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Dating and Relationships are Hard

How about that for a title? Doesn't it get you excited enough to want go out and hit your head against the wall? If in your relationships you have already bumped your head into the wall you are probably thinking-tell me something new. I guess I just wanted to say "Dating and Relationships are Hard." What are we expecting? So many of the single people that I talk to keep telling me about being rejected, getting hurt, or feeling like they are never going to find someone to marry. I wonder what are they expecting that it will be easy. Is that what the media has done to us? The result is that far too many are closing down and putting up walls to protect themselves from getting hurt-which is perfectly normal, but it doesn't lead to long-term relationship success.

The truth is-you should expect your relationships to be challenging. You should expect to fail a few (or many) times before you get it right. I believe that those who have to work the hardest to find love are more likely to appreciate it when they find it. So many people take their relationships for granted because they never had to pay the price of being rejected or getting dumped. They have always had someone in the wings when one relationship ended or they have never had to deal with rejection-too bad for them and their future partner.

There is something good about being rejected and getting hurt. Every time I say this people look at me like I am crazy. However, I really believe that a little bit of humble pie can go a long way in making someone a good marriage partner. Those who have paid the price of being hurt realize that finding and developing a healthy relationship requires work. It allows them to see that they cannot take relationships for granted. It demands a sensitivity that otherwise may be absent.

Sadly, most people who have had to work hard give up too early. They close their heart and stop trying or when they are given the chance, they are so afraid of being hurt again they don't let themselves succeed. They are convinced that they will be hurt again. My advice to them is to keep trying and remember that your last failed attempt brings you closer to the time you will succeed. That is if you don't completely shut down your heart and push people away.

I may be wrong with this idea, but it seems to me that we live in a society of people who are afraid of being hurt. They have a fear of intimacy. If they let someone get too close to them they might get hurt. Ironically it is these same people who want a relationship and are searching for something. Interesting dilemma isn't it?

If you are wondering what my point is, it is this-relationships require work. They are hard. Developing the right relationship skills and tools requires time and energy. You cannot expect to succeed based upon what you learned in your family. It requires time and energy to learn healthy relationship skills. We spend time learning and educating ourselves on everything from driving to dancing, money to science, but we don't take the time to learn how to be EXCELLENT in relationships. A businessman will spend hundreds of hours developing the right presentation for his company, but will not spend an ounce of energy learning how to make a relationship work. Go figure?

In my educational classes for singles I ask how much time the participants spend thinking about relationships. The most common answers are between 10-12 hours a day. I ask myself how can we spend so much time thinking about something that we aren't willing to learn what it takes to be EXCELLENT? If you have the answer please let me know.

In the meantime expect to fail so that you can succeed.

Dr. Skinner