Relationship Skills I Wish I’d Had

We learn a lot about ourselves and others, when we divorce. Things that went right, things that went wrong. Things we would do differently next time.

From time to time, clients will write me about something fabulous they’ve learned. I write those in a section on my blog called….

One Thing I Want You To Know About Divorce…

This one is by guest author, Mike Bare about things he learned from his divorce.

The reason most people don’t race motorcycles is because the downside outweighs the best possible experience. The chance of death is just too high. Up until 3 months ago, the thing I had learned from my divorce was: companionship, love, sex, children are all great but the chance of misery is just too high. I’m coming to a different point of view.

The reason motorcycle racing is so dangerous is because most people don’t have the necessary skills to race with relative safety. I now believe that marriage is also extremely dangerous (to your emotional health) if you don’t have the necessary skills and, in fact, most people do not possess those skills. Some of these skills include how to recognize and cope with personality differences, how to deal with personality changes in both you and your partner, how to set boundaries to protect yourself, how to avoid pathologies like “enabling” where your actions encourage bad behavior on your partners part with no consequences or “caretaking” where you are always responsible leaving your partner free to be irresponsible and many others.

My belief is these skills can vastly improve the chances of a successful, lifetime relationship. My regret is that I didn’t posses these skills to (possibly) save my first marriage. My hope is my second relationship will be much more stable because of my work to master these skills.

________________________________

I trust that it will Mike. You’ve done your homework.