Deal Breakers : When to Work on a Relationship and When to Walk Away

by Dr. Bethany Marshall

• ISBN13: 9781416935933
• ISBN10: 1416935932
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-04-10
• Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment

Summary

This is a book about men. Not all men, just emotionally unhealthy men. The ones who make you question, "Is it him or is it me? Am I making too big a deal out of this? I try to tell him how I feel, but he says I'm overreacting or needy or it's all my fault

Table of Contents

Introduction

What's Your Deal?

It's About Time

Do You See What I See?

The Scriptwriter

The Man in Charge

The Man Without Fault

The Invisible Man

The Little Boy Who Poses as a Man

What Should I Do Now?

Getting Off the Merry-Go-Round

Making a Deal

Negotiating a Deal

Breaking the Deal

Shopping List for a Healthy Man

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

CHAPTER 1 What's Your Deal? What do you absolutely want out of your relationship? Do you know? You may consider yourself wise, self-sufficient, and a good judge of character. Your girlfriend's troubled love life always seems transparent and filled with unnecessary drama. But when faced with yourownmurky relationship waters, the easy answers seem to disappear. Perhaps it is easy to analyze your girlfriend's relationship because what constitutes a deal breaker for her may not necessarily constitute a deal breaker for you. Conversely, a romantic situation that seems like nirvana to you might feel like sheer hell for her. So how can you judge a true deal breaker? A deal breaker is a character flaw or emotional stance that significantly deteriorates the quality of a relationship. Note: Deal breakers are not minor annoying habits such as your boyfriend's chewing with his mouth open or your husband's endlessly quoting sports statistics. Rather, they are qualities that erode your most cherished aspirations for a satisfying love relationship. But in order to spot a deal breaker, you must first have a deal. By this, I mean that you must know what you hope to get out of a relationship (other than two carats in a platinum setting). Knowing what you want is important because all relationships are built upon arrangements. Some are financial arrangements. Some are emotional arrangements. Some are marital arrangements. Some are sexual arrangements. Your relationship may contain some, or all, aspects of the arrangements just mentioned. Arrangements are best when they are agreed upon by both parties and flexibly negotiated over time. But what if you don't know what you want? Or you settle for an arrangement that makes you unhappy? Or you grew up in a household where nothing was discussed or explored, so you never learned to ask for what you wanted? [Nicky's story] Nicky, a twenty-two-year-old graduate student, came to therapy because she felt anxious about her "dating" relationship. I put "dating" in quotes because Nicky revealed to me that her relationship consisted primarily of watching late-night TV together, cuddling until four in the morning, and then having sex. After these nights of so-called passion, her boyfriend would disappear and forget to call her for several days. This was not a dating relationship. This was a booty call! But Nicky was young and naive, and had not yet articulated to herself what she wanted out of a relationship. Thus, she could not spot a deal breaker even though it was staring her straight in the face. I broached the subject of deal breakers by educating Nicky about normal dating relationships; namely, that a man's willingness to call in advance and take a woman to dinner is an indicator of his willingness to invest his emotions in her. Nicky's newfound knowledge helped her realize that she was in a sexual arrangement, not a dating arrangement. Once she acknowledged that she wanted a boyfriend instead of a sex buddy, she realized that his lack of emotional investment was a deal breaker. She told him that she wanted an exclusive dating relationship that involved dinners out and time spent with mutual friends, but she could tell by his reluctance that he was not "The One." If you think back to the last time you were unhappy in a relationship, there is a great likelihood that your partner was doing something that undermined the arrangement you were hoping for. For example, if your boyfriend consistently refused to attend family holidays, then he was probably ruining your hopes of a relationship arrangement that included interest in each other's life and a possible future together. If he continually questioned your decisions, he could have been undermining your dreams of a relationship built upon trust. If he flew into irrational jealo