Some signs and signals you need to be very clear about and walk away from, while others you just need to correctly interpret, since the behaviors that lead to a dysfunctional relationship can be the same behaviors that could lead to a healthy relationship. That’s where we don’t clearly interpret the signs. For example, a partner might pull away and withdraw, which is a normal thing that occurs in a relationship. You just need to give them some room to do it, a little patience, and support them when they open up again. If somebody is violent in a relationship, however, often before they become violent, they shut down. If you were with a violent person in the past, in a future relationship when someone shuts down, you might mistakenly assume that they are going to be violent, too, and become afraid or upset. But they’re not about to become violent; they’re just shutting down.
Here are some more signs to be aware of: Being attracted to a partner who is not available. It is a very common thing for people to fall in love with someone who is not available, who is already taken, or who does not have the maturity to be available in a relationship.
Why is it that we want something we can’t have? Why is it that the things we can have we don’t want? That is part of the human neurosis, which is that the more we can’t have it, the more we want it, How about passionately desiring what we can have? How about wanting and needing that? We seem to dismiss what we can have and seek after the things that we can’t have. This is a symptom of unresolved issues within our selves.
We really don’t know how to be happy. Before you can find a partner, you have to learn how to be happy without a partner. That’s a cliché, but it really is true. It is not as easy as that, but that is at least the direction you want to go in, which is to acknowledge that the things that you seem to want are the things that are not good for you, or available to you.
If you keep wanting things that aren’t good for you, that’s a sign that you are not coming from a place of really loving yourself.
So what does it mean to love your self? I’ve written a book called, What You Feel You Can Heal in which I explain how we can learn to feel good about ourselves and love ourselves more, increase our self-esteem, and not feel like we are dependent on someone else to feel good about ourselves. Often, people who have this problem in relationships get married young, and they don’t really give themselves the chance to explore who they are and what makes them happy or doesn’t make them happy. They don’t really know what they like or don’t like, what they want or don’t want, or how to react to things. They also don’t yet have a sense of knowing their true self, which is to be a loving human being who has particular needs, who deserves to have those needs be met, and who understands that other people have the same rights as well.
Women are more vulnerable in this regard than men because they have the nurturing gene. Women tend to easily lose themselves at a time in life when they are learning who they are. They will easily lose themselves by trying to nurture somebody else too much, while not nurturing themselves.
Here is a practical tip: Quite often when we meet someone we might feel a very strong sexual connection with them and then find out they are not available. If that is your pattern, then the next time you feel a strong sexual connection with someone, realize that this is your body’s way of telling you that this person is probably not available to you. The people who are available to you are probably the people you feel no sexual connection to. Give them a chance in relationships. As you start working through your own personal issues, you might find your sexual attraction starts becoming automatically connected to people who are available.
John Gray, Ph.D., is the author of fifteen best selling books that have sold over thirty million copies in forty languages, including Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (HarperCollins, 1992). http://MarriageOfSexAndSpirit.com, http://www.marsvenus.com
