button, you might recognise this, you might not. You’d be worried that you were ‘impatient’ and that after allowing yourself to be a Buffer, once they’d recovered in your Rebound Hospital, they’d skip on out of there and be an available, over their ex partner with a different person. This would then translate into you seeing potential and believing that they want you to be ‘patient’.

Then you’d think to yourself that if someone was willing to love, care, and shag you even though you were hurting and not ready for a relationship, that you’d be so grateful when you were feeling better, that you’d give them a relationship full of the potential you envision as a ‘reward’.

It’s either that they said they’re not over their ex, so you decide their actions say otherwise, or you see they’re not over their ex, but decide that they’ve said different – either way, nothing matches.

You’d say stuff like “Well if I wasn’t over my ex then I’d leave” or “If I wasn’t over my ex, I wouldn’t get involved with someone else” and then reason that ipso facto, they haven’t left and they did get involved with you, so they must be over their ex. Then you’d wonder if they were talking out of their bum as a gentle way of letting you know that you’re not ‘good enough’.

You’d put yourself in their shoes and remember the good times you’ve had, even if they’re brief, and remember the potential you’ve seen, and then see it for the both of you. You’d imagine that they don’t want to make the ‘wrong’ decision, so decide to help them not make any decision.

Sometimes, you get empathy mixed up with sympathy, which is feeling pity for someone’s misfortune, and then sometimes, you get empathy mixed up with bullshitting and fantasising.

If you put too much of you into another person’s situation in the guise of empathy, that’s not recognising and sharing the feeling’s of another – that’s latching and hogging. It’s not about you.

You can relate to their situation without becoming them and making their situation about you. You will make too many assumptions about their motivations and the meaning of their actions and even tell yourself that you know what they’re thinking – you don’t.

Empathy allows you to consider another person’s perspective – if you make it about your feelings, it’s your perspective, which when you deny, rationalise, and minimise the truth so that you can remain in a situation, turns it into a fantasy.

Genuine empathy allows you to be real. Genuine compassion for someone in a difficult situation does not always boil down to doing the easy thing, especially if you doing that, is more about keeping you in your own comfort zone – you may do more harm than good, including to yourself.

When someone shares a piece of information with you that’s critical to the status or perception of your relationship, such as “I’m not over my ex”, first ask yourself what it means about them/your perception of them, and then ask what it means about the future of your relationship/the potential you had in mind. This then helps to form action points or the basis for asking important questions to clarify their position, which then can help you make healthy decisions in reality.

What you shouldn’t be asking is “What’s wrong with me?” Nothing’s wrong with you – they’re hurting/struggling/whatever. They’re emotionally dealing with something from their past, so they cannot recognise and truly participate in a good thing in front of them.

Your thoughts?

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

You Can’t Erase An Ex From Your Mind…But You Can Reduce Their Power AND Keep Pushing Forward

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:25:31 +0000

Shag! I just realised that thinking about not
thinking about them IS thinking about them.

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Recently I was talking with someone who was like a broken woman consumed with thoughts of her ex morning, noon, and night. “How am I supposed to stay NC if I can’t stop thinking about him all the time? I’m never going to be able to move on!” That’s when I thought “Woah! Hold up a second here – who said anything about NC being about forcing yourself to never have a thought about the person ever again?”

No Contact is initially about not making or accepting contact, but it also provides the space to not only grieve the loss of the relationship, but to focus your energy elsewhere and begin rebuilding your life. What it isn’t, is cutting contact and then sitting around trying to not have anymore thoughts about them.

Experience has taught me that the more you try not to think about something, is the more likely you are to, and then you’ll stress yourself further about the fact that you are in fact thinking about it and what you think thinking about it means, and then often react off the back of it. Exhausting!

Back in October 2010, when I was told to cut out wheat in an effort to reduce tinnitus and vertigo, after initially thinking it was going to be fine and then discovering that wheat is in many things, I went on a serious moan-a-thon. In an effort to remain focused on what I thought was the task at hand – not eating wheat – I attempted to put wheat out of my mind, only for it to turn up in my dreams dressed as the likes of eclairs, hot buttery toast, and my puff pastry covered beef pies. I seemed consumed by thoughts of wheat and what I was feeling were the inconveniences.

After a while, mostly because I was wearing down my own last nerve and probably those of the boyf, I began putting effort into finding alternatives, discovering places to eat with varied menus, and making myself food that I enjoy. As I’d felt the health benefits after a week (seriously), tempting as it was to, for example, snaffle down a mince pie, I accepted that uncomfortable as it had been, overall I felt happier and better.

I’ve seen this replicated in so many aspects of life – change doesn’t come without change which means discomfort, but the change feels positive when you don’t just sit around complaining about the inconveniences of the change or trying to force yourself never to think about whatever it is that you’re changing from and/or having to leave behind or put on hold.

If you’ve had hopes, dreams, aspirations, and experiences good and bad with someone, it’s a bit tricky just to cut them out of your thoughts. It’s also part of the grieving and healing process to feel your feelings and process your thoughts so that you can draw conclusions, accept and move on.

Yes I had to avoid wheat, but I was making my life about avoiding wheat instead of focusing on improving my health. Equally, I found that I made great strides in being happy when I stopped making my life about maintaining NC and instead made it about having a better life…while keeping my ex at bay.

To go to the trouble of devoting your energies and attention to not thinking about someone and then obsessing about the fact that you’re thinking about them, is actually just another convoluted way of giving them more attention and remaining invested.

If you think about not thinking about them, you’ll think about them and if you persist at it, you’ll eventually ‘break’ and make contact. Same goes for anything else – you’ll either slow your progress by being resistant to it, or you’ll backtrack/fall off the wagon.

