Why don’t they do the things they used to do during the first six months, like write me love letters? Why don’t they light candles like they used to do? Why aren’t they attacking me sexually in the same way?

Are they just bored with me? Do they no longer want these things?

Why is it that we are so amazing in those first six months of a relationship? Are we trying to impress somebody? Are we trying to win somebody over? Are we being somebody we’re not? Are the first six months just that “amazing” time before all the arguments start and before we get defensive?

In the first six months, we allow ourselves to be emotionally open. We give so much emotionally to our partner.

When you start fighting with each other, however, we take something back. With each fight or misunderstanding after that, we take another piece back. The vulnerability, openness and beauty of those first six months at that point are gone.

During the first six months you would invite your partner to your house, they’d say “Oh Babe, I love coming to your house,” and you would light candles. You do this over and over again during the first six months.

After the first six months, the candle-lighting goes away. Your partner comes over and says, “You don’t light candles anymore.”

Instead of just acknowledging that what they’re saying is true, you get defensive. You could have said, “You’re right, I don’t. I need to start doing that again. I know how much you loved it.” But you don’t. You defend yourself.

Those first six months of a relationship should always be the way I’m describing. It should always be amazing. What happens in those first six months are the reasons why you fell in love with that other person in the first place — the things you used to do for them, the way you came onto them sexually, the way you listened and the way you were patient with them.

It’s amazing, though, how we take things away once the fights and disappointments begin. We don’t even necessarily do it consciously. We do it very passively.

Say that you and your partner touch each other nonstop during the first six months, then your partner stops touching you as much. What do you do?

You start taking some of your touching away. You get angry. You hope that they will notice and think, “Oh my God, he’s not touching me as much. I must need to touch him more.”

The first six months of a relationship are beautiful. For those of you in that post-six months frustration period, however, what you need to do is to go back and think about all the things you did for your lover in the first six months. Then start doing them again, without your partner having to ask you to do them.

I guarantee that if you do this, you’ll not have the whole “taking things away” situation happening anymore. There will be no reason to fight about who is (or is not) doing things for the other.

I challenge all of you who are in a relationship right now, over the next thirty days to do all the things you did for your partner in the first six months you were together. All of them. Every single one. And do them every day.

I guarantee that if you do this for the next thirty days — acting sexually, emotionally, in your communication and in your intimacy the way you did the first six months — and you don’t expect anything in return, you will see your relationship come alive again.

Then watch what your partner will start doing for you. Like magic, they will start doing things you have been wanting them to do for months.

It’s amazing how easy it is to rekindle a relationship, but we all stand on principle so much that we don’t allow ourselves to do the things to make it happen. We’re so about “tit for tat” that we never grow.

So think about what you did for your lover during the first six months, and do them all over the next thirty days. Then watch how the dynamics of your relationship will totally change. It’s a beautiful thing.

Breaking up is tough. You could do it like Sylvester Stallone and break up with someone via FedEx.

You can also can sit someone down, look them in the eyes and be 100% honest with about how you feel. You can tell the person exactly how you feel about them — that you love them as a person but that you no longer romantically feeling them anymore. You can tell them that you’re great as friends but not great as lovers.

Honesty is really, really hard for certain people. By being honest, though, you are allowing someone not to live with any doubt or questions, and it allows them to move on. It will of course hurt in that moment, but then that person can start healing and move forward.

Too many people don’t allow someone to heal. By being honest with someone when breaking up, though, you are allowing them to start healing.

So share with me today some of the toughest times you had breaking up with people. I’d love to hear from you guys.

You have already made a determination that they don’t understand you, that they will never understand you and that the relationship just won’t work out with them. So, all of a sudden, the incredible anger that were starting fights decrease.

You start walking away from them. You used to feel like she was busting your balls or like he was riding you and not understanding you. Now the minute you get into a fight, you just walk away from it.

The fact that you are on opposite sides of the bed, which used to bother you and keep you up at night, turns into the natural way things are and you are able to sleep with no problem. You go to your side of the bed, they go to theirs, and you both just go to sleep.

You are not up for four hours every night thinking, wondering, feeling and missing them. You just want to go to sleep.

When it hits this point, i.e., when it hits the breakup point, then you need to face the business of breaking up. You know breaking up sucks, but there is only one good way to do it.

When you think you might have hit that breakup point, you must tell the person that you’re disconnecting from them. You need to be honest and raw.

