Write Your Own Story

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

The Thirty Keys to Becoming Emotionally Fit and Building Successful Relationships...............................ixGeneral Introduction: Write Your Own Story......................................................................xiI. Write Your Own Story.........................................................................................1Becoming Emotionally Fit........................................................................................1Introduction to the Thirty Keys.................................................................................3The Thirty Keys of Emotional Fitness............................................................................9A Summary of the Thirty Keys....................................................................................93Attaining Emotional Fitness.....................................................................................94II. Co-write Your Love Story....................................................................................97Selecting a Partner Who Is Emotionally Fit......................................................................97Characteristics of an Emotionally Fit Partner...................................................................101Avoiding the Emotionally Unfit Partner..........................................................................103Additional Red Flags of a Potentially Unhealthy Relationship....................................................115Selecting a Partner Who Is a Social and Cultural Fit............................................................119III. Continue to Write Your Story and Co-write Your Love Story Keeping the Relationship Fit.....................123Creating and Maintaining a Healthy Relationship.................................................................127Familial, Social, and Cultural Influences.......................................................................135Relationship Model Comparisons..................................................................................145The Need for a Sense of "We"....................................................................................151Dos and Don'ts of Relationship Well-Being.......................................................................157Continue the Journey, Take Charge of Your Life..................................................................161Bibliography....................................................................................................164About the Authors...............................................................................................167

Chapter One

The first section of Write Your Own Story presents thirty keys typically found in individuals who are psychologically healthy. This section focuses on the basic underlying qualities that are related to healthy, stable, and happy individuals. Individuals with these characteristics are mature adults who are in charge of their lives. The more an individual possesses these qualities, the more he or she may be defined as emotionally fit and the greater his or her ability to have a good relationship. The first step, and the best thing you can do to have healthy relationships, is to be a psychologically healthy person.

A Matter of Degree

As you read, keep in mind that no one possesses each and every one of these thirty psychologically healthy characteristics in the ultimate ideal sense. All of us come up short on some things. However, the greater the degree to which you possess these qualities, the easier you will find it to be happy, be in charge of your life, and have a great relationship. Those of us who do not possess some of these characteristics may want to acquire them or increase the extent to which we possess them. Remember that these characteristics are best thought of as points along a continuum. They are not simply things we either possess or do not possess. These thirty keys are all matters of degree.

A Matter of Work

Acquiring these keys or increasing their level of development requires attention, dedication, and concentration for all of us. However, for some people, more intense work may be necessary. While all of us are "damaged goods" to some degree, some of us have been damaged more by our life experiences than others. In order for us to live healthier lives and have better relationships, each of us has to do the work needed to repair the psychological damage we have experienced. The more damage that's been done, the more repairs that will be necessary. A person grows psychologically healthier by examining, accepting, loving, and acting to change the less healthy parts of the self.

Our emotional health is related to the choices we make as we live each day. Until we do this individual work, the chances of having a healthy relationship are not good. In short, before you can successfully join someone's hand in a mature adult relationship, you need to be moving down the road to emotional health yourself. You need to become a "right" person before you can find "the right" person. You need to become the primary author of your biography before you can successfully co-write your love story, although both stories are intertwined and mutually influence one another.

Not the Same as Infantile Love

Many of us long to have the type of love relationship that we had in our very first love relationships. As infants, we did not have to do much. The loved one (mother/parent) did all the work. It was so easy that we were spoiled by that relationship. Mature love does not work that way. As adults, we must attend to our relationships. As adults, we must learn to be aware of our individual feelings, thoughts, and behaviors and, at the same time, be aware of our partners' needs. We must consciously focus on doing what is psychologically healthy for ourselves and our loved ones. We are no longer infants who get to be loved for just "being." We have to become conscious and work at being caring, loving adults.

Those of us who did receive healthy love as infants and children have the best foundation for mature love. Our need for security, attachment, and love was largely fulfilled. We just have to learn to give love as well as receive it and practice love as a two-way relationship. Along with that comes the need to balance our needs and wants with those of our partners, friends, and acquaintances. The easiest way to be loved is to act in a loving manner.

Some of us, however, were not so lovingly cared for as infants and young children. Some of us experienced the trauma of abuse, neglect, or an unloving parent early in life. For these children, a loving childhood was not experienced, and they often remain "needy" as adults.

For other children, their love relationships with their parent or parents was one-way but in the wrong direction. These children learned that unconditional love was what the parent or caretaker expected for him—or herself. The focus of their parent-child relationship was on getting the needs of the parent fulfilled instead of the needs of the child. The self-focused parent wanted the child to fill the parent's own emptiness. These children experienced a lack of love, which may have left some emptiness in them. The...