The Truth About Relationships: A Simple and Powerfully Effective Way for Everyone to Find Real Love and Loving Relationships - Hardcover

Greg, Md. Baer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1892319004 ISBN 13: 9781892319005

Publisher: Blue Ridge Pr, 1998

Synopsis

More than anything else in this world, we want to be unconditionally loved. But most of us have never experienced love in a truly unconditional way. That tragic fact is the greatest cause of unhappiness in our lives. It's the reason our relationships are unfulfilling and often destructive.

When we don't find unconditional love in relationships, we try to manipulate people and change them to get praise, power, and pleasure for ourselves. And we protect ourselves from the people we want to love us, hurting them and leaving us even more alone. We're constantly disappointed, angry, and confused about our relationships.

We can change all that. In The Truth About Relationships, we learn how to find Real Love and change our relatinships in a powerful way. And then we find a happiness we never imagined.

About this title

About the Author

Gregory S. Baer, M.D. was a highly successful surgeon in Georgia. He lectured to other surgeons across the country, taught in a medical school, and acquired considerable wealth. Despite all that, he nearly died from drug addiction and depression.

What he learned in the years following his recovery has been wrtieen in four books: The Wart King, The Truth About Love and Lies; The Wise Man, Telling the Truth and Finding Love; The Truth About Relationships; and The Truth About Parenting.

People around the world have found in these books the ingredient that's been missing in their lives. They've discovered a joy in their relationships that they scarcely imagined before. Husbands and wives are learning to love each other. Parents are loving their children. Men and women are finding joy in every experience.

Dr. Baer is the father of eight children and devoted husband of one lovely woman.

From the Back Cover

We move from one relationship to the next, expecting that each will make us happy. Or we stay in relationships, trying to change our partners and hoping they'll give us what we want. People are afraid, angry, alone, and unhappy only because they don't know how to choose differently. We can change the way we live.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 4 - The Truth About Relationships A relationship is the natural result of people making independent choices. As we understand this definition, we create a potential for much greater happiness in our relationships. If we don't understand it, we'll continue to manipulate people and trade Imitation Love with them. Let's focus on two phrases in the definition: "independent choices" and "natural result": Independent Choices - Color - We make choices continuously. We choose to be in this place or that, with these people or those. We choose the experiences we have. We choose to continue believing the old judgments we were taught, or we choose to question them. We choose to see things as a threat or an opportunity to learn. We choose how we feel and behave. Each choice we make determines who we are. Every decision makes us more alone or loved, angry or happy, weak or strong. Who we are is like a painting, composed of uncounted individual brush strokes applied to the canvas of our lives. In our infancy, other people applied their strokes to us. With time, we took the brush into our own hands. All those brush strokes have blended to make us a unique color, one that changes as we make additional choices and add to the canvas. From a lifetime of choices, we've created a color all our own. Some of us are sky blue, others canary yellow or mint green. Our color - our personality, character, and style - is the natural result of all our choices and includes our needs, fears, skills, and Getting and Protecting Behaviors. There is nothing more important than our ability to make our own choices and create our own color. If that were taken away from us, we could only be the color of the person making choices for us. We wouldn't be individuals at all. Natural Result - Mixing Colors - When we mix blue and yellow paint, the natural result is green. Green isn't something we hope for or work at. It just happens when we mix blue and yellow. Similarly, relationships naturally result from the blending of the colors brought by each partner, colors produced by the choices each partner makes independently over a lifetime. My color blends with the color of each person I meet, and the result is immediate and predictable. If I'm yellow and you're blue, our relationship will be green. It doesn't matter that I want orange and you want turquoise. The result will be green. Our relationships are often not what we expect or need them to be. They can only be the result of the choices we've already made. If you and I are both genuinely loving, we will have a mutually loving relationship. If we're empty and afraid, our relationship can only be the natural result of the interaction of Getting and Protecting Behaviors - emptiness, fear, and misery. Purpose of Relationships As we talk about how relationships work and how we can change them, it's important to keep in mind the only useful purpose of any relationship: Real Love. There is no joy greater than being loved and loving others. Nothing else comes close. Any relationship that does not contribute to my being loved or loving others is a waste of my life. What A Relationship Is - Colors and Choices - A relationship is what naturally happens when I, with all my qualities, needs, and fears, interact with the qualities, needs, and fears of another person. Joan was angry as she spoke to a wise woman about her husband Tyler. Joan: "He lives like a pig. His stuff is everywhere. I clean up after him. I beg him to be neater. I threaten him. Nothing works." Wise woman: "You want Tyler to be neat?" Joan: "Yes." Wise woman: "Then your relationship is doomed. Relationships result from the choices people make independently. Tyler has chosen to be a pig, and he gets to make that choice for himself, even if it's inconsiderate. Now you get to make a choice that will determine how your relationship will be."

