How To Find True Love – Lesson 3.2 – Is It A Mistake Or A Pattern?

Welcome to Lesson #16 of the How To Find True Love course!

You know so much more about choosing the best partner for you than most people. You know how biology and family programming can lead you the wrong direction, and what to do about it. In the last lesson, you discovered the difference between reacting and responding to a situation.

In this lesson, you’ll discover the difference between mistakes and patterns. A mistake is something everyone makes. It happens once, perhaps twice, and you learn from it. A pattern is an ingrained way of behaving that is difficult to change.

Everybody Makes Mistakes

Wouldn’t it be grand if people could watch an expert do something perfectly and copy that expert perfectly? And wouldn’t it prevent much pain and suffering?

Consider these examples:

1. If you did what the defensive driving expert said about stopping completely at the stop sign, you wouldn’t have to pay that ticket.
2. If you’d paid attention and put the lid on the blender, you wouldn’t have raspberry smoothie decorating your cabinets.
3. If you’d put your anniversary in your calendar as suggested, you wouldn’t have to make it up to your disappointed and hurt partner.

There are big mistakes and little ones. The little mistakes have easily managed consequences, while the big ones have painful consequences.

How would you handle things if one of you made a mistake with serious consequences? Dating is the time to discover how you respond to each other’s mistakes.

When you first become aware of a mistake, no matter how painful, you will have feelings, which will range from disappointment, anger or rage, to devastation.

Strategies To Address Emotional Pain

Try this process to deal with the hurt of your partner’s mistake:

1. Drain as much anger as possible without your partner present. It’s crucial for you and your partner to talk. You don’t, however, want to say or do something that could damage your relationship.
   • Write a letter you will not mail or give to your partner. You may write another one later that you will give them, but this letter is for your eyes only. It’s purpose is to express, without holding back, everything you feel. Research shows the best way to do this is with pen and paper.
   • Find an objective person to talk to. An objective person would be a therapist, coach, support group, crisis hotline, or religious leader.
   • As much as you’d like to tell the gory details to your best friend or family member, remember they will probably take your side. What you tell them will affect their relationship with your partner.
2. Write down what you’d like to say. This could be in letter format or in bullet points. Some people get flustered and can’t remember what they want to express, so writing down notes can help.
3. Sit down and talk. Turn off all distractions: phones, television, or anything else that could detract from the conversation.

This process is for the most painful mistakes – the ones that have a serious effect upon your relationship. Remember too that each person is their own judge of a “serious effect”.

What one considers a mistake, the other might believe is a pattern of behaviour demonstrating a lack of respect.

Patterns Of Behaviour

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