Why are relationships so difficult?

Relationships are often difficult and most people have tried to break up. Photo: Frankie Cordoba.

If romantic relationships are difficult for you, you probably wondered why and you probably felt bad about it; at least that’s what I did for many years. In this post I like to provide a new understanding of why relationships often fail and why so many of us are single. I hope to make you feel better about yourself. The purpose is not to give dating advice but if you come to feel good about yourself that certainly helps your dating too.

For a very long time I have been thinking about singlehood, failed relationships, bad relationship choices and issues like that. Actually, I have been thinking about those issues since I was a teenager because in those days I realized that I myself had one very difficult problem; I was unable to be in a relationship since I only fell in love with someone I couldn’t get.

So I started thinking. And since my problems in that regard were very persistent, I kept on thinking about those issues for many years. Along the way I came up with some solutions and I started to feel that I kind of solved those problems in my own life or at least I was not tormented by them anymore. Based on my own experiences and thoughts as well as some theoretical knowledge, I also started helping other people. I had clients and I even wrote two books (in Danish) about my ideas. 

I used to both pity and blame myself for being unsuccessful in relationships. I also used to believe that romantic love was the doorway to happiness and since this particular door had slammed in my face, I thought that I would never be happy.

I guess thinking like that is kind of normal because we celebrate marriage. Everyday on the radio we hear mostly romantic songs. In Hollywood movies the hero gets the girl in the end and they live happily ever after. That’s the one important happiness narrative in Western culture. Today I no longer worry much about failing in that regard because I think that the narrative is flawed. 

Attachment theory falls short

As I recall it, when I studied psychology at university many years ago I was only presented with one explanation to why relationships fail and that’s “attachment theory”. The theory was originally developed by the British psychoanalyst John Bowlby (1907-1990) and his American-Canadian co-worker the developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth (1913-1999).

According to them, our ability to form deep and enduring emotional bonds are based on early experiences with our primary caregivers and therefore the theory is also sometimes used to say that adult relationship patterns are modeled on those childhood experiences.

The theory identifies four different attachment patterns that are visible from an early age, that’s “secure”, “ambivalent”, “avoidant” and “disorganized”. Most children are secure, they feel safe and confident. Supposedly they also form good relationships as adults.

The ambivalent children on the other hand are insecure, distrustful and suffer from separation anxiety. As adults they tend to cling to and feel unloved by their partners. The avoidant children tend to stay away from intimacy altogether as adults and the same goes for the disorganized children who also have a hard time controlling anger and other emotions. 

I am sure attachment theory has some truth to it. In my opinion it is, however, not able to account for why so many people have overwhelming relationship issues and why large parts of us either get divorced or do not marry at all.

That’s a general trend in many Western societies and therefore it doesn’t really make sense to try to explain it in terms of individual childhoods. It seems to me that we need to develop other kinds of explanations and that if you are unable to be in a long term couples relationship it doesn’t necessarily mean that something went wrong in early bonding. 

How do you feel about intimacy?

I think it is important to discern the “why” in each individual case. Do you for instance stay away from intimacy due to fear? And, if so, is it a “good” or a “bad” fear. A good fear is when you are afraid of something dangerous. That’s reasonable. It serves you well and keeps you out of danger.

A bad fear, however, is irrational. We call it anxiety or phobia. It resembles an allergic reaction to something that is healthy. For instance, if you are allergic to apples it is probably not very sensible. For some reason your body’s immune system has categorized it in a wrong way. Likewise intimacy and close relationships are good for us, so a basic fear of that is what I call bad fear.

Do you fear intimacy? Photo: Sinitta Leunen

A bad fear like that may have arisen from insensitive parenting as attachment theory suggests. Since it happened at a very early age you don’t remember but subconsciously you are convinced that you must watch out for intimate relationships. If that’s your problem, then you do have a problem. 

But what if the case is very different; for example you do not fear intimacy and you enjoy close relationships but you get easily tired of being in a couples relationship? Maybe you prefer freedom. Or what if you fall in love in November but come January you already forgot about it? What if you are passionate about something else, not marriage? Or if somehow you sense that romance is not really the kind of love that you are looking for?

