Instinct Or Paranoia? How To Tell…

How do you feel when your partner isn’t with you? Do you worry about who he or she may potentially meet, or might be spending time with? Do you frequently call or text to check-up? Do you need constant contact and reassurance of his or her feelings for you?

How can you know whether you have good instincts that you should trust, or you’re just paranoid and ruining what could be a good thing? Well, unless you’ve chosen to be with a player or known philanderer, it’s most likely your insecurity that’s creating your suspicions.

Paranoia is cancerous to relationships. If you’re afraid your partner doesn’t want you as much as you want him , you’ll usually start to reject him out of insecurity, or you may become needy and smothering—hanging on for dear life.

Common paranoid actions:

1. Reject when you feel rejected. Putting up an emotional wall to protect yourself that prevents you from getting close to someone you truly want.
2. Compete with him or her to prove your worth and show you’re good enough.
3. Manipulate by using guilt or blame, or by playing the victim.
4. Sabotage by creating arguments over nothing or acting out.
5. Jealous of others that you perceive your partner finds more attractive—which only makes you less appealing.
6. Joined at the hip. You want to do everything together and don’t trust him or her out of your sight.
7. You keep your thoughts, needs, and desires to yourself because you fear that if he really knew you, he wouldn’t love you.

All of these actions, conscious or not, drain your energy because they put your happiness in the hands of someone else. When you succumb to your fears by taking insecure action, the result is usually what you fear most: you push him away and he leaves you. Alternately, when you choose to face your fears and accept responsibility for them, you can gain wisdom to make your relationships better.

Start by trying to pinpoint the source of your insecurity. When you catch yourself getting all worked up and wanting to react to something you think is going on…stop! Ask yourself what the facts are. Only respond to what is actually going on, not what you think or fear is happening.

Don’t confuse a pre-programmed response to your own baggage for an instinct. You have to know yourself. Are you highly jealous? Do you hate to be alone? Need a lot of attention? Perhaps you just don’t feel desirable enough. If you’ve been burned before, you’re most likely gun-shy and reacting to your current partner as you did to your ex. Or maybe you have a tendency to cheat, in which case you’re projecting your own behavior on him or her.

Whatever it is, it’s not fair—or healthy. You need to stay in the moment and only react to the reality in front of you. Don’t make everything personal and assume it’s about you. It’s usually not, and that’s ok. Don’t rush things, be patent. You have to stop trying to controlanyone else; you can only control yourself. In all probability the thing making you jealous is low self-esteem. If you don’t truly feel lovable, how can you possibly believe or trust anyone who says he or she loves you?

FDR very wisely said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” I could devote an entire book to the symptoms and resolutions of every fear that gets in the way of healthy relationships (Giving Up Junk-Food Relationships describes many of them). But what it all boils down to is love yourself completely and maintain your power. You need to build your self-esteem by giving yourself the attention you crave. And don’t be afraid to show a little vulnerability to the person you love, if he or she loves you it will only make them love you more.

This column was written for DigitalRomanceInc

Are You Too Masculine for Your Man?

You’re sexy, confident, and successful; you’re frequently told you’re a great catch.  So why don’t your relationships last?  You may be showing too much masculine energy.

Most women today are good at taking care of themselves.  Many have multiple degrees, high powered jobs, or own their own business.  They’re used to owning their masculine energy at work.  And if you live in an urban city such as New York you probably exhibit masculine energy just to get through the day.  But if you’re attracted to masculine energy men your masculine energy is repelling them.  It’s like trying to push the wrong sides of a magnet together.

Everyone possesses both feminine and masculine qualities.  You need to be aware of which energy you’re portraying because it plays a large role in initial attraction—and maintaining attraction.  You have to decide if you’re primarily masculine or feminine, and then stick with that choice to keep your relationship together.

If a woman shows the masculine energy in the beginning by making the first move and initiating the date she is appealing to a man’s feminine energy.  Opposite energies attract.  After she gets a guy if she then switches to feminine energy by wanting him to take the lead he’s disappointed, and loses interest.  A masculine energy man wouldn’t be interested in anything more than a casual hookup, he wouldn’t stay around long enough to experience her feminine side.

If you want a masculine energy man you can flirt with him to let him know you’re interested (make eye contact, smile, touch his shoulder or arm) but then allow him to ask you out.  Let the man be the man.  Let him initiate the first kiss, when you see each other, and all electronic communication.  Allow him to pursue you.  If you chase him he will run.

Showing your feminine energy will get him, but if you then switch to a lot of masculine energy your man may lose interest—because he wants a feminine energy woman.  I’m not saying that you need to strictly be one or the other, no one ever is.  Couples naturally negotiate to take opposite energies on many actions once inside the relationship.  However, you do need to default to one or the other.

