Sounds familiar? You meet a thousand people. Not one of them stirs your feelings. Then, suddenly, magic happens. You have just met the ONE you have been waiting for. Your pulse beats faster, your heart opens. It's a glorious moment of recognition. The ensuing days, weeks or months are sheer heaven. You feel alive and whole and can't imagine life without your new partner. Then CRASH! Doubts, often it's the beginning of a long deteriorating relationship. Sadly, 50% of partners split at this juncture and hope for a better result next time. Others stay trapped in an unhappy relationship or marriage. The misery they know seems less threatening than choosing the path of the unknown.

Why do such hopeful beginnings deteriorate so often? Psychiatrists have studied the subject extensively. Research suggests that the motivation for sudden romantic encounters is embedded in our unconscious. Each of us is attracted by a partner that has very specific positive and negative characteristics of our first caretakers, our Mom and Dad. An area called the limbic brain stores our earliest attachment patterns, the feelings of love that we experienced as newborns.

Our brain records how we experience a parent's love or lack thereof. This record becomes the blueprint in our search for love later in life. When we meet a person seemingly with the same positive and negative characteristics of our parent, our unconscious signals us, it's a match! We both feel something clicked.

Here are the problems. No parent is perfect. Nobody can satisfy all the baby's needs. So most human beings grow up feeling wanting. This sense of loss translates into a compelling unconscious drive to make up for the loss to become whole and happy. A potential mate with similar positive and negative characteristics as our parent actually tricks our brain, signaling us to believe that this person can remedy the imperfect love we experienced as a baby. What we secretly yearned for all our lives seems suddenly attainable. That's a powerful motivation. No wonder we are flooded with positive feelings toward this "stranger".

Unfortunately this motivation is based on the wrong premise. We cannot heal the wounds of our partner. We need to heal our own wounds to be whole. We need to learn to be in touch with our feelings and question why we feel wanting or lacking. This is how we can achieve self-acceptance, to look critically at ourselves. We can learn to embrace who we are so we can grow and feel unified. It?s the essential step to accepting and loving our mates. The pursuit of happiness is not outward oriented. It is centered on becoming one within ourselves. That means connecting with our feelings daily, acting from our own truth.

Becoming whole puts us in a position to recognize the right love partner. Even if we?re involved with a partner who we chose for the wrong unconscious needs, we now have the means to reverse a relationship mired in pain and misunderstanding. It is not our partner that disappointed us; it is our unconscious needs that created unrealistic expectations in each of us.

This recognition can start the path to communication. Please avoid accusations, fault finding and negativity. Both of you need to accept the new reality. Work on your own shortcomings. Raise your own self-esteem. Maybe you need a little help from a counselor to start the process. It?s worth the effort. Becoming happier within yourselves will open the way to each other and the promise of a happy life together. Nobody has to be stuck in a loveless life. As you heal and accept yourself, you will free the energy to love again.

Jacqui

June 2001
Ten good minutes daily equals a closer relationship.

May 2001
My wife's doctor never mentioned the risks in taking estrogen!

April 2001
I can't keep up and he feels cheated. Shouldn't a 64 year old male be slowing down?

March 2001
He admitted he still loved his ex, but wasn't "in love" with her.

February 2001
Even while we're making love I feel like I'm not really participating.

January 2001
Lack of staying power can it be helped?

December 2000
A Holiday Gift: Less Stress, More Joy.

October 1999
I'm fifty-six years old and still suffer from minor menopause symptoms.