If you don’t think the relationship is going to work or you know you’ve already disconnected based on how things have been going, then you might want to consider walking away for a week. Spend a week without that person.

Go visit some friends or family. Really think about what life would be like without that person. How would you feel without them being there?

When you’re in the thick of things, they never seem to be able to work out. So take a break. Take a walk. Take a week long walk.

Take that week to ask yourself some questions. What does your life look like without them? Do you like and enjoy the way it feels?

Then, after you’ve taken this time, go back and either take a stand for the relationship or break up. Whichever decision you make, you need to be honest with yourself.

Life is too short! There are a lot of wonderful, amazing people out there whom you can meet.

When you take this time to think, be sure to think about what it was like when you first met this person. How did you feel about them before things got so frustrating? Did you feel like they were your soulmate and the two of you were meant to be? You’ve got to dial back into that.

A friend of mine said to me one time, “Pretend you just got amnesia and all of a sudden someone told you the person with whom you are living (or in a relationship) is the person you are going to marry. You would have none of the bad feelings and none of the fights. What would you do in that situation?” What you would do in that situation is try to get to know that person again without all the anger, fights, frustration and history getting in the way.

So maybe take a week to yourself and then a week with that person. Get to know them again and remember the reasons why you fell in love. If you guys can do that, then you might be able to save your relationship.

In the beginning, you try to impress each other. You do special things for each other. When they come over you set an intent for the evening — you light candles, put on some music and maybe make a special dinner.

As the relationship progresses, though, you stop setting intents. It’s almost like you stop listening to each other. “I know he (or she) likes candles, but I’m just not going to light them anymore because I’m lazy (or because we’re in routine world or because they are as attracted to me as a piece of furniture).”

There’s a lot of things that we should keep doing for each other because they are fun and are things the other person likes. There are also things we shouldn’t be doing for each other.

One of those things is settling into the comfort zone where we stop doing the great romantic things you used to do for each other and letting the inner slob come out. Men tend to start farting more, leaving the door open when they go to the bathroom, and really just leaving their smell all over the place.

Women may not walk around farting, but they tend to start leaving their stuff everywhere. There are products in every nook and corner, and underwear hanging from every hook and hanger. Some women will start wearing sweatpants every single night.

We tend to stop doing things for each other because we get comfortable. Of course we love the other person for who they are, and nobody has to get dressed up for their partner every day. You need to be 100% comfortable in a relationship, but you also need to do all the things that were amazing at the beginning.

Click here for some great ideas on how to keep the fire lit in your relationship.

When you have a new relationship, you’re just in la-la land. I mean, it is the greatest feeling in the entire world.

You want to tell the entire world how much in love you are. You want to tell everybody you can find that you’re in love. You even tell your friends that this is the greatest person you’ve ever met, and that you’ve never before met anybody like this person.

Everything is perfect in the beginning. You can’t believe that you’ve finally met someone that perfect.

Then, all of a sudden, you have a little problem in the relationship and a crack develops. People ask you how things are with your relationship, and start saying that it’s “okay” or “fine.”

A couple of months later, you have a few more cracks in the relationship. At this point, when friends ask you how your relationship is going, you say “Man, let me tell you how my relationship is. This person became human, and I’m not happy about it.”

At this point, all the petals are off the rose. The other person has actually become who they really are, and you’re finally seeing it for the very first time.

I’m not writing this because I’m anti-love, and you all know I’m full of love. I’m telling you this because this is what happens in a relationship.

Over time you start to see the real person, and you start to think to yourself “Can I be involved with the real person? Is the real person the same person with whom I fell in love or are they entirely different?”

It does happen. People do change over a period of time. Sometimes people don’t grow with you and don’t understand you.

I can tell you when a relationship really hits the skids. You know your relationship has really hit the skids when someone asks you how your relationship is going, and not only do you offer up everything but you also start making fun of the other person.

When you start complaining to anyone and everyone about your relationship, it means that you no longer trust the relationship. Your sacred space is broken and that relationship is on the down swing.

You decide that this is the time you are done with the other person. This other person is no longer that beautiful person you fell in love with at the beginning.

This is now the person who is driving you “up the wall” crazy, and making you feel sick to your stomach every single day. Maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Maybe we’re not all feeling sick to our stomachs, but you get the gist.

Relationships have a cycle, so don’t air your dirty laundry all over the place. Realize that relationships ebb and flow.

