Re-Establishing Trust in a Relationship
By Frank Kermit
 
Trust is one of the most important components of a relationship. Love is a great start, but it takes more than loving someone, or being loved by someone, to make a relationship work. But what happens when the trust in a relationship has been broken?
 
Re-establishing trust can be a lengthy process. Depending on what area of trust was violated, and what a person's emotional expectations were, it is reasonable to expect that proving trustworthiness again may take a long time.
 
One of the biggest misconceptions is that re-establishing trust happens over time. Although there is a correlation between re-establishing trust and the time that it takes, it does not mean that time alone is enough to fix the lack of trust that may exist in a relationship. What does help re-establish trust is being able to identify what the source of the break of trust is (i.e. a lie), and then coming to terms with what has to change so that particular breech of trust (i.e the same kind of lie) does not, and cannot, happen again. It is the evidence that new behavior patterns are in place so that the violation of trust is unable to occur again that will help re-establish trust. And THAT is what takes time.
 
For example, an act of infidelity is a breech of trust. The first step is to find out what the circumstances were that brought on the infidelity. Was it an act of revenge on a partner? Was it an attraction from work that went unchecked during unsupervised overtime?  Was alcohol involved thus lowering inhibitions? Was there a lack of sexual intimacy at home, which left a touch-starved partner to seek it elsewhere?
 
In order for the couple to re-establish trust again, a behavior has to change so that, whatever it was that may have contributed or prompted the violation of trust has been removed. As they relate to the examples above, these actions could include replace a desire for revenge with compassion training, finding a new place of employment, eliminate drinking alcohol during social outings, or going to couples counseling to enhance sexual intimacy.
 
That is what takes time. It is showing that the new behaviors have taken affect and that they have become new unconscious habits. As soon as that is proven through actions, THAT is when trust can be earned again.
 
But what if it does not change? What if the new behavior (for example, changing employment) does not change your partner's cheating ways? At that point you have two options. One option is to see if the wrong source of the violation was identified, and to try a different source, and new combative behaviors. The other option is to change your expectations if such changes would be within your personal value system.
 
Changing expectations is not easy. It means to learn to accept something that you previously were raging against. Some people find peace with changing their expectations and accepting a situation. It can actually be empowering for some people, because instead of raging against the issue and trying to change their partner, they accept it as part of being with their partner. However this does not always work long term. Usually, a person sets a boundary of expectation based on what they value, and trying to change that expectation means having to also re-evaluate their value system.
 
Lastly, there is one final key element to consider. There are those people that have major trust issues in general. This means that if their trust is violated once, then even in the face of evidence that a new change has occurred and proof that their partner will not violate that particular trust again, these people are unable to let go of the violation.
 
Being in a relationship means you WILL get hurt, and that your partner WILL make mistakes. If you are a person that has major trust issues, it is unlikely that the level of trust you will need in a relationship will ever be addressed, because over the course of a long-term relationship, your trust in your partner will be let down.
 
Human beings are an imperfect lot. Your partner is going to goof, like forgetting to pick up those tickets to that special event you have been planning for 3 months. If you have such major trust issues that a situation of forgetting tickets will be met with that same reactions as an act of infidelity, then you will likely sabotage every good relationship that comes your way. Ironically, the only person that someone with major trust issues can date for any length of time is a compulsive lair who can artistically hide every small goof of trust he or she makes.
 
Bottom line is that trust is an absolute requirement to make a long-term relationship work. If you do not have trust, you cannot have a relationship. At best, a relationship without trust is just a distraction from the rest of your life. That is escapism, not love.
 
Frank Kermit 

The Scripts that Keep You Single
By Frank Kermit
 
In some people, there is a script. The script is the story they have concocted about how they will meet that special someone and fall in love. Some scripts are more detailed than others covering specific lines that need to be said, or a certain situation that needs to be acted out, to make the scene perfect.
 
Other scripts are a little more basic, drawing from archetype romantic story arcs, of candlelit dinners and moonlit walks.  Whether the script is an elaborate five star production, or a simple outline of bullet points, there is one common element when I work with singles on their scripts. 
 