Masculine energy is active.  It exhibits strength, leadership, and rationality.  Feminine energy is passive.  It demonstrates feelings, emotions and creativity.  Traditional relationships were male dominate with a submissive woman.  That’s not a popular notion today, couples want equal partnerships.  But it’s not a business; do not compete with your man, don’t try to control him, and trust him to take care of you metaphorically—even if you’re the bread winner.

I once was at a nightclub with my masculine energy guy when a fight broke out right next to us.  He’s 6’2” and stepped in front of me.  He was blocking my view so I step around him.  He stepped in front of me again and slightly annoyed said, “I’m trying to protect you.”  It’s a basic instinct for most men to want to protect their women.  If we don’t allow them to, they feel emasculated.

Try to become aware of when you choose to take the lead and when you follow or just go with the flow.   Part of being an empowered woman is knowing when to defer to your man.  Stroke his ego and acknowledge him for things he does.  Make him feel needed.  It will make him feel proud of you for all your accomplishments—not intimidated by your actions.

This article was written for DigitalRomanceInc

Are You Sure You Want To Send That E-Mail?

I think it would be great if there could be an app to check the emotional tone of emails before they’re sent, the same way that spell check corrects errors.

Only the perfect app would even go farther to destroy the entire text if it was inappropriate to even be making contact.  If such technology existed more relationships might succeed.

I say that because it’s unbelievable to me how many smart people sabotage potentially good relationships by pouring out their feelings in an email, and then sending it at an illogical time. For instance, when you haven’t heard from your date and you’re trying to create more of a connection.  Or when you’re frustrated about something and you think venting will help build emotional intimacy.  Or even worse you try to plead your case about how you think the relationship works, after he or she already told you they don’t think it does.

And I’m not just talking about hurt or angry feelings, until you’re in a committed relationship positive loving feelings can be harmful too. You may have just gotten home from a great date, and then sent an email to elaborate on a topic you briefly discussed, or confess feelings you weren’t brave enough to say face-to-face. However, that may feel needy or smothering to your potential mate.

Emotional hijackings such as these completely give away your power.  Most people don’t respond well to dramatic or personal information thrown at them randomly. Would you? If you’re feeling insecure or upset about something while you’re not in your date’s company, you have to be patient. Push the pause button!

Regardless of how smart our communication devises may be we still have free will.  So I want to encourage you to go back to communicating the old fashioned way.

You used to have to put your thoughts on paper, put it in an envelope, address it, buy a stamp and take it to a mailbox.  Then it took at least a day to be delivered.  By the time you did all that you also had time to process your feelings, and in most cases you’d lose the desire to send it. Relationships were much simpler then.  You talked in person or on the phone.  Cards and letters were rare and therefore romantic and special.  It’s the draw of immediate delivery that makes email and text so seductive—but also destructive.  If you wouldn’t call to say it, don’t send it electronically!

Writing out your feelings is an excellent way to process them; it will get it off your chest and allow you to stop obsessing. But then put it away.  Review what you wrote the next day when you can have a fresh perspective. If you still feel like you need to share your thoughts it needs to be a two-way conversation so you can be sure your feelings are acknowledged.E-mails will leave you vulnerable because no response is required.

As a woman, you can fall in love and can process your feelings while you’re in the company of your guy. But if you are a right-handed man, you need to step back and take a break from your woman to process your feelings.  Women’s brains and left-handed men’s brains can think and feel at the same time.  Right-handed men can only do one at a time.  So give your right-handed man that space to step back from thinking and switch to feeling.  Don’t invade his space with messages.

If you’re a right-handed man, try to extend some empathy if your woman sends emotional emails or texts that you think are illogical; given a little time, it may feel right.

This column was written for www.DigitalRomanceInc.com

Watch my YouTube video on When NOT to text

My Partner Cheated On Me…What Do I Do Now?

In the wake of the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal and my appearance on GMA, I’m getting frequent questions about how to handle staying with someone who cheated on you.  To make it work you have to be able to forgive completely.  If you can’t then you have to get out.

Forgiving completely means that you do not nag and you re-establish trust. Unfortunately, after being betrayed most people have a hard time controlling their anger, and they feel insecure.  They want to punish their partner for hurting them, and they want to supervise their every move.

The problem is that nagging will never help you.  Consistently throwing past mistakes in your partner’s face can only produce negative results.  If you choose to do that, you will actually be destroying any love he or she feels for you.  You’ll be making yourself the enemy.  How could anyone feel safe to tell you their feelings (to rebuild emotional intimacy) while you’re criticizing, scolding and checking up on them?