A really bad warning sign, though, is when you start talking to strangers and telling them that you’re not happy. I see this all the time, because people send me emails like this about their relationships.

When I see emails like this, I say to myself that these people don’t need my help. They need to figure out whether they want to be in their relationship anymore.
Everyone is looking for that one answer to fix a troubled relationship, but th real answer lies within.

A lot of you have been in multiple relationships. I would say all of you have probably been in at least one relationship. No matter in how many relationships you’ve been, however, all relationships have what I call a breaking point.

You may have been in a four year relationship, but you might have hit that breakup point at year two. It’s like the television shows that “jump the shark” according to that website, meaning a good show stops being good but remains on the air for one or more seasons after that.

Every relationship has a breakup point. The breakup point is the point in the relationship where the fighting escalates to a place where you no longer feel like you’re understood by your partner. All of a sudden the sex stops, the communication stops, and you are living like roommates.

You get into that dynamic when you’re at the point in a relationship where you are trying to understand each other, but then you get so frustrated because you feel like you just don’t understand each other anymore. When that happens, you end up just kind of coexisting in that new dynamic.

It is this dynamic which leads to a lot of the parts of your relationship deteriorating. The sex decreases. The communication decreases. Maybe you stop kissing each other goodbye or stop texting each other during the day.

However it manifests itself, when you get to this place you are at the breakup point. It is the breakup point because the longer you stay in that dynamic after the sex, communication and tender moments stop, the harder it is to regain the original dynamic in that relationship and, eventually, it can’t be regained. That’s why I call this the breakup point.

I know I’ve been there in relationships. I know couples who haven’t had sex in years, and they can’t even imagine getting back to having sex with each other because they’ve hit the breakup point.

In the beginning of a relationship (which I call “the honeymoon stage”), you are learning about each other and making efforts to create romantic moods and nice evenings. When you’re in that stage, you are really working at building your relationship.

Then, at some point, you start to bump heads with each other and the dynamics change. You take away all of the nice things that you were doing the first year and a half or two years (or for however long it was), and then you move into a new dynamic moving forward. That is the breakup point.

The longer you stay in that dynamic and the further away you get from the dynamic you had during the honeymoon stage, the more likely it is that you’ll ever get it back (and, after a point, you won’t). You’ll never go back to the original dynamic, resentment builds and you get in your head too much.

You are no longer about feelings, and you start really punishing each other. “Well he hasn’t done this for me, so I’m not going to do this for him” are the kind of thoughts that take root.

When your relationship gets that way, you hit the critical point or you hit the breakup point. The critical is point is where one of two things will happen.

You are going to get back to the way things were by immediately forgiving, forgetting, loving and becoming aware of it, or you are going to continue the relationship with the bad dynamic in place and wait for the time years down the road when you realize you were at the breakup point years before that.

So if you are going through this right now, you need to look at your partner and think to yourself “Do I want to get back to the way we were, or do I want to realize two years down the road that we were at the breakup point now and did nothing about it?”

When you are in this place do you stay in ego, finger-point and defense mode? Look back at your last two relationships, and think about how they ended. What all of you are going to discover when you do that, is that you hit the breakup point in each of those relationships long before they actually ended.

Now, let me be clear about one thing. I am not telling you to quit a relationship simply because things get frustrating.

There comes a point, however, where the endless battle can’t be won. That is the point where neither one of you are willing to understand, fully compromise and do the things necessary to move forward.

That is when you stop caring. That is when you sleep on separate sides of the bed. That is when you reach the breakup point.

We don’t cover breakups enough here in the blog. In another blog, I am going to talk about the art of breaking up with someone.

Today’s blog was spurred by something that came up in a conversation I was having earlier. Someone used the term “I didn’t sign up for this.”

People will use this phrase about all manner of things in their life. They’ll say “I didn’t want to have a wife and three kids. I didn’t sign up for this” or “I really didn’t sign up for this job” or “How did I end up living in the frozen tundra of Wyoming. I didn’t sign up for this.”

The term “I didn’t sign up for this” almost feels like a victim term to me. Granted, life has its twists and turns and surprises. Aren’t we in control of our lives though? The term “I didn’t sign up for this” almost makes me feel like we are all just victims in our lives, and have no control over what happens to us.

People will sometimes use that term when they are in a relationship that is going sour. They will say “I didn’t sign up for this.” The truth is, though, that they did sign up for it.

You are a willful and willing participant in any relationship. You are also 50% the cause of that relationship going in the sour direction it is going.

