Grownup
Love
Getting It and Keeping It
Gloria Arenson, MFT, DCEP
Published by BrockArt Books at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Gloria Arenson
Smashwords
License Statement
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Disclaimer
The information and suggestions contained in this book are not intended as a substitute for appropriate medical or mental health treatment. Please consult your mental health practitioner when you are dealing with serious problems.
The stories in this book are composites created from hundreds of cases I have treated over the last thirty years. All names and stories have been changed to protect confidentiality
ISBN
Key Words: marriage and relationships, marriage, self sabotage, binge, emotional self growth, energy psychology, self discovery, binge eating, personal problems, counseling, compulsion, new therapy, addiction, eft, emotional freedom techniques, compulsive spending, shopaholic, self esteem, psychotherapy
CONTENTS
Chapter 1: I Had To Write This Book
PART 1—What is Love?
Chapter 2: How Did You Learn About Love?
Chapter 4: What Does Love Look Like?
Part 2—My Relationship History
Chapter 5: Do You Love With Strings?
Chapter 6: Stop Me Before I Love Again
Chapter 7: Learning From Your Relationship Mistakes
Chapter 8: How Do You Heal A Broken Heart?
Chapter 9: The Silent Treatment
Chapter 10: How Could You Hurt Me Like This?
Chapter 11: Quarreling: A Problem or An Opportunity?
Part 3—Get Ready to Have It All
Chapter 12: Don't Settle For Less Than the Best
Chapter 13: How to Choose the Perfect Mate
Chapter 14: Ask the Magic Question Before You Say I Do
Chapter 15: Learn The Languages of Love
Chapter 16: Improving Loving Communication With the Phoenix Effect Process
Part 4—Look Before You Leap
Chapter 17: How To Recognize Emotional Problems
Chapter 18: Six Tips For Understanding the Compulsive Person In Your Life
Chapter 19: If You Love a Compulsive Overeater
Chapter 20: Questions and Answers About Compulsive Spending and Debting
Chapter 21: How to Live With a Compulsive Spender
Chapter 22: Understand the Procrastinator In Your Life
Part 5—Other Kinds of Relationships
Chapter 23: How to Get a Divorce From Your Parents
Chapter 24: How to Parent Your Adult Child
Chapter 25: I Want to Help But They Just Won't Listen
Chapter 26: How to Deal with Impossible People
Appendix 2: How to use the Phoenix Effect Process
Introduction
Chapter 1: I Had To Write This Book
I had to write this book for a number of reasons. The first reason is because I am a veteran Licensed Marriage Family Therapist with over thirty years of experience. I have successfully counseled numerous couples whose marriage was in trouble as well as clients who were trying to figure out why they had no love relationships or were in an unhappy relationship and couldn’t or wouldn’t let it go. Still others were distressed by the realization that they kept choosing the same kind of unsuitable partner over and over again.
The second reason I am writing this book is that not only have I coached people about finding the right relationship, I have also lived most of the same experiences as my clients and know what it feels like from the inside out. I have been widowed, divorced, been attracted to the same type of dysfunctional partners more than once, and have also been in a harmonious marriage for over thirty years. Therefore, I know what it is like to be miserable in love and what it takes to find true and lasting love.
A long time ago I attended a talk given by a relationship specialist who said something that I have never forgotten. He said that the goal for people who want a successful relationship is to achieve Grownup Love. He said: The “having it all” relationship is a relationship between two grownups who have done their own work, and in whom the head, the heart and the genitals are lined up.
What does that mean? What kind of work do you have to do in order to attract your perfect love and live happily ever after? The work I propose will take you on a journey of self-exploration and self-transformation. I will direct you in taking an inventory of your life, exploring what lessons you can learn from all your romantic relationships both positive and negative, your beliefs about love and about yourself as a lovable person, and awareness of common patterns that you repeat although they may be painful.
Knowing your past and understanding what you did and how you felt is not enough to guarantee your future success in love. How you react to a partner and what you believe about the world and yourself originates in a part of the brain called the limbic system. The limbic system has no words, only emotions. Past events, both happy and unhappy are stored in the limbic system and get triggered by present day happenings. The past may suddenly take over and you don’t even know it. Decisions you made long ago about being lovable, attractive, and intelligent, as well as decisions you made about relationships will trigger an instant reaction that may be untrue or harmful to you but you don’t realize it. All of this leads to the “over-and-overs” in your love life and the feeling of despair that anything can change.
Today we know that the brain is changeable and that these old patterns in the brain can be altered. I will teach you a self-help technique called EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) that can affect the chemistry of the brain and bring about amazing transformation. You can use EFT to heal the past and eliminate negative beliefs that block you from attracting the right mate for you. If you are already in a relationship you will be able to change your reactions to your partner as you see yourself in a new and more positive way. EFT works rapidly and is simple to learn.
