Ryan

If you bring up love at first sight, inevitably everyone and their dog is gonna have a different opinion.

Some swear they’ve felt it, and the skeptics have some really good questions for them. Is it real? How would it even work? If it is real, how could it be the same as “true” love?

Well, after you read my story and do the 10 second thought experiment, hopefully you’ll have the answers.

 

Love at First Sight is Possible Because of Subjective Reality

 

Like most of you, my family moved a few times when I was growing up. This meant switching schools, and in grade 5 I experienced my first move that took me away from a love interest. Before I left, her and I made a pact that if I came back when we were older we would date.

I thought about it when I saw things that reminded me of my old school, or when I visited my old town and ran into friends from back in the day. I lived about 2,000 miles away, so I didn’t visit much. One summer I was in the old ‘hood and I ran into the girl in question.

I was pretty conflicted about approaching her. It’d been like 10 years. Was 10 years too long for a pact? Was it just something dumb we said as kids? Nah… 10 years is perfect timing for a pact. If it was a year or two that would just be a regular plan and defeat the whole point of making pacts in the first place.

Being 18 or 19 at this point, I had changed a lot but I was sure she’d remember. In my mind, it played out with her being thrilled to see me and us going somewhere and catching up. The reality was a bit different.

When I approached her, she gave me that confused, I-don’t-remember-you look.

Not yet ready to throw in the towel, I attributed this to me being older and extremely good looking. I did the classic it’s-me-don’t-you-remember pose that everyone does for some reason.

You know the one – sort of smiling with your eyebrows raised and arms out with a look of expectation, as if this will somehow jog their memory.

I’ll never forget her response. “Ohhh yeah, right… weren’t you that kid that sort of liked wrestling?”

I seriously doubt she could’ve said a more deflating sentence. That’s about as opposite of our pact as you can get. I mean, yeah my mom took me to Toronto to see WWF Raw in ’97, but to be vaguely remembered for that?

The point of this story is that our feelings of attraction and intimacy are based on perception, not reality. This defeats the common objection that feelings of connection, or even love, upon meeting someone “aren’t real”.

Whether you develop an understanding of someone over time, or (falsely) believe you possess that understanding instantly, the experience is the same. You could just as easily argue that loving someone who constantly lies about who they are means your love for them isn’t “real”.

This point of contention aside, how could you possibly believe you know enough about someone to love them on sight?

 

The Psychology of Love at First Sight

 

Alright, so people who experience love at first sight have a couple psychological traits in common. One, they’re raised on boy-meets-girl fairytale stories, or at least believe in the concept of love involving some element of destiny or fate. We all rely on our beliefs to explain the world around us, and the way we filter the world and interpret things is shaped by our beliefs.

Whether or not your beliefs are accurate is irrelevant – your beliefs are accurate to you so your brain will serve up emotions corresponding to those beliefs. Your emotions shape the way you act, and the end result is your brain basically manipulates you into acting in accordance with your beliefs without stopping to question whether or not they make sense.

The second thing you need to know in order to understand love at first sight is heuristics. I’ll spare you the boring explanation. Instead, let’s do that experiment I talked about:

I’m going to describe someone, and I want you to imagine what they look like. Imagine someone really smart, they’re the top performer in the chess club, the captain of the debate team, and they get straight A’s. Hold the image in your head and scroll down.

I asked 10 people these same questions.

There were only two types of people described.

Does the person you imagined look like either of these two?

Scroll down.

First off, I’ll acknowledge that the results you get from your friends might be totally different. That’s not the point of this thought experiment.

The point is you are able to imagine very detailed physical descriptions of people without being given any physical traits.

I didn’t mention gender, height, weight, appearance, ethnicity, hair colour, eye colour, clothing, yet people are able to answer these questions. And not only answer them, but answer them with confidence.

Not a single person said “I can’t tell you what they look like, you didn’t describe them physically.”