That common element is that many of the scripts that singles are following, are in part, the reason those individuals still remain single.
 
One of the clearest examples of the script at work is when a single person contemplates new ways of meeting people. Each time a single person refutes a means to locate a potential life partner, because it doesn’t fit in with the way he or she imaged it occurring, they are deferring to the script that does not serve them. 
 
This includes when singles reject means such as blind dates, online dating, speed dating, match making, dating apps or dating a friend, because they are holding out to meet someone through serendipity and a fantasy fulfilling fairy tale; their make-believe script is actually killing their dreams of achieving a chart topping love story.
 
What tends to turn people away from new ways of meeting potential life partners isn’t the technology, the taboo stigmas, or the potential dangers of meeting strangers.
 
It is the fact that new ways of meeting people does not follow the scripts they have inside about the way it was SUPPOSE-TO-BE.  This is an example of what is meant with the saying of “People Getting In Their Own Way”.
 
There are also those times when a person’s script (the story of how the rest of their lives plays out) is downright damaging.  Such as the single mother who refuses to believe that any man could be sexually faithful.
 
Since she is already convinced that the story of her life is to continually be cheated on, chances are she will (likely unconsciously) enact certain choices of the men she dates to help make that script a reality.
 
Or the man whose scripts insists that no woman would ever marry him for any reasons other than his bank account, would likely live out that script by only focusing on materialistic women to date, and (likely unconsciously) ignore or be turned off by the women that would actually be able to fall in love with his character.
 
If you find yourself a struggling single, and are looking for ways to expand your horizons, then it is important to look at the synopsis of the script inside you and re-write the scripts that are working against you on the stage of life.
 
Frank Kermit

 Be Thankful For a Broken Heart
By Frank Kermit
 
Ok, I hate this. I really hate this part of the process. However, it is a necessary part of the process, and if I am expected to help encourage others to do it, first I have to demonstrate doing it myself. It is about being thankful for the times your heart got broken.
 
Before we go on, I want to make something perfectly clear. This is not about forgiveness. This is not about condoning any horrible act that someone perpetrated on you. This is not about wishing for it to happen again.
 
This is just a perspective to change your mindset. This is to help people focus on what they can learn from heartbreak. By focusing on what you learned, it puts you into a position where you are more aware of signs you missed the first time, so that you can limit your exposure to massive heartbreaks in the future, without having to close yourself from opportunities of love.
 
Ok, here I go.
 
I am thankful for getting stood up at my senior prom. There were lots of signs I ignored about the way I was treated by that girl leading up to that night. If it was not for that event, I may have always continued to be too trusting and in denial.
 
I am thankful for losing my ex-fiancé to one of my best friends. This event taught me so many lessons. One of the lessons included not talking about my problems regarding my partner with friends, when I should be discussing those with my partner.
 
Another lesson I learned is that even at your best, you are still only 50% of a relationship, and that is not enough to force a relationship to work if you are with the wrong person for you.
 
I am thankful for a girlfriend having cheated on me by having a threesome with a married couple. This lesson taught me about being realistic when wanting to try an open relationship with certain rules, and not taking action to ensure those rules are followed.
 
I am thankful for an ex-lover who got me to visit her in Vermont after we broke up on the promise of a romantic weekend, only to find out that she just wanted platonic company, so that she would not be alone, and had no interest in being romantic at all. Although the trip was not what I had hoped, it gave me an opportunity to take action when I felt disrespected, and I got up and left. It was something I previously would never have done, had I not learned lessons from previous heartbreaks.
 
Now, I am actually thankful that any of these things happened? Well, not exactly. I wish none of those events had taken place. These events were some of the most devastating experiences of my life when they happened, and with each one, I thought my world was crumbling around me.
 
However, what I must acknowledge about myself in this process is that I probably would not have learned those hard lessons any other way. It took being hurt badly, in order for me to wake up and realize the choices I was making, in terms of the people I dated, were the wrong ones.
 