Even when you find lasting love, you will discover that the best relationship has its ups and downs. Therefore, you will also learn how to use The Phoenix Effect Process (PEP), another simple imagery method, to clear out the wreckage of your life and eliminate past issues and beliefs that trigger you to keep reacting negatively to partners or lovers. Happy couples can use PEP to keep the road smooth whenever they hit a bump in an existing compatible relationship.
As you read on I will ask you what you think love is, where you learned about love, and who were your models of romantic figures. I will explain why you were attracted to the partners you have chosen, and why you remain in misery. I will offer suggestions for exploring your life and give you tools for eliminating negative patterns. I will share a number of examples based on people I have counseled and from my own path that you may identify with in hopes that these stories will give you courage to achieve your love goals and enjoy the “having it all” love relationship.
PART 1
What is Love?
Chapter 2: How Did You Learn About Love?
I once had a client who grew up during the 1940’s and 50’s when movies were much less explicit than they are today. She explained that when she fell in love with her husband, she thought that they would drive off into the sunset and live happily ever after as lovers did in those black and white films. Instead she found herself in an abusive relationship where sex was rape. She endured the marriage for quite a few years until she could stand it no longer and finally got a divorce.
Today sex is depicted and discussed openly and explicitly in movies and on TV, but what are young people learning from what they see? What are they learning about love? Are men still treating women as objects? Are women allowing themselves to be treated that way? Are only the most handsome men or beautiful women considered worthy of finding love, success and wealth?
How did you learn about love? Who we are and how we see the world results from the decisions we make and the experiences we have as we go through life. Where you were born, the culture you grew up in, the people who reared you, the rules you were taught to obey and the historic era you have lived in have brought you to this moment.
You are reading this book because you have not found the “having it all” love you want or you would like to make your present relationship better. Therefore, I am asking you to take stock of who you are in this moment. Is your relationship history helping you or hurting you? Here are some questions to ask yourself about your own life. Exploring them may help you understand how you sabotage your love life and point you toward a happier future.
Love in my family
Did I grow up in a family with both parents present? If not, did I have just one adult parenting me? Were there a series of adults, other relatives or stepparents? Describe.
Did my parents or adult mates of my parents act loving toward each other? Describe.
Did they show affection? Describe.
Were they sexual in my presence? Describe.
Did any of the adults in my family show me love? What did they do? How did it feel? What did I tell myself about that?
What did I hear these adults say about love?
What adult was I close to that was not in my home? (Teacher, clergy, friend’s parent, Aunt, Uncle, neighbor, coach) What did that person tell me or teach me about love?
What did they tell me love was?
What did I decide about love?
Write your decisions and ask yourself if they have been helping you or hurting you.
Love in my school years
When I was in elementary school what did my friends say about love?
When I was in Jr. High and High School what did my friends say about love?
During my teens what did boys say about love and what did girls say about love?
Did I have boyfriends or girlfriends? Did I think I was in love with them? What did I expect from the relationship? What happened?
What did I decide about love?
Write your decisions and ask yourself if they have been helping you or hurting you.
Love messages from my culture
Did I receive any specific messages about how men and women are expected to act in love relationships from my cultural heritage?
Did I receive any specific messages about how men and women are expected to act in love relationships from my religious upbringing?
Did I receive any specific messages about how men and women are expected to act in love relationships from the songs of my generation?
Did I receive any specific messages about how men and women are expected to act in love relationships from the movies and TV I watched?
What celebrities did I admire the most when I was growing up? How did they behave? Did I adopt their standards? Did I try to act like them?
Did I receive any specific messages about how men and women are expected to act in love relationships from the books I read while I was growing up? What characters had the most impact on me? Did they have happy love relationships or tragic ones? (Romeo and Juliet, Jane Eyre, Cinderella)
What did I decide about love? Write your decisions and ask yourself if they have been helping you or hurting you.
My love history
Make a list of the important love relationships you have had in your life from High School on. Answer these questions for each one to the best of your ability.
What attracted me to this person?
What did I expect to happen?
What actually happened?
How did I feel when it ended? (Mad, Glad, Sad, Scared, Abandoned, Embarrassed, Injured)
What did I tell myself when it was over?
What did I decide about love?
Write your decisions and ask yourself if they have been helping you or hurting you.
My learnings
Look over the lists you made and see if you notice any patterns that keep repeating themselves.
* Do you have a history of attracting people who: were unfaithful to you, criticized you, abused you, lied to you, were addicts, criminals or mentally unstable?
* Do you have a history of settling for someone less than the best because you don’t think you deserve someone more intelligent, successful, attractive, loving?
