Relationship 102

Acknowledgements

Thank you God for allowing me to publish my 11th book. Thank you to everybody who has supported me through the first ten. Mark and Corey, love you always.

Table of contents

Chapter One

Is A Solid Foundation Really Necessary For A Relationship’s Success?

Chapter Two

Obtaining Ultimate Desires

Chapter Three 

Overlooked Reasons For Failure In A Relationship

Chapter Four

When Does A Relationship Truly End?

Chapter Five 

Why You Will Never Get Married

Chapter Six 

Understanding The Understanding Of The Opposite Sex

Chapter Seven 

Improper Messaging And How It Contributes To Unhappy Relationships

Chapter Eight

Primary Relationships vs. Nonessential Unions

Chapter Nine 

The Psychology Behind Might As Well

Chapter Ten 

The Deception Parameter

Chapter Eleven 

The Importance Of This Sex Thing

Chapter Twelve 

The Person You Think You Know

Chapter Thirteen 

Truths Unspoken

Chapter Fourteen

When Infidelity Goes Wrong

In the beginning of many relationships, people will offer advice from both ends of the spectrum. They will say that a relationship is the best thing for a young man or woman. They will say a relationship may be tough at times but stick through it, hard times never last. They may even say that everybody walking the face of this earth has a soul mate, someone who is meant to be in your life forever. But few of these advice givers will ever say that sooner or later, you may just end up hating the motherfucker you decided to involve yourself with. This is one of the things they don’t tell you.

Chapter One

Is A Solid Foundation Really Necessary For A Relationship’s Success?

A SOLID FOUNDATION. It is one of the main starting points for every skyscraper, the stabilizing point for every tree, but is it really necessary for a relationship to be successful? I would like to believe that most semi-intelligent individuals walking the face of this earth would quickly agree. However, when you look at the state of the world, when you look at how people under the influence of crack and related drugs are together longer than those who have had what many would deem the most proper of upbringings, when you see married people in the church cheating so much, that books and movies are made about those transgressions, you really have to deem the long term effects of initiating a relationship on a solid foundation on a case by case basis.

To accurately answer this question, one must accurately define three things: the first: what is success. The second: what does success mean to the one searching for this answer. And the third question, which must be asked, is what constitutes a solid foundation in regard to a relationship? Now this is not as easy as many may think. Some who are in relationships define success by the longevity aspect and by this I mean whether or not a relationship lasts until the end of one or both lives of the individuals involved. Some people will also deem a successful relationship as one where they themselves are happy when they take a general consensus of the relationship. And some people will ironically define a solid foundation on the flimsiest grounds imaginable. An example of this flimsy criteria, is if the individual I’m interested in has a job, then he or she will make a good relationship prospect. Another shining example of the flimsiness is if he or she looks good, then this person will definitely make a positive prospect as far relationship material. History has shown, on more than a few million random occasions, that the above criteria is useless when determining what should be considered when searching for a prospective mate. The only thing about people and their infinite wisdom is that they continue to make the same asinine mistakes over and over and over. And the biggest asinine mistake I see people constantly making is the one where they use one thing as the determining factor or criteria for the initiating or continuance of the relationship. As mentioned above, some will define a relationship’s success level by how long a couple is together. This is mainly done by those outside of a relationship. A couple could have the most tumultuous, infidelity ridden relationship that has ever existed but as long as it appears that the relationship is going well, that appearance is usually all that will be necessary to drive the belief of everybody watching. Now is this an example of a successful relationship? Of course not. For a relationship to be happy and not just deemed happy by the masses at large, it must contain what everybody with half an ounce of common sense and sensibility already knows and those are the basics of communication and commitment, to name a couple. Now the commitment, contrary to popular belief, does not have to be to each other. But it has to be to being honest. It must also contain the knowledge of what each party in the relationship wants from the other and what each party in the relationship wants from the relationship. Some people have this thing of don’t ask don’t tell – and by this I am not referring to the homosexual military thing, I am speaking of the complacency role that many couples play where if they don’t bring up anything that may upset the other party, then the other party will never be upset and consequently never have reason to make the other party upset. This is not a prime example of relationship happiness either. What this is, is probably the most perfected method of pacification that couples can perpetrate. The thing that many people do not realize is that the longevity aspect of a relationship is only one aspect of a relationship. It is like sexual intercourse. That too, although highly significant in many relationships, is still only one part. As with sexual intercourse, if a relationship is based on it or on the prospect of it, the relationship is guaranteed to fail or guaranteed to go no further than the sexual intercourse, which is being had. When it comes to longevity, I can name at least ten couples of which I personally know, that are unhappy. They stay together for many reasons but mainly for the above stated reason of appearances. They desire to save face by giving the belief that everything is always going well. And as we all know or should know, this is impossible. A lot of feeble minded individuals will attempt to base their relationships on what they see from people who perpetrate this perfection deception. And these feeble minded people will subsequently mess up their relationships in the relentless pursuit of perfection, complete in the knowledge that they will never achieve it. At least three of these referenced couples do not sleep in the same bed. And of the ten, at least another three have someone on the side that the significant other is aware of. Now these people have been together for a number of years but does this level of longevity amount to happiness? Again, of course not, but this is part of the deception which is perpetrated by couples toward society at large and toward one another when convincing themselves that the longer their relationship lasts, the more ‘successful’ it also happens to be.

