If you find yourself feeling consistent pain in your relationship, you need to investigate where the pain comes from. Does it come from your past and you are being triggered?  Is your partner mistreating you, controlling you, abusing you or neglecting you?  What do you need to take responsibility for and what responsibility do you need to punt over to your partner?  Some partners who are in unhealthy toxic relationships take the blame way too quickly and make excuses for their partner.  Here are 3 questions to ask yourself if you are in a seemingly toxic relationship.

1) Do I feel better about myself when my partner is not around and if I do, is it because of me and my issues or him (or her)? If you dread seeing your partner, it may be because your self-esteem is lowered in his or her presence.  Now, we cannot make this too simple; every situation is different.  For example, you may be around a really good person and you may not feel you deserve him or her and feel inadequate.  That is not a toxic relationship.  But if you take a look at it and decide that you feel less than okay because of your partner’s treatment of you, then I would follow that up with question # 2.

2) How can I change my behavior to challenge my partner and see if he or she has the potential to shift to healthier patterns?  Sometimes it means you need to be more assertive or possibly get more support from friends and family. Change yourself first and see what happens.  If you discover your partner is unwilling or unable to shift, here is another good question to ask yourself:

3) If you leave the relationship, what might your life look like and feel like one or two years from now?  Does it feel freeing?  Find ways to motivate yourself to take the courageous step to leave and of course you want to learn how to attract a different kind of partner in the future.

Remember that I am always here to help (live or via Skype) because these shifts in yourself and/or your relationship have a much better chance of happening when you have professional support.

TONIGHT’S NO-COST EVENT:

Do you know ANYONE who is experiencing the pain of a recent or even not so recent infidelity? If you or someone you know is dealing with this painful issue, I have a free call coming up that can definitely help you (or whomever) get on the path of healing and recovery. What happens when partners cheat? Partners cheat for a variety of reasons in a relationship… An important thing I do is to help people do is decipher the message of the affair. Once we understand the message, we can look at possible solutions that make sense to help the couple heal and rebuild their relationship. On this call I’ll cover the 5 things you need to know in order to recover from infidelity: What makes people cheat How to begin the healing process How to get the trust back How to go from surviving to thriving as a couple How to prevent infidelity in the future I’ve had a 90% success rate helping couples recover from infidelity so you’ll definitely want to join me for this call. I’ll share my sure-fire tips to prevent infidelity happening the first time or again. Register and join me live for the call. Ask me your questions, you’ll be totally anonymous. When Partners Cheat Free Call Thursday May 7th 7:00pm PT | 8:00pm MT | 9:00pm CT | 10:00pm ET Sign up here and you’ll get the phone number and access code. Don’t worry if this date doesn’t work for you, I’ll be sending you the recording of the call.