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About Jim
Chapter 7Notice the Other Beautiful People
Every loving relationship between mates, friends, and between parents and children will have dissatisfaction (even hostility) built into it. Why is that? It’s because humans have different temperaments, needs, perspectives, ideals, values, and preferences. There are bound to be disagreements, which means there will always be arguments and even little hatreds lurking in the background. It’s what makes forming lasting relationships a challenge. In romantic relationships a part of that challenge is dealing with fantasies.
I’m sure you’ve noticed how many relationships these days start out beautiful and end up ugly. The lovers fall out of love, the married couples get divorced, or they have affairs. Why is this pattern so persistent? The answer lies in the nature of the mind—it gets bored, even when our mates have vibrant personalities and are the most handsome and gorgeous humans walking the planet. You see, the mind wants to be fascinated. That’s why your mind may lose interest in your mate after awhile. It wants novelty, excitement, fantasy, and romance.
See, your mate is a known thing, but all those interesting and good looking people out there are unknown to your mind, so it becomes fascinated with them. When the mind is fascinated, it drops quickly into fantasy. Fantasy will make anyone into a prince or princess. Fantasy also has the uncanny ability to screw up a relationship in a hurry. Why? Because the fantasy will automatically put rationality on hold. To put it a different way—fantasy can make us more creative but also more stupid. We can make seriously flawed decisions when we decide that our dream mate is not the one were living with.
By the way, when we’re in the fantasy mode, we will dream up all kinds of things that are wrong with our mate. This is a bit like packing your bags for a trip. The fuller you stuff your bag with complaints about your mate, the more eager you become to leave. The more eager you become to leave, the brighter and more glorious your fantasy attraction becomes.
So, this is the way it goes. Let’s say you’ve been in a relationship for awhile, long enough to be a bit bored by it and, most importantly, to learn that your mate has faults. Yikes—faults! This gets the mind to noticing other beautiful people out there. Since you know little about them, your fantasy mind begins to concoct a story about how perfect they are, because they have what you’re missing in your mate. So, does it end here? No!
You find ways of being with your fantasy person, who, by the way, may be idealizing you. That’s called romantic attraction. Chances are that you’ll fall in love (or in “lust”) with your dream mate and end up leaving your current mate. See, you can’t fall in love with someone new unless you’ve done a good job of depreciating the mate you have with a steady dose of negative judgments.
If you leave, don’t think it’s going to be peachy, because the process is bound to start over. After a time, you learn that your dream mate has a nightmare side. Getting bored with the same ole’ person, who you now know has faults, your mind starts looking again—for the perfect mate of course. The mind longs to be fascinated, so the cycle is repeated, as people look for perfection instead of facing reality—everyone is imperfect! Hey, I’m even imperfect, so don’t get in a huff about it. I even wear a t-shirt I created, which says on the back, “I’m not perfect, but I’m ripe.”
Some people exist in romantic relationships with one foot in and one foot out. Except for the romantic phase when lust rules, those people have their imaginary suitcase packed so they can leave the relationship at any time, often in a hurry. The beautiful moment in a relationship, which usually comes after years of learning to accept each other's weaknesses while keeping love alive, is when both mates know they’re going the distance. That means, they’re going to stay together until “death do us part”. At that point, when they make a binding commitment to each other and unpack their imaginary suitcases, their love for each other deepens.
So, if you exist in your romantic relationships with one foot in and one foot out, you’re already setting things up for a break up. The best way to stop this is to realize the nature of the mind which is to seek fascination and to love fantasy. When you realize that everyone you’re attracted to outside your relationship has weaknesses, you won’t automatically criticize your mate and then decide to leave to chase your fantasy.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying “Never leave” because there are a lot of difficult people of both sexes in the world and you might be in a relationship with one now. No, I’m not saying “Never leave”. What I’m saying is learn to accept the weaknesses of your mate and, if you get caught up in fantasies about a dream mate, get to know the person thoroughly so you’ll know that person’s weaknesses before you let desire take over and make you blind. Be real and realistic. When you reach that point, you’ll be able to buy my tee-shirt with the inscription on the back, “Princes and Princesses can be frogs in disguise.”
Coaching Tips■ Be aware of your mind’s tendency to develop romantic fantasies about others when it has become bored with the mate you have. Instead of leaving, create ways of cultivating more love with your mate. Love is something you create, not something that falls from heaven. Creating a great relationship takes some work. Love is architecture. It has to be designed and built. That takes some sweat.
■ If you have an imaginary bag packed, ready at a moment's notice to leave, consider unpacking it. Make a real commitment to your mate, knowing you're going to go the distance.
To buy a paperback book of Screwing Up Love or How to Make Love Grow and Last for $8 or purchase a Kindle version for $2.99, go to Amazon.com.