Have you ever been obsessed with someone or with your relationship? If you answered yes, you’re not alone. Obsession is a very ancient, powerful tendency in many people. All of us understand that sometimes the pull to excessively focus on a person or relationship is too powerful to let go of but when obsession begins to dominate your life it’s easy to become out of balance. So be gentle with yourself whenever you are drawn into an obsession. It’s normal and very common.

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We’re heading into a season that can bring up a mix of emotions for lots of people. The holidays are pretty “loaded.” Energy flies at this time of year. Everyone is in a hurry, trying to get their shopping done; it’s easy to get stressed out. And amid the hustle and bustle, many people get lonely. It’s darker earlier; it’s getting cold outside. It’s easy to feel left out, isolated, and hopeless, whatever your partnership status.

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Anger is a powerful emotion. Sometimes it’s easy to be scared of your own anger. You may have “stuffed” it for years or let it out at your partner at inopportune moments. If you grew up around angry people like raging parents or other family members, you may have experienced anger as pathological. You now may fear that you have a disease passed down from them whenever you feel angry. But anger is simply an emotion. Only your behavior can actually cause harm.

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Want to know a secret? Believing in scarcity may be holding you back from getting the love you want.

How many times have you heard “There are no good men left,” “All the hot girls are taken,” “You’ll never get married after you hit 35,” or  “You’re going to be alone for the rest of your life if you don’t give me a chance?”

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Do you ever flirt with people you find attractive? What if someone flirts with you? Does it make you embarrassed, happy, or aroused?

Flirting is a great way to open the door to a potential relationship or reignite the passion in an existing one but flirting is not to be taken seriously. Flirtation means to act amorously without having serious intentions. Flirtation is light, fun, and playful. The idea of flirtation is that it is a trifle. You certainly may know how to flirt. You may even be quite good at it; however, it can be easy to take flirtations very seriously and put too much emphasis on it. And that can stop flirting from being good for you.

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Every couple encounters struggles in their relationship, yet many people expect the fairy tale happy ending. Most of us don’t have well-developed skills to handle strife. But a sure partnership killer is never letting go of conflicts. It’s a real problem.

If you are experiencing a challenge with your partner right now, it’s normal. Conflict is part of life. Savvy partners realize that holding on to struggle is detrimental to a good relationship. A very wise person once remarked that the key to a happy marriage is a short memory.

So what’s the best course of action to take when your partner triggers you like nobody’s business?

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If you’re attracted to the unavailable type, I bet you can clearly identify that person in your life. But the choice to partner with emotionally shut down people is incredibly significant. Every time you choose someone who can’t give you what you need, you’re being offered a clear invitation to look closer at the pain you’re causing yourself.

Since the beginning of time, emotionally unavailable people have been known for making dates and then breaking them, being married or in a long term relationship, being an alcoholic or a compulsive gambler, being angry or abusive, not wanting to be in a relationship with you, being passive-aggressive or frequently late, still being connected to their “ex,” not initiating, putting no energy out, keeping you guessing, flirting with other people, not being attracted to you, being controlling, judgmental, hesitant in some way, or being inconsistent.

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Did you know people usually tell you who they are within the first fifteen minutes of knowing them? If that comes as a surprise, think back to the last relationship you had. The first things they told you probably described them in a nutshell.

Red flags, of course, are the warning signs a person may display at the beginning of a relationship. To describe classic markers of relationship danger, they are the potential partners who still discuss their “ex,” are angry, are ambivalent about you, or are inconsiderate on the first date. You might remember them as the greatest partnership mistake of your life.

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