Don't Get Trapped!

1. Marketing Trap - Believing you need to make yourself more appealing to
attract a partner and "selling" yourself with attractive packaging and
presentation. High risk of disappointment and relationship failure as people
discover
that the excitement and promise of the "sizzle" conflicts with the reality of
the "steak."

2. Scarcity Trap - Believing there is a limited supply of possible partners,
so you have to take what you can get or be alone. Results in relationship
failure when you settle for less and compromise your Requirements. A
self-fulfilling prophecy when you get less because you expect less.

3. Compatibility Trap - Assuming that if you have fun together and get along
well, you are compatible and a committed relationship will work. This
results in relationship failure when discovering the vast difference between a
fun-focused, recreational "dating" relationship, and a serious long-term
committed
relationship. Being so different, the process and criteria for choosing a
recreational relationship needs to be very different from choosing a Life
Partner.

4. Fairytale Trap - Passively expecting your ideal partner to magically
appear and live happily ever after without effort on your part. Believing that
finding your soul mate will just "happen." This results in disappointment when
the frogs that happen to jump into your life don't become princes.

5. Date-To-Mate Trap - Becoming an "instant couple" with every new partner
as if giving each person you date an extended test drive. Believing that if
you develop an exclusive relationship with everyone you date, a successful
committed relationship will eventually happen. Other terms for this are "Serial
Monogamy" and the "Mini-Marriage." This approach is a costly use of time and
emotional energy. The inertia in this trap is pressure to make the relationship
work, attempt to solve unsolvable problems, and fit the round peg in the
square hole because breaking up and being single again is an undesired outcome.

6. Attraction Trap - Making relationship choices based on feelings of
attractioin. Interpreting a strong attraction to someone as a sign that the
relationship is a good choice and "meant to be." This approach results in
relationship failure when unsolvable problems surface because you ignored the
red flags
when infatuated. Unconscious choices usually result in repeating unproductive
past patterns.

7. Love Trap - Interpreting infatuation, attraction, need, good sex, and/or
attachment as Love. "If it feels good, it must be Love." "Love is all you
need." "Love conquers all." Results in relationship failure when you discover
that love is not enough to meet your requirements and needs.

8. Rescue Trap - Hoping a relationship will solve your emotional and
financial difficulties and bring you happiness and fulfillment, something like
winning the lottery. You avoid taking responsibility for your life challenges,
expecting to be rescued from them. This results in desperation, neediness, and
relationship failure when problems multiply instead of disappear.

9. Co-Dependent Trap - Expecting someone to love you and give you what you
want by giving them what they want. Attempting to earn love and happiness by
acquiescing, giving, and helping. Needing to be needed often results in
unconsciously attracting and choosing a relationship with a person that needs
you,
but you later discover is unable to give you what you want or who even abuses
you.

10. Entitlement Trap - Believing you deserve to be happy and get what you
want in your life without effort or changes on your part. This results in
relationship failure as you rely on your partner to bring happiness and
fulfillment
and inevitably experience disappointment. "If you do what you've always done,
you'll get what you've always got."

11. Virtual Reality Trap - Believing that "what you see is what you get."
Making hasty long-term relationship decisions based on brief impressions and
inferences instead of actual experience and knowledge. This can result in
seeing
what you want to see and relationship failure when later reality doesn't
match.

12. Lone Ranger Trap - Believing that you don't need anyone's help in finding
your Life Partner. You evaluate people you meet for their relationship
potential and do not take the opportunity to cultivate new friends. This
results
in isolation, perception of scarcity of potential partners, and risk of
settling for less than what you really want because you don't want to be alone.

13. The Sex Trap - Singles who pursue a relationship based upon sexual
chemistry, then risk relationship failure when the hormore-induced intoxication
wears off and reality hits.

14. The Packaging Trap - Focusing on outside packaging, such as someone's
body, looks, job, wealth, material possessions, etc, overlooking the reality of
the person inside. Opposite of the Marketing Trap; instead of seeking to sell
yourself with attractive packaging, you focus on the packaging of others.

Relationship Coaching Institute


Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results.

~ Albert Einstein


Fallen Officer: Kenneth L. Collings
http://hometown.aol.com/azterri/kenny.html


AZTerri
http://profiles.yahoo.com/arizona_terri


End Verbal Abuse Group Leader
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/End_Verbal_Abuse


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