Relationship Rescue: It Starts with You

You can't control your partner.

You can't make changes for your partner.

You can't tell your partner what to do. But you can inspire your partner. You can give your partner a whole new set of behaviors and stimuli to respond to. Rescuing your relationship means rescuing you. Until you begin to live with dignity, respect, and emotional integrity, you will not have that quality and level of interaction with anyone else.

You cannot give away what you do not have. If you don't have a pure and healthy love and regard for yourself, how can you possibly give that to anyone else? And if you can't give it to anyone else, then how can you possibly expect to have it reciprocated?

You have to be willing to admit that when it comes to conducting a relationship, whatever you are thinking and feeling and doing is not working. You have to be willing to move your position on some very deep beliefs and long-held emotions and behavioral patterns.

You must be willing to utterly change the way you think, feel, and act in relationship to yourself and your partner. Getting back in touch with your core of consciousness will remind and convince you that there is nothing wrong with you that justifies your having less than a rewarding relationship in which you can live, love, and laugh every day of your life.

Are you ready to embrace a new kind of thinking, a new belief system, a new way of looking at yourself and your partner? Answer the following questions:

• Can you forget what you think you know about managing relationships?

• Can you decide to measure the quality of your relationship based on results instead of intentions or promises?

• Can you decide that you would rather be happy than right?

• Can you stop playing the blame game and recognize that it is a new day?

• Can you be willing to move your position on how you approach and engage your partner?

• Can you be willing to get real and be honest with yourself, about yourself, no matter how painful it is?

• Can you stop the denial and be completely, totally honest about the state of your current relationship? If you answer no to any of these questions, stop and take the time to figure out why you're still hanging on to this destructive mindset, then describe specifically what it will take to change that "no" into a "yes."