It can be easy to let other life issues creep up and take a prominent place in your life once the “honeymoon” phase of your relationship is over. Issues related to parents, children, work, or other outside influences can take over the priority that your marriage or dating relationship once had in your life. Any romantic relationship takes hard work and dedication from both parties to make it a success. Many times relationships end simply because neither party bothered to care for and cultivate it. Good relationships stay that way because BOTH people involved make a conscious effort to keep their partner feeling happy and loved.

Difficult times might present bumps in your road of life, but they don’t have to mean the end of the road if you don’t want them to. If you truly love your partner and are dedicated to being with them for the long haul then you will want to do whatever you can to work through your current issues. A couples or marriage counselor can help get you through difficult times in your relationship. With a counselor to guide you, you and your partner will be better able to express your thoughts, feelings, and concerns in a safe environment. A counseling situation can allow you to work through the issues that you and your partner are having without accidentally hurting the other person. Misunderstandings of all sorts can be worked through when there is room in the relationship for health and healing to begin.

However the key is for both people to be in favor of working through your issues. If only one person is dedicated to working out the problems in the relationship then the relationship stands little chance of surviving a rough patch. The good news is that couples that choose to work through difficult periods in their relationship usually come through such times with a stronger bond than they did going into it.

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I have pain where Ive been burned...
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Why did I want to get burned or take the chance of it; that is the question; I seem to blame others for it. Even if it was criminal against me; why do I not just call the other person a criminal.. I guess people caught with in the snares of narcissists go through this... THey get sweet talked or charmed; and its hard to admit thats all it was... I never thought it would happen to me; but then I looked for it; I got off the trail... and went down a new unknown path and at the end of the past was a blood thirsty demon waiting for me.
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Demons do not dress like its Halloween; They dress normally; smile and act smoothly; and undetected...
Unfortunately; I have to look at the idea; that I could opportunize my way into things when I myself had nothing. And that I dont want to look at. Nor do I want to look at the downfall from associating with people who did have something and I didnt and how I got kicked in the pants because of it; kicked right out the door...
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But they never kicked me in the present; but in secret; they left; silently... They saw me the victim who never woke up to what they were doing; caught in a trauma bond... THey had a field day with it.
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Why its so hard to wake up from narcissistic attack; I dont know. I think because they are criminals. The the results of that kind of assault are so wounding and ripping and deep; one must remember; these are sociopaths deep down; Their is no safety with these type of criminals... Murder'rs are murder'rs regardless of the masquerade they are flaunting.
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Im still not getting it; I still feel like Im at a loss... Like I lost something; so Im working with the universe to wake up; I dont know how long it will take or why its so hard. Ill ask the universe and GOd and ask for help... For; Im not seeing things correctly. And Im mad about it. My nervous system still wants to see things from an ignorant child level point of view... child like point of view... Im not sure why! For my survival; I have to see things from an adult point of view. I was taken advantage of by an adult point of view...
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I mean; So; Ill work on it... its hard to face.
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One area Ive noticed that God is trying to reveal to me. I didnt take orders from GOd; follow through; I @!@@@! around and played games; suddenly I was destroyed and abandon. I can always take all of this to God and work on it; and ask GOd what the next move is to face...
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I can work with God. I just want some peace and to live my life... I want peace from the past; I want to understand what happened to me; what happened and to get over it...
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I want to admit that I was wrong and didnt know anything and was ignorant and did ignorant things and got destroyed because of it. I want God to wake me up to see the truth of it and move on.
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I remember my Best Friend growing up... I was able to see him for who he really was. Why am I having such a hard time seeing others for who they are; Im having a hard time accepting the truth about them; I mean; I got @!@@@!. But I got destroyed and set up from my best friend as well. Maybe Ill do a closer inventory of him to see how I was able to find out what he was like; and thus apply it to others Im having a hard time with...
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I woke up to the snare my best friend had always had me in; He was no friend of mine; he was a liar and cheat and I never saw it; nor did I see it in his family.
When I did see it; I worked through it; it was a horrible reality and a horrible slam but God allowed me to see it for what it was and I moved through it; I moved through it smoothly easily... I had no hookups about it. I did; but I moved on... I worked with GOd on it.
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But others; I seem to need more. As if I turned them into my best friend and my mom... or something. or they gave me some kind of fake acting job I fell for... Maybe they were worse... And I really fell for things blindly. ...

