How to Find a Partner and Develop a Successful Intimate Relationship

The one-million dollar question is: what does it take to find a suitable partner and cultivate a truly successful relationship?

My simple answer is: it takes SELF-AWARENESS: identifying and understanding what stands in your way from succeeding.

You might be surprised to find out that if you haven’t been successful until now in cultivating a satisfying intimate relationship, it might be YOU who stands in your way! You might be sabotaging your relationships without even knowing that you do!

Here are three examples:

1. JUMPING FROM ONE RELATIONSHIP TO ANOTHER

Betty jumps from one relationship to another. She’s tremendously enthusiastic in the beginning, clings to her partner, gives him her heart and soul to later find herself - once again - abandoned and hurt. What’s the matter with all these men, she asks herself, why isn’t a single one of them prepared to develop a genuine, lasting relationship?

Explanation:

Betty perceives herself as a loving woman who gives herself over completely. But she isn’t aware that her over-enthusiastic behavior is pushing away the men she dates, instead of bringing them closer; that she comes across as dependent and smothering; that her behavior is driven by neediness and a feeling of deprivation.

2. FEELING CRITISIZED ALL THE TIME

Jimmy feels that no matter what he does, he can’t please Holly: he feels that she is always critical of him: of the way he eats, the clothes he wears, how he talks on the phone.

“Can’t I talk to you any more?” Holly asks him. “It’s time you stopped thinking that I’m treating you like your mother does”, she tells him time and again.

But Jimmy is insistent: “You just criticize and annoy me all the time”.

Explanation:

Jimmy reacts towards Holly in an unconscious way which occurs frequently: he’s bringing feelings and reactions back from his interactions with his mother into his relationship with Holly. When Holly tries to bring this to his attention, he refuses to acknowledge it and sticks to his stand that she’s “criticizing and annoying him”.

As long as Jimmy will not become aware, he will continue to accuse Holly.

3. NOT BEING ABLE TO MAINTAIN A LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP

Mary has not had a long-term relationship for years, something that continues to stun her. It’s true: there was a time when she didn’t want a relationship and sought brief encounters just for fun. She was too busy pursuing her career to take relationships too seriously. But she always thought that when she would really want, she wouldn’t have any problem finding one.

So what’s happening now, when she really does want a relationship? How come she can’t manage to find one, and gets disappointed time after time?

Explanation:

Mary's lack of self-awareness makes it impossible for her to see and identify what is preventing her from developing an intimate relationship:

* Is it a fear of commitment?
* Is it a philosophical perception which she holds on to of being a "liberated woman”?
* Is it an unconscious fear of becoming dependent and needy?

Until Mary won’t develop Self-Awareness, she will continue not having a clue as to what’s preventing her from finding a true and lasting relationship. All she presently knows is that she is disappointed and frustrated time and again.

Based on these three examples, and thinking about example(s) from your own life, do you find yourself:

* Disappointed with your relationships, and/or
* Encountering the same problems and conflicts time and again, and/or
* Blaming your partners, and/or
* Experiencing endless breakups, and/or
* Often believing that everything happens due to reasons which are beyond your control?

If you do, and you wish to find and cultivate a successful relationship, the best you can do for yourself is develop SELF-AWARENESS: get to know and understand yourself better; recognize how your attitudes, reactions and behaviors sabotage your relationships – or lack of.

Developing Self-Awareness will enable you:

1) Understand how you shoot yourself in the foot – often without knowing that you do!
2) Become empowered to change whatever needs change, and
3) Become able to find and cultivate a healthy and satisfying bond.