Find Your Perfect Partner — Find your life partner

Introduction

In 1997 I cre­at­ed a com­pa­ny web­site to describe the work we do at The Phoenix Cen­tre, as well as to pro­mote and sell my books. One of the sug­ges­tions was to pro­vide free stuff.

I decid­ed to offer three rela­tion­ship book­lets – two of the book­lets were about build­ing more ele­gant and func­tion­al rela­tion­ships. The third book­let was The List of 50.

I wrote The List of 50 from personal experience.

I real­ized that the screwy rela­tion­ships I had been in (pri­or to actu­al­ly think­ing about how to cre­ate an ele­gant one) were a direct result of my inattention.

Back in 1983, I made a clear deci­sion about my “next” rela­tion­ship. That year, I also fin­ished my coun­selling degree and met Dar­bel­la, (or Dar for short – an amaz­ing woman who brooks no fool­ish­ness when it comes to relationships.)

My self-real­iza­tions led me to devise a rudi­men­ta­ry List of 50 for myself. More on the List of 50 below!

Many years have passed since I wrote the ini­tial book­let, and I find that I am frus­trat­ing myself. I notice that most rela­tion­ships these days — sim­ply and plain­ly — suck.

The divorce rate in the US and Cana­da is abysmal. As for the rela­tion­ships that do not end in divorce, I am not see­ing a ton of con­tent­ment and real relat­ing. It is painful­ly clear that, of all com­mit­ted rela­tion­ships, per­haps 5 per­cent to 10 per­cent are successful.

And, it’s getting worse.

So much ten­sion, so much dis­trust. And real­ly, although I might be accused of over-sim­pli­fy­ing, the vast major­i­ty of the con­fu­sion in rela­tion­ships has to do with one or both of the par­tic­i­pants try­ing to change the oth­er into the per­son they wish they had actu­al­ly mar­ried.

I decid­ed to re-write the book­let, and to say much more about the place of ratio­nal thought and con­scious aware­ness in the estab­lish­ment and main­te­nance of relationships.

Pre­tend­ing the impor­tant, life-alter­ing deci­sion to relate is “a mat­ter of the heart” is not only stu­pid, it is not work­ing.

This book, then, is a guide­book for find­ing your per­fect part­ner. You’ll dis­cov­er the tools you need to fig­ure out the kind of per­son you want to be in rela­tion­ship with.

The plot is sim­ple: I’ll write about what goes wrong in rela­tion­ships, and espe­cial­ly how you need to estab­lish a set of fil­ters. The fil­ter set is: what I am look­ing for in a partner.

We’ll look at how most of us relate, and explore com­mon beliefs that get in the way of great relat­ing. Then, we’ll move into the meat of this book: cre­at­ing a List of 50. The List is a well thought out guide to the kind of per­son you want to share your life with.

Final­ly, we’ll explore mak­ing the List work, by reset­ting your brain to dis­cov­er peo­ple who fit your List. And I’ll even tell you why all of this works!

Let’s get to it!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter One — Finding Ourselves First

Life is not as it is. Life is as you are.

While I am sure you’d like to rush right along to the “good stuff” about how to find your per­fect part­ner, please stick with me here. I can guar­an­tee that the points you are about to read are essen­tial for your future rela­tion­ship happiness.

Let’s start with an exploration of what doesn’t work. 

Like­ly you’re read­ing this because you know that some­thing isn’t quite right about your under­stand­ings regard­ing:
• how rela­tion­ships form,
• what attracts or repels you, and
• how cul­tur­al myths about rela­tion­ships are actu­al­ly your worst enemies.

If you live in the west, you are bom­bard­ed with end­less piles of crap about relationships.

Movies, TV, book, mag­a­zines – all are invest­ed in shov­el­ing it deep and wide. Most peo­ple nev­er con­sid­er what hap­pens to movie cou­ples “after the cred­its roll.” Movies tend to end at the “… and they lived hap­pi­ly ever after” stage, and view­ers nev­er get to see the effort involved in main­tain­ing a relationship.

Here’s the prob­lem: we are pro­grammed into believ­ing that good rela­tion­ships “should” just hap­pen, almost spon­ta­neous­ly. You know the drill.
Your eyes drift across a crowd­ed room, and lock on to Mr. or Ms. “Right.” The vibes trav­el back and forth, and as the orches­tra plays, you walk (in slow motion) toward your “per­fect life,” which of course is filled with unend­ing bliss. 

That no one has ever actu­al­ly expe­ri­enced the start of a suc­cess­ful rela­tion­ship this way nev­er occurs to us.

Typ­i­cal­ly, rela­tion­ships “tank” when the nov­el­ty of “hor­mones” wears off — at that point, we start judg­ing.