This doesn’t mean you should go “OK I’ll think about them all the time” but it is about helping yourself by doing 3 things that will make your life a hell of a lot easier and over time reduce the amount of time spent thinking about them (or something) and eventually replace these thoughts:

1) Accept that you will think about them but don’t make a mountain out of molehill. For many people, thinking about someone equals ‘I love them’; ‘We should get back together’;'It was a bad decision’. Initially, you’re bound to think about them a lot – it’s like ripping off a plaster (Band Aid) – but it’s important to remember that you’re processing a situation. There are many things that you think about – you don’t attach a call to action on all of them. As time passes, the thoughts will pop in but it doesn’t even have to mean that you’re not over them – they’re just thoughts and just memories and as your life builds up and moves away from them, these thoughts shrink and don’t carry the same weight.

2) But do have some self-control. If a thought pops into your head, for all you know, it’s just your unconscious processing away and throwing something out. What it doesn’t mean is that you should ‘make that call’ or ‘send that text’ or load another gazillion thoughts on top. If you spend hours or all day thinking about someone, that’s not one thought – it’s a sequence of thoughts. Unless you’re living in on another planet, even after a few minutes, you should become aware of the passage of time. Whether you recognise that you’re going off on a thinking track after one or twenty thoughts, pull yourself back to reality instead of saying “Ah shag it! I’ve had a thought or few about them – let me just write off today!”

Refocus your thoughts in reality – What can you do? Who can you talk to? What positives can you say to yourself to affirm the decisions and actions you’re undertaking? Isn’t there some work you should be doing? Things to be enjoying? I know quite a few readers who set a time limit when the thought pops in and then it’s ‘ding ding ding’, back to life. Initially you’ll use up all the time – 10 minutes is good – but the habit will actually have you reluctant to be a slave to your thoughts. It’s about being conscious.

3) If you have thoughts but you’re still active in the conscious, life will happen to gradually replace them. The more you ‘occupy’ your own life, as in living it, the more things that your mind has to spread itself across.

If you have a suddenly flurry of thoughts after feeling that you’re doing better, don’t panic – on a subconscious level, you’re actually moving towards acceptance. Maybe you’re enjoying yourself or have realised that a week or so has gone by without really thinking of them – it’s panic about rolling with it and letting go, so as if to make up for it, you go on thinking overload. It would be better to focus on returning to what you were being and doing before the panic arrived.

You don’t have to erase your ex from your mind but you also don’t have to give those thoughts so much power or airtime. You can think about them, you just don’t need to spend all day, all week, or all month on it – break things up a little…or a lot. These thoughts don’t own you – you own you – and you will find when you put plenty of positive action into your life, that the thoughts begin to follow that path instead.

Your thoughts? (hehe)

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

Image source SXC

Are You On Standby? Why You’re Not Mr or Miss Last Minute Option

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:32:35 +0000

Over the past few days since I wrote about whether you’re ready to date again, there’s been a flurry of discussion in the comments about people who rely on making last minute plans under the guise of being ‘spontaneous’ and who when you try to make plans, or call them on their lack of commitment, get all shirty with you.

This is what spontaneous looks like: You’re dating or in a relationship for a while, you see each other regularly, make plans in advance and then one day they phone up and say “I just found out that X is doing a gig tonight – do you fancy it?” or “Surprise! We’re off to Paris/having a weekend away/eating out tonight” or giving a gift just because.

This is not what spontaneous looks like: You’re dating or in a relationship for a while and you only find out what you’re doing on a Friday evening or on the day that it’s happening. Plans are rarely if ever made in advance and when you try to, they’re difficult to pin down, so in the end, the decision for them to agree to your suggestion is so last minute that they’ve pulled their usual stroke on you again – passive aggression.

Spontaneous also doesn’t look like: You haven’t heard from them for several days, a week, a few weeks, or even months and then a text comes through “Hey…hope you’re well. Fancy going out tonight?” And then after you spend time together, you don’t hear from them again for another several days/weeks/months until the next textvite comes through. That’s mind f*ckery. You can be damn sure that it also doesn’t sound like a call after dark asking whether they can ‘come over’ – that’s a booty call.

Spontaneous: “performed or occurring as a result of a sudden impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus.” (Oxford Dictionary)

I’m all for seizing the moment but if the only time I hear from you is when you’ve seized the itch in your pants, or your ego needs some pumping, or when you’ve finally decided to get around to thinking of me and considering me in your plans at the last moment, I’d rather take a raincheck.Sometimes it’s nice to fly by the seat of your pants, but the type of person who relies on keeping you on ‘standby’ as an option to avail of and actually expects that should they choose to only spring their plans on you five minutes before, that you’ll drop everything, is someone who is like the seat of someone’s pants…after a bad day – shady.

It’s like you’re on standby for a flight or a backup generator!

Do you want to be someone’s ‘sudden impulse’ or do you want to be considered?

Would you be happy with someone not thinking ahead, planning, and committing to something as basic as short-term plans?

Just like the whole ‘busy’ issue, it’s a question of valuing other people’s time.You can be damn sure that the person who doesn’t make plans with you assumes that you’re on their ‘waiting list’ without something better to do. Often, it’s not a question of what you’ll be doing together; it’s a question of whether you’ll be seeing each other at all.

Much like people who keep emphasising how ‘honest’ or ‘nice’ they are, suffer with Those Who Doth Protest Too Much, when someone goes to the trouble of telling you that they’re spontaneous, you’re dealing with a Future Avoider that has basic commitment issues. If you can’t get them to commit to making short-term plans, may the force be with you for anything bigger.

These people expect you to go with their flow – this will gnaw at your insides, having you anxious about whether you’ll be ‘picked’ each week. Feck that!