So if you find yourself stuck in a life for which you think you didn’t sign up, you need to remember that you actually did sign up for it. You actually made the decisions that have guided your life. You make the moves that got you to where you are in your life.

Nobody forced you. Nobody dragged you kicking and screaming. So, in reality, you did sign up for whatever situation you find yourself in that is unsatisfying to you.

The real challenge is figuring out how you get out of these situations. Do you have the guts to get out of what you supposedly didn’t sign up for, or are you going to live your life in the “I didn’t sign up for this” victim mentality?

We have choices in life. To get out of a bad situation for which you didn’t sign up, it takes guts, strength and a lot of perseverance.

Do you have the strength to get out of situations of which you no longer want to be a part? We all have only one life to live, and we don’t know how long that life is going to be or when it will end.

So why remain in a situation for which you didn’t sign up (even though we know you actually did sign up for it)? The real question you should be asking yourself is, “Why am I signing up and staying in a situation in which I have no desire to be?”

Life is a gift. Time goes by really fast.

I can’t believe I will be 48 years old this year. If someone told me I’d be close to 50 years old, I’d say “I didn’t sign up for that!” I didn’t sign up for being close to 50 years old. How did that happen?

You draw battles into relationships due to ego and expectations. So many things can go wrong in a relationship due, very often, to the way you communicate your needs, wants and desires to each other.

There are ways to be sure that relationship battles don’t cause permanent damage. Here are seven ways to avoid relationship disasters (which will also help you take your relationship to an even better place):

1.Have Sex On The Brain?: How much do you think about sex in your relationship? Do you feel like the other person doesn’t do the things you like to do (or doesn’t do them enough)? We all get lazy sexually in our relationships at times. So how do you get the other person to do these things (or to do more of those things)? Well, you don’t look at them and tell them they are doing what you like (or aren’t doing enough of it).

Instead, when they do things you like you need to really let them know. Say things like, “Oh babe, I love the way you kiss me and touch me. It makes me feel good…” Describe the emotions you have and how you feel when they do those things. Doing this will turn the other person on and make them want to do those things to you all night long. Whenever you come from a place of abundance like that, you will always bring you more of what you need.

2.Never Nag: Nagging doesn’t work. Nagging to get the dishes washed, the garbage taken out and the dog walked doesn’t work. Instead of nagging, ask out of love. Say something like, “Hey babe, I’m running late today. Do you mind walking the dog? That would be awesome and would help me out a lot!”

Asking this way is a lot better than asking by saying something like “You know, you never walk the dog. I’m always walking the dog, and I’m running late right now and don’t have time to do it” or “Can you please empty the dishwasher for once? I said I can’t do it right now. Why are you so lazy?” Asking nicely always gets you better results.

3.Learn The Art Of Compromise: Learning how to compromise in your relationship is essential. When you go on vacation, for example, make sure you split up the things you do 50/50 between things you like to do and things your partner likes to do. That way, one of you never feels like you are being dragged around the whole trip. Neither person will feel about the other that “it’s just about you.”

The best way to have real compromise is to find out what each other really wants. In this vacation example, you could say something like “Today I’d love to do this. What would you like to do tomorrow? How about if we make today my day and tomorrow your day (or make half of each day be yours)? That way we can both do things we enjoy.” Real compromise is about coming to an arrangement that makes both parties happy.

4.Be Forgiving Of Family: When dealing with each other’s family, it can be very stressful. You may have old things to mend with your mother or brother or sister which get you tense or upset. Because of this tense feeling, many of us will pick fights with our significant other — the person who are there with us to support us on this tense visit — because we don’t want to act out with our family. So we take out our frustrations on our partner instead.

So the next time you go with your partner to visit your family, write down ahead of time the things you need to do or work through with your family while you’re there. Let your partner help you and see them as being there with you (and for you). You will avoid so many unnecessary arguments.

5.Avoid The Passive-Aggressive Approach: In relationships, one person will sometimes drag their significant other with them when they are going out to meet friends. Then that person will spend the entire night not reminiscing, but bringing up personal things about the relationship in front of the friends. Your personal life is your personal life, and your friends do not need to be privy to all of it.

The way this happens sometimes, is that one person will take passive-aggressive jabs at the other. They will start hinting to the friends about the things they would really love to have in their relationship. This is a very passive-aggressive (and ineffective) way to raise these items.