This is called the availability heuristic. It’s the tendency for us to accept whatever comes to mind first without stopping to consider whether or not it’s true. If one of the people surveyed came across a guy similar to the photo, they would assume a shitload of information about him, even though it might be totally inaccurate.

It’s not just these people either. We all do this, all the time. Every time you look at someone you have a general idea of what they’re like, if you’d get along, and so on.

This is the basic process behind love at first sight. Take someone who has ingrained ideas about what their ideal romantic partner would be like, who whole-heartedly believes their first impressions of people are totally accurate, and put a person representing their ideal in front of them.

Another factor is the simple belief in love at first sight, caused by a phenomenon known as confirmation bias. You see what you want to see, and selectively ignore things that might challenge your beliefs. The less someone relies on an evidence based interpretation of the world, the more likely they are to believe in hokey shit like astrology, the law of attraction, or that they know and intimately love someone on first sight.

Unlike the former two, however, emotions like love are based entirely upon belief. Think about it – if I show you a picture of a guy and tell you he cheated on his wife and abandoned his kids, how would you feel? What about if I told you he’s a swell dude and an awesome father to his loving family? Obviously, who he actually is doesn’t change, but your emotions do.

In that sense, love at first sight is absolutely real, and the feeling is identical to the love you feel from getting to know someone over a long period of time. Whether or not you actually know someone doesn’t change the emotion you experience.

What do you think? Are you convinced, or do you think this is all psychobabble bullshit? Let me know what you think, especially if you’ve experienced love at first sight yourself!

So you want to get married, but you don’t want to end up as a divorce statistic. Makes sense.

But what are the keys to a successful marriage? What determines if your marriage will be successful, or come to an end in the stale smelling office of your local attorney?

While there’s no exact formula for success, there are definitely things you can do to improve your odds.

 

What Do Successful Married Couples Do Differently?

 

I’ve had the pleasure of working with many, many couples over the years. There are definitely clear keys to success, and certain types of people seem to do better at marriage in general than others.

Basically, successful married couples are in sync on key issues. These are very specific issues though – if you like Tim Horton’s and your spouse likes Starbucks you’ll probably be OK.

There are also certain qualities that are helpful, like easy goingness (is that a word?), open mindedness, and self-awareness. Since traits tend to take a long time to change, you’re better off focusing on things you can start doing right away.

 

3 Key Takeaways You Can Use Today

 

1) Never Stop Dating

The most common problem with marriage compared to dating is quality time.

When you’re dating, you can’t make enough time for your new romance. When you’re married, there’s a tendency to make time for you and yours when everything else is done. The problem, obviously, is there’s always more to do.

There’s a kind of false security that comes with marriage, isn’t there? You feel like you can slack because, well, you’re married. They’re not going anywhere.

You can’t use the commitment of marriage as an excuse to slack on your partner.

2) Get Your Priorities Straight

One of the biggest complaints from couples is they’re both trying hard and neither is happy. This happens when you’re doing stuff for your partner, but not the stuff that’s important to them.

A common example is the husband who works 80 hours a week and the wife who says he doesn’t care about her. The husband loses his shit, and screams “What!!! Do you know how fucking hard I work for this family!?” and on and on.

An interesting exercise: Write out the top three things most important to your partner’s relationship satisfaction, and have them do the same. Compare your answers.

When I explain the exercise, people smile and I can see them thinking “Too easy”. Immediately after, jaws drop and I get to enjoy a truly magical moment when they look at each other, and everything clicks into place. There’s so much carried in this look: Amazement, apology, curiousity, understanding, connection. Moments like this fuel my passion for reconnecting couples.

3) Know Your Role

Although you may feel like you’re always the same person, you have many roles that allow you to adapt to different situations.

A doctor, for example, is interacting with people in a different way than he would at home. He’s in a professional role. While in this role, certain traits like empathy are stronger, while others like judgement are minimized.

Your priorities change depending on what role you’re in. As a mother or father, caring for your children and ensuring stability and financial security are important. If you’re too busy being mom or dad, you can forget to be husband and wife.