One of my ex’s wasn’t keen on ‘making plans’, often using the phrase “flying by the seat of my pants.” Most weekends I’d be ‘summoned’ after he’d decided what he wanted to do, or be subjected to having to listen to him whining about finding something to do that ticked his ‘spontaneous’ boxes. Invariably, 99.9% of the time, it was boring. So I did the smart thing – I went ahead and made my own plans. If I was around and I wanted to go, I’d meet him, but if not, hey ho – you snooze, you lose.

Sadly I didn’t heed that lesson as he wasn’t my last Mr Unavailable and after being summoned here, there, and everywhere by text, phone, and email, I recognised how devaluing this was – it’s like floating around on the coat tails of other people’s lives – you have a life of your own!

This shouldn’t be so hard for us to recognise as worthwhile, valuable individuals: We are people worth thinking ahead about and making plans with.

You will know you’re dealing with someone who really isn’t all that spontaneous and who in fact has commitment issues, when the things that they’re being spontaneous about aren’t really all that exciting.

It’s also important to consider the bigger picture: If someone rarely plans ahead, them leaving things till the last minute isn’t spontaneous – it’s routine. This is a bit like the person who is so inconsistent that they become consistent at being inconsistent.

Everything is contextual. If you have a healthy, mutual partnering and they surprise you periodically or you both decide to do things on the spur of the moment, that’s spontaneity. Them doing things on their terms and you being shoehorned into one way or the other is passive aggression.

Your whole relationship can’t be one big ‘ole impulse. Part of being available and committed is being able to commit to doing basic things that if you’re not too busy trying to micromanage your intimacy and responsibility levels, you’d take for granted as being part of your relationship and enjoy it.

You are not a ‘standby ticket’. You’re not.

You are better than sitting around waiting to be called up for duty. You’re also better than being a standby option after they’ve made sure they haven’t got better plans.

You’re someone to be made plans with. You’re also someone that can be surprised and seize the moment but within the context of already having the freedom of a relationship where you can talk about making plans without being shut down.

And that’s the test: Spontaneity cuts both ways. You can be damn sure that you’re with someone who has commitment issues when it’s all on their terms and you can’t be spontaneous and get together on impulse.

Don’t be a passenger. If you’re not comfortable with being dialadate, then don’t. Instead of giving a big explanation or even a small one, just say that you’ve made other plans, which you should do anyway as leaving yourself as an option makes you a passenger giving people the option of choosing you, while you’ve already chosen them. They’ll either meet you in the middle and make plans, or beat it. Or…they’ll pretend to meet you in the middle and gradually eek it back to last minute, at which point you bounce them and walk.

Start as you mean to go on because really, you don’t have time to be teaching a grown-up to value and prioritise you. Remember – when you don’t allow yourself to be on standby, they can’t treat you like an option.

Your thoughts? If you have been reluctant to step up and make plans and have relied on them doing all of the ‘chasing’, read my post on why you shouldn’t make it the guy’s job to do all of the calling and making plans.

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

Are You Ready To Date Again? Go Out and Find Out!

Natalie (NML) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:21:40 +0000

The question of whether you’re ready to date again, is something that perplexes many people. I’d love to say that you bounce out of bed one day and it’s shazam, you just know and you then hurl yourself back out there without issue, but the truth is, you’ll only be able to judge your readiness when you’re already out there dating, or when you’re experiencing Dynasty levels of internal drama and angst without actually having done anything.

Relationships serve to teach us about ourselves and they’ll keep throwing you the same lessons until you heed them. The key in rising out of previous experiences and knocking any ‘mistakes’ on the head, is in the application going forward.

It becomes somewhat of a distraction to essentially try and get a Ph.D in dating, or playing Columbo on your exes, or trying to acquire a ‘perfect self’ to put out into the dating world. This is like becoming immersed in the theory and understanding it on an intellectual level and then instead of going out there and living it, applying, tweaking, gaining confidence out of the results and taking action, you think “Nah…I need to do some more study…and actually, truth be told, I think that my last chance saloon has gone.”

There’s 3 specific questions that you can ask of yourself to gauge your readiness, although you can ask more:

1) Have you cleaned out your relationship house? Over your ex, not shagging anyone else, not keeping track of exes and even brief dates on Facebook, not dialling and texting to collect attention, and certainly not hoping that one or more of your exes might spontaneously combust into being The Person You Want.

Your past relationships are firmly in the past.

It also means dealt or actively dealing with anything that you’ve realised through your interactions and introspection is affecting your ability to have healthy, mutual relationships and good self-esteem. Again, life is an ongoing journey so if you’re in a good place, even with previous issues say from childhood to deal with, this can be dealt with in the background to your life. However if any issues are front and centre and greatly affect you right now, impacting your ability to be honest with yourself or even with others, to be responsible, functioning etc, you can’t. You’ll need to focus on those - the truth is that getting laid or starting out on dates can wait – you can’t.

2) Do you at the very least like you and have a reasonable grasp on who you are? Liking and loving you is an ongoing process – these feelings need to be growing not receding. I knew I’d made progress when I told a guy to beat it after dating for a few weeks and instead of feeling like the sky might fall down or busting my own proverbial nuts, I wanted to high five myself. In fact, if I’m honest, in the 8 or 9 months before I met the boyf, I felt relief when I walked away from situations or it didn’t work out – experience had taught me that I just wasn’t that desperate to make anyone into a ‘prince’ when things were far from being ‘princely’.

When you like and love you, you’ll listen to and trust you, so you’ll be OK with paying attention to the feedback from your interactions and acting upon it. This isn’t to say you won’t feel disappointed if something doesn’t work out, but you’ll be real enough to recognise and accept why and see the blessing in disguise instead of saying “It started out so great and they promised me a future that didn’t materialise – why can’t they go back to being that person and give me what I want? Is it because I’m not good enough?“

Yep – you’ll know you’re ready when you don’t make other people’s behaviour and everything going on around you about you. What’s your actions is yours, and what’s theirs is theirs.