Most importantly, harboring negative feelings will punish you much more than it will punish your partner.  If you are reading their emails and texts, and monitoring all social media communications your suspicious actions are only feeding your own anxiety.

You may think it’s helping you be able to trust again, but I have to tell you that isdestroying trust.  The tighter you try to hold on to someone the more you push them away.  Conversely, if you maintain your power, knowing without a doubt how valuable you are, your partner will have incentive to love you exclusively again.

Now, I am certainly not implying your partner gets a free pass for being dishonest and unfaithful.  I’m trying to help you see that how you behave is equally as important as what he or she does; and that you cannot control anyone but yourself.  When a couple chooses to stay together after such a betrayal there is a lot of hard work to be done for each of you.  You have to focus on what you truly want, and not just give in to venting your hurt feelings.  Venting is actually perpetuating your negative emotions.  Your goal is to make your relationship better.

My favorite saying is, “Nothing changes if nothing changes.”  It’s so simple yet so true. Sometimes cheating is a wakeup call that things needed to change.  If you genuinely loveeach other and want to be together then your relationship can become better than ever, your emotional intimacy can actually become deeper.

We are all creatures of habit.  As you move forward you need to create new habits for behavior; it’s much easier to replace an undesired habit with a desirable action rather than just try to stop it.  So the next time you get the impulse to nag, pause, ask yourself what is the vulnerable feeling underneath your anger, and share that with your partner instead.  I think you’ll find you’ll get a much better response.

Immediately after learning you’ve been cheated on you start the grieving process.  Grief has five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance.  Everyone goes through them at a different pace and in a different order.  Give yourself some timeand space to grieve before even trying to make your relationship work.  Keep your thoughts in the present; try not to look back. 

After that if you cannot truly forgive and move forward, then you need to leave the relationship and let go.  A good relationship will nurture your self-esteem and make you happy, a bad one drains your energy and causes you stress.  How does your relationship make you feel?

This column was written for http://digitalromanceinc.com/mens/my-partner-cheated-on-me-what-do-i-do-now/

Watch me on GMA: Donna Barnes on GMA: What is Cheating?

Check out my video: How to Recognize a Cheater

How to Avoid Heart Break

When my clients end a relationship, whether a good or bad one, they often ask me if there was something they should have seen in the beginning. The answer is always yes. As they tell me more about how it started, we usually do discover the warning signs that could have prevented their heartbreak. But they had been too caught up in the seduction to pay attention. Frequently they didn’t even know what to look for in the first place.

First and foremost, when your new sweetheart tells you something about himself, believe him! I can’t stress this enough. If he says, “I’m not ready for a serious relationship,” don’t think, “Well, maybe not with anyone else, but you have such a great connection with me.” The connection part may be true—but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s not ready for more. If you ignore that important ingredient, you will get hurt. I had a client who came to me devastated because his girlfriend had cheated on him. But she had told him in the beginning that she had never been faithful to anyone. He trusted the connection he felt and assumed he’d be different, instead of truly hearing what she said. That was a painful mistake. She ultimately did what she said she would do. When people talk about themselves, it’s not in relation to you. It probably has nothing to do with you; it’s all about them. You can’t change them. You have to accept their truth!

View Donna’s How to Avoid Heart Break video

How to Fight Fair

Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy? Ask yourself that the next time you find yourself digging in your heels in an argument. What are you really trying to get? Too many of us get caught up in the fight of needing to win, which translates into not wanting to be wrong. But at what cost?

Rules for a Healthy Food Fight

 1)    When you feel enraged, don’t say anything! Take a few deep breaths and slowly count to five. It will give the more reasoning part of your brain time to kick in. Listen to it! If you can’t control your temper, then tell your partner you need to take a break so you can calm down. Take a walk around the block or postpone the conversation until another day when you can respond rationally.

2)      Never say mean and hurtful things in a moment of anger. You can say a thousand nice things, but a single insult will be remembered forever. Once it’s said, you can never take it back. True love means never wanting to hurt your partner!

3)   Never use sensitive and personal information as ammunition. It’s a violation of emotional intimacy. Things that your partner shared with you in a loving, tender moment have no place in a fight. That’s hitting below the belt and a sure way to lose your partner’s trust—perhaps even turn him or her against you.

4)   Don’t bring up any past issues. The past is in the past; learn from it and move on. If you can’t agree on or make a compromise over a specific issue that isn’t a relationship deal-breaker, then you need to agree to disagree. That means you respect each other’s position (and boundaries) and accept what it is. Then put it to rest. Do not bring it up again unless it’s to tell your partner you’ve changed your mind and you now agree. Relationships have to advance; otherwise, they die. Keep your relationship in the present and growing forward.