"You only get one of three choices:

Live with the pig and like it.

Live with the pig and hate it.

Leave the pig." Joan:

"But . . ." Wise woman: "There is no 'but.' You want a fourth choice. You want him to be something other than what he is. You want him to not be a pig just because that would benefit you. You don't get to make Tyler's choices - or anyone else's." Joan is typical of most people in relationships. We're dissatisfied with our partners for many reasons, and we want to change them. Relationships are not determined by what we want. They're determined by the colors you and I independently bring together. THE FOUR CHOICES As the wise woman suggested to Joan, I can make only one of four choices after seeing the color of my partner: The Worst Choice - Change My Partner - I can try to change your color, changing who you are. This is the choice most of us make with any partner. We like certain things about them, but we don't like others. Solution? Change the parts we don't like. We do that when we remodel a house or re-paint a car - why not with people? It's Selfish and It's Not Real Love Changing you to suit my needs is controlling, arrogant, selfish, manipulative, demanding, and destructive. It shows I'm interested in my happiness, not yours. Selfishness is understandable; we want others to take away our emptiness and pain. But there can be no Real Love when someone is being controlled. Love can't be freely offered or received (pp. 36-8) when I'm trying to change you. We do this much more than we think, and deep down we know it's wrong. That's why we try to look innocent as we do it. We offer "suggestions" and helpful hints. We nag a little, or whine. We make gentle requests. We exchange favors. All of that doesn't hide the fact that our intent is to change our partner to benefit ourselves. Countless books and therapy techniques tell us how to manipulate our partners to be different than they are. Some of those techniques appear to be loving. They recommend that I give this or that to my partner, and my partner will then give me something in return. We negotiate and compromise. Sadly, those techniques are calculated to buy Imitation Love. It's not Real Love, which is freely offered. It's mutual manipulation and controlling. Those techniques are popular because they seem effective in the beginning - in the absence of Real Love, buying Imitation Love feels better than nothing at all. But that good feeling always fades and leaves us empty. It's Very Difficult You can't suddenly give up the judgments, feelings, and reactions of a lifetime just because I want it. But in our desperate need to be loved, we think that changing our partner is the quickest way to get what we want. There's reason to think that, since we have gotten people to do things in the past when we used Getting and Protecting Behaviors. But they don't usually do them for long, and the result never feels like Real Love. Changing other people is very difficult, but we continue to waste our lives trying. Joan spent enormous quantities of time and effort to get Tyler to be more neat. Not only did it not work, but the contention and controlling made their relationship considerably worse. No Relationship With enormous effort and persistence, it is possible to change another person. Some people attack or play the victim so effectively that they really can get their partner to change their color to please them. However, what they get is always Imitation Love, so they work very hard and get nothing. A relationship is the natural result of the choices my partner and I make independently. If I control you in any way, I don't have a relationship with you anymore, only with myself and what I make you do. I interact with my shoes every day, but we don't have a relationship, because my shoes don't make independent choices - they're controlled by me and are therefore only an extension of my will. When I'm with my shoes, I'm still alone. Similarly, when I control your choices, you become like my shoes, an object and an extension of myself. And then I'm alone. There were times when Joan's nagging and blaming were so unbearable that Tyler actually did clean up his mess. Joan thought she got what she wanted when that happened, but she never felt closer to Tyler, because he didn't freely offer his efforts. Real Love can only be offered by an independent human being, one making their own choices. We can't get that from someone we manipulate and control. Unloving The worst consequence of controlling others is that we can't learn to be loving, which is the greatest joy of all. We can't be happy while we're selfishly manipulating people. The Happy Choice - Live With It and Like It - If I choose to accept you, I can enjoy all the beauty of your color. Every color is delightful when I see clearly. Tyler's color consisted of far more brush strokes than just his messiness. Joan could have chosen to accept and enjoy him, minimally distracted by the one stroke (messiness) that inconvenienced her. This is both the happiest choice and the easiest. Trying to change people is a lot of work. It's much easier to simply enjoy them as they are. We'll discuss how to get from changing people to accepting and enjoying them in Chapters 6-11. The Angry Choice - Live With It and Hate It - If I'm blue and you're yellow, our relationship will be green. Green is a beautiful color, but I'll miss all that if I want you to be another color instead. My expectations of you are what create dissatisfaction and unhappiness in our relationship (pp. 5-6, 9-11). Joan did this with Tyler. This is a truly stupid choice, and we do it a lot. We stay in relationships where we endlessly resent the color of our partner, instead of accepting and enjoying them. The Final Choice - Leave It - If I don't like the color, I can simply leave it. We do that when we abandon a relationship, emotionally or physically. There are two ways to do this, blaming and not. Blaming When I leave a relationship and blame my unhappiness on my partner, I'm protecting myself by attacking and running. We learn nothing when we blame our partners, nor can we be happy. Not Blaming