You’re not ready if you’re malleable – that’s still relying on people who aren’t in your life yet or have been around for a wet week to validate or even define who you are. You’re definitely not ready if you start changing yourself up – that says you don’t like and value who you actually are and are willing to offload yourself if you think it would seal the deal. You’re also definitely not ready if you take your boundaries out on a couple of dates and then start making exceptions.

3) Are you feeling desperate? If the current person or someone you haven’t even met yet feels like they have to be ‘the one’, or the thought of something not working out or getting what you perceive as rejection scares the crappola out of you, you need to take it down from a 10 to about a 5 - that’s just too much drama to carry around with you. If you feel attached to them or the idea of the relationship you’d like with them, before you’re really gone through the discovery process of dating, it’s actually a signal that you need to make a very concerted effort to stay in reality.

If you start dating and thoughts of your ex increase, you start falling apart, or you feel tortured by your fears, you’ve got two choices – gather yourself together, talk calmly and rationally to yourself, check your internal and external fears while cross referencing against code amber and red and listening to what your discomfort is about, or, step back from dating.

Just like you may discover that you’re ready to date when you find yourself accepting one, enjoying it or not even being too dented if it doesn’t shape up into anything, you also may discover that you’re not ready to date when you’ve been on a few dates. This is OK. Dating is a discovery phase – as well as discovering the facts about the other party and assimilating what the possibility is of moving forward into a relationship, you also discover things about yourself.

You’re ready when you’ll walk and not treat them like they’re irreplaceable and your whole dating future depends on them.

You’re ready when you’ll stay, not because you’re afraid that if you don’t you’ll have missed your last chance saloon or because you can’t bear the thought of being ‘alone’/having to start over, but because there are valid, positive, mutual reasons to stay.

I’ve said this before, but there’s no fire. It’s not to suggest that people are expendable or that dating is easy, but the fact is, unless you’re dating for dating’s sake, it defeats the purpose of dating, especially when you’re claiming you want a relationship, if you’re barely able to cope with going out on dates or are still living in the past, because you’re actually undermining your own chances.

There really isn’t very much point sitting around worrying about something that isn’t happening, might happen, or hasn’t even got a cat’s hope in hell of happening – if you’re going to be worried, at least do it based on reality.

But remember this – the fear you have about things that aren’t happening yet is based on the old you that didn’t have the knowledge that you have now. It’s bad enough when shady exes show up hoping that you’ll be the you they used to know – honour yourself and the lessons you’ve learned, and give yourself a chance to be you and apply yourself.

Your thoughts?

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

Change Doesn’t Come Without…Change

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:02:39 +0000

Making decisions and change are two things that many people find very difficult. When you need to make a judgement and act upon it, it’s essentially being faced with the choice between staying in your comfort zone which may also involve trying to find an ‘easy’ route, or getting uncomfortable and making change.

It is hard to exchange limiting, unproductive, unhealthy and even dangerous habits that tick your short-term boxes for the unfamiliar. It’s not that you may not recognise that there’d be some clear benefits to making change, it’s just that the distance between your current state and where you need or desire to be, plus the effort involved with getting and remaining there, seems ‘too hard’. Many BR readers feel like this.

We doubt our abilities or we procrastinate. We try to do it in small doses for a short period of time, which may even give a little shift, but ultimately not enough. Sometimes off the back of these small doses of effort, we expect a result that greatly exceeds the reality of what we’re doing because in our mind, a little feels like a lot and we may even rationalise that we’ve been through ‘so much’ and have made the hard decision, that the least that life could do is give us a sign like making us feel better immediately or making it easy.

So instead, what we actually try to do is keep striving for what we say we want/need and trying to hold onto habits which are a combination of thinking and actions. We expect something to ‘give’…just not us.

I realised this the other day that if you take an average weekday, I try to get a two and four year old ready, fed, get myself ready, sneakily check emails and approve overnight comments, school run, work, dribs and drabs of chores, more work, errands, school run, reading with the four year old, cook dinner (unless the boyf is doing it – I like calling him ‘masterchef’), bath the kids (if I haven’t run over schedule which means I’ll have to do it in the morning), eat dinner, try to chill, probably catch up on some work in the evening, try to be chilling by 9/10pm with a view to being asleep by 11. Yesterday I squeezed in a chiropractor appointment, trying on some wedding dresses, and a sneaky visit to Anthropologie.

For the past few months since my eldest started school, even though I’ve lost a chunk of my week as a result so am even more time strapped than ever, plus the two year old going to childcare 3 days, so being busy with her on 2 of the days, somehow, I was still trying to get up at 6.45 and pressing snooze till 7.20 and expecting to go to bed early. The reality is that I’m harangued in the mornings and I work till 11 and sometimes struggle to settle until nearer to 1. Did I mention I also love having 8 hours sleep?

This is quite frankly ridiculous! What am I? On crack? I know I’m not Wonderwoman. It is impossible for me to achieve what I want without ‘budging’. Since last week, the alarm is now set for 6.25 and I tend to be up by 6.45 – the difference is already great although for the first few days, I moaned about being tired and grumpy. There are a number of other habits to be knocked on the head but the message became clear to me:

Just like when I wanted to hold onto my old thoughts and my old ways and get the relationship I felt I was entitled to, even though I had low self-esteem and some rather unhealthy love habits plus I was never with people who were actually healthy relationship material, change does not come without…change.

I said I wanted a relationship and that I was sick of being with guys who were hot out the gate pursuing me, only to back off and pull a whole bait and switch. I’d then start talking to guys, going on dates, talking the big talk. My desire for a relationship might have changed and even my need for one, but do you know what I was also doing when I was saying all of this stuff and dating? Seeing the guy with the girlfriend or pining for him. Or seeing whatever guy felt like giving me a pseudo relationship while privately thinking “I’m not good enough” and not believing I could hold down a relationship anyway.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen and actually, if we even start small and keep at it day after day after day and build up, we start to see the fruits of the cumulative effort plus new habits just become habit.