Be aware of how you define yourself, and how that affects your marriage.

Like it or not, the success of your relationships – romantic, professional, and otherwise – depends on your ability to forgive.

If you don’t know how to forgive, your relationships only last until some shit goes down. I don’t care how much of a saint you are, eventually something will happen in your marriage, friendships, or otherwise that needs forgiving.

The big problem I see with forgiveness is people wanted to do it but being afraid. Afraid of what will happen, afraid of being shut out, afraid of what others may think.

 

What Forgiveness Is, and What Forgiveness Isn’t

 

Think about your past. Something you wish could be undone. This might be something that happened to you, or it might be something you did to someone else.

I define forgiveness as the ability to cut loose the negative emotions associated with these events. In other words, to let go, stop wallowing, and get a fucking move on with your life. To me, waiting to forgive someone is a tragedy.

You know pretty much immediately if you’re going to forgive someone for something (or yourself) before you die. If you’re never going to forgive someone, that’s OK. You have every right to do so. If you are, you might as well get on it.

What reasons are there for not forgiving someone right away? Anger. Waiting on an apology. Waiting to see if they’ll make amends for whatever they’ve done. Waiting to see positive progress. Generally, things that are reactive.

Any time you make decisions based on what another person does, you’re being reactive. In other words, their actions are shaping your life. Not a great position to be in.

Whether or not you forgive someone is independent of your choice to keep them in your life. In both my personal and professional experience, forgiving is essentially an act of understanding, and I think this is something that’s often overlooked.

To see the extent of this, all you’d have to do is sit in on one of my family or couples sessions. You wanna know the most common phrases? “How could you?” “Why would you?” and other variations of “I no longer believe I understand you well enough to trust that you’ll meet my standards for acceptable behaviour.”

Forgiving someone is saying “I understand why you did what you did. I understand how that could happen. I understand this does not reflect on me nor does it imply anything about me. These actions are yours. I choose to accept you as you are, forgive you, and have you in my life (or not). You are the only person responsible for absolving yourself, and whether or not you do so is up to you.”

 

How You Forgive (Or Don’t) Is Based On Your Past

 

I’m not going to hide my bias here. My advice isn’t based on a book. It’s based on my life. I don’t know if you’ll understand my views without a bit of context, so I’ll do my best to be tastefully honest here.

My parents split when I was an infant. When I was 6, my dad fell from a 7th story balcony. He lived, but as would be the case with any athletic young guy, he was permanently changed. Alcoholism and addiction to prescription pain medication would adversely affect his life, as well as mine.

When I was 14, my father called me up and told me I was out of the family. A couple months later I moved 3,500 kilometres (2000 miles) across the country with no idea what the hell was happening, or why.

On my 18th birthday I decided I was a man now (lol), and as such was owed an explanation. I called him up ready to do battle, but to my surprise he burst into tears when he heard my voice. He didn’t even know what he said to me, and had no idea why I stopped talking to him. It was at this point I realized how mentally damaged he was, and suddenly, my whole childhood made a lot more sense. Talk about a mindfuck.

Three years later, his father, one of the best men I have ever known, died of cancer. I only saw him twice before this happened. Two years after that, my father died of a prescription drug overdose. He was 51. I saw him three times between the phone call and his passing.

I knew he loved me, he was just really messed up. I was willing to endure the shitty parts of our relationship because his days of clarity were so cool. He would make jokes, tell me he loved me, and let me do stuff my mom would get mad at me for. It was like I was a regular kid, and on those days I would pretend things were always that way.

 

The 3 Things This Taught Me About Forgiveness

 

1) Only You Know What’s Best For You

Not your family. Not your friends. Not your spouse. Not your counsellor. Not your priest. Just you.

Take their opinions into consideration, but ultimately you have to trust yourself. Almost every couple I see asks me if they should stay together, and I tell them the truth: I don’t know. It’s not my job to tell them if they should split or stay together, it’s my job to help them figure out which scenario will result in a happier life.