These examples may not have anything to do with problems in early bonding. However, since our predominant happiness narrative is so closely related to romance, I think that Western culture pretty much fails to address these issues and to provide a deeper understanding of the involved people’s psychology.

As a result, we don’t have a good framework for understanding ourselves in those situations. You may easily come to think: “What is wrong with me?” Therefore a lot of people end up struggling with both confusion and low self esteem if they don’t fit very well into our cultural notions of romantic love. 

Martinus’s view on relationships

When I was in my early twenties I started reading the Danish author Martinus (1890-1981). His writings on spiritual issues are vast and comprehensive; his main work alone, Livets Bog (The Book of Life), entails thousands of pages in seven volumes. I don’t expect you to know anything about him. Even in Denmark he is not commonly known but parts of his writings are translated into numerous languages.

Reading him I began to see things in a new perspective and I realized that my own problems might not be caused by fear of intimacy and bonding issues but rather they might be signs of something natural and meaningful. 

According to Martinus, relationship issues are not a mistake because a new kind of love is on the rise and problems with the old romantic kind is an intrinsic part of the transformational process. 

He sees modern developments in our relationship and family structures as part of a larger evolutionary scheme. He uses the term “zone of unhappy marriages” for our present stage in that evolution and says that our ability to form marriages has been degenerating for a long time already.

It doesn’t sound like a very nice idea, does it? So why would that comfort me in any way? Well, since I used to think that something was wrong with me, the suggestion that I was on the right track was very appealing. What a relief!

According to Martinus, relationship issues are not a mistake because a new kind of love is on the rise and problems with the old romantic kind is an intrinsic part of the transformational process. 

Marital love and neighborly love

He portrayed two kinds of love, “marital love” and “neighborly love”. You may say that marital love is for the one whereas neighborly love is for everyone. Martinus proclaimed that we are all influenced to some degree by both of these two kinds of love but that we differ greatly with regard to our make-up, that is some of us are very much into marital love whereas others are more or less dominated by neighborly love.

He also said that the first one is in decline and the second one is growing. Even if this transition is slow and organic, it is also progressing steadily and will ultimately, in a far off future, lead to a total restructuring of our love lives so that neighborly love takes over completely leaving no room whatsoever for marriages. 

The two kinds of love are conflicting forces because, if you truly love your neighbor, your wife or husband may easily feel neglected or jealous. They will soon realize that they are not the one and only since neighborly love is all encompassing, meaning the object of that love is not just one woman or one man but every woman and every man.

That’s why if you are looking for a partner, you would do well to consider if the two of you have similar make-ups. If both of you are dominated by marital love you will likely be joined at the hip. But if one of you is dominated by neighborly love and the other by marital love, your relationship will probably suffer a lot from that disharmony and you might not stick together for very long.

Marital love is the kind of love you feel when you “fall in love”. It is a natural phenomenon in all of the animal kingdom. It is instinctive and hormone-driven, and I think it is fair to say that this is the kind of love that will most often convince us to start a family. For some of us, though, this kind of love is not at all what it used to be. Our ability to fall in love like that has become eroded and fragmented.

According to Martinus we will experience that more and more in the future. This means that increasing numbers of us will have difficult and unhappy marriages or will not get married at all. If you are like that, your appetite for relationships is rather small and you also may no longer feel like having kids. Those big meals are too much for you. 

Heartaches in the transitional period

During the period of transition your love life may lead to numerous heartaches and give rise to a lot of confusion. At some point you may realize that you are like a wounded refugee in a no-man’s land between the realms governed by these two kinds of love.

Caught up in the middle you might try to fulfill the requirements of both but since they represent opposing ideals and practices you will probably end up failing either way. If you are no longer able or fit to marry and if you are not yet able to truly love your neighbor either, you will have to limp along doing everything in a half-hearted way.

For some that struggle may be very intense and painful whereas for others it is less acute but most of us living in the modern world will probably feel its weight to some degree.

Even if it sounds depressing it is not all bad because you may also experience some progression, for instance getting better and more intimate friendships even with your ex’es or with those girls or guys that you used to date. That’s a good sign showing that neighborly love is on the rise in your mentality.