What I can’t promise you is instant results, instant gratification and a shortcut, which is what a lot of people want.

I hear from people who make changes or make a decision that puts their sense of self front and centre. How do they feel? Resentful and almost begrudging of having to do a decent thing for themselves. It’s like “Look! I’ve made a decision/opted out of an unhealthy relationship that has more holes in it than a pair of fishnet stockings! So where is my reward? Why don’t I feel great? I’ve been robbed! I could have been crying and complaining with them instead of being on my own!”

This is when you have to say to yourself “Am I for frickin’ real?”

I was with a man who had a girlfriend for 18 months, and hit rock bottom emotionally, physically, spiritually – it took me a year to recover and the truth is, it would have taken a shorter period of time if 1) I hadn’t spent 5 months seeing another Mr Unavailable, 2) I hadn’t spent 3 months doing No Contact but hoping he’d be provoked into blazing in on his white horse, climbing up a trellis and whisking me off into a fantasy. That said, 5 of those months were profoundly productive in my life, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. It’s amazing how thinking you might be dead in ten years and have a shite quality of life in the meantime, can spur you…

Change doesn’t come without change.

If you’ve had habits for years or even all your life, it’s just unrealistic to think you can pay lip service to change for a few days, weeks, or months and shazam, you don’t have to put in effort and life is easy peasy.

Change doesn’t come without change and if you think you can have big bad habits and make small changes or none, change just isn’t going to happen or you’re going to get frustrated at the minor results and think “Shag this for a game of soldiers – I’ll just go back to what I know.”

You deserve better than something that may be comfortable for you but you already know doesn’t work and that you’ll be complaining about soon enough and hoping that something or someone else will do what you can’t even do for yourself.

You deserve better – you deserve change.

Your thoughts?

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

Why it’s time to stop telling yourself that the last chance saloon has gone

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:02:39 +0000

I don’t know if it’s because it’s the new year, but I’ve had quite a few people sharing their quite negative beliefs about their future relationship prospects and what they view as the problems with the world. When put together, it looks like this:

From people in their twenties: Nobody in their twenties wants to settle down.

There are no good black men to date.

If I don’t make it out of my twenties without being married, I’m going to end up alone forever. (No doubt eventually being found dead in an apartment being feasted on by Alsatians.)

People in their late twenties want to be with people in their early twenties.

It’s going to be really hard to meet someone with my issues.

From people in their thirties: It’s really hard to find someone.

All the people in their twenties are getting the great people in their thirties.

All the good men are gone.

All women are really picky.

All the white women are getting all of the good black men. (Note that would be the same black men that don’t exist for others…)

People are really f*cked up and untrustworthy.

I can’t get a relationship because I’m intelligent/have a good job/not intelligent enough/don’t have a good job.

From people in their forties: It’s going to be nigh on impossible to find someone who wants a relationship, never mind to settle down.

Women/men don’t want to be with a guy/woman with a few kids or who can’t or doesn’t want kids.

Guys only want women who are in their twenties with perky tits.

All the women in their thirties are nabbing the forty-something guys.

By this stage in life, people have too many problems.

I’ve made so many mistakes and I’ve obviously missed the boat – I’m unlikely to love again.

They’ve never been married and they’re in their forties – there must be something wrong with them.

They’ve been married before – there must be something wrong with them.

There was an article on a website that said it’s tricky to date – that’s my chances screwed then.

From people in their fifties: I don’t hold out much hope of meeting anyone again.

All the good guys are gone/dead.

All the thirty and forty-something’s are getting the fifty-somethings.

People in their fifties just want to shag around or get married to people in their twenties and thirties.

If they’re in their fifties and they’re single, there must be something wrong with them.

People in their sixties want people who are under fifty.

What’s very interesting about the stories we tell ourselves about why we believe love and a relationship isn’t going to happen for us, is that when you piece together what’s being said, it becomes clear that people who say these things about themselves, relationships, life, and others, don’t believe in love or them being capable of having a mutually fulfilling relationship at any age. That and all of these people across every age group are contradicting the crap out of each other.

What we believe is really about what we believe our capabilities are in that context. Every single last one of these broad sweeping statements says: I don’t believe that love can happen for me. The last chance saloon has gone.

Every time I hear statements like this, you don’t realise that you’re doling out your excuse for why you don’t think you should bother 1) changing and 2) trying.

There may be several reasons and experiences that fuel this but when it all boils down to it, it’s ‘I’m not good enough’.

In spite of evidence of people forging new relationships every day, of there being real love, real happiness, real commitment, real respect, real care, real trust, what you believe about yourself means that you think you’re likely to fail.

Do you think that the odds are stacked against you? Do you think you’re an anomaly? Do you think you’re doomed?

You have an anomaly state of mind. You’re back to the long-shot mentality.

When you’ve pursued unhealthy relationships, it has in essence come down to trying to convince someone to make you the exception to their rule of behaviour. Can you see a running theme here?

Fear of failure and making mistakes, plus a desire to remain in your comfort zone guide your choices by catering to negative and unrealistic beliefs which then give you an outside chance of it working out. You’ve already accepted failure, so you can’t ‘fully’ fail which also lets you off the hook for being responsible for your own life.

Instead of acknowledging where you’ve pegged yourself as a long shot, you can tell yourself that there’s nobody decent to date or that it’s impossible for your age group.

It’s not that some concerns aren’t real – your concerns are your concerns – but it’s interesting that when given a choice between focusing on evidence of people defying your predictions, you choose to focus on what caters to your beliefs, and ultimately your self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you’re one of those people that hears about someone else’s relationship experience or reads an article about relationships and goes into a downward spiral, it’s like looking for any excuse to stick with your firmly held beliefs.