It’s scary to be the sole bearer of your fate. I get that. It’s way easier to trust someone else, that way you have someone else to blame if shit hits the fan. Ultimately though, catering to this fear robs you of happiness, fulfilment, and the satisfaction that comes with being the sole architect of your life.

2) Don’t Fuck Around On the Fence

Like I said earlier, you know almost immediately if you will at some point forgive someone. Waiting is reactive, and it wastes time, which (obviously) is something you can’t get back.

Holding on to anger only hurts you. Not forgiving someone because someone else thinks what they did doesn’t deserve forgiveness only hurts you. If you think they’re remorseful and are taking steps (or will) to correct the action, what purpose is furthered by not forgiving someone?

3) Forgiving Someone Doesn’t Mean What They’ve Done Is OK

Forgiveness isn’t about excusing someone’s actions. It’s about understanding and acceptance. You can forgive someone and let them out of your life.

Or, you can forgive someone and keep them in your life, even if they aren’t the nicest. If my old man was still around, I’d forgive him for the frustrating stuff he does because I know it’s caused by mental illness. If it was just him being an asshole, I’d still forgive him – but we probably wouldn’t have a relationship until he agreed to make some changes.

Thoughts? Struggling with a dilemma over whether you should forgive someone or not? I’d love to hear what you have to say, so take a second and leave a comment now.

There’s nothing quite like a new year. That magical time when the hope of change hangs in the air, and the smell of last year’s failure lingers like a stale fart.

Everyone makes motivation and achieving stuff way too complicated. If it’s not an insane 18 step formula, it’s over the top affirmations and false positivity.

Let’s find some balance…

 

True or False: 92% of New Year’s Resolutions Are Unsuccessful

For this statistic, I’m drawing on research by the illustrious Dr. John Norcross. He does in fact say that 92% of people fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions after 6 months, if they remain at stage 2 (I’ll explain the stages in a minute). If they move to stage 3, only 52% fail. That’s a six fold increase in success rate!

The 5 New Year’s Resolution Stages You WILL Go Through

This part is key. If you follow these steps, you will be more than 10x as likely to succeed. Forget all the life coaches, motivational products, and spurious online claims. This is proven to help you succeed, and is the only research I know of that can legitimately make such a bold claim.

IMPORTANT: You need to take this advice based on where you are in the 5 stages. If you commit the error Norcross calls “step mis-matching” you’re basically sabotaging your own progress.

Stage One: Psych

This is the stage when you think about your New Year’s resolution. You usually start by considering whether or not you want to do a New Year’s resolution this year, and if so, what you want to change. I’m not gonna spend much time on this because it’s pretty self-explanatory.

Stage Two: Prep

The vast majority of New Year’s resolutioners are at stage two, and most are doomed to stay here. That’s not you though, because you’re reading this article. And you’re not just going to read it and go back to Facebook or Twitter – you’re going to apply the information… right?

Why do most people get stuck in stage two? They don’t plan!

If you have a goal and you don’t know what the next actionable step is, you procrastinate. A great example is getting in shape. How do you start getting in shape without a plan? You don’t, because you don’t know what the hell you’re supposed to do.

Is it going to the gym? Which gym will you go to? Which plan will you sign up for? Which exercises will you do?

One of the leading causes of procrastination isn’t laziness, it’s a lack of information about the relevant actionable steps between you and your goal. Write out a list of milestones on the way to achieving your goal, then put those on a timeline and keep it in a place you’ll see it often. Phone or laptop background, fridge, bathroom mirror, etc.

Stage Three: Perspire

You’ve got your plan outlined. You know the steps you have to take, and you’ve completed your prep work. If it’s getting in shape – you know the gym you’re going to, you’ve scheduled work-outs, booked your personal trainer, and bought clothes, a gym bag, and a pair of those shoes with five individual toes.

