-Since the divorce, do you suffer from SPDF Syndrome (Same Person, Different Face) and chronic relationship deja vu?
-Have you had enough of dating partners who are emotionally unavailable?
-Are you done investing your money, time and energy in what doesn't work - but haven't given up on having a connected and committed relationship?
You're not alone.
I know how it feels, because I’ve been there.
After a string of unsuccessful relationships, including my divorce twelve years ago, I resolved that if it was the last thing I did, I was going to figure this relationship thing out.
Bottom line--having a connected and committed relationship with ourselves first, so we can have one with someone else.
Pretty much a no-brainer, right?
But when the same guy, different face keeps showing up, something just isn't right.
We go through a goodly amount of churning trying to figure out exactly what isn't right.
Sometimes we can get to some fairly unattractive places in all that churning.
Any of these dating archetypes sound familiar?
Unapproachable Uma
Erratic Erin
The only common factor in all our “failed” relationships is us.
And fortunately, that is good news.
Because we are the only ones who can do anything about it.
At the moment, you just might not know how.
And that really isn't our fault, you know?
When we look around for guidance on relationships, there isn't much to go on.
Women's magazines tell us to try to read his mind, or figure out whether he's cheating or not.
Um, no thank you.
TV and movies don't do us any favors in the reality department, either.
Most of the books I found on the subject had great theories but didn't tell me how to apply them.
How was this supposed to go, day-to-day, year-to-year, decade-to-decade?
There was a missing piece to the puzzle, and I kept digging until I found the information that actually helped me reframe relationships in ways that transformed my thinking and opened the door to getting the results I wanted.
I knew connected and committed was possible.
I just needed to find it.
Well, the old saying when you stop looking, it shows up, certainly was true in my case.
After nearly a decade in the dating scene, one day I realized that I just wasn't interested in keeping up with my online profiles anymore.
I'd tried them all with, with limited success.
I liked my life the way it was, and I didn't want to pursue meeting someone.
I was good.
Really, really good.
I'd done the work on myself that I needed to do, and had gotten to a really good place.
Then enter Facebook.
An old high school boyfriend, someone who I had dated again in our late twenties, and I had friended each other a year or so earlier, after twenty-odd years of no contact whatsoever.
Turns out he was in a similar place in his life--divorced, had worked on himself to not make the same mistakes again.
After the ice was initially broken, we decided to meet to see if there was "any lightenin' left in that bottle".
During that four or five hour conversation, we were in a bubble of dialogue when the sound of some police sirens in the distance brought us back to our surroundings, and we both looked at each other, wondering where we'd been just then.
We've been together ever since.
And it literally gets better every day.
I found the comfortable companion I'd been longing for.
Someone to share my life with, who wanted to be with me.
Someone who wanted to continue to grow and make life better, together.
Now I show other women how to find that, too.
My mission is a world of happy women.
Because when we're happy, everyone's happy.
I call myself a thought chaperone.
I show my clients how to not just "get positive" or "focus on what you want."
I help them guide their thinking into new places and show them how to make that stick in the day-to-day.
So they can get past the blocks that keep them in relationships that don't serve them, so they can find the connected and commited one that works, and things can be different this time.
Here's a great place to start: a quiz that helps you identify which Dating Archetype is running the show at the moment.
Are you Defeated Denise? Desperate Diane? Unapproachable Uma?
Find out what's been getting in your way of having the connected, committed relationship you've always wanted.
Don't spend another Saturday night alone, wondering what you're doing wrong.
Fill in the information below to get the quiz via download, for free, no strings attached. Cuz that's how we roll.
