of the time; instead, they sometimes feel bored, annoyed, or outright fed up. Based on inaccurate beliefs about the normal progression of relationships, many people feel that if they have conflicts, power struggles, and times of unhappiness in their relationships, they have failed.
The Love Cycles model encourages us to see those troubles as normal seasons in a long-term relationship. I am optimistic that some of us are beginning to move toward this more generous, compassionate, and realistic view of what healthy relationships look like — one that is less linear and more cyclical. Falling in love is never a straight line to “happily ever after.” Like all parts of nature, we go through seasons of change, renewal, darkness, and light. Always remember that temporarily losing our way or failing to respond with our best selves to a challenging interaction is simply a reminder that we’re all human. We have the opportunity to heal ourselves of old wounds that began long before we met our partner and to grow into our best selves emotionally and spiritually.
By following the guidelines in this book, we can learn how to keep our inevitable relationship troubles from overwhelming us (because they really don’t have to) and make the times between the trouble as rich, delightful, and loving as possible.
Where Am I — and Where Do I Want to Be?
Tremendous growth happens when couples learn to “swim in anxious soup together.” This means learning to tolerate anxiety for growth, rather than moving to control and manage one another or collapsing and complying in order not to threaten each other.
— ELLYN BADER, at a 2018 Couples Conference in Oakland, California
Before you can start learning any new love skills, you first need to understand why you’re doing this at all. When it comes to improving your relationships, what is the ultimate goal?
In the Love Cycles model, which outlines the five stages all romantic relationships go through, the final stage is Wholehearted Love. But there’s no real end point in this journey: everlasting love is an everlasting journey. Most couples will need to make repeated treks through all five stages, continuing to learn and grow together with each cycle. If and when we arrive at the fifth stage, however, our relationship is at its healthiest and most rewarding. Although we don’t stay in Stage Five permanently, we can find our way back to it with greater ease each time we drop into an earlier stage, and we stay in that fifth stage for longer periods of time.
Wholehearted love is more than just loving someone with all you’ve got. It means loving from a place of personal wholeness and with a full recognition of your partner’s wholeness. There are three elements of wholehearted love: mindful self-awareness, relationship skillfulness, and care and nourishment of the relationship.
WHOLEHEARTED LOVE
Mindful Self-Awareness
Relationship Skillfulness
Care and Nourishment of the Relationship
The first step is to assess where you are on the journey toward wholehearted loving — right here, right now. The quiz below will help you understand each of the three elements of wholehearted love and how well you practice each one.
I will ask you to retake this quiz at the end of the book, and I think you’ll be surprised at all you’ve learned. If you’re willing to thoughtfully consider the ideas in Love Skills and try out most of the exercises, I’m confident you’ll find yourself in a very different place by the time you finish the book.
Wholehearted Loving Quiz
This exercise should be completed individually. If you’re working with a partner, share your results after you’ve both finished.
Rank yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 for each item based on the definitions below. After each section, add up the scores to get your total for that section. The usefulness of this quiz relies on your self-awareness and honesty with yourself, so be as truthful as possible.
1 = This is never true for me
2 = This is rarely true for me
3 = This is sometimes true for me
4 = This is usually true for me
5 = This is almost always true for me
Mindful Self-Awareness
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
— C. G. JUNG, founder of analytical psychology
Mindfulness is a meditative practice of paying attention to the moment in a nonjudgmental way, and self-awareness is your capacity to observe and reflect on your inner world of thoughts and feelings. Mindful self-awareness allows you to tolerate the discomfort of self-reflection, to turn reactivity into responding, and to develop self-care practices to support your wholeheartedness. Being mindfully self-aware means understanding yourself and committing to being the best version of yourself.
| Score | |
| 1.I don’t usually get worked up about little things. | ______ |
| 2.I know which parts of my personality are “challenges,” and I’ve learned to embrace them without engaging in destructive behaviors. | ______ |
| 3.When I’m upset, I’m able to be compassionate with myself. I don’t beat myself up when I’m already down. | ______ |
| 4.I have ongoing practices that support my ability to stay mindful. | ______ |
| 5.I value my relationships with people besides my partner; I have a community that I’m able to give to and receive from. | ______ |
| 6.I like my sense of humor and often laugh at myself. | ______ |
| 7.I’m not embarrassed or ashamed of being vulnerable, although I am discriminating about where I show it. I share it with appropriate and supportive others. | ______ |
| 8.I’m an introspective person, and I reflect on why I think, act, and feel the way I do. | ______ |
| 9.I value the quality of generosity and work to develop it in myself. | ______ |
| 10.I understand the impact my history has on my current life. | ______ |
| 11.I’m comfortable being alone as well as being around others. | ______ |
| 12.I feel that I’m living close to the values I hold dear. | ______ |
| 13.I care deeply about my partner but know that the most important part of my well-being depends on the relationship I have with myself. | ______ |
| 14.I understand the general makeup of my personality: whether I’m an introvert or extrovert, what my go-to defense mechanisms are, which environments I mesh well with and which ones to avoid, and what motivates me and what deters me. | ______ |
| 15.I make my own mental, emotional, and physical health a major priority in my life. | ______ |
| TOTAL SCORE | ______ |
Relationship Skillfulness