Stage Four/Five: Persevere/Persist

I cover this briefly at the end of the video above. The pitfall people run into once they hit stage four is setbacks – missing a day at the gym, having that one cigarette, eating that one cheeseburger. You know these people, they set the same resolution every year and fall off the wagon after two weeks. Why?

Perfectionism.

It’s the belief in an all or nothing approach to achieving a goal, and it’s absolutely toxic. If you have an expectation of perfection, you WILL be disappointed. Ironically, perfectionists fail more than anyone else because their belief system doesn’t leave room for mistakes.

You WILL make mistakes. You WILL have days where you don’t achieve your goals. That’s OK. What matters is that you have a coherent belief system that provides you with a way forward when this inevitably does happen.

So… what do you do when you make a mistake and cheat on your New Year’s resolution?

You write it off as a mistake and keep going. The success of your New Year’s resolution depends on the sum of all the actions you take throughout the year, so as long as your successes outweigh your setbacks, you’re doing great.

What Are Your New Year’s Resolutions? How Are They Going?

I’d love to hear about it. Leave me a comment below, and while you’re at it, sign up for free updates.

The mailbag is a Q&A column based on the emails you guys send me. If you have a question related to dating, relationships, or psychology, click here to send me your question and your email might be the next one chosen.

This week I got a monster of an email from 18 year old college student “Sam”, who wrote in asking why his girlfriend acts serious if she doesn’t want a serious relationship. You can read it all, or skip to the bottom where I give you the TL;DR version. Here’s what he had to say:

Hi Ryan,

I just finished reading your article about casual relationships and taking them further. My situation is a little different, and I was hoping to get some information or at least confirmation from you.

I’m 18, and my casual “girlfriend” is 18 as well. I met her in one of my college classes, I liked her, but I saw her with her boyfriend the next day and thought no more about it until the end of the semester. Last day of class, class ends and everyone starts walking to their cars to go home.

[Name censored] and I talk for half an hour straight and exchange numbers before leaving. In fact, she mentions that her boyfriend is leaving and she doesn’t do long distance relationships, and she asks for my number at the end! We talk more and more and eventually get into a “casual relationship.” It seems like her ex was a crappy guy, and she seems pretty drained emotionally from that relationship.

When she talks to me about our relationship she says that she just wants to keep it casual and have fun. ( we have had sex once already, and she is eager to do it again.) Her actions however, speak far differently.

She texts me 24/7, asks me how I am, what I’m doing, is sad when I tell her I’m going to bed (after staying up and talking with her until the wee hours of the morning) and many other things that would seem to indicate a desire for a serious relationship.

I got her a present for Christmas after my friends told me I should, even though I had doubts, and she was very happy with it. However, just this last week, after getting into a fight with her ex after he’s moved away (why does she bother to still talk to him?) she tells me that she feels like we’re moving too fast and maybe we should end things so neither of us get hurt.

She also says she loves the present but can’t keep it. (Which I believe is bs. I’m pretty sure we’re both already too invested in this relationship to end things without being hurt.) I managed to talk her out of it, telling her I’ll move only as fast as she wants, and I seemed to have made her feel a lot better. She even apologized for saying that stuff to me, and I told her not to be sorry, and that I was glad she got it into the open so we could discuss it.

Now things are back to the way they were: labelling the relationship as casual and acting committed. (She also mentioned that she would not sleep with another guy while she was with me.) Now, a week from now, one of her friend’s has his house open for over a week, and plans to host parties every night. [Name censored] and I are planning to stay there together the whole time (sleeping together of course.)

Now, why does she act like this? Is she still so emotionally distraught over her previous relationship and needs more time? (She also broke up with him early just as we got into a relationship) Am I going about it the right way? Sorry for the really long e-mail, I felt like I needed to give you as many relative details as I could, and Thank You for your time.

-S.

Whew!

