Can you recognize the major red flag of dating? Are you able to discern who you can trust and who you cannot? How can you tell right away that a relationship is wrong for you? The major red flag indicating future relationship failure is a broken agreement. As a columnist, I hear from everyone from the heart broken to the hopeful, asking what they can do to make a relationship work. Here is a recent question: I have met someone I care about but she makes me nervous about one thing. She never does what she says she will do. At least once or twice a week, she will say she is going to look for a new job, or clean up the house, or fix dinner, but she never does any of these things. If I ask her about it, she gets very angry. What can I do to help her? Signed, Needs Help Dear Needs, Your last sentence should read, "What can I do to help her so I won't have to notice that she cannot be trusted?" Alarm bells should be going off for you, and you are looking for ways to help her? You need to help yourself to a place of greater self worth. If you are with someone who does not keep their agreements, what do you really have? You are clinging to the illusion of a relationship and what you have in store for you is the potential of long term heartache. What can you do for her? Set a healthy example of how to take good care of yourself by getting some counseling. Give her the name and number of someone to call for help, if you want to feel you have made an effort to contribute to her well-being, but move away from each other until you have established a firm foundation of self esteem. Hold strong to this central point: you deserve someone wonderful whom you can trust. Start by trusting yourself: * Trust that you are going to do everything you need to do to get a counselor who will help you understand what you want in life and how to find it. * Trust that you have an issue larger than a girlfriend who will not keep her agreements. * Trust that if you go for the learning and growth that you need to do here, this incident will actually have been a gift towards your deeper happiness. * And finally, trust yourself to have the courage to stick with this until you have worked it through. Good luck to you both. Tonja The Savvy Dating Coach |