So to recap, relationship issues may hurt a lot and getting your heart broken may happen too often, however, that doesn’t mean that something is wrong with you. On the contrary, if Martinus is correct, you are probably on the right track in a large transitional process. Hopefully, thinking about it like that will allow you to feel better and more confident. That may even help your dating.

---

Follow this blog, I will soon give out more advice on dating and relationship issues.

“It’s a match!” Make it happen with The Law of Attraction

If you want to be lucky in love there is something else apart from knowing your dating techniques. In this article, we introduce the Law of Attraction as laid out by American Abraham Hicks. And we illustrate that theory using our own life examples. Hopefully you will be able to recognize the workings of “energy” or “spirit” and to benefit from that in your own dating.

Written by Suzette Lyn Michaelsen and Jens W. Pedersen

“It’s 13:05. I’m off now from work. I must hurry home because I made an appointment with my friends.  Yeah! We’re planning to get lunch at the restaurant. I’m late and I still need to get dressed. Oh God! Time is running!

Now, that I am done with my vanity, it’s my car that should be fixed. “Oh yea! I need some gasoline!”  I hate it when I need to do it myself, while I am wearing high heels and a decent dress.

Oh no! Why is that guy looking at me? Is something wrong with the way I am holding this gasoline thing? Oh my God, he is coming! He probably will tell me not to hold it that way or whatever!

But no, that’s how it is: He just wants my telephone number. He is opening an opportunity to get to know me better.”

This is one typical story in Suzette’s life, but why does she attract men like that?

Law of attraction
Suzette is practising the “Law of Attraction” in her daily life. It gives her courage, self-esteem, satisfaction, enthusiasm and happiness in everything she does. Since she practised this method of living, she could always feel the energy in every second of her daily life.

In the language of Law of Attraction it is called “alignment to the Vortex”, which means you flow easily inside—because you are joined with the whole of that which you are.

Even if she is single, she is fine for she believes in “The romance magnet”. She let her radar activated to attract the perfect match. This practice gives her a blissful, colourful and joyful life compared to having a partner who never made her exultant.

There is something called “The desperate dater”. This is someone who is afraid of missing out. And trying to be loved by doing what others want. Or maybe that person will be searching for a partner because he or she is expected to.

We may come to think that we are not successful unless we are in a relationship. Some even think that we must be partners for more than half of our life, and so they believe that number of years is evidence of success.

Now, this fearful attitude and motivation is not beneficial when dating. The law of attraction reveals that success is not about numbers, moments, pictures or description. Perfect romance is about how content and happy you are within.

Jens tells a story about how this high energy works in extraordinary ways:

“Years ago I met a girlfriend using online dating. I used this method for a long time and I had many, many dates before her.

She, on the other hand, only did the following: She set up a free profile that lasted for one day only. She spent a few hours searching through many profiles and then contacted me. Only me. She said that my profile was the only one where she liked both pictures and text.

So, she sent a message with her phone number, and I called her. On our first date, a man came by and gave us two tickets for a show at The Royal Theater that same evening – so it became a very long date and the start of a long-term relationship.

This unusual story contains elements of something that looks very much like luck or coincidence. But I think many good love stories are like that.

I often wondered, though, why it was so easy for her, whereas I had to go through all sorts of dates before meeting the right one.

And if it is not to be considered luck or mere chance, then I think it must be due to our individual energies or wishes. Maybe I just didn’t know very well what I was looking for. In the words of Law of Attraction her “radar” apparently worked much better than mine.”

So now, let’s explore the radar in further detail.

Know yourself or inner being
Practising Law of Attraction, the one who is in alignment comes on our radar. No one else will show up. To ensure that, we should first visualize the perfect person who can match our desire. Make a list of what that person will be like.

The list should, however, come from your inner self’s desire. Not from an outer source like somebody else’s expectation. It is not a rich guy or a beautiful girl that our surroundings will approve of.

The list should only consist of those traits that will match you and bring you to the Vortex, that is the feeling of being at peace, in high spirits and abundant.

In Jens’s story his desire is not clear for him to activate his vibration and energy. So that will complicate things.

Suzette explains how she stays true to herself in order to activate her vibration:

“We think wearing trendy clothes and shoes will attract the opposite sex. But by doing this, you are just pleasing others to make them like you.