If you have any personal needs or desires about which you want your partner to know, don’t bring those things up in public and in a passive-aggressive manner. You need to bring these things up with your partner in person and face-to-face. If you want your partner to do more of something, then tell them how much you would love it. Don’t bring it up in front of friends.

6.Don’t Air Your Dirty Laundry: When you get into a fight with your partner, do not tell your family and friends every little detail about it. When you do this, you are actually hurting your relationship. The reason is that even though your family and friends only want to support you, by knowing you had conflict they will judge your relationship and your partner after that.

They will judge your partner based on things you’ve said about them while you were upset or angry. Whenever you are speaking out of anger you will speak with disdain and venom, and often not tell all sides of the story. So keep your personal life between the two of you. It could save your relationship a great deal of unnecessary strain.

7.Do Something Special: In the midst of all these “don’ts,” I also have one “do” that you should do in helping to avoid relationship disaster. Every day, I want you to do at least three special things for your partner. Make them breakfast, walk the dog for them, rub their head, light candles or whatever you know they would really appreciate. Pick things that will make them feel wonderful, needed and warm.

Tell them that you love them. Send them ‘I love you’ texts, or something like that. Understand that the more you reach out to your partner and the more you express your love to your partner, the more intimacy you will have. You also make your relationship stronger each time you do things like this.

So, look at the above list and then at your own relationship. Ask yourself in how many of the relationship-destroying behaviors you and your partner engage. Ask yourself in how many of the relationship-building behaviors you and your partner engage. Then as to any areas you’re falling short, start making changes right away.

Having a great relationship takes work, patience and a lot of understanding. Don’t just give up on one before you work on it. If you do work on it and it still doesn’t work out, then at least you know you did everything you could to not only keep it from falling apart but to make it amazing.

For those of you who seem to have trouble with relationships from start to finish, check out my Dating Principles For Great Relationships product.

Anyway, do you want to know how I feel about being friends with an ex? Then you need to listen to today’s podcast.

I’m going to share something with you that’s so different from anything you’ve heard on this topic. I’m also going to tell you something about how I feel about ex’s that will lead to you (and any person you’re dating) to never again dread breaking up.

They say that ‘breaking up is hard to do,’ but I say that breaking up is amazing. Listen to the podcast now to see what I mean by that . . .

Click Here to listen now:

Click Here To Download It Now!

There is another aspect to relationships, though, about which I want to talk. It is a different way of looking at relationships.

A relationship is really just a series of misunderstandings. Think about it.

You’re in a relationship. You’re getting along great. Everything is perfect.

Then, all of a sudden, you have a misunderstanding. What happens when you have that misunderstanding? Both people will usually go into defense mode.

Defense mode is so much fun, it really is. One person hurts the other person. Instead of apologizing, the person will say “The reason why I hurt you was . . . ” and they will give a list. They will say things like, “It’s just because of the way you talked to me. So then I said that back to you.”

It seems like nobody can really just look at each other and say, “I’m sorry.” So many people have trouble saying those two words. Why is it so hard to say ‘I’m sorry?’

If you hurt someone, don’t go into defense mode and let yourself justify needing to get your reasons across. Why not just apologize once in a while?

If you would do this, then maybe you’d have fewer misunderstandings. A relationship is really a series of misunderstandings until you finally give in and understand one another.

So many things in a relationship can go wrong. The problem is that during these misunderstandings, it is hard to let go of that for which you are fighting.

It’s hard to let go of a lot of things. The thing about a relationship is that you need to let go and try to understand the other person better.

If that person asks you for the same things over and over again and yet you don’t do it, obviously you’re not doing something they would like you to be doing. Instead of just doing that thing, however, people will cause a misunderstanding by getting defensive and saying something like “I do all these other things for you, so why aren’t you satisfied?”

That person probably is satisfied. They just want or need more of something. Part of a relationship with someone is to give the other person unconditionally the things that they need in addition to the things you want to do for them.

Relationships would have far fewer misunderstandings if people would get out of defense mode, dropped the ego and really looked at each other as being on the same team. Otherwise, a relationship will just continue to be a series of misunderstandings.

One new thing I’m involved in that I wanted to let all of you know about . . .

I’m the next editor for a project called “The Love Letter Collection.” If you have a love letter you want me to consider, go to this webpage and submit it: http://collectiveexperience.org/love/love.html. It can be a love letter you’ve sent, received or would like to send (but can’t). All submissions are anonymous.