More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
May 4 - July 17, 2025
difference between who the partner is as a person and who he is for you. Here are two alternatives: 1. Sometimes we respect or even admire people who are not good for us or who can do nothing for us. 2. Sometimes someone who has something to offer us personally that’s real and important to us isn’t someone we otherwise have a lot of respect for.
Diagnostic question #27. Would you lose anything important in your life if your partner were no longer your partner? Is what you’d lose something that makes you feel good about your partner for being able to provide it?
respect their partner he’s not only got to be an important resource but they’ve got to respect him for doing these things.
If they feel that their partners’ doing these things is nice, yes, but is essentially a waste of time, then they don’t respect their partner as a resource
It doesn’t matter what it is that your partner offers as a resource to you that you respect him for. It can be anything, from being a hard worker to being funny and making you laugh to being unusually patient when things get chaotic.
GUIDELINE #27 If it’s clear to you that you wouldn’t lose anything you couldn’t do without if your relationship were over, then your partner doesn’t have anything real to offer you and he’s not a resource for you. Even if your partner does provide things, if what he provides are things you don’t particularly respect him for, he’s not a respected resource for you. Most people in this situation were happy when they left the relationship. Quick take: There’s no need to keep something you wouldn’t miss if it were gone or that you don’t value when you’ve got it.
We all need help. You and I both need as many resources in our lives as possible. If you live with someone who is simply not a resource for you in any important way, then not only are you living with whatever other problems are going on that make this relationship iffy, but you’re depriving yourself of the possibility of spending your life with someone different who could really be a resource for you.
We’re only going to focus on the hurt and betrayal from the past that may make this relationship too bad for you to stay in now—the thing that was done a year ago or ten years ago that still carries with it suitcases full of bitterness and anger, where you and your partner are still fighting over how terrible a thing it was and whether forgiveness is possible.
The size of the crime determines the amount of forgiveness that’s necessary. But it’s circular: the amount of the forgiveness that comes across also measures the size of the crime.
For example, if you had an affair three years ago with someone from work, has your affair made the relationship too bad to stay in because having an affair really is such a terrible thing or is it because your partner’s having such a hard time forgiving the affair?
Diagnostic question #28. Whatever was done that caused hurt and betrayal, do you have the sense that the pain and damage has lessened with time?
when one person in a relationship does something to cause a lot of hurt and anger, there are two completely opposite kinds of reactions that even after all my years of clinical work still impress me: 1. The utter violence and craziness of people’s responses (particularly in the short run) 2. People’s total capacity for complete denial or avoidance (particularly in the long run)
GUIDELINE #28 If, according to the following timetable, there continues to be a lessening in the sense of pain and hurt and fear and anger after the “crime” you or your partner committed, then there’s a good chance that your relationship can heal the damage caused by this “crime.” In that case, if this was the main reason you were thinking of leaving the relationship, the odds are in your favor that it’s too good to leave. Quick take: Time heals all healable wounds.
Diagnostic question #29. Is there a demonstrated capacity and mechanism for genuine forgiveness in your relationship?
What I’m asking is whether the person who’s been injured has actually ever forgiven her partner for anything.
forgiveness is made possible if the other person’s genuinely sorry for what he did. It’s not just a matter of words. You’ve got to feel that he truly is remorseful and isn’t just sick and tired of your being pissed off at him. One way you can test for the difference between genuine sorrow and phony get-off-my-back sorrow is if you see that your partner really feels the true impact of what he did. He sees exactly how and why you were hurt. He appreciates how and why he’d be hurt if you’d done the same thing to him.
You’ll know it’s genuine sorrow only if the partner who committed the injury does something concrete to re-balance things.
GUIDELINE #29 If there’s a demonstrated capacity for genuine forgiveness, including the ability to let go of anger and hurt, the ability to feel forgiveness, and the ability in the other person to show that he feels sincerely sorry, then this relationship can survive an injury that would otherwise make it too bad to stay in. But if not, and, based on guideline #28, if there’s also been no healing over time, then the damage was probably so great and the capacity for healing is so small that this relationship is too bad to stay in. In such a case, most people are happy they left and unhappy they
...more
Worse Than Fighting But this isn’t the worst. You fight because you hope you can win. But when things get really bad, you give up. Worse than fighting is a kind of cold, distant politeness, an emptiness, a cold war where it’s clear to both of you that if you’re going to get anything you want you’re going to have to get it outside of the relationship.
Diagnostic question #30. Is it likely that, if you have a reasonable need, you and your partner will be able to work out a way for you to get it met without too painful a struggle? In other words, it is actually true for you that, “It’s just too hard to get my needs met”?
Question #30 is different, and perhaps more difficult to answer. The focus isn’t on unmet needs but on unrewarding struggles.
1. “I Can Do Whatever I Want, Right?” Here’s one way your partner can make the relationship a place where it’s just too hard to get your needs met: doing what he wants when he wants it by himself without talking to you about it.
“unilateral moves.” This is the expression for doing what you want when you want it without any prior discussion, although there’s usually a lot of angry discussion afterward.
Someone who makes unilateral moves will often invite you to do the very same thing: “Hey, I’m not saying you can’t do what you want. We should both be able to do what we want. I just don’t want to have to talk about it,” and he rolls his eyes. You can see from this example how very different this issue is from power. Power people never say, “Let everyone do what they want.” But whether we’re talking about power people or people who make unilateral moves, you still end up not getting your needs met.
You can’t negotiate if you can’t listen to each other or understand what the other is saying.
You can’t negotiate if you’re scared to death you’re going to lose.
You can’t negotiate if you’re afraid of being attacked. You have to feel safe putting your needs out there.
You can’t negotiate if you’re afraid of conflict and struggle.
This is where the issue of trust comes up in relationships. You trust people who do what they say they’re going to do. When they don’t, the relationship is not only a place of fighting and deprivation, it’s a place of betrayal.
broken trust can all too often lurk undetected.
a pattern of easily overlooked broken trust is just as deadly to your sense that you can get your needs met as a huge betrayal that slaps you in the face.
But a pattern of constantly forgetting agreements can be toxic and deadly.
The point is that without consequences agreements don’t matter.
GUIDELINE #30 If you’ve lost hope that you’ll be able to get a reasonable need met without a too-painful struggle to arrive at a solution, then I feel comfortable saying you’ll be happy if you leave and unhappy if you stay. Quick take: Frustration, fear, and deprivation are nature’s way of telling you that this relationship is not your home.
Diagnostic question #31. Is there some particular need that’s so important to you that if you don’t get it met, looking back you’ll say that your life wasn’t satisfying, and are you starting to get discouraged about ever being able to get it met?