I am only using the same colour of lipstick since I learned to wear it. Every summer I have the same style of clothes and shoes. It feels good to be myself. No matter what the trendy jeans looks like, I always wear dresses.

I actually don’t wear the most sexy dresses and shoes. And I was never into breast augmentation to attract men.

We should follow our hearts desire. If an intelligent man will match you and will bring you to the Vortex, so don’t doubt it. If a good sexual experience will match you and will bring you to the Vortex, so don’t doubt it.

Follow your intuition, manifest yourself and focus, then Law of Attraction will be activated and the right one comes onto your radar”.

It is important to know your inner self. And from that knowing you are able to send out authentic wishes.

It is a matter of focus or directing energy. But in order to do that it must be balanced, so that what you do is a projection of your inner being or soul.

Then it turns into a high energy or strong force. On the other hand if you are not tuned into that inner being it will not work very well.

Jens’s real life examples show the importance of focused energy and also how that energy may be lost:

“Sometimes I really want to meet girls and that focus turns into a lot of matches on dating apps. But for some reason I get discouraged: I doubt it. I am not really into her. There may be too many matches, and it’s too much for me, so I get stressed out or tired.

And then suddenly some of them disappear. Or the energy between us is lost and nothing further comes from it.

It seems that at first I send out energy of desire that creates activity and attraction, but then I send out the opposite wish and it creates repulsion.

Likewise, I wondered why I only got very few matches with ethnic Danish women. I liked a whole lot of them on Tinder, so that was kind of strange to me. At first I would think: “Oh, they don’t like me!”

But then I realized it might be the other way around cause in many cases I did not really put my heart into it. I was more excited about exotic women with foreign backgrounds, and that might explain the matter in terms of energy.”

So to know your self is a key issue and from that we are able to focus our energy. But there is something more to it. Cause we do not align with our Vortex unless we are loving and positive.

Love and positivity
Abraham Hicks said that: “You cannot focus upon unwanted and be in the Vortex at the same time”. So, in other words to love and appreciate is another key issue, if you want your energy to flow from that inner being.

So, let’s have a few examples, Suzette tells us about that part of her life:

“The way of activating Law of Attraction is to show compassion and love. Love is the most precious thing a human can have. And if you have love in your heart at all times it will give the long lasting happiness compared to the happiness you may feel buying a new IPhone.

I visited a lady who lives alone in her apartment. She said: “It is so hard to be old, I am all alone, empty and feel unworthy in this life”.

But I held her hand and told her: “Do you know how lucky you are? You had a successful marriage and your children love you. And you know what? I am here for you to comfort you in your loneliness and emptiness.”

Another woman told me: “It is so nice to see a happy person coming to me today. You gave something that made my afternoon complete”. When we are happy, positive and optimistic we manifest ourselves as loveable beings.

I also met an old lady at work, and she was very sick. She couldn’t express her thoughts. I was moved when I saw tears falling from her eyes so I wiped it immediately. And following my intuition, I held her hand and told her “I am here for you”. She smiled at me and then lost her breath.”

The last example also goes to show how the flow of energy from your inner being turns into action. Suzette is able to act upon the situation even if the lady cannot express herself. It is intuition that guides her to comfort the old lady in her final hour.

This is what we gain from a loving attitude. And in the same way you will be able to act using intuition in your romantic love life. It will provide your perfect match.

The 3-point cure for unhappy infatuations

What to do with unhappy infatuations? Below you find a cure based on my experience.

Years ago I wrote a 3-point cure for unhappy infatuations. I still believe that it works, so below you will find it in a slightly revised form. It is based on my own experiences, since I used to fall in love with girls who didn’t love me back and so I needed to get a hold on my emotions. The following is what I came up with.

The cure is based on the idea that a person who is unhappy in love is grabbed by his or her emotions and not thinking strait. By reviewing and reflecting on the following three points it is possible to introduce more common sense into the process and healing comes from that:

Point 1: Use your gut feeling
When you can not have another person as a rule you know, BUT you may choose to ignore that knowledge – you catch at a straw and hope that the other one may still …

That want work!