It doesn’t matter what age you are – I’ve given people aged between 20-55 examples of people finding love. Do you know what the person who has essentially given up on themselves says out loud or privately? “Yeah well they’re beautiful/lucky/don’t have the same issues/in a bigger city/in a smaller city/haven’t been hurt as much as me.”

Stop. This is bullshit. It is bad enough when others eff you over and sell you short, but it’s even worse when you do it.

As I explained to a reader, this mentality is like hearing about people having difficulty getting a job and then saying “There are no jobs” or “I’m unlikely to ever get a decent job again”. That’s just not frickin true. I’m not saying it’s not harder to get a job, just like I’m not even going to suggest that it’s a piece of cake to meet someone either, but you know what?

Even before there was online dating, texting, and a more casual attitude to shagging it up, people have been griping about problems with relationships. And the job market.

If you give up on love, you give up on yourself. That’s self-love by the way.

Nobody who genuinely cares about and loves themselves dedicates their time and energy to forcasting a life without opportunities.

It is natural to be hurt. It’s natural to even feel a bit jaded, especially if you’ve done your fair share of shady relationships, but instead of declaring yourself bankrupt and seeing the world through a distorted lens, invest time and energy on being 100% positively focused on you and addressing your beliefs and relationship habits.

It ain’t over till it’s over. How can you say you’ll never love again or that you’ve experienced everything, or that there’s no decent people left to date? You haven’t finished living yet! If you have so much of a crystal ball into your future, it’s a shame you couldn’t have seen your way to seeing yourself out of trouble previously!

The last chance saloon hasn’t gone and people in every age group find love, just like people in every age group find trouble. What I do know is that the story you’re writing, doesn’t have to end the way you’ve written it. Write it differently, see it differently, talk it differently.

If I believed everything people said about me or listened to what everyone has to say about the world’s relationship prospects, or even listened to my old beliefs, I wouldn’t be where I am today – somewhere far different from what I originally forecast or expected.

Your thoughts?

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

Are You Being Used As A Confidence Booster To Launch Your Ex Into Their Next Relationship?

Natalie (NML) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:12:13 +0000

Often, when I read stories of exes coming back, proclaiming that they’re sorry and that they want to get back together/can’t live without you, only for them to end up causing you even more pain, often moving onto someone else quickly (or even having them in the background already), I get the distinct impression that aside from checking in with their ‘backup plan’, that you’re a confidence booster.

You see, when someone’s been told that they’ve been, done, or even are something, it can make them feel a tad unsure of themselves, especially when you’ve traditionally pumped them up, so that the both of you start to believe that they’re more special than they actually are.

Suddenly, you’re not taking their calls, ‘sorry’ isn’t good enough, the old formula doesn’t work, and you’re essentially no longer jumping to the beat they’ve predicted. Maybe you told them all about themselves, itemising everything that’s pissed you off. Or…maybe it’s a simple case of their conscience ticking.

Most people are uncomfortable with knowing that someone is hurting as a result of them…even if they actually have a hand in causing the pain by saying and doing things that busted your boundaries and had them treating you without love, care, trust, and respect.

Just like when commitment resisters get panicked and almost have a fever trying to exit the relationship or lessen the commitment by any means necessary, the ex who isn’t feeling too assured of themselves and even feels like there’s ‘evidence’ out there that contradicts a current image that they hold of themselves, or more importantly that they’re portraying, will have an overwhelming urge to ‘reconcile’ it with the image you hold of them.

It may even feel a bit ‘Sopranos’ style, when they feel like there’s evidence of their assholery out there so then it’s like buttering up the witness…

If you return their contact, profess your feelings, accept their apology even if you’re not ready to or don’t think they’re sincere, or even take them back, it’s a confidence boost – they feel safe in preserving the image they have of themselves.

It’s like you give them a launchpad into their next relationships where they may even feel safe to press the Reset Button and give themselves a fresh start elsewhere. Even though they’re going to be in trouble with you again, in their eyes, it’s only for a ‘recent misunderstanding’ as opposed to issues stretching back in your relationship because they perceive you as having ‘forgiven’ them, or you may even have taken more responsibility than necessary, or even absorbed the blame.

Of course this whole ‘confidence boosting’ via a ‘surrogate’ extends beyond ex’s returning.

If you’ve ever been the Other Woman/Man, you’re like an upper and a painkiller, letting them feel more confident about areas that are their ‘weak spots’ in their main relationship and helping them to avoid painful and uncomfortable feelings and issues in their life, which by self-soothing themselves on you, they feel more confident in general. I know my confidence would get a boost if I had you turning down the possibility of being with someone in an available relationship, for me and my crumbs.

I’ve come across so many people who after a breakup, embark on dating someone to not only avoid grieving the loss of the breakup, but also to boost their confidence. They’re passing time, often not that fussed about whoever they’re involved with, and the person they’re dating becomes like a ‘symbol’ that they’ve still ‘got it’, or even a mascot or comforter.

Let us also not forget those who ‘florence’ and ‘renovate’ people who they deem need fixing, healing, and helping, only to end up giving the person the impression that “Hmmm, maybe I can do better?” and next thing they’re preening like a peacock and confident in ‘braving’ it elsewhere.

Also, if you’ve got that friend or family member that seems to thrive when you’re down and almost revels in you having problems, you’re being used as a confidence booster there too.

Of course there’s a lesson in all of this: Don’t allow anyone to use you as a rainy day, backup option to fall back on, and certainly don’t allow yourself to be an emotional airbag come upper come painkiller to help people avoid themselves, their feelings, and their problems. Certainly don’t allow someone to drain you out so they can make themselves feel better – like stealing your frickin’ life source!

Stop pumping them up, especially when your own resources of love, care, trust, and respect are already seriously depleted.