[ Continued ]

I've been thinking about the way I've changed since therapy, and I can only liken it to wearing a new coat that doesn't quite fit. Well, it fits, but it feels strange. It doesn't fasten like my old coat. It doesn't "sit" like my old coat. It doesn't feel familiar. It's all new and unblemished. I've changed in so many ways, into the person I should have been, would have been, if my abuse hadn't happened, and I'm still changing.

I don't acknowledge the abuse to my family members who are still alive. We all pretend that our family is functional, happy and normal. We don't do hugs much, even in greeting. We talk about pleasantries, make jokes and it's all very ...........polite, and it reminds me of how I learnt to use politeness as a mask to hide behind all of my life. To be polite is not to say how I really feel. To be polite is to allow others to impose themselves upon me. To be polite is to pretend that there is no unpleasantness or resentment or anger. To be polite is to not communicate. Hardly surprising I developed the appeasing type of HPD. I developed a persona who was funny, charming, friendly, sociable, always saying the right things, always being pleasing, always being pleasing to the eye, always concentrating on what was on the surface, and not which lay below. For someone who was so "nice", I hid inner resentments, insecurities, unhappiness and uncertainty. There was so much I wasn't allowed to express, and it all became suppressed, erupting sometimes in short bursts of intense emotion. Because my emotions were never validated as a child, or acknowledged, I felt that I didn't have a right to have them or to own them, and so when they erupted they would disappear as soon as they came, which made them look fake. I suppose that is what is meant by rapidly shifting shallow emotions. But they're not shallow at all. They run deep, very deep, but they're not allowed expression. I've just noticed that I'm now writing this in the present tense, and maybe this is because they're still an issue for me, as I still find it difficult to express them to people. I have cyclothmia as well as HPD and when I go into a depression, usually in the winter, I don't tell anyone. I simply hide away. My friends, who only see the happy me, don't question it. They simply assume that I'm occupied with something. It's a lonely place to be, but I find it hard to even acknowledge the loneliness, and I brush the emotion away.

Yes, I've come a long way in therapy. I have a deep self awareness, I care about people and have something of an over active conscience. I've become more empathic and discerning about friendships and relationships. I've become much more focused and mature as a person and scored normal on a personality disorder inventory. That's not to say I'm cured. I did the inventory on a good day. On a bad day the old feelings and attitudes will resurface, but I've learnt to become aware of them through CBT and to challenge them when they arise. Stress or illnesses can become major triggers.

I have issues about being ignored. If a friend forgets to call or if I feel excluded in a conversation, I will really take it to heart, and feel rejected, abandoned, unworthy, unwanted and unhappy. I will try to compensate by pushing my way into the conversation, almost competing for attention, and have to stop, tell myself to be rational and not take it to heart so much. It's improved a great deal since I've been working on my self esteem, and looking inside for validation and not from outside. I know exactly when these feelings began. They came from childhood, when I was ignored, passed by, invalidated, not taken seriously. I got attention if I made people laugh, and so I became a comedian, always joking or doing silly things and I still do this today. It's almost a subconscious mechanism, and I don't really know any other way to be. I can also be serious, though, thanks to therapy, and now...

[ Continued ]

I want to drink water from your hands but the 1st thought I have is germs. Why do I get groused out? Don't I love you? Yes I do. Why can't I swallow your saliva without kringing? Maybe I need to get to know you better so that I'm comfortable with you?

Don't confuse my worldview, which might seem optimistic and joyful, to mean that I myself am on top of the world and drenched in happiness. Actually it's quite the opposite. I've come out of a tough time, and I have a different view on things, I put importance on different things. But that doesn't mean I'm happy yet.

- EGD.