First of all, we judge that the other person is flawed. 

We think that they were keep­ing their real nature a secret, and that we were lied to. Time went by and the ‘real’ per­son sud­den­ly appeared.
We judge that the oth­er per­son did not love us as we deserved. (Of course, we also believe that the oth­er per­son has noth­ing bet­ter to do than to love us the way we want to be loved, 24/7…)

We are conditioned to look outside of ourselves for validation, happiness, and direction.

Now, west­ern soci­ety would col­lapse if peo­ple stopped look­ing “out­side” for their sat­is­fac­tion – stopped buy­ing what is being sold. But the west­ern approach is based on “nev­er good enough.”

No mat­ter how “good” some­thing is, in order to keep us buy­ing, the mar­keters have to con­vince us that we need a bet­ter ver­sion. We are jad­ed – we are con­vinced that sat­is­fac­tion comes from out­side of ourselves.

If you are ‘nor­mal,’ you’ve been con­di­tioned to think that oth­ers should behave in a cer­tain way – that the peo­ple in your life should want to make you hap­py. The prob­lem with this view is that it sim­ply does not work.

It does not work because all such a belief cre­ates is two peo­ple mak­ing demands on each oth­er — what you want and you need vs. what your part­ner wants and needs — cou­pled with the idea that oth­ers should put you first. I think you see the prob­lem — when both do this, there has to be a conflict.

Now, objec­tive­ly, how would we deter­mine which of these mutu­al­ly exclu­sive needs “should” be ful­filled? In oth­er words, what makes what you want more impor­tant than what your part­ner wants?

Yet, in most rela­tion­ships, love is equat­ed with obe­di­ence. Because of this, in your failed rela­tion­ships, you end­less­ly judged that the oth­er per­son was not “treat­ing you right.” You were unhap­py, and you blamed your partner.

In this book, I am talking to you, and only you.

I will ask you who you are, and encour­age you to self-explore — to fig­ure out what is going on for you, and thus to let go of mak­ing your­self unhappy.

I think your key task is get­ting to know and accept all sides of you. When you accept and love your­self, you will not need affir­ma­tions and con­fir­ma­tion from your part­ner (you won’t be ‘needy.’)

You will be free to clear­ly choose who to be in rela­tion­ship with – based on the char­ac­ter­is­tics that are impor­tant to you – not based upon their will­ing­ness to end­less­ly prop you up.

The only thing that matters in relationship is:

“Am I learn­ing about myself in this rela­tion­ship? Do I make myself hap­py in this rela­tion­ship? Is my part­ner the per­son I pri­mar­i­ly want to share myself with – body, mind and spir­it? Do I feel encour­aged in my walk, and is my part­ner a per­son I can open up to unconditionally?” 

It’s not about con­ve­nience, nor about keep­ing your part­ner around so you will not be scared or afraid, and it is not about mak­ing life easy. Life is not easy, nor is being in rela­tion­ship easy.

One time, I was talk­ing with a client who was real­ly frus­trat­ed. He was just shy of 40, and had a string of failed rela­tion­ships train­ing in his wake. I asked him about his dat­ing strat­e­gy.

“If a woman seems inter­est­ed, I ask her out.”
Me: “Well, exact­ly what kind of per­son are you look­ing for?”
Him: “I don’t real­ly have a clue.”
Me: “Well, do you think that might have some­thing to do with why you keep end­ing up in rela­tion­ships with strange people?”
Him: “How do I fig­ure out what I want?”

I gave him a strat­e­gy that I spell out in detail in my book, Find Your Per­fect Partner.

What’s this all about? I’m glad you asked!

“The List of 50” is the key to finding Your Perfect Partner.

Not only does this book go into the details of cre­at­ing your own List of 50, but here is what else you will dis­cov­er once you get your hands on this book:

• prac­ti­cal, step-by-step ways to do what works and to stop doing what does­n’t when it comes to find­ing a new relationship.
• the inside val­i­da­tion exer­cise – how to con­di­tion your­self to do the oppo­site of what peo­ple in failed rela­tion­ships do time and time again
• three cul­tur­al myths that get in the way of rela­tion­ship success
• Are you in love? How to tell the dif­fer­ence between lust and the real thing
• the data fil­ter­ing prin­ci­ple – the rea­son you keep get­ting into dead-end rela­tion­ships (and how to change this forever) 
• why “tak­ing your chances” is the worst way of find­ing your ide­al part­ner (and you’ll dis­cov­er a much bet­ter alternative)
• how to ‘police the lan­guage’ in your List of 50 – ways to say what you want, clear­ly and specifically
• are you real­ly ready for a new rela­tion­ship? Your answer may sur­prise you!
• Why friends are good mod­els for lovers