Without the heartbreak as a motivation to change my behaviors so that I could avoid the same heartbreak again, it is more than likely that I would have continued to make the same mistakes over and over.
 
And for that reason, I am thankful that the lessons I learned did not have to be even more devastatingly hurtful than they were. I had the chance to smarten up before making the same mistake again, which could have had worse consequences.
 
With all that said there are some heartbreak stories that were not so bad, but that I was still able to learn something and be thankful for.
 
I am thankful for finding my very first official girlfriend. She taught me that I was lovable at a time when I struggled to love myself.
 
I am thankful for the women that I have connected with on my journey to understand relationships, as each one taught me how to manage different kinds of relationship structures, and that different relationship structures actually exist and can work.
 
I am thankful for my wife, that has thus far experienced me at my worst, stuck by me anyways and is a great mother to our magnificent son. Together, we continue to learn the true meaning of marriage and all the good and not so good challenges that marriage offers. Lots more lessons to learn here.
 
Inevitably, the majority of the relationships we have in our lives will end one way or another, either through break ups, or for those that last the rest of our lives, death will do us part.
 
Those relationships that do not end in a break up will still have their share of heartbreak. We are human, and human beings make mistakes and hurt the people we love. It is also part of the process.
 
However, if with each heartbreak we can grow a little more, then in time, we will also learn to love a little more, and love with less hurt.
 
Frank Kermit

This is a contributed post.

 The S.L.A.P. Theory Of Life Lessons
By Frank Kermit

(this concept is discussed in my book: From Creepy To Charisma: The Art of Calibration)

Sometimes life will slap you down when it has a lesson to teach you. For some people, the slap may be a light swat, and for others the slap has to be a severe smack down. How hard life has to hit you in order for you to learn your lesson is up to you. Each time you get tapped by life, it means you have a lesson (or lessons) to learn.
 
If you learn your lesson and take the necessary actions to apply those lessons, you will not get tapped for it again. If you refuse to learn the lesson that life is trying to teach you, it will eventually slap you again, and the next time you get slapped, it will be worse. That is the thing about life. You will keep getting slapped harder and harder UNTIL you learn your life lesson.
 
In relationships, and example of life slapping you is that you keep dating the wrong person. Your first big slap could be a broken heart. You have a choice. Learn the lesson that life is trying to teach you about your choice of partner, or be doomed to repeat that mistake. If you do repeat it, the next slap will be worse than the broken heart. It could be contracting an STI (sexually transmitted infection), a bad marriage, an unexpected pregnancy, a divorce, and even a child you love that you never get to see.
 
All nasty slaps that life hits you with, that stem from not learning a lesson very early on about choosing the right partner for you.
 
In my practice, I have conceived of a way to better understand the means that life uses to teach life lessons.
 
I call it the Frank S.L.A.P. Theory. It is an acronym that stands for a mindset to help you handle it when times can sting you bad.
 
S: stands for Survive. If you have survived the slap, it means you are still here to learn something about what happened to you, and it is a sign that something needs to change.
 
L: is all for Learn. You need to learn something in order to avoid this happening to you again. Sometimes, it is one big lesson, and other times, a number of smaller lessons. As long as you can take the good, and take the bad, learn from both and there you have the slaps of life. (10 points if you got that theme song reference!)
 
Do not worry if you missed one of the lessons you were supposed to pick up on, or if you think you learned the wrong lesson. If you still have a lesson to learn, life will slap you again to give you a chance to get it right when dealing with the slaps of life.
 
A: Apply Action. This attitude is amazing for making absolute adjustments to the way you approach the world. Without applying action for the lessons to be followed in your life, learning becomes moot and life is going to send out another slap your way.
 
P: represents Pass it on. Once you learn your lesson and apply action so that you change your life with respect to your lesson learned, it is time to pass on what you learned.
 
This does not mean to teach your lesson directly, as much as it is about being the example of how to live, to those around you. This is especially true for those people that are in the care of children, who will do what you do, more than what you say.
 