Alright, so here’s what I got so far:

1) You met your girlfriend in class, but at the time she was still in a relationship
2) She dropped a hint at the end of the semester that her boyfriend is moving away, and you went for it
3) She says it’s casual, but acts like.. well, like an 18 year old girl
4) After a fight with her ex, she wanted to end things with you
5) Now you want to know what the hell is going on

Well my friend, first off I’d like to welcome you to the world of post-high school dating. Be prepared for things to be exactly like high school, despite what people have been telling you for the last couple years.

The vast majority of my readers are in their mid 20s – early 40s, so I imagine there will be many nostalgic smiles as people remember their 18 year old escapades. My totally honest opinion is that she’s young and doesn’t know what she wants yet, but I doubt you’ll find that answer very satisfying.

Her behaviour seems to be on the needy side, and that she went directly from previous guy to you also supports that. But that’s pretty much every girl under 25 – and many well beyond that – so no surprise there. The interesting thing is she’s still fighting with her ex after they’ve broken up and he’s moved away.

Does this mean she isn’t over him? Well, this is a perfect time to get better at relationship communication. This is something I just can’t answer – maybe she’ll be willing to tell you if you bring it up.

I’d say you’re doing fine. If your goal is to keep it casual, keep doing what you’re doing.

If you want to get serious with her, ask her what serious means. Since she’s already sexually exclusive with you, texts you non-stop, and plans on spending an entire week with you, where could it go from here?

Personally I wouldn’t do a serious relationship yet. Most people don’t level out until they’re nearing their late 20s (I generally don’t work with couples under 25) so it’s a really unstable time in terms of identity and development.

On top of that, you don’t know what kind of crazy opportunities are gonna come up in your life. Travelling, exchange studies in foreign countries, hot girls you meet while you’re drinking with buds, it’s primetime for discovering who you are and what you like.

Good luck man, hope things work out for you.

-Ryan

The mailbag is a Q&A column based on the real emails you guys send me. If you have a question related to dating, relationships, or psychology, click here to send me your question and your email might be the next one chosen.

Good day to you..

I’m not sure if you are a question to answer responder but I am looking for others advice outside of my personal family and friends.

So the story goes…I started dating my girlfriend 5 years ago when she had a 5 month year old daughter(not biologically mine). The first year or two I was always with them but hesitant to take on that fatherly role.

Finally we bought a house together after 3 years. Everything was great except the house wasn’t what we dreamt of together. So we sold a year after and bought an even nicer place together.

We are now at 4 1/2 years into our relationship while “our” daughter is almost 5. Then she cuts it off like that!!! Ya we had our normal relationship arguments, ups and downs, but nothing drastic. What we were the best at is we never held a fight for more than a few hours. We each expressed our points, stormed off, but always made up shortly after.

She left me and two days later I hear she’s with another man. So throughout the breakup I was accused of so many misrepresentations of who I am, we had a terrible split, had to sell our house….and I was forced move on without them both.

Well I’m in a better place now, doing great for myself personally. And all of a sudden I get phone calls and text messages from her, 5 months later after the initial break up. She wants me back.

What nerve I say to myself, but she holds a huge part of my reconstructing heart.

Wtf do I do.

Shitty situation man.

She messed up here, didn’t she. She found a guy who was willing to step up and provide for her and her child, but bailed for greener pastures, only to discover they weren’t so green after all.

That’s not the biggest issue though. If she was with another guy two days after she left, there was a relationship going on with him while she was still with you.

If the story is as simple as you say it is, she has no business coming back. She cheated on you, then left you high and dry, and is coming back to you now that things didn’t work out. Fuuuuuck that.

Like you said, you’re doing fine on your own, so keep on doing fine. Find yourself someone who isn’t going to bail on you after you not only take in her child but also put up the cash for two different houses.

What are your thoughts – do you agree? Or am I being too harsh… should he give her another shot? Comment below.

Every time there’s a debate about whether or not monogamy is natural, some genius brings up the fact that only a handful of animals are truly monogamous.

If only 3-5% of mammals are monogamous, and even those aren’t usually monogamous for life, surely traditional marriage is an unnatural way of doing things?

In no other situation do people turn to animals for answers about what we should be doing. Why is this suddenly overlooked when it comes to sex and relationships?

