motivational center

The Rules of Relationships
By Hara Estroff Marano

Human beings crave intimacy, need to love and be loved. Yet people have much trouble doing so. From many sources and many experts, I have culled some basic rules of relationships. Print them out and pin them up on your refrigerator door. I won’t test you on them -- but life will.

• Choose a partner wisely and well. We are attracted to people for all kinds of reasons. Evaluate a potential partner as you would a friend -- look at their character, personality, values, their generosity of spirit, the relationship between their words and actions, their relationships with others.

• Know your partner’s beliefs about relationships. Different people have different and often conflicting beliefs about relationships. You don’t want to fall in love with someone who expects lots of dishonesty in relationships -- they’ll create it where it doesn’t exist.

• Make good sense of a bad relationship by examining it as a reflection of your beliefs about yourself. Don’t just run away from a bad relationship; you’ll only repeat it with the next partner. Use it as a mirror to look at yourself, to understand what in you is creating this relationship. Change yourself before you change your relationship.

ACCEPTANCE

And, acceptance is the answer to ALL of my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation - some fact of my life- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is suppose to be in this moment.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I completely accept life on life's terms, I can not be happy.

I need to concentrate not so much on
what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitude.

Big Book, page 449