These experiences are draining and demoralising, sapping you of the very energy you need to regain your confidence in yourself.

The reality is that if you’re in reality, you won’t create the cocoon of bubbles, clouds, and illusions that has you being an emotional airbag in the first place. You’re better than being an option but you’re also better than being used as some sort of ‘prop’ in someone’s life like a medal, certificate or social proof that they’re better than what they themselves think or know themselves to be.

When someone is able to present themselves with their code amber and red problems, excuses, and even bullshit, or they’re able to swan in and out of your life while screwing you over repeatedly, it’s like giving them a certificate with a clean bill of relationship health that is in contradiction with reality.

The best confidence boost you can give yourself is to start treating you like a valuable entity day after day after day and distance yourself from anything and anyone who isn’t reflective of this. Instead of boosting their confidence, boost them out of your life so you can be free to focus your energy where it’s most deserving – on you.

Your thoughts?

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

Are you drowning in detail? The importance of heeding the ‘topline data’ of your relationship

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:34:02 +0000

Back in the day when I worked in advertising, I’d use research data for pitches. As I’d experienced enough boring presentations, I recognised the importance of delivering the most salient points. There was a saying that we used to bandy around a lot that forced us to cut through the fluff:

“Give me the topline data!” - I talked about this a couple of years back with my post How bad do things have to get?

“The topline data in relationships are the key overall ‘symptoms’ of your situation. Many of us get lost in the details, investigating the other persons problems, looking for understanding of why every last little thing is happening and rationalising the situation by finding even the smallest of anomalies to justify why our situation is different, why the person is an exception to the rule etc.”

I’m reminded of this when I, for example see readers complaining about umpteen things that a person is doing and then adding that they’re married, and then seeing other readers (hat tip to Grace, Fearless et al) remind them that actually, it’s them being married (or attached) that’s fundamentally the issue. The other stuff is the detail and contextually, as in, in the context of being married/attached, it’s actually what you consider to be important enough to latch onto however they’re inadvertently legitimising all of the reasons you should be exiting.

It’s the same when people tell me that someone hasn’t been calling, keeps blowing hot and cold, won’t commit to being with them, won’t commit to not being with them, is sleeping with someone else or trying it on with someone else in the office…oh and they said at the start that they didn’t want a relationship, or that it was never going to be anything other than casual, and yada yada yada. They’re unavailable – not committing to action never mind a relationship is top of the agenda hence actions and words don’t match, hence there’s a problem, hence you’re not mutual.

Often, when you’re drowning in the detail and you keep bringing up certain points about their behaviour, you’re actually inadvertently supporting the topline information about your relationship.

Take the married example pictured. There’s no point in ‘suddenly’ realising that they’re cheating and married, or thinking it’s for some noble reason – there’s no such thing as an honest cheat. They have to communicate by text because they’re cheating, they’re not leaving because they’re married, they’ve said they might leave because they’re married but if they’d immediately said that they weren’t leaving you might have cut off the free access to the Crumb Per View shag, ego stroke and a shoulder to lean on.

They say they can’t leave the kids because they’re married and it’s also because it seems so much more palatable and humanitarian. They send sexts because they’re married so they have to send dodgy pics and ask you if you have any underwear on because they’re not around all the time to do it in the flesh. They may be sleeping with someone else because, well, one is clearly never enough anyway, and they break promises because one can’t make them when one is breaking promises with someone else, plus they keep asking you to wait because they don’t want the backup plan and free cake to end.

Take the unavailable example. You’re focusing on those good points because they’re unavailable – if they were available and you were happy, you wouldn’t have to itemise them and separate out the ‘good points’. Things aren’t progressing because they’re unavailable. You have so much in common and yet they’re unavailable – this means that much as your commonalities are great, you don’t have mutual ground where it really counts. They said they don’t want to commit – it’s because they’re unavailable. They’ve Future Faked numerous times because they’re unavailable which means commitment issues, which means they’ll flip flap and undermine what they say and do. They keep getting off with their ex because they’re uncommitted and unavailable. They’re unavailable.

It’s quite easy when you’ve lost sight of yourself and your values to be unable to see the wood for the trees. You get so used to justifying your initial reasons to be with someone, and then you get used to justifying your subsequent reasons, and after a while, it just becomes one big justification drive. It’s about having a reason to stay and avoid getting out of the comfort zone with an uncomfortable but necessary decision, even though you’re actually making a very good case for why you should take a parachute and jump.

Last year I wrote about whether you can elevator pitch your relationship issues – can you take a story that you might spend hours telling and get down to the core problem and explain it in 30 seconds to a minute? It helps you drop all of the excuses and denial so that you can focus and stem the distraction.

When there’s a presence of code red and amber issues in a relationship, they trump the detail. Trump.

Topline represents the most critical information. Ignoring the fact that someone, is for example married is like saying that you don’t see infidelity and the fact that they’re married as that big an issue. You might think the other person can be dispensed of for the right reasons – the love of you. You think cheating is OK for the right reasons – chasing love.

Clinging and drowning to detail actually shrouds the relationship and your vision of it in illusions. The more detail that you’re using to justify and explain your relationship, is actually the greater indication of how much boundary busting and values conflicted behaviour and bullshit that you’re putting up with.

If you’re trying to work out what you should do next and how to make a decision, use the topline data to guide your decision and add context to all of the other information. When you do, the path to doing the right thing by you will open up. Until then, you’re just painting yourself into a corner with detail and excuses.

Your thoughts?

In the Line of Fire: Are you getting carried away with policing your boundaries?

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:33:06 +0000

Recently a friend called me up, fuming about an acquaintance giving her what felt like a dirty look. “Who the hell does she think she is? I know she thinks she’s better than me!” After she said that she’d been upset all day, I had to ask, “You got all that from a look?”