Frank Kermit 

Figuring Out What You Want
In Dating
By Frank Kermit
 
In my work with singles that are struggling to find a serious long-term relationship, one of the challenges is to get the single person to define exactly what it is he or she wants. Many people think they know what they are looking for, or believe that when the right person comes along, they simply will feel it.
 
Based on my experience and my practice, I have to tell you that such beliefs tend to lead people to dating the wrong partners or ending up very alone as they get older.
 
Trying to define exactly what you want in a life partner, as well as, the kind of relationship structure that meets your needs is not as easy as some may assume.
 
First you must balance what you think you want, and what you personally can and cannot handle. You may think you would be happy with a very socially active dating partner; however, it is only after you actually date someone who is very socially active that you come to realize that your own introverted nature and home body lifestyle, simply cannot support dating a socially active partner who is out and about most times and enjoying extrovert behaviors.
 
Second, there is the issue of not having enough experience with dating in general. How do you know if casually dating a number of people, instead of trying for a monogamous relationship right away would make you happier?
 
The answer is, you likely do not know, until you try and let experience teach you.
 
When I meet with clients who struggle like this, I usually suggest that sometimes it can be easier to define what it is you do NOT want. You may not be sure if you want a monogamous relationship right away, or to casually date several people at once, or to have a primary partner with some kind of more open relationship because you simply do not have enough experience to know yourself.
 
In fact, dating could turn out to be just a big experimental tryout until you figure it out by getting burned a few times. However, if you can list what you are sure you do not want, it can help you narrow down your choices to figure out your next immediate decisions.
 
For example, if something you know for sure that you do not want in your future is a divorce from the other parent of your own children, then use that as a guiding principle to help you choose what you believe is the best potential learning opportunities going forward.
 
No one-relationship lifestyle is better than another. Each one has pros and cons and can be better suited for different phases of a person's lifespan.
 
It is about starting with your end goals, identifying what you know you do not want, and working back from that future point.
 
This will help you decide who you should attempt to date today, and in what kind of relationship structure you should date that person.
 
Dating can get complicated if you let it, but it does not have to be that way if you know what your end goals are, and use that knowledge to factor into the choices you make today.
 
Frank Kermit

Is Living Together Before Marriage
a Good Idea?
By Frank Kermit
 
The question of living together before marriage comes up most often in my work, when helping couples through pre-marriage coaching, and helping singles figure out their boundaries and personal moral code on their path to finding a life partner.
 
The first place to start when answering this question is whether or not there are any cultural or religious reasons not to live together out of wedlock.
 
Advice needs to take into account the personal beliefs of the individuals and not force anyone to violate their own sense of right and wrong. 
 
What may be appropriate for one group of people may not be acceptable for another group of people.
 
In cases where the couple may not have any such issues with living together prior to being married, but the family members close to the couple would not find it acceptable, the next question for that couple to explore is the importance of maintaining familial relations compared to following their own path. 

Depending on how close people are to their extended families, and whether or not said families would cast out those who defy family social norms, may factor in greatly to the decision of living together.
 
With all that said, if there are no cultural or religious practices obstructing the couple from living together before marriage, I would generally counsel that it is a good experience to live together first. 
 
To be clear, there are benefits of living together prior to being married (and if not to get married, then to test the waters for a life partnership and child rearing in the case of raising a family), which favor the couple that learns everything they can about each other. 
 
There are things that you find out about your spouse-to-be only through living with them such as their grooming habits (or lack thereof), their ability to cope with being sick, and how they handle the stresses of everyday life. 
 
Living together is one of the best ways to force an end to any remaining remnants of a honeymoon phase.
 
Best to know these things about your future spouse before becoming the spouse.
 
If there was one caveat that I would recommend, it is that living together must be a prelude to getting more serious.
 
If there is no interest in being serious long term, then do not move in together regardless of any convenience or incentives it may offer. 
 
The best way to insure that neither member of the couple is wasting time with the wrong partner is to set a deadline to ensure that at some point, the couple that is just-living-together, will in time become the couple that is engaged. 
 
