Category Love

October 21, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

As I now understand it as an adult, one of my script beliefs came to be that my needs are not important. I felt that I was only as good as the cog in the wheel that drove the machine that was our family business.

The interesting thing to note here is that it was fairly likely that my parents never actually intended for me to acquire this belief, let alone having it be one that I would grow up with and take into my own adult relationships. My perception of my life as I was growing up created my script beliefs, regardless of my parents’ intentions.

And, of course, this belief did go with me into my adult relationships and into my fi...

July 13, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

For many reasons, somewhere along the way you may decide to live your life based on an alternate set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and rules. As I believe was my experience, you then have the capacity to create a new script. And in so doing, you can make new decisions about whom you might wish to have as a partner.

Rightly or wrongly, questioning your script generally only happens in the event of some crisis in your life, and then maybe only for the duration of the conflict—after which you simply go back to how it always was. Some people, though, come to question their scripts simply because they have grown in maturity. For many the experience results in a mid-life crisis, when they begin to ask, “Is this all there is?”

Of course, one must have a certain maturity to quest...

June 15, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

We learn about our sexuality—acting male or female—from the parent of our own sex, but we learn about our sensuality—being feminine or masculine—in our relationship with our parent of the opposite sex.

Let me add what is actually an inconsistency in this theory. That is that while my siblings, male and female, were exposed to the same qualities in our parents, what they decided for themselves regarding their roles as adults, and how they would be sexually with their own partners, may actually have been quite different from me. This is where genetics actually plays more than just a small part in forming who we become as adults.

As I’ve noted, your own personality will impact on how you actually turn out, but as a general rule, if you are a female you are more than likely ...

May 20, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script, Sex  No comments

Let’s apply this notion to the concept of being a couple. Your script for life, which influences your values, beliefs, and attitudes (and consequently, what you think, feel, say, and do), also contains rules, or guidelines, about being a couple in a relationship.

Because your script (and therefore your rules for being a couple) was first given to you by your family, you will most likely grow up and live out their relationship rules accordingly.

The relationship rules in your script tell you how to communicate with your partner, how to express love to each other, and how to interact with each other sexually.

So, if your parents showed you that it was OK to put each other down, then you will have that in your scripting as well – either as the person who puts others down or as...

April 21, 2021,  Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

Here’s an example from my own life story. My father grew up in a very large family during a difficult time in history. He was born in Europe just after the First World War and was the second youngest of eight children.

Needless to say, he would have had to make his presence known fairly loudly to have any of his needs met, which probably included having to speak very loudly to be heard over all the other people in his family.

I also know that my grandfather was a very successful businessman before the First World War, but that it was very difficult for him to continue to provide for his family afterward. I can only imagine how difficult and frustrating it must have been for my father’s parents at that time to raise their children while struggling with the aftermath of war.

March 19, 2021,  Counselling, Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

So, if Dad got mad when something went wrong, you might get mad and respond in the same way he did. Or, maybe your mother got sad when something went wrong, and depending on your personality and your closeness to each of your parents, you might respond that way instead.

It could be worth noting here that your personality is already there at your birth. This phenomenon subsequently influences how you respond to events in your later life, and it also influences which parent, if any, you are most likely to imitate in your behaviors, thoughts, and feelings when confronted with a particular situation.

The way you choose to respond to circumstances could be the topic for a whole other book, but suffice it to say here that your personality, your gender, the environment you grew up in, ...

November 12, 2020,  Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship  No comments

“Spiritual needs” refers to the highest-order needs, those on the top rung of the ladder. While present in the child, these needs may actually lie hidden until the needs further down the ladder are met and satisfied. This is simply because the Spiritual Needs take you out of the realm of the physical world and into that of the metaphysical which requires, in the first instance, a capacity to think outside of the self, a skill that generally develops through time.

As an adult in a happy and fulfilling relationship, feeling happy and content in your own life, your spiritual needs consist of the certainty that your spiritual journey, however you define it, is supported by your partner, and by others who are important to you, without judgment or criticism.

Some people think that...

September 24, 2020,  Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship  No comments

The fulfillment of this need offers you peace of mind in the knowledge that you are not alone and that the struggle of life is not yours alone to bear. You are one of many. You are a member of your immediate family, your extended family, your community, and all the nations of the world.

Every one of you, from the day your parents first dropped you off at child care or preschool to the day you became an adult and left home to make a life of your own, are learning to fit into a social group and do so even when it is uncomfortable. The reason for this is simply that you have a need to love and belong.

Therefore, for you as an adult, your love and belonging needs have to do with all the things that bring other people into your life, together with the shared enjoyment of that...

July 16, 2020,  Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship  No comments

As a child grows and has its physical needs met, there is also a fundamental need to feel safe from harm – bodily and emotionally. As with all of these fundamental needs, this need remains the same throughout life.

“Safety” here means the knowledge that someone—your parents when you were a child, and your partner when you are in an adult relationship—will always be there for you. You need to feel that this person will always be a “soft place” on whom to fall when you need someone the most, but also in good times as well as in times of distress.

For Beth and Roger, it’s about knowing that they are always there for each other, whether as someone offering greetings as the other comes home late from a day’s outing, or someone to be a d...

February 24, 2020,  Counselling, Family, Games People Play, Life, Love, Relationship  No comments

I would like to say something about the title of my book Love, Lies, and the Games Couples Play. Put simply, love, and all that it embodies for us, is what each of us seeks in life above all else. It is the main reason we enter into relationships in the first place because it gives us a place to belong and to feel connected to others.

The “lies” in the title refers to the mistaken attitudes and beliefs that we hold about ourselves and about others. These are most likely based on someone else’s thinking which in the first instance were probably our parent’s. And as these beliefs were presented to us at a time when we were not able to make well-considered decisions for ourselves, they are not necessarily reflective of our current subjective truth.

Those beliefs, and the w...