Instead, you should use your gut feeling, it will tell you if that other person is also interested.

Point 2: Be realistic about that person
You may imagine that the other one is something quite amazing and that you’d be SO happy if only …

No, you would not!

If the two of you had a relationship, you would find that he or she is an ordinary person, maybe ill-suited for you, and that your everyday life together will sometimes be dull and boring like it happens in most relationships.

Point 3: See beyond the obsession
When you imagine that the other one is absolutely the ONLY thing and that you NEVER will be happy again unless he or she …

Then you are wrong!

And once the obsession is gone, you may very well end up thinking, “What on earth did I see in that person?”

Letting go of attachment
Thus the three points, they are intended to help you let go of an emotional attachment, which is not good for you – when the cure works well, you will be relieved, freed from an unhappy infatuation.

If it doesn’t work for you, you are very welcome to contact me for guidance.

Here you find contact info and prices.

To the modern gentleman: Be nice!

Do you want your man to be gentle in the old fashioned way? Photo by Viktor Hanacek

 

How gentle would you want your man to be? Personally I believe that kindness and tact are some of the most important personal qualities we may have (both men and women).

But at the same time I will soon feel awkward, if I am expected to be gentleman-like in the old way, that is, to pull out chairs, hold doors, etc .. In general I am not very comfortable with traditional gender roles.

So from my point of view a modern gentleman is not upholding old fashioned values and gender specific norms of behaviour, but he is a true gentleman when he is loving, kind and considerate.

It is said very well in the simple advice I once got from a girl who did not like my behaviour: “Be nice!”

What do you say? 🙂 ♥

 

 

This is why we break up!

By Jens W. Pedersen

Read a new and surprising view on why you cannot maintain your relationships for very long.

The author of this post, Jens W. Pedersen, coaches and consults on dating and love. Read his refreshing thoughts on why so many of us jump from one relationship to the next and what you can do instead.

Today many of us find it difficult to succeed in relationships, and there may be several reasons for that. Some therapists point out, that it is due to traumatic experiences that instilled a fear of being let down and thus we no longer put our faith in love.

But I would like to suggest a different reason that is rarely spoken of: It may be that your preoccupation with relationships and marriage is on the decline, so that being a couple is not the most important thing in your life anymore.

That phase is, in other words, about to be over and done with in your case, and therefore no longer holds such a strong grip on you. This is why you will lose interest in the partner. What should have been a lifelong interest and partnership, turns out to be nothing more than a short intermezzo, or a faint reflection of the romantic dream that you had hoped for.

Content in your single life
However, if you lack a good substitute for the life-content represented by romance, you might easily hang on to the past, and so, you repeat it by trying yet another partner and investing your feelings in that new love.

Nowadays we have consequently what has been named serial monogamy, where we periodically change our partner and start over. In this way, we go through the same phases of a love relationship repeatedly, but we find it hard to move on from there and attain a new sense of meaning.

The case may be that being two alone together is no longer enough for you. This does not mean that you completely wave farewell to having a relationship in your life, but you must supplement it with something more.

If you place a one-sided emphasis on the life content that your relationship or marriage might give to you, you expect too much from romance and so you are disappointed time and again.

What is your passion?
If you repeatedly find that your relationships are crumbling, I therefore suggest that you consider whether your preoccupation with relationships is in reality somewhat artificial or exaggerated?

The failed relationships may be an indication that you are moving out of the zone where being together as a couple meets all your dreams, and then you need to look for a new, alternative life content.

It might be another passion or a greater kind of love where you are thinking of doing something for others, i.e. charity, altruism and compassion. Below you get more ideas.

Consider what your new life content is, for example:

• Give your children a good start in life
• Enrich the lives of others by becoming a capacity within your line of work
• Create great music, art, architecture, literature, etc.
• Immerse yourself in a great hobby or interest
• Spread happiness around you with your fine sense of humour
• Fight for a better world with your political messages
• Fulfil your mission in life by …?

The search for new life content may well be fumbling and hesitant. That is quite natural. Transition phases are hard. When one era is over and life is about to take a new turn, it can be experienced as a loss of meaning or a sense of inner emptiness that persists until we understand what our life is now going to be about.