This is a disproportionate response, especially for an acquaintance who in the grander scheme of things, means nothing to her life. If you don’t feel like you want to let anyone get away with anything, you may find that you have a lot of mental drama going on, never mind run-in’s with family, friends, dates, people on public transport, Facebook ‘friends’, telemarketers and basically anyone that gets in the line of fire.

When you have extensive experience of your boundaries being crossed and feeling like people have ‘gotten away with it’, when you finally recognise the importance of boundaries, it’s not unusual to become sidetracked with patrolling your ‘perimeter’ and getting any and all trespassers.

It’s like taking a precautionary measure of tackling all issues big and small – you’re not letting anything go which means ruminating and/or taking them to task.

When you haven’t resolved your feelings around these past experiences and behaviours, it can leave you feeling reserved, on guard, and in a defensive position ready to attack. The resulting mental and physical drama can be exhausting.

Several years ago, I went on a boundaries rampage, telling anyone who remotely pissed me off all about themselves. I became hypersensitive, seeing criticism even when there wasn’t, or not being able to take any feedback. A few friendships nearly ended and I in essence, had a short fuse. Always privately stewing about the latest injustice, I’d play conversations back in my head, work out what I would and should have said under slightly different circumstances, or plan my next move.

I was making up for lost time – it was payback and I was making sure that nothing was left ‘unexpressed’ and that my voice was ‘heard’.

Much of my behaviour stemmed from me being focused on what I felt were my own failings in regards to my boundaries. I felt so invalidated that being angry and taking people to task or even cutting them off made me feel valid and could even cater to this idea that I was a victim – it righted what I felt were the wrongs of my past.

But the one thing I learned from it, is that riding everyone else’s arses like Zorro will not correct any previous boundary crossings, especially if in doing so, you end up disrespecting others also.

When you’re policing people and ready to strike, you’re mentally taking off your earrings and rolling up your sleeves ready for battle.

People who carry anger and feel like they have to ‘defend’, invariably end up being angry and defending.

People who carry around a feeling of not being good enough, invariably find reasons to feel not good enough.

Unless something is really big because the person matters greatly, it’s code red or amber behaviour, or is one in a long line by the same person (which is a sign you need to cut the line), it’s likely disproportionate to invest so much of your mental and physical energy that it impacts on your personal wellbeing or your ability to enjoy your life.

It’s good, great in fact, that you have boundaries, which are actually fundamental to your wellbeing, but they’re there, to not only alert you to your limits, to when something is inappropriate, you’re uncomfortable, or that you’re in fact, in a dangerous situation, but to actually offer you some helpful hints, clues, and yes, sometimes a proverbial smack in the face, about how you need to shift your perception of someone, adjust your behaviour next time, distance, protect, or opt out.

Boundaries are for you not for other people.

Sometimes your boundaries are saying “Molly… [or whatever your name is] you in danger girl”.

“Jeez, you really need to stop pumping them up and affording them so much importance in your life.”

“Haven’t you got more important things to think about or do than invest your time and energy in getting bothered about this bullshit?”

“Please take care of me and stop running me down with your negative self-talk. If you stopped doing it, no matter what others say, you’d be rock solid.”

“They just said this about you – is this true? No? Well that’s all that matters.”

“Didn’t this crackerjack pull this shite the last time you were with them? Address this situation either by speaking up or distancing, but address it.”

“I know you like a bit of relationship/drama crack but surely there’s no way in hell you’ll be coming round here again?”

“Right, the next time they call to moan for hours on end, end the conversation after ten minutes by saying that it’s not a good time. Better still, let it go to voicemail.”

“Well if that’s how they feel, they needn’t expect to see you around here any time soon.”

“The next time they say something like that or the next time you speak, ask ‘What did you mean when you said [repeat what they said] to me?’…”

“You know you need to block/de-friend ‘em right?”

“You’re tired and letting your anger with X affect your day. That’s why you’re so angry at that person that sat too close/farted/didn’t say excuse me when they got off the train. Make sure you take some time out to take care of yourself.”

“You’re feeling small – you do know that you don’t have to give them or whatever they’ve said or done so much power? Embrace you!”

“Do you like and love you? Well then why are you internalising this bullshit? Shake it off! Get up!”

“Please push your Mental Flush Handle and exit this situation.”

“This person is blatantly not bothered/interested – walk!I”

This person has code red issues – time to step.”

If you don’t tell them about themselves, have an argument, request that they explain and apologise, or ‘make’ them change, it doesn’t mean that they’ve gotten away with anything. Experience has taught me that you can go ahead and attempt all of this stuff, but for people who don’t give a damn, are strangers, or who have an allergy to boundaries, it’s a waste of time.

When you do speak to someone about what they’ve said or done, be respectful, make your point, and then let it be. Don’t expect the heavens to open, the seas to part, and for them to throw themselves at your mercy. If after you voice your concern, they repeat the same thing or do worse, it’s time to step or distance yourself.

You’re obviously going to address anything that is critical, but the truth is that if you try to take everyone to task and highlight your boundaries, you will at times look odd. The person who, for example, didn’t say excuse me, might not have seen you or knows they’re rude. Do you need to educate them? Er, no.

This doesn’t make any irritation, discomfort, or anger you feel invalid, just because you haven’t had a confrontation or told them everything that’s on your mind.

It would, for example, be better to move on than call up, text, or email someone you’ve been on a couple of dates with or haven’t even met yet, to tell them off about not calling or something they’ve said – your absence speaks greater volumes.

It’s up to you to decide what’s important – nobody else – but…not everything is important, worthwhile, or if you don’t directly address it, some sort of indicator of you not being good enough or ‘failing’.

Instead of trying to make up for lost time, address your issues and focus on having a healthier relationship with you, which will filter into your other relationships. Boundaries are fundamental and a natural part of living. Policing them isn’t natural – living them through your actions is.

Your thoughts?

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

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

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