I can admit that I'm not loving enough to accept your color. When I'm just learning to tell the truth and feel loved, some people are so frightening that I can't be around them without going back to Getting and Protecting. It may not be wise to spend time with such people. I can choose to not pursue a relationship with you because of my own weakness and fear, without blaming you for my lack of ability to love. In addition, some people are so frightened by me that they can only feel threatened and protect themselves when I'm around. It may be best for both of us to not continue such a relationship. We'll discuss leaving relationships in Chapter 26. Leaving is the last choice. It is not the purpose of this book to lead us to this choice, especially in the case of marriage. Making a Choice We typically make the less responsible choices in relationships first, blaming others and trying to change them. We want people and relationships to serve us. We talk about what our relationships "should" be, rather than seeing things as they really are. When people won't cooperate in giving us what we want, we're disappointed and angry (TWM, Chapter 15). Our unhappiness is a result of our choice to change people instead of loving them. Joan:

"But I want Tyler to . . ." Wise woman: "As we've discussed, you don't get to change Tyler to make you happy. Besides, how's that choice been working for you? Has all your nagging and whining changed him or made you happy? Joan:

"No." Wise woman: "So let's look at some other choices." Changing people or resenting them only guarantees my unhappiness. They're foolish choices. There are only two choices that make any sense: I can (1) stay with a relationship, learning to love and be loved, or (2) leave it. Leaving a relationship is not a decision to make lightly. This book is almost entirely about making the first choice, staying with a relationship and learning to see, accept, and love our partner. For most of my life I insisted that people be different than they were. I wanted them to change colors for me. I required people to give me what I wanted, instead of enjoying what they had. Over a period of years, I learned to tell the truth about myself. I was accepted and loved by wise men and women. As Real Love eliminated my need and fear, I saw people more clearly and appreciated the beauty in them. It was easy then to accept and love them. We can all learn to do that. Chapter Summary A relationship is the natural result of people making independent choices. After our partners have made their own choices, we have four choices available to us: 1. Try to change them. 2. Live with them and like it. 3. Live with them and hate it. 4. Leave them. We can enjoy any relationship as we accept our partner's choices.

Edition details

• Publisher: Blue Ridge Pr
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1892319004
• ISBN 13: 9781892319005
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 341