Marni welcomes Master Coach for the Hoffman Institute and Licenced Marriage and Family Counselor, Ed McClune into the Den. Ed is also the relationship therapist for Dating with Dignity’s one-year program. During this episode, he shares information about the physical effects of grief and how to keep a relationship healthy.
Key takeaways from this episode:
When something we invest our heart in doesn't work out it hurts us emotionally and physiologically. For many of us, we marinate in pain for a long time. When we become impatient with the grieving process and don’t give ourselves the time we need to heal we add to the hurt. We spend a lot of time in the 'no one will ever love me again' story.
Ed says that it is easy and natural to make up a narrative about sadness. We create a ‘woe is me’ story, or we believe something is wrong with us. We wastefully spend a lot of time in the 'no one will ever love me again' story.
But, when we change our internal narrative we can move through the pain and gain a healthy lesson from past relationships. It’s a good idea to give grief time even schedule it. Why allow pain to bleed into your entire day? It’s healthy to allow sadness to flow through you but at a scheduled time so the body can heal itself.
Learning from our mistakes is what helps us to become a better offer to the next potential lover.
Ed uses the analogy of the Good Queen to describe what doesn’t work in relationships. To be a good partner, we can’t just sit back in our thrones and let things come to us. We need to play an active role and train a man to be what we need him to be. He says that women often think that if a man loves them he will do ‘X’ but the guy probably needs to be trained to do it first. In general, a man just doesn't know.
We come into relationships with different needs and skill levels. None of us are wrong or defective. There is so much pressure on a man to know what to do and how to take care of his partner. Men don't have any relationship education and there is no formula
How responsible are women to train their guy?
Marni asks Ed how a woman can take a leadership role without being masculine, bossy, or over-functioning.
Ed says women should own their dignity, beauty, and soulfulness and help their partners love them. Maturity in a relationship is key.
The right guy, the quality guy wants to know how to make you happy, not just in the bedroom but in the relationship.
For the sake of maintaining your own dignity, if there is chemistry in a relationship but a guy is unwilling to step up and take responsibility for how a relationship is evolving women need to pull their hand away from the cookie jar and say chemistry is not enough. When you tire of surrendering your dignity to a recurring breakdown you have to say enough is enough.
Both people go in blind when starting to date. Trust and commitment must be built as we incrementally let the other person in. Partners have different talents and different skill levels. We date people to bring more into our lives. Every time we fall in love it happens with a ton of variables and as learners, we are going to get some things wrong.
A healthy relationship is one in which each partner is committed to their individual growth and the growth of the relationship.
Make a Connection:
Join Our Dating Den Facebook Community Here!
Learn how to attract your perfect equal...watch our latest training here!
Interested in working with us? Book a Breakthrough session at DWDVIP
Get a Free Coaching Session with Marni on Our Podcast - Sign up Here to Be a Guest On Our Show
Download a Complimentary Copy of our Book - How to Find a Quality Guy Without Going on 200 Dates