LOVE: WE MARRY A LIFESTYLE

Love is an important part of our lives, but we're not love's slaves. Most of all we're not love's fool. Love isn't blind and it isn't stupid,

You know sometimes it is so hard for me to give myself permission to leave a relationship. If i was a really good person, I would stay and work at it. Only a bad person would walk out on a partner and all the hopes they'd had for the future.....and I don't want to be a bad person.

Sometimes I imagine how I would feel if God said to me that I had permission to leave a relationship if I wanted to. I think I would get a strong sense that it would be all right for me to end my relationship and what is best for me. If God said to me..."Hey whatever you want is okay with me"...would be all that I need to feel it's okay to leave.....

I would leave a lot of relationship....without hesitation or confusion. I think that if you get total relief at the thought of getting total permission to leave doesn't clarify the fact that you're already decided to leave....



There are two type of sex...i believe in

Sex that is superficially and feel good
Sex that produces a real close connection that feel good in every level

What doesn't make sense to me is this....So many woman take their clothes off as part of the physical intimacy, but confessing secrets and showing parts of themselves no one else in the world see is hidden. When you sleep with someone..you should not only be physically naked..but emotionally naked as well...and not only does love mean feeling safe as you get naked, it means relaxing into feeling more safe the more naked you get.


You know..love is not the package you carry around, it's the package you deliver. It's not what you feel inside...and certainly not what you say you feel inside...it's what you can give based on what you feel. So many woman in life toss the word.."I love you" and that is all that was.
You know sometimes..when your partner doesn't give to you..it harder for you to feel you have something to give to your partner....but I think.. even thought your partner's been stingy, and miserable and angry and critical, even thought you keep taking care of your partner and it doesn't seem as though she takes care of you...you're still willing to give without expecting to get anything back...that means when you say..." I LOVE YOU", you're not full of bull, Your feelings are about something real..So in spite of how hurt and deprived you feel, if you are still willing to deliver a concrete expression of love, without expecting anything back ..you know how to love.


Lying is to communication what murder is to life. Both are taking away of what's real and precious.


There is always power struggle in any relationship. Every single decision is a fertile soil for power struggle...because every single decision there's a question of who's going to make it and whose needs are going to prevail.

So there are power issues involved with deciding where you're going to go on your first date, when to make love, what you do when you make love, who's allowed to shout and under what circumstances, where you're to go on your vacation, how much money you're going to save, .....everything is a potential source of power struggle.

No wonder people fight in even the healthiest of relationship...there's a rough balance of power and they're just struggling to have their say.Sometimes couples work this out on the basis of need: whoever cares the most about something..makes the decision...other through some rough sense of balance....(you decided what to watch on TV Thursday and I will on Friday) and other work this out on the basis of knowledge or skill ( whoever's best at something makes decision about it)

And then you met someone like me...I can't share power. ..I do this because I feel incredibly unsafe unless I am holding all the reins of power. I feel unsafe without power...as If i am walking the streets of Manhattan with no clothes on.


If your vision of a relationship is about two people eating out all the time..and traveling and mine isn't..then we have a disagreement about our lifestyle. And if we not only disagree but do so passionately, and if this vision of a relationship is of the essence of what you want to get out of life, and mine is for me, too then this disagreement get at the heart of how each want to live and attacks the heart of our relationship. I will give you an example...let say..you decide that all TV in our house must go, that our marriage must be totally TV free for both of us..and let assume that you mean it. I don't think i can stay..in fact i would say alot of people wouldn't stay...no matter how much we love each other. Alot of people will choose to leave rather than actually spend every day of the rest of their lives without the possibility of watching their favorite shows or veg out in front of the tube. To me  it is so clear...that lifestyle difference is so critical. It's the reason why people end up choosing a lifestyle over their partner...hell..it's what you want from a relationship in the first place....It's never just a person you wanted to be with...You wanted that person combined with the lifestyle you have with that person. When the overall, basic quality of your life is at stake, you need to feel you can give yourself permission to choose the life that feels good to you over the life that doesn't. Thus the guideline is about where happiness and contentment and satisfaction comes from in life. Of course someone you love is extremely important to the way you life, but your life is your life and the person you love is part of your life. If your lifestyle difference is not such a big deal or you can accommodate your difference within your lifestyle, then you don't have a problem.


If you've ever had a dog or cat...you know how on some level, in spite of your knowing that the two of you are from different species, you have a sense of shared bond. You both like a good meal. You both like a comfortable place to curl up. You both like physical affection. You both like to play.You both have the capacity to care about each other, This sense of connection deep down is part of what creates a real bond between you. But when you start moving away from the dog/cat level toward snake, chicken..level of existence..and then toward the clam or worms level of existence at some point the sense of connection disappears.