Do you want to let go and move on? © Martyn Carruthers

Online Life Coaching to Detach from Past Partners

Are you clinging to someone? Is someone clinging to you?
Do you want to solve relationship problems?

Mature Partnership Skills

In 2010, I typed “mature partnership skills” into Google and read:
“No results found for mature partnership skills”
.
What does this say about the importance of maturity and partnership?

Whenever I coach couples to build mature and happy partnership, the following ideas seem to remain more or less constant. Mature partnership

  1. … is a team of two people … and requires team skills.
  2. … is a committed relationship to achieve shared goals.
  3. … implies active engagement in fulfilling partnership goals.
  4. … goals can only be achieved by two people working together.
  5. … needs acceptance, commitment, gratitude and responsibility.

If you cannot attract a suitable partner and you do not know have mature partnership skills, are you available for healthy partnership? Even if you attract healthy people to you – are attracted to mature people?

Two common problems are that you may be bonded to a parent or fixated on a past-partner. A common consequence is that you feel like you are finding the same person over and over – but in different bodies! We can help you change things like this and move on with your life.

What do you hope for from Partnership?

We help couples enjoy partnership, which includes dissolving fixations about parents and previous lovers. As both partners contribute to relationship problems, both partners can learn to manage these relationship blocks. We help partners to set partnership goals and responsibilities.

I really loved him once, although I can hardly remember why. He treated me badly but I stayed with him … I couldn’t stop caring for the lost little boy in him … And now, finally, it’s over, mahalo ke akua … and thank you Martyn for your help! Kailua, Hawaii

Our premarital coaching helps people ensure that they are compatible. Our couple counseling helps current partners understand and love each other. Do you wish to improve your relationships? We also coach some couples to separate or divorce peacefully – and to prepare for healthier relationships.

As unresolved issues from past partnerships show up in subsequent partnerships, we help people change emotional conflicts with past partners. (Sometimes a past partner may be a parent: Father-Daughter Bonds and Mother-Son Fixations are common.)

What Happens when it’s Over?

At the end of an intimate partnership, one partner will usually move on, while the other partner (even if he or she initiated the breakup) may cling to the old relationship. An ex-partner who continues to feel love or tries to express love to the other, often experiences crisis if the other communicates that these expressions of love are not appropriate nor not wanted.

He was my first love and my first lover and we split over ten years ago, but it was like he sat on me. I couldn’t get him off my mind. I married a man who was a bit like him – which was stupid. Your coaching helped me grow up and move on. Milan, Italy

If you are emotionally entangled with a parent or past-partner, you are probably clinging to what that person represents – not to who that person is. Entanglement seems inevitable if your past partner represents success or stability; or was a substitute for a parent, a sibling or a previous partner.

My wife was my world. When we broke up, I felt that she had stolen my life. She was my friend and my lover – she was my mother, my daughter and my mistress … Since our coaching I know I can love a different woman differently.  Cardiff, Wales

What are Partnership Skills?

Fulfilling partnership goals requires relationship skills – especially friendship skills and team skills. Partnership skills are required for both successful parenthood and for project management.

What is a Partner?

When in a partnership, you become sensitive to your partner’s behavior. You will notice if your partner keeps his or her promises, supports mutual decisions and brings resources into the relationship. You will react if your partner abuses, betrays or abandons you.

If you partner someone, then that person’s actions and reactions may influence your behavior long after separating. The behavior of a past partner may inspire you to find another partner with similar or quite different qualities, or a past partner may inspire you to avoid other partnerships.

Substitutes for Partners

Some people prefer an animal substitutes for a partner to sharing life with another human being. Other partner-substitutes include automobiles, houses, televisions, computers and sports. If you want to stay single – you can maintain these priorities.

Another common partner-substitute are people who are not partners. A series of shallow affairs, for example, may reduce your desire for committed adult companionship. Substitutes for partners include parents, siblings and friends.

Emotions & Past Partners

If an intimate partnership ends because of abuse, betrayal or abandonment, then the betrayed partner is likely to express strong emotions (see affairs) and react childishly. The abusive or betraying partner is likely to age-regress to some childhood trauma.

Also, if you are in a new partnership and still entangled with a past partner, you may feel exhausted, and in your fatigue you may damage your new relationship. You may also be more likely to fall into a transference … “You’re just like my last partner …“.

Many people carry emotional baggage about past partners for years. Some things are objective – for example an ex-wife wants more alimony or an ex-husband stalks his ex-spouse. Yet the majority of past-partner problems concern limiting beliefs.

I felt that he was always around me … everything reminded me of him. I would meet friends and feel bad that they were not him. I tried sleeping with other men – hell I tried everything – but I couldn’t get him off my mind. I thought I was crazy. You helped me move on. Leeds, UK

Do your thoughts of or longings for a past-partner:

  • cause you to feel guilty or depressed?
  • prevent you enjoying another partnership?
  • encompass you, or seem to surround you?
  • make you sick with anger, worry or remorse?

Is it time to end your fixation to a past partner and regain your life?
Contact us to solve relationship problems so that you can move on.

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