Getting Love Right

Learning the Choices of Healthy Intimacy

Terence T. Gorski

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781439147474
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Interpersonal Relations in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO LEARN HOW TO LOVE When you fall in love you may be repeating bad relationship habits that you learned growing up or in a previous unhealthy relationship. No matter what your history, Getting Love Right can explain how to build and maintain healthy intimacy, including: * How to recognize if you are in a compulsive, apathetic, or healthy relationship* How to become a person who is capable of healthy intimacy* How to choose a healthy partnerIf you are in a relationship or want to be in one, Terence T. Gorski will teach you that love isn't just something that happens -- love is something you can learn.

I

BACKGROUND

AND

OVERVIEW

Chapter 1

GETTING LOVE RIGHT

According to ancient Greek mythology, human beings were originally created with both sexes, male and female, combined in one person. They were whole and complete within themselves and lived in a fulfilled state of perfect union.

Then, as human beings have a tendency to do, they angered the gods. The gods punished humanity by cutting each person in half. One half became male and the other half became female. Then the gods cursed human beings for the rest of their existence to try and become whole again by reassembling themselves.

On a fundamental level, relationships represent a search for that wholeness, a search for completeness and the ability to feel as one with another human being. In many ways, this striving for unity with another person is a fool’s game. Ultimately, it is impossible to merge and stay merged with another human being. At best, we can find moments of completion, moments of closeness and oneness. But then what happens? We always come back to the reality that we are two separate individuals.

Yet, like all myths, there is a measure of truth to this one, too. When we get love right, two individuals become us, an entity that makes the two of us together stronger than we ever could be alone. The me and the you still remain as separate entities, however, in conjunction with us.

So the question becomes, How can we come together and build a relationship that creates this better us? How do we go about developing relationships that can meet our needs for wholeness and fulfillment? It is not simple, but it can be done. We can learn to share our life with another person in a way that enhances rather than diminishes who we are.

This book will demonstrate the step-by-step process involved in building and maintaining a healthy relationship. It will enable you to understand the origins of your relationship patterns, show you how to analyze them, and identify alternative behaviors so you can replace dysfunctional patterns with healthy patterns.

If you are single, Getting Love Right will help you learn how to develop into the kind of person who is capable of a healthy relationship; how to select an appropriate partner who can meet your needs; and how to guide your relationship through different levels and stages.

If you are currently in a relationship, Getting Love Right will teach you how to transform that relationship. It will provide information and assessment tools that will enable you to evaluate your present relationship and identify areas for growth. It will give you the techniques to problem-solve in a productive way and undertake a fundamental relationship renegotiation with your partner.

DECIDING ON HEALTHY LOVE

Many people experience problems in relationships because they hold mistaken beliefs about the fundamental nature of love. We have been taught since childhood to believe that love is a mysterious phenomenon beyond our control. Just look at the way we talk about it. We “fall” in love, sometimes “head over heels.” We say she “stole his heart,” or “she lost her heart” to him. Cupid shoots his arrow and we are powerless to resist. These myths tell us that love comes into our lives suddenly through little or no choice of our own. No wonder we are confused about how to achieve a lasting, fulfilling relationship.

Healthy love is not an accident. Nor is it a temporary feeling that comes and goes. Love is a decision we make based on essential choices about ourselves, our partner, and our relationship. While healthy love is often profound and passionate, we can build it into our lives step by step, one choice at a time.

To get love right, therefore, we need to revise our concept of love as some romanticized ideal and understand a relationship for what it is: an agreement between two people to meet each other’s needs and to have their own needs met in return.

There are three common relationship errors:

1. Expecting too much from a relationship

2. Expecting too little from a relationship

3. Expecting a relationship to remain unchanged

Some people expect too much from a relationship. They hold onto the belief that the right partner or the right relationship can magically fix them and free them from taking responsibility for their lives. They expect a partner to have the ability to make them feel better on demand. As a result, they are constantly disappointed. They experience cycles of intense highs, when the relationship seems to be going well, and intense lows, when it fails to meet their unrealistic expectations.

Other people expect too little from a relationship. They are so sure they can never feel whole and complete with another human being that they never give themselves the chance to have their needs for love and intimacy met. They equate intimacy with pain and do everything they can to insulate and protect themselves from it. They do not know that there are two kinds of pain: pathological pain that comes from dysfunctional, unsafe relationships and the healthy pain of growth in normal intimate relationships.

Still others may have found a satisfying relationship, but then make the mistake of expecting it to stay the same year after year. They don’t realize that relationships are not a one-time event but an ongoing process. As time goes on, both partners need to continue to talk and problem-solve together, and, when necessary, renegotiate the terms of the relationship so that it stays current with their needs.

HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS: PASSION AND SAFETY

Healthy relationships meet our needs for both passion and safety. Dysfunctional relationships, by contrast, represent extremes in which only one or the other exists. People who expect too much from relationships seek passion. Unfortunately, they almost always give up safety in the process and end up being hurt. People who expect too little from relationships choose safety over passion. They often lose the chance to have their needs for intimacy and passion met.

Healthy partners know that passion and safety can coexist in healthy relationships because these relationships are rational, flexible, and safe.

Healthy relationships are rational because you choose them. You choose the type of relationship you’re ready for. Then you choose to become a person capable of being in a healthy relationship. You select your partner on the basis of a variety of characteristics and choose the rate at which the relationship develops. Ultimately, you and your partner choose whether to continue the relationship or to end it.

Built in this way, a relationship becomes a series of choices, all of which have logical consequences. If you choose as a partner someone who is incapable of meeting your needs, the logical consequence is that your partner and the relationship will not give you what you want. If you choose a dangerous partner, you can expect to have a dangerous relationship. If you choose a healthy, compatible partner who is capable and willing to meet your needs, it is logical to expect that you will have a compatible relationship in which your needs are met.

Healthy relati...