The next thing on the successful scale, which many people use to gauge how well their relationship is going, is what success means to them. And they do this by determining how happy they are at any given moment – and by they, I am not speaking of both of the parties in the relationship, only one. This is what can best be described as a single minded mindset in regard to the relationship. An individual in a relationship can never speak for the other person regarding that person’s feelings, especially feelings about the relationship – and why, because people lie. People, more often than not will tell a partner what it is that that partner wants to hear instead of what it is that that partner needs to hear. And they will do this just to keep peace in the relationship. Now the last thing I want to do is beat my readers over the head with the communication stick but this is exactly what it all boils down to. Many people in this world do not communicate with their partners because they one, do not know how and two, of those that do know how, many are afraid of the ramifications of that communication. So what they often do is feed the ego or feed the need to be to be satisfied in the relationship. This is most often accomplished by lying – or the more politically correct and softer terms are ego stroking and pacification. Now what these people who are lied to, ego stroked and pacified will do when asked about the status of their relationship is answer in the only manner they know how and that will be to say that their relationship for their partner is going the exact way it is for them. Now the answer they give could be the correct one but most times it is not. It is what they assume and believe it to be. This is how the relationship game is often played. This scenario reminds me of the quiet employee whom everybody in the company likes and who everybody in the company assumes likes his position and coworkers just as much as they do him but in actuality this coworker just can’t wait to hit the lottery so that he can tell the boss and everybody down the line how much he hates their fucking guts! Welcome to the wonderful world of deception. A person will many times think and believe that his relationship is going well just because the other party in the relationship tells them so. This is wrong on so many levels. Acceptance without investigation is what leaves people disillusioned, surprised and blindsided when the relationship comes to a screeching halt. In a relationship, any decision, which affects both parties, should always be discussed by both parties. The same holds true for a decision on whether or not an individual is happy.

