First, the importance of this. Who do you know that can say they've mastered relationship skills? If you are reading this and in need of help with developing better relationship skills, you've most likely tried and failed numerous approaches. To break old patterns that were modeled for you by those who had raised you is now going to take skilled assistance to guide you to a better understanding and practice until it becomes a habit. The right habits, since what you had been doing has not worked out so well.

Solutions to our interactions with others take time, patience, and perseverance. If not, what will you have a decade later if you do not begin those steps in the right direction now? I know it is very hard to admit things are not working, and seek help with something so important and personal. There's a lot at stake. It is hard to find the help that you can openly discuss anything since most people feel they have a unique situation and may have such 'skeletons in the closet' that they would be scared to share with a counselor. They cannot help you unless you are able to be completely open and frank. You cannot develop a healthy and thriving relationship founded on lies and deception. You most likely have already formed a good deal of distance and resentment between the two of you from years of non-disclosure, for fear of what their reaction would be if they knew all of whom you are and had done. Do you really believe that beginning to be attentive and a few dozen roses will dissolve years of gradual growing distance?

Many feel working to fix a damaged relationship is fruitless. It's just easier to start all over with a new person and a clean slate, but what will ever really change? Other than the hope you will not screw things up the next time. You cannot claim all the problems in that relationship was the other person's fault. If you do, you have terribly limited your potential growth. Are you likely to come clean about all of your sordid past deeds and fantasies with this new partner within the first few weeks? You're likely going to wait until the right time to drop this bomb on them and continue to live the ruse in the meantime. Then find there is not going to become that 'right time' after having fostered such deception for so long. You only delude yourself in thinking it might get easier. If you are not able to be straight with them at the beginning, when is this moment for a clean slate you fantasize about going to magically appear?

Sure, there are plenty of relationships that are not in a safe situation where resolving these issues is a viable option. This is where an impartial person can help work it out, or decide whether to make the split and move on with your life, and growth is necessary at this point. Instead of continuing that unhealthy relationship. Although, you cannot escape yourself and how you end up repeating those same patterns of codependency. Think of what example are you going to teaching your children for their future relationships by continuing a horrible situation for their sake? Do you want to teach them that they need to stick it out for their kids, no matter how miserable they are? Are you going to teach them how to develop the skills to build a good healthy relationship and how to best work things out? To someday teach these skills to their children; your grandchildren? The bad cycle needs to stop with you, now. If you can become capable of resolving these issues, if not for yourself, don't you owe it to your children, or future children to show them there is hope? Even for a relationship gone bad? If you are to split up after the kids are out of the house, you have just destroyed their reality. All they will know is that their life was a sham. They will no longer know what was real or fake. They will have no basis for what to expect in a relationship, other than pain and suffering to foster a space of lies and deceit.

I feel there is hope in most relationships. As long as there is a willingness on both parties to do the hard work. It will take most all the courage you have to suffer the fall-out and get through the healing process. If not, what are your options? The benefits of a truly loving relationship can be yours to experience. We are here to tell you that it does and can exist, but it's not something that's just a quick fix when you consider the habits and structured ideals you have had in place for decades, if not generations. On a more global view, our society may need a millennium to evolve. It all starts with your first step forward.

This web site is to promote healthy relationships. Not to give up all hope and abandon or futility. As a society, we all need to develop some good relationship skills for effective cohesive conflict resolution. We would love to see comprehensive mandatory courses given in Public Schools for these skills. That would be great if we could all learn how to love, long before subjecting our children to our trial and error method of learning, maybe then our people would develop into a more loving society and we could all get along better.

As I said, this can only start with each one of us personally doing the work to develop new skills and better habits.

Something to consider:

* Do you really see your beloved each day, or are they just expected to be there and seen as 'the other one'?
* Do you delight in your mate's growth and development and encourage more growth in them?
* Do you enjoy spending countless hours talking about more than just current events?
* Have you been completely honest with your mate; sharing your most private details with them? Even things that you thought didn't need to be shared? You may not think it was important, but that's not your call.
* Do you really work through your conflicts, keeping in mind that you both need to come out as winners through balanced compromise?
* Do you advocate for your mate's personal advantage within a conflict?
* Do you find pleasure in sharing hobbies with each other and support their passions?
* Do you support and derive joy in seeing your beloved find happiness and fulfillment, even if it does not involve you?
* Do you desire or make the time to be intimate together daily, or at least a few times a week? Beyond just sex.
* Do you channel most of your sensual desires toward your mate or elsewhere?
* Have you provided a safe environment for your mate to process emotions and honestly share their most private thoughts without fear of judgment or rejection?
* Do you truly know how your beloved feels about you by providing a safe space for them to be that open and honest with you?
* Do you know how your beloved would answer these questions? If not, you have a lot to talk about.

Our text here may have shaken you up and perhaps disrupted your life, but we wish you well where ever your path takes you. We do not know you, and we cannot possibly make the best recommendation or pass judgment. This is just meant to give you food for thought and hopefully benefit your long term future. As a metaphor, few would disagree that maintaining a good healthy relationship is more complicated than maintaining a good driving record. So, a better example of a relationship is maintaining a good pilot's license. Consider what that requires. The attention to detail, maintenance, cost, and managing a comprehensive checklist each time you want to take that plane in the air. What do you do each day to put that sort of effort and intension into your relationship?

This is not just as simple as turning the key and expecting it to work and keep you and your loved ones safe. A lot is at stake here. Consider what you could do like this in preparation: reading books on relationship skills, conflict resolution, child development, personal psychology, and development. Consider therapy, group therapy, couples counseling. Just paying your partner more attention each day. Not just expecting them to be there for you. The list goes on. An endless list. Are we ever really done mastering relationship skills?