subject: What Causes a Breakup [print this page] Have you suffered through a breakup, separation or divorce? Would you like to minimize your chances of ever repeating anything like this again? Most people say that when their relationship fell apart, it was the worst time of their lifeeven though they were miserable with their partner. If you would like your last breakup to be your last breakup, you would be wise to stop and consider what you've learned. If you keep getting the same results with all your relationships pretty much ending up the same way think about:
1. Your Patterns
If you look carefully, you will find that several patterns appear with a certain consistency. The partner you choose each time may have a different name, job, or even accent, but inevitably, you wind up in the same arguments or heartbreak around the same issues. What were the red flags that were there in the very beginning that you refused to see?
2. Your Beliefs
It's important to be quiet and listen to your inner beliefs and voices. Your thoughts become your actions, those actions bring you your outcome, and ultimately, that is your destiny. To arrive at a better, more hopeful outcome, your negative beliefs need to be re-scripted into something positive.
Examine the beliefs you held in your past relationships that were undermining your partnership. If you harbored any of the following thoughts, your love life was over before it ever got started:
* "I always get rejected."
* "I'm not deeply in love with this guy (or girl) but at least I'm not alone."
* "All guys (girls) are threatened by my success."
* "Men don't like strong women." (As a matter of fact they do! They like strong women who are their equals who are nurturing, feminine, have a life, and have values.)
* "All men (women) cheat."
3. Your Expectations and Projections
Often, people are literally blind sided by the chemistry they feel for someone. In addition, if the person has some of the external qualities you are looking for, like money, looks, or charm, you may not be just blindsided you may just be blind. You may miss all the obvious signs that are saying who this person really is. Do you have a pattern of this dynamic appearing more than once in your past? Become alert to the signals before you "fall in love" and fall into a romance. Become a conscious dater instead of remaining unconscious of all the obvious signals, trying to hang onto something that wasn't meant to work.
4. Underestimated Factors
You would be wise to recognize the outside pressures that can bring any relationship to a standstill:
* Differences in background are familiar reasons why couples breakup. Your difference may be in how you were raised, and you may expect to raise your children in the same way. Your family may have been educated; his or hers may not have been. Your family (and you) may have strong religious beliefs and practices and his may not have had any. You may have been raised to be an independent working career woman; his culture may not see that as a choice or a freedom. And always have the talk about money. Because if you don't, these are the kinds of things that will break you up. Differences need to be aired before your romance gets too far into commitments neither of you can keep.
* The vision for how you see your life in one, five, or ten years from now may not be at all in sync. If she wants a castle in Germany and he wants to retire early on a small pension and live on a houseboat, you won't enjoy sharing a life together. Gather the facts before you blithely give your heart to someone.
* Time together and apart can become an insurmountable obstacle. If one of you sees constant travel as part of your job, the other one may not be able to adjust. Or, you may have a dream of working in a business together, which brings so much "together time" you find the relationship too constricting and suffocating.
* Family issues, such as one person wanting the whole family living on the same block and the other person needing greater independence and distance can cause deep rumblings and fissures in a relationship.
* Issues with friends can happen when you both don't like the same people. If one person has to give up old friends to appease the other, this will cause resentment.
Study the causes of your past breakups after thinking about the above. Then choose to proceed cautiously and carefully, aware of past patterns, habits and beliefs. You can change your choices and turn your dating life around. You can become a SAVVY dater.