5)   Fight for happiness, not to be right. The only winner of a fight should be your relationship. It’s much easier to say “I’m sorry” than it is to defend yourself. It’s also more endearing. You’re much more lovable when you accept responsibility for your actions and be humble. Your goal is not just to make yourself happy, but to also make your partner happy. It will make your relationship better.

6)   You never get nagging rights. You have to forgive or get out. If he did something (or won’t do something) that you can’t get past, then you have to leave the relationship. You cannot beat him up about it if you choose to stay. You have to forgive and move forward or successfully agree to disagree.

7)   Don’t suppress your anger. Depression is anger turned inward. You have to express your anger to relieve it and feel better. If you hold everything inside, you become a potential pressure cooker. The anger will build until you ultimately explode on your unsuspecting partner. Or you’ll make yourself sick. You’ll become passive-aggressive (meaning that though your words seem friendly, your actions are not). Use your communication tools to let your partner know what’s making you angry. She can’t help you if she doesn’t know what it is.

View Donna’s YouTube Video:   How to Stop Arguing

Donna Barnes Life & Relationship Coach

Why Did My Relationship End When It Seemed So Good?

You had an amazing connection, the passion was unbelievable, you had never had a relationship feel so good—then one day something unexpectedly changed, he or she was detached, unloving, and it was never again the same.

Perhaps it ended abruptly (if you were lucky) or maybe it dragged on for a couple years while you desperately tried to get back to where you started from.

That’s a scenario I’m very familiar with. As a relationship coach a large percentage of my clients come to me to learn how to get their boyfriend or girlfriend back after a sudden,devastating breakup. It’s inconceivable to most of them how distant and cold their once incredibly loving partner is now being. It’s always very clear to me when a commitmentphobe has broken someone’s heart. Helping these clients understand is the only way to help them let go.

What makes commitmentphobia so hard to recognize and even comprehend at first is that most people, both men and women, who say they’re looking for commitment or marriage, are actually doing just that. Most of them want to be in a loving relationship with all of their heart, and many even want to get married and create a family. Most people don’t experience any commitment issues until something triggers them.

What causes lovers to get hurt is that the better the relationship, the more anxiety a commitmentphobe feels. This is the result of their conscious desire battling with their subconscious fear. Since they consciously know they want a good relationship, they usually assume their partner is wrong for them when they find they are just not happy in the relationship.

In reality, their unhappiness is brought about because their partner is such a good choicefor them that it triggers their anxiety. As they start to recognize a true commitment might actually come to fruition, they become increasingly fearful and they withdraw. Sometimes by just getting space and creating distance in the relationship, but many times they suddenly bail out completely. Then the abandoned partner is devastated and usually has a very difficult time letting go.

As your partner starts to feel anxiety and withdraw, if you become afraid he doesn’t love you as much as you love him, you’ll start to act out of insecurity rather than love. You may try to manipulate him into loving you more by using guilt or blame, or by playing the victim. If you’re afraid he’s going to leave, you may become needy and smothering—hanging on for dear life—or you may begin competing with him to prove your worth.

You may start to sabotage the relationship, creating arguments over nothing or acting out. You may become jealous of others that you perceive your partner finds more attractive—which only makes you less appealing. All of these actions, conscious or not, drain your energy because they put your happiness in the hands of someone else. When you succumb to your fears by taking insecure action, the result is usually what you fear most: you push him away and he leaves you.

Alternately, when you act empowered by choosing to face your fears and to accept responsibility for them, you can gain wisdom to make your relationships better.

Here are some ways to avoid future heart break:

1. Slow the pace of a new relationship.
2. Don’t talk about any kind of commitment for a minimum of one year.
3. Guard your feelings if he has never had his heart broken, had a relationship last at least a year, or if he says all his past partners were inappropriate in one way or another.
4. Don’t act insecure.  His anxiety will cause him to start finding fault with you.
5. Give him healthy space.

Most relationships only last three to six months, and in my experience many of those were high intensity that crashed and burned.  True love takes time to develop, and a person’s issues take a few months to come to the surface.

Everyone has fear on some level; we develop it in our childhood. Be it fears of abandonment, intimacy, commitment, change, rejection, failure, or even fear of success. Unfortunately, most people have no interest in changing their issues until life as they know it becomes unbearable—typically by having their heart broken—which can actually become the best thing that ever happened to you.

Donna wrote this column for DigitalRomanceInc.com

Watch Donna's YouTube Videos:                                                How to Recognize a Commitmentphobic 

How to Get Over a Breakup or Get Your Ex Back