Having the Best Relationship Ever

Hav­ing the Best Rela­tion­ship Ever — a look at what’s behind my book, The. Best. Rela­tion­ship. Ever. 

Back when I was in private practice, three topics came up… a lot:

1. stuff about pas­sion, voca­tion, sexuality
2. stuff relat­ed to get­ting your life togeth­er, and
3. stuff about relationships

There’s a lot of bad information out there. I wanted to help more people… so I wrote books!

After writ­ing three books geared toward indi­vid­u­als, I wrote two about relationships.

First, I wrote a great­ly expand­ed ver­sion of my book­let, the List of 50. This book is a method­ol­o­gy to fig­ure out how to, as the title says, “Find Your Per­fect Part­ner.” The con­cept is sim­ple. Hor­mones do a lousy job of help­ing us to pick some­one to date.

Thinking through (which is a component in “getting your life together”) who you want to be in relationship with is the only way to get what you want.

But finding a great partner is only “Step 1.” The rest of it happens as we practice, day in and day out, the fine art of relating.

Many years ago, I start­ed writ­ing a rela­tion­ships book. It’s had var­i­ous names, and was an odd book.

I’m usu­al­ly OK with writ­ing and fin­ish­ing up, but this one was slip­pery… it kept get­ting longer and longer, and I could­n’t fig­ure out how to end it.

I think this was because I really believe in the value of an excellent relationship. 

And that meant I want­ed to get the book exact­ly right. I real­ized how much trou­ble I’d had get­ting to the place of know­ing what works and how to do it…

No ques­tion, hang­ing out with Dar­bel­la for almost 40 years now has been “inter­est­ing.” I real­ly did have a lot of bag­gage back in 1982, when we got together. 

This would include 2 failed marriages, and an ego that filled rooms. (I’ve got it down to closet size. Really.)

Dar was patient, and crys­tal clear about not play­ing my games. I learned to focus on me, and me alone — as in, not blam­ing her for any part of my inter­nal experience. 

That was the turning point for me: I accepted 100% responsibility for my life

As I men­tioned above, this led to my first 3 books books, This End­less Moment, Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall, and. Liv­ing Life in Grow­ing Orbits… which are focussed on indi­vid­ual exploration.

But that relationships book… that was another story.

Any­way, I got a lot of requests from my clients for a rela­tion­ships book. I decid­ed that I need­ed to “get ‘er done,” so I worked through sev­er­al stored and dropped ver­sions, look­ing for the meat of the book.

I found it

The. Best. Rela­tion­ship. Ever. is a guide to what works. I’ve includ­ed details on the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Mod­el, as well as 8 oth­er Tools for Relating. 

I devised exer­cis­es and a plan for work­ing through the Tools to cre­ate a rela­tion­ship that works.

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Here’s the Introduction

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First of all, welcome!

My wife Dar­bel­la (Dar for short) and I have been devel­op­ing and teach­ing Ele­gant, Inti­mate Relat­ing since we met in 1982. We’ve helped hun­dreds of clients to strength­en and deep­en their rela­tion­ships. Need­less to say, what you’re about to read is the bedrock for our own relationship.

We’d like to help you — if you use what we’ve learned, and your rela­tion­ship will become the best is can be.

Over the years, I’ve writ­ten two book­lets about relat­ing, as well as cre­at­ing “The List of 50,” — a method to fig­ure out what you want in a part­ner (expand­ed to a full length book, Find Your Per­fect Part­ner.) Recent­ly, I decid­ed it was time for a prac­ti­cal guide based on Ele­gant, Inti­mate Relating.

The. Best. Rela­tion­ship. Ever. teach­es the nuts and bolts of build­ing and main­tain­ing a great rela­tion­ship. You’ll learn about what Ele­gant, Inti­mate Relat­ing looks like, you’ll dis­cov­er how to com­mu­ni­cate with clar­i­ty and curios­i­ty, and you’ll dis­cov­er how to con­tin­ue deep­en­ing your rela­tion­ship over time.

The Plot Thickens

The best gift you can give your­self, right now, is an acknowl­edg­ment — you real­ly don’t have a clue what it takes to have a full-bod­ied, lush rela­tion­ship, now do you??

And real­ly, why would you? They’re pret­ty rare. Most experts, includ­ing me ? fig­ure that only 5% of the pop­u­la­tion ever fig­ures this one out.

That’s why so many peo­ple divorce; that’s why so many oth­ers have dull, bor­ing relationships.

Hard Work is Required

Fair warn­ing: Ele­gant, Inti­mate Relat­ing is a long and wind­ing road. I want to be clear. This book has no short-cuts — just plain speak­ing, and hard work.

Rela­tion­ship work is per­son­al and individual

Now, that may seem a bit odd in a book titled, “The. Best. Rela­tion­ship. Ever.” I’m stat­ing it this way to make a point. Despite the fact that the num­ber of peo­ple in a tra­di­tion­al rela­tion­ship is two, there is only one per­son that can change how you relate to your part­ner. You!

There­fore, not one sug­ges­tion in this book is aimed at your part­ner. This book is not a tool to blud­geon your part­ner with. This book is designed to get you to stop look­ing out­side of your­self, either for res­cue, or to blame.

Have a look at the rela­tion­ship you are in (or the one that just end­ed!) Now, say after me:

“I cre­at­ed this. Every aspect of my life is just as it is, and it is as it is because of how I think, and what I do. Wait­ing for my part­ner to change is sil­ly, as the only per­son I have a chance of chang­ing is me. So, here I go — from this point on, I am claim­ing total respon­si­bil­i­ty for how I see myself, and what I choose to do.”

There! Don’t you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

We’re going to go on a walk into 100% self-respon­si­bil­i­ty. By the end of this book, you’ll know whether there’s a chance in hell to save your cur­rent rela­tion­ship (hint: there is, but not eas­i­ly, as there’s a ton of water under that bridge, and doing things dif­fer­ent­ly requires stren­u­ous effort.)

If your lat­est rela­tion­ship has tanked, then read­ing this book may just make your next rela­tion­ship soar.

In either case, you must keep your nose on your side of the fence, learn and imple­ment what this book teach­es — a new way of being in the world — and get over yourself.

The. Hard­est. Rule. Ever.

I say this to my clients, first ses­sion, and often in the first 10 minutes:

“The hard­est thing to accept is this idea — every­thing, 100%, that is going on inside of you is caused by you. Oth­ers do not “make you feel” — they don’t cre­ate your inter­nal expe­ri­ence. That’s you in there, doing all of it. There­fore, every­one else is off the hook.”

The only way anoth­er per­son can affect us is phys­i­cal­ly — some­one with a gun can “make you” do stuff. Some­one ver­bal­ly demand­ing you do some­thing is powerless.

Sim­i­lar­ly, oth­ers do not make you hap­py, sad, angry, bored, or horny. What you feel is you, choosing.

This is the “make or break under­stand­ing” for hav­ing a mean­ing­ful life and for The. Best. Rela­tion­ship. Ever.

• OK, so the plan is to share some essen­tial con­cepts, and look at how rela­tion­ships fail.

• Then, a case study, fea­tur­ing Sam and Sally.

• We’ll look at Ele­gant, Inti­mate Relating.

• I’ll then give you tools for Ele­gant, Inti­mate Relat­ing, so that you too can have The. Best. Rela­tion­ship. Ever.

Let’s go for the ride. Read care­ful­ly, absorb what you read, and exper­i­ment with the exer­cis­es. This stuff doesn’t hap­pen by mag­ic. You actu­al­ly have to imple­ment it!