If the deadline is reached after living together for a certain time period and the couple has not moved their relationship to the next level, take it as a red flag to end the relationship.
 
Frank Kermit

Spotting Red Flags
By Frank Kermit
 
When you are on a date, and the person you are getting to know says or does something that triggers a well-honed instinct that you need to stop dating that person, you have just spotted a RED FLAG. Having the ability to weed out potential problem daters at an early onset is the best we can hope for. Wasting time with the wrong individual hurts everyone involved: you, the wrong individual and your ideal soul mate who does not have the opportunity to date you yet, because your time is taken up by that wrong person.
 
There are two types of red flags. The first is Universal Red Flags, which are general bad signs by nature, which do not depend on the context of your situation. These would include red flags such as your partner needing to get drunk or stoned before being able to commit any act of socialization or intimacy. It has nothing to do with whether or not you have any prejudice regarding drug use for your potential partners. It has to do with the fact that this kind of behavior will tend to get progressively worse over time, as your relationship continues to grow, get more intimate, and garner higher expectations from each other.
 
The second type of red flag to be on the look out for is Personal Red Flags. These are completely context dependent because they are based on your own personal set of boundaries and deal-breakers which you simply will not compromise on. For example, if you are deathly allergic to a particular pet, and the person you are dating practically runs an animal rescue out of their home apartment which specializes in sheltering that kind of pet, then it does not matter what ever else you both connect on, how attracted you are to each other, and how kind you both are individually. The red flag in this dilemma is more than apparent and will eventually crush any future plans. At odds in this particular example are conflicting values: a life's calling to save animals verse a person's need to stay alive.
 
When a red flag is based on a personal boundary, there is no room for compromise. If there is any room for compromise, then by default, it is not even a boundary, and surely not a red flag. In order to be able to spot these kinds of red flags, a person must know what the can and cannot tolerate, and also have the ability to enforce such boundaries.
 
How someone treats animals can be a red flag. It is well document that many serial killers started out torturing and killing animals before they escalated to humans. The way someone treats an animal, may be a sign of how they will treat a vulnerable human being.

Personal hypocrisies are another universal red. It is when a person lives with a double standard where they say one thing, but live another. For example, a person may rage against the perils of pornography but yet have their own private porn collection tucked away in a secret stash. Simply put it is an indication that there may be a repeating behavior pattern in place such that you simply cannot trust anything that person says.
 
Shifting boundaries is another universal red flag.
 
When something is unacceptable one day, and more than acceptable the next day, the confusion that this repeating behavior pattern can draw out in relationship will lead to frustration and resentment. This is not about being or not being in the mood for a certain behavior, but more to do with the level of whether or not it is acceptable. For example, let us consider humor. When you have the same basic sense of humor where your partner laughs really hard at a certain kind of joke one day, and tells you how funny it is, but then goes off the handle saying those kinds of jokes are simply not appropriate in any context the very next day with nearly the very same joke: red flag. This could be a sign of a shifting boundary, which unto itself is already a red flag, but it could potentially be a sign for something more serious that would require the competency of a trained psychotherapist.
 
Some universal red flags are easy to spot such as infidelity and violence in past relationships indicating there is a higher chance of it happening to you. Other universal red flags are harder to spot because of certain social norms that make the warning signs acceptable. One such red flag is Gender Bashing. Just because most people are attracted to the opposite gender does not mean that all of those same people LIKE the opposite gender. Misogyny is misogyny, whether veiled in humor or not. Male bashing is still gender hate, even if touted as an entitlement for a history of oppression. If you are dating someone that constantly bashes your gender, it is foolish to think you will be the exception in their lives for the way they interpret you and your gender identity.
 
If every single relationship you have ever had, and every person you have ever dated turned out to be a dud in one sense or another, then it is time to focus on the common element in every single one of those instances: the common element of YOU. It says you have not yet learned to identify red flags early enough to put the breaks on your romantic endeavors with the wrong people. However, it is never to late to start learning today
 
Frank Kermit

This is a contributed post.