Is greeting someone in your territory natural? Well, 95% of species bite people to death. Maybe give that a shot? Or wait, I know! Instead of saying hello, let’s copy bonobos and greet people by having sex for a few seconds instead.

If you define natural as existing in nature, then yes, monogamy is natural. But I think most people want to know whether or not monogamy is natural *for humans*. Without the influence of media, society, and so on, what form of marriage is the default for human societies?

So… let’s take a look at some research on non-industrialized indigenous societies. In the most isolated cultures of the world, what form of marriage most commonly occurs?

Thankfully, I didn’t have to do this research myself. A total boss of a scientist named George Murdock assembled a list of over 1,000 societies and organized data based on a variety of factors, including the type of marriage structure most common in that society. He did so much work that it took more than a decade to publish all of his findings.

I’ll spare you the work of sifting through all of his research, and summarize things here.

Form of Marriage:

Monogamy: 24.55%
Polyandry (multiple men per marriage): 0.007% (lol sorry ladies)
Limited Polygyny (some members of the society practice it): 33.55%
General Polygyny (almost all members of the society practice it): 42%

Polygyny certainly seems to be the default way of going about it. You could argue that this means polygyny is the natural form of marriage for humans, but I’d take it a bit further.

Polygyny is the “natural” form of marriage for humans in a “natural” tribal society. If you’re reading this, you live in a society that is far from natural. We don’t live in small huts and small groups, we live in giant sprawling urban centres with millions of people. We don’t use spears and hunt for our food, we use agriculture and go to the supermarket.

I’d call this evolution natural. I’d also call the change in our social customs natural as well – there are inherent problems with polygyny that prevent societies adhering to it from progressing. We use monogamy out of utility.

Are there problems with monogamy? Absolutely! Are there problems with primates living in huge cities, living sedentary lifestyles, eating foods high in calories, sugar, and fat? Yes – but it’s the best thing we’ve come up with, and (most) people aren’t running for the hills, are they?

Why None of This Actually Matters

Look, if you’re just curious about this and enjoy educating yourself, cool. If you’re trying to decide whether or not to lead a monogamous lifestyle, I think you’re going about it the wrong way.

Who cares about what’s natural, or if there even is something that’s natural. The kind of marital lifestyle you want to lead is up to one person – you. If you want to give your all to one person, awesome. If you want a harem of a dozen women (or men), go for it.

As long as you’re not hurting anyone, do whatever it is that makes you happy.

Coping with the death of a loved one is one of the most difficult things you’ll ever experience. There are a bunch of different strategies taught to help people coping with death and grief, usually involving several stages.

I’ve never liked busting out theories and models; I find it lame and ineffective as a counsellor, and frustrating as a client. People don’t want a guidebook, they want another person who has been through it to relate with them and show them the way forward.

My old man died a few years back. Sudden, unexpected, and young – he was 51. I was totally unprepared, and I had no idea how to cope with it.

I tried a doctor and a couple counsellors… the first counsellor was a douche, so he was out. The doctor was super old school and told me more or less to suck it up; that was strike two. The third guy was a counsellor and was actually pretty good, but he got fired. Go figure.

I got frustrated and decided to help myself out. I discovered that for me, coping with death was about accepting it and developing healthy attitudes about it. I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and here are a few things I came up with. Hopefully it helps a few of you work through some of your pain.

 

It’s Not Death Itself That Makes You Sad

 

I was working with a married couple, and one of the issues affecting their relationship was the death of a loved one. As I listened to them explain their history with this person, how she died, and the months preceding her death, I noticed something very interesting.

There were no tears shed when she died, only relief (and a tremendous amount of guilt for feeling relieved). Their expectations of this person’s lifespan were changed when they received her terminal diagnosis, and it was at this point that they cried and made peace with things. When she actually died, it aligned with their expectations and didn’t cause much of an emotional response at all.

This was one of those epiphany moments in life when my outlook was changed in a big way.