The third thing, which I believe people should discuss when it comes to whether or not a solid foundation is necessary for a relationship’s success is what exactly is a solid foundation in regard to a relationship? Now as mentioned above, people have different criteria when it comes to what they want and desire in a prospective partner and in a prospective relationship. The spectrum of criteria that I have seen and experienced can go from the highest level of religious to the highest level of atheism.  It can also go from simple to the most obstinate. The wonderful and at the same time disturbing thing about relationships is the fact that there is no textbook method for success. What this means is that while one couple can listen to and follow the advice of the most well respected relationship therapist around, and have their relationship fail, the next couple can listen to and follow the advice of someone on drugs that has no training in relationship coaching or assisting at all and have their relationship work. With that being said, there are some absolutely ignorant things people use as criteria gauges when searching for a relationship. Some of those things are: the vehicle requirement. Short definition: If an individual has a car or has access to a car then this person will make a good candidate for a relationship. I guess maybe they feel that transportation is more important than commitment. Another thing on the absolutely ignorant scale when it comes to criteria gauges is the body requirement. Short definition: If a woman has a certain type of posterior, or if a man has a certain type of physique, then they will make good to excellent candidates for relationships. Maybe these people feel that appearance is the most important thing in a relationship. Now this is not to say that people searching for relationships are not allowed to have a preference regarding what it is they are looking for, this is just saying that some of the things people choose and use as the solitary determining factor are completely ludicrous. In life, history is one of our best teachers. It will show us what works and what doesn’t, what to look for and what to avoid – all from the mistakes and experiences of others. Now let’s take for a minute these two examples and examine them a bit further. If the individual in example number one who was only or mainly interested in a partner because that partner had a car, what would logically happen if after becoming involved with this car possessing person, that person were to lose his or her car? Would the interest in the relationship still be there? Of course not. And what about the individual who only or mainly shows interest in the physical appearance of another? If the person who was selected for their beauty one day has an accident, disease or other face or body altering occurrence, will the driving force which brought them together still be there? Definitely not. A solid foundation is just that, solid. It is not built on one thing like in the examples above. It is built on multiple values and morals. It is built on things like the ability to remain together after a fight, teaching children that doing the wrong things in life, albeit fun, will almost certainly lead to negative consequences. It is even built on the knowledge that things such as honesty and communication are crucial for a relationship’s longevity. Now it is true that nobody in this world can predict the success or life span of anybody’s relationship. This means not your mother, not your best friend, not your favorite psychic and definitely not those television relationship experts – but what having a solid foundation in regard to a successful relationship will do is lower the chances of that relationship failing due to negativity and nonsense. Think about something for a second; if you are in a relationship where anytime there is a problem or a misunderstood situation, you and your partner spoke about it and not only spoke about it but got to the bottom of it in such a manner that you were both satisfied with the situation, wouldn’t that make for a better or at least stronger chance at a longer relationship? Of course it would. But unfortunately most people don’t do this. Most people love to be deceptive. They love to say I am 100% honest and faithful and whatever else to their partners but as soon as a situation comes about which seems just a little too hard for them to rectify with complete honesty and communication, what do they do? They lie their asses off. That’s what they do. They begin on the long dark road of deception and pacification. And the simple reason they do this is because they do not want to hurt the other’s feelings. Which brings us back to the solid foundation. This is not an example of a solid foundation. This is an example of a relationship built on or initiated on lies. Now a simple question could be why would a relationship of this sort be allowed to continue at all? And an even simpler answer would be because the people in the relationship feared the one thing that every successful relationship in existence needs to be successful and continue to be successful. Truth.

Chapter Two

Obtaining Ultimate Desires

One of the main reasons many people become involved in relationships is not because they want to obtain their ultimate desires together after the relationship is initiated, but because they desire the relationship itself as their ultimate desire. Now this is not completely a bad or unheard of thing because relationships are a much sought after asset for the lives of many people. The thing which is bad about this is that when many of these people do finally achieve their much sought after relationship, they stop looking for anything else. This means that they stop looking for other relationships, they stop looking to do anything, which may help the longevity of the newly formed relationship and they especially stop looking and acting the way they did before the new relationship was even formed. The main problem with this type of thinking or existing is that it often comes with the belief that if there are no problems in the beginning, there never will be. What people have been doing for seemingly since the beginning of time is assume that once they have possession of a relationship, as long as they do what they think is right the relationship will last forever. This type of thinking usually requires little to no input from the significant other and this is because of the expectation of equality, which many people in relationships seem to not only have but also live by. People think that as long as they themselves do right, then the significant other will automatically do right and the relationship will last forever – or if it doesn’t last forever, then it is completely or mostly the fault of the significant other. This expectation of equality can come from many places. It can come from the magic belief that whomever you allow into your life will be honest. It can come from you not being smart or crafty enough to be able to weed out deception. Or it can come from the belief that many have where if you only put out good into the universe, then only good will come back to you. In a perfect world, the above would be true, meaning good people would only receive good. Honesty would not only be expected but instantly received and not because the person being honest wanted something for his or her efforts but simply because it was the right thing to do. In a perfect world it would not matter whether or not an individual was smart enough or crafty enough to be able to weed out deception because people wouldn’t be deceptive in relationships at all. But this is not a perfect world. Good people get hurt and killed for no reason other than the fact that they are at the wrong place at the wrong time. People who are not well versed in deceptive practices are many times taken advantage of because of that fact by people who are. People who believe in the expectation of equality many times fall prey to those who are doing nothing more than preying on their belief that somewhere there is an exceptional amount of good in this world and because they themselves are good, then all that is good will automatically find its way to them. This is the problem. People have to learn to realize that no two people in this world want the exact same thing. Wait, let me rephrase that last statement: out of all of the people I have met in this world, ALL of them desire to have the same thing. They all want to be happy. The number one problem with the ultimate desires of people is not the destination but the journey. The number two