* Do you have a history of having brief relationships and going from one to another?
* Do you keep picking partners who need physical, emotional or financial help or rehabilitation and you tell yourself that you can help them?
* Do you have a history of not being able to be in a committed relationship?
* Do you find yourself in relationships that seem to mirror your parents’ relationship? Was theirs a healthy relationship or a troubled one?
TAKE ACTION
Make one list of all the negative decisions you have made on a sheet of paper and choose one at a time to tap about using EFT. Go to Appendix 1 to learn how to use EFT. Tap until you have revised the decision or come to a new understanding about yourself that is positive. Write that new statement on another paper titled Affirmations
Tap on your Karate Chop spot as you say:
Even though I am living my life according to my decision that _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (say or think of one decision) and it is hurting me and keeping me from having the love I want, I am using EFT to transform that now.
Make one list of all the negative patterns that you have discovered on another sheet of paper and choose one at a time to tap about using EFT. Tap until you come to a new understanding or decision about yourself that is positive. Add those to the Affirmation page.
Even though I have discovered that I have created a negative pattern of _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (describe what it is) and it is hurting me and keeping me from having the love I want, I am using EFT to transform that now.
If other thoughts or memories come to mind, switch your attention to those and continue to tap. Keep this up until you have a solution or until your negative emotions disappear. If you are not feeling positive or neutral it means you haven’t tapped long enough.
Read the list of affirmations that you have collected every day out loud. Then choose one and say or write it ten times.
You might know someone whose hobby is genealogy. Many people spend time and energy tracing their family back in time. This information may give them an overview of who their ancestors were, what they did and what they achieved. If you had an illustrious relative perhaps you imagine that you might have inherited some of his or her outstanding qualities such as bravery, artistic ability or intelligence.
But what if your ancestor was a black sheep? Learning about family histories and hearing stories about ancestors' behaviors and achievements may have impacted your love life. Exploring your past will help you understand your track record when it comes to success in love.
As you were growing up you might have heard about your relatives or even experienced what was going on in your own extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. As a result you made many decisions about what a family was like, how married people treated each other, how siblings treated each other, how men and women treated each other; how husbands and wives acted toward each other during good times and bad. The impact of these decisions may be reflected in your own relationship history.
Here is how to make your own Relationship Family Tree. Take two large sheets of paper, one to represent your maternal family and the other your paternal family. Put the names of the oldest generation that you know about on the very top. For most people it will be your grandparents, however you may find that you have lots of information about your great grandparents or even farther back.
Underneath the names of your earliest ancestors indicate their children by name and the name of that person' s spouse next to them. If any of these people had more than one husband or wife due to death or divorce be sure to show all of them. Under that couple write the names of their children and their husbands or wives. Then show their offspring and spouses and so on. Keep the tree going until you come to your generation. Be sure to put yourself on the chart with your siblings.
After you have completed your charts for both sides of your family you can discover what impact these people have had on your relationships. Here are some questions to guide you in your exploration. Start at the top of the Tree and go down as you ask these questions about each person.
* What kind of personality did this person have?
* List positive and negative traits, achievements or other background information about each one.
* Who did he or she marry? Was there a story about this?
* Did he or she have more than one mate?
* How long did they remain together?
* What stories have you heard about their relationship?
* Were you named after one of these relations? If so, what decision did you make about carrying the same name?
* Were you told that you look like a family member or act like that person? How does this affect you?
As you focus on your family history does it shed light on your own history? Ted was named after an uncle who died at the age of 35. Ted had trouble staying in a relationship and went from woman to woman. He couldn’t seem to commit to anyone. He eventually realized that his uncle's tragic death when Ted was a small boy led Ted to believe that he too would have his life cut short so he shouldn't settle down but should have fun while he could.
When Linda studied her Family Tree she realized that one of the important rules that came down to her was to marry for money. Like her mother and her aunts, she expected to marry a man who would take care of her and give her a life of wealth and ease. When she met Bruce she found him attractive and was excited that he was finishing law school with the idea of opening his own legal practice. Unfortunately, even though he was very bright, Bruce was also an alcoholic. By the time I met Linda five years later, her marriage to Bruce was extremely unhappy. They fought constantly because she wanted Bruce to be a successful lawyer who earned lots of money and he wasn’t.
On the other hand, Candice found herself attracted to men who were quirky and artistic but not dependable wage earners. In her Family Tree she discovered that her grandfather was not very successful so her grandmother worked to make sure the bills were paid. She also encouraged Candice's father to pursue a career in art. He too was lackadaisical about being the main breadwinner. Candice was living out the same kind of script where she too would most likely end up supporting an artistic partner.
