Getting Passed the Past

There's are so many moments in our lives that define us. High school graduation. College. Marriage. Having children. But what about relationships? I often find that my past relationships have molded the person I have become today. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I haven't quite figured out yet.

You see... relationships have never been my forte. I fall hard and fast & wear my heart on my sleeve often too easily. I have been hurt and fallen hard. And it seems my heart never learns. It's like an addiction, that high. One could call it, "high on love." But because of my hurtful past I have so many issues with other aspects. Friendships. Relationships in general. Trusting someone is completely hard. Why? Shouldn't it be the opposite, where one is rewarded for loving so much? Today I was asked to get over the past and let it go. But I realize that getting passed the past is not as easy said than done. And I'm not quite sure what I can do personally to get over those things. Whatever the struggle, is continuing to love & take a chance to get hurt better than not loving or hurting at all? You answer the question. So in my deep thoughts on building trust I did a little research. Here's what I found:

10 Crucial Steps to Building a Relationship

1. Be predictable. When do seeds of suspicion emerge? When one begins to think, What's up? Why is he doing that? He's never done that before. That is so unlike him. Any movement away from predictable behavior can become suspect and trust can deteriorate. Focus on acting predictably if you need to build trust. Be consistent in what you do. This doesn't mean you must be boring. If there is a twinkle in your eye and a dose of spontaneity every so often, for goodness sakes be spontaneous and fun loving. But be true to who you have always been and be that consistently, whoever you tend to be!

2. Inform your significant other when you become "unpredictable." No one goes through life the same person. We all make shifts and changes. Frankly sometimes we may be fairly clueless about what is happening and where we are going. Those times may be very intense and we do some silly things or make some downright dumb decisions. Life can get very squirrelly and unpredictable. Growth in an individual, marriage or family often is accompanied by a little chaos. Welcome these shifts. Say, "I really don't know what is going on in me right now, but I'm moving in a different direction. Be a little patient with me while I figure this out. I might do some silly things, but my intent is not to harm you or scare you."

3. Make sure your words match the message. Mean what you say and say what you mean. When your partner hears one thing in your words but your tone of voice, body language and facial expressions are really saying something else, you open the relationship to some crazy making days. Which message is she to believe? This can waste a tremendous amount of energy and she learns not to trust part of what you are saying.

4. Believe the other person is competent. I hear this phrase very often: "But, I don't want to hurt him." A couple things are at play here. First, she may not have the skill of confronting the other with the truth in a way that brings reconciliation and understanding. She believes truth telling is destructive or entails some sort of drama. Neither is true. The truth is never destructive and can be conveyed in loving ways. Or, she may see the other person as a wimp; someone she believes cannot handle rigorous personal confrontation. She doesn't trust that the other person has the internal strength or stamina or skills to be in a relationship of mutual respect and equality. The other person picks up on this mistrust and does what he does to avoid the personal confrontation as well. Believe and know in your heart that the other person, somewhere and somehow, beneath the games, has the internal strength and capacity to handle anything. Such trust builds trust in the other person and begins to pervade the relationship.

5. Be very very careful of keeping secrets. If he knows there is an elephant in the room and doesn't talk about it, the elephant takes up tremendous space in the relationship. It takes energy for him to walk around it. She may not see the elephant but knows he is bending his neck to look around something. She will be curious, mildly disturbed, have feelings but no words to wrap around them, might wonder if something is wrong with her or struggle with trusting her intuition. And, when we can't trust the messages that come from within us, we find it very difficult to trust the messages of the other person. Secrets demand tremendous energy and erode trust. The relationship is doomed never to experience wall-banging intimacy. This is why extramarital affairs are so damaging. She is not so much concerned about him having sex with someone else as she is about the betrayal, lack of trust, the secrets and deception that are crazy making and energy draining. Hopefully, in the course of growing intimacy in your relationship you may want to share some of those events as you disclose to your partner where you were and where you are now. You do so without emotional charge. However, if a secret takes up room, i.e. still has an emotional charge and holds you back from disclosing more and more of yourself in the growing stages of intimacy, you have a problem that needs to be addressed with your partner.

If your interested in the other five crucial steps you can find them here.

On another note. Valentine's day is around the corner. My wish list: to be with the ones I love: ♥ my G - Baby Gabriel :)