 

Emotions = Expectations vs Reality

 

When your expectations are greater than what you actually experience, you feel disappointment. When disappointment is severe enough, it becomes sadness. To a certain extent, this is a healthy, normal phenomenon.

Sometimes, emotions become extreme and problematic. For example, if I was counselling someone with road rage, I would ask them about their expectations of other drivers. Typically, they expect to never be cut off, never hit red lights, and so on. Their unrealistically high expectations will rarely be met, and as a result they will rarely feel calm while driving.

 

Most People Have Unrealistic Expectations About Death

 

People see death as evil, cruel, and unfair. Most of us hate talking about it – I hear more conversations about religion and politics than I do about death. In fact, I can’t remember a single time I had a conversation with someone about death and dying, aside from something like “Man, death sucks. It’d be cool if we could live forever.”

If you’re like most people, you hope the people you love will never die, despite the fact that they will. Another common expectation is that most people die of old age, despite the fact that one in ten people in Western society die before 55.

A big part of being OK with death is overcoming the idea that it’s unfair, cruel, evil, or bad, and accepting that there isn’t anything wrong with it. This is especially true if you’re coping with the death of a loved one resulting from unnatural or preventable causes.

Death is natural. It happens. It will happen to me and everyone I know, and that’s OK. Knowing the clock is ticking on my only shot at life makes every moment all the more valuable. I wake up every day appreciative that I’ve been given a shot, and motivated to make it count.

There are as many ways of coping as there are people, and if you have something you think would help or you’d like to share your story, let me know in the comments below.

When someone says they need help to save their failing relationship, usually they mean avoiding a break up. I’ve written about why equating break-up with failure is a really bad idea.

Sometimes the best decision two people can make is to separate, and if you look at breaking up as failing it prevents you from making that decision.

If you think it makes sense to stay together but things aren’t working out, here’s how to save a failing relationship:

 

Step 1) Break the Awkward Silence

 

Generally, people are both aware of when things aren’t working out. Every relationship hits rough patches, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s only a problem if neither person is willing to talk about it.

If your partner agrees that the relationship is failing and you both want to save it, set a time to talk about it. Have dinner together at home, sit together after on the same couch, and follow the next three steps to figure it out.

 

Step 2) Forget About Getting Everything You Want

 

Everyone wants to save their failing relationship, but no one wants to compromise. In most cases, a lack of compromise is what strains a relationship in the first place.

Make a list of all the things that bother you. Now pick your top three – these will be the issues you try to work through. If you try to talk out more than three big issues each, it starts to feel like you’re negotiating for hostages.

 

Step 3) Cut the Shit and Be Real

 

This isn’t about a power struggle. It’s not about showing that you don’t change for anyone. It’s not about being wrong or right. You have to be willing to say you’re sorry, admit your mistakes, and make changes to yourself and your lifestyle to keep the relationship going.

Spend some time alone thinking about what you’re willing to sacrifice to keep the relationship from failing. Don’t agree to change if deep down it isn’t worth it to you; you’ll feel resentful and in the long run it will only make things worse.

 

Step 4) Keep Your Psychological Bias in Check

 

Remember how cool it was when you got your driving license? You appreciated it so much because it provided such a big change from the way your life used to be. Over time though, you adjust to driving and it doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

This is because of a psychological phenomenon called normalization, and the same thing happens in relationships. Although you appreciate each other and see one another very positively at first, you become normalized to one another and forget all the cool things about your partner.

When you’re normalized to all the positives and don’t make a conscious effort to remind yourself of them, the only thing left to notice are the negatives. If you’re not aware of this, it can create the illusion that the relationship has gone downhill, or that your partner sucks all of a sudden.

Remind yourself of what you appreciate about your partner, be mindful on a daily basis of the things they do for you, and make an effort to show more appreciation for one another. Decide what needs to change for you to be happy, and talk it out.

Good luck!

PS – If your relationship is in serious trouble and you need help ASAP, contact me.