Angela had been married to three drug addicts and was engaged to a fourth when she finally asked herself why she was playing out this story. There was a history of addiction in her family so she felt comfortable with people who got drunk or high, were undependable and sometimes violent. She realized that she was also living out a family pattern.
Phyllis was puzzled about her family chart. Her father had three sisters all of whom had been in traditional and stable marriages yet Phyllis had been attracted to unstable men who needed rescuing. Phyllis saw herself as a "strong" woman and realized that she had always tended to be a helper from the time she was a small child. When she looked at her history she saw that although her own parents were very happily married in a stable relationship, her maternal aunts all married men who were "weak." Her maternal grandmother had been a very strong woman who had her own business in Europe in the late 1800s and this story had always impressed Phyllis. The family pattern that she unwittingly adopted was that men were weak and women were strong and had to keep the family going.
Be sure to take time to study your Family Tree. Go back to it from time to time. If you are in a love relationship or married, ask your partner to make one too. Then go through them together and talk about your ancestors, their strengths and weaknesses, who had the most impact on you and what decisions you made that turned out to be harmful or beneficial.
Make sure that you also look for family members who had mature and loving relationships where the husband and wife had relatively equal status and respected and enjoyed each other’s company. Remember them as role models for you to emulate.
Once you see the picture of your history you can begin to re-write your own script now. One way to let go of negative beliefs and decisions that are still affecting you is to use EFT. Tap on some of these statements.
TAKE ACTION
Tap on your Karate Chop Spot as you say the following. Then tap as many rounds of EFT as necessary until you feel a release from the negative pattern, thought or emotion.
* Even though when I was _____ years old I decided that I was supposed to live my life the way that ________(name of relative) did and have great misery and loneliness, I am releasing that now.
* Even though my relationships keep me unhappy and unfulfilled just like those of ________ (name or names of relatives), so I keep attracting people who treat me __________ (describe), I am freeing myself now to find true love and happiness.
* Even though my Family Tree shows me that I come from a long line of people who have _______ relationships where people live lives of quiet desperation, I am letting go of my history.
Make up any other statements that fit your life and experience and tap your way into a new and exciting future.
If new thoughts, feelings or memories arise, tap about those. Keep tapping until you feel at peace. If you are still feeling strong negative emotions it means that you haven’t tapped long enough.
Chapter 4: What Does Love Look Like?
Recently when talking with a divorced client I'll call Marie while she was exploring stress about her relationship problems, I suggested that she use EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). Thoughts and feelings about family members came up as she tapped, and tearfully she said, "I want love." She told me that she didn't feel loved by her mother. In the next breath Marie explained that she and her mom spoke on the phone every day. Although she couldn’t' remember her mother hugging and kissing her as a child, she knew that her mom loved her, but it wasn't enough. She explained, "We talk about the weather, what we are making for dinner and the grandchildren. But that's not the kind of love I mean,"
I asked Marie what kind of family her mom came from. It was a large family where not much affection was displayed physically or through words. Since her mom wasn't used to a display of warmth it was difficult for her to act touchy feely. Marie craved that and later gave her own daughter the kind of warm contact that she missed, however she still felt a void and yearned for her fantasy of what love feels like.
I explained to Marie that different people show love in different ways because, like her mother, not everyone learned how to demonstrate love the way Marie expected it should be. Some people show love by giving gifts. Others write notes or send cards and others do helpful deeds. Not everyone is comfortable with physical touch. Marie's mother keeps in constant touch with her and shares everyday events. That is her way of being loving.
Working with Marie reminded me of a wound I have carried all my life. My mother never said, "I love you" to me. I remember sitting at her hospital bed just before she died, hoping that in her last moments she would remember to tell me. She never did, and I have always grieved about that. My mother never hugged or kissed me except when saying goodbye before a trip.
As I explained to Marie how her mom's way of relating to her through phone calls was her attempt to say, "I love you," I realized that my mother also said "I love you" through behaviors that I discounted, since I too wanted love to come in a different form. My mother's main expression of love was through food. She was famous for making different tasty meals for each person at the table and was a wonderful baker. Her attempt at soothing was to say, "Don't cry honey, have a cookie." Unfortunately cookies became a mother surrogate for me when I needed love.
Like Marie, I had my own definition of what love should look like. Our mother's didn't fit the picture so we decided that they didn't love us. Perhaps they really did but they never had the kind of love they wanted either so they never learned how to show it to others.
If you also want love that has to be "your way" and are not getting it from your significant other, think about this person you resent. What kind of background influenced them? If they don't show you the kind of warmth you yearn for can you think of any acts of generosity or caring from this person that could be interpreted as an act of love, such as Marie's mother's phone calls?