The Viable Alternative

So you’re a dude and you ended yet another, to put it mildly, “dysfunctional” relationship. But “Shut up,” you tell me, this one wasn’t so bad. She never called the police after the two of you had an argument and demanded that you be arrested because you hit her even though she was doing all of the hitting and throwing of lethal objects. Oh no. That was the girl before this one. She also never got you fired from your last three jobs by emailing your bosses and telling them to fire you because you were a drug addict. That was three girlfriends ago. This one was a lot more sane. She only lied to you about her being pregnant with your child so you wouldn’t leave her, and when you found out, she threatened to kill herself.

I mean com’on, cut her some slack, she was lonely.

If you’re not a dude, then I guess you’re a woman (don’t credit me for my intelligence, I just used the process of elimination) and you think God or the Universe has actively conspired to send you the worst low lives in the world as boyfriends. Currently, as you read this, you can see your last boyfriend from your bedroom window standing at a distance, psychotically trying to peer into your window with high powered binoculars (you should wave to him), but you can’t call the police on him because he’s outside the range of the restraining order you got issued against him. If he walked twenty more paces forward, then you got a case, but ah, he knows better than that because he took it upon himself to take precise measurements so he can stalk you from a legal distance.

He knows the deal, he’s been through this before.

Oh but this is nothing. This guy was only bipolar, with a bad drinking problem that would often degenerate into him being violent towards you. The last one before that got with all your friends and got violent towards you when you confronted him about it. I mean, how dare you call him out on his infidelity and douchebaggery? He’s a man, he does what he wants and doesn’t need to be questioned by you or any woman!

….and the one before that? Eh….we won’t get into that.

If you can write a bestseller about all the dysfunctional people you’ve dated over the years, fear not, this is NOT normal. There are many people who attract utterly amazing men and women who, even if the relationships ultimately didn’t work out, are better people for having met these men and women, because they were positive forces in their lives. Sure, as active daters, you will occasionally encounter a psycho, loser or a simply terrible person here and there, but for some, it’s the exception not the norm, and once they see the signs, THEY’RE OUT.

So, without further ado, here are six steps to take to stop attracting utter freakshows in your life.

1) Take Responsibility for Who You’ve Been Attracting

What is this gibberish I speak of? R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y?

This can be quite an intimidating word for people who like to see themselves as victims because it means that you make a decision to be a cause in your life rather than an effect.

Yea, I know, you’re a prissy little angel that could do no wrong. You are simply just trying to live your life and people insist on coming along and messing it up.

Well, I’d hate to destroy your fantasy..no wait, actually, that’s not true, I take pleasure in destroying your silly delusions of grandeur, but like I said, though we all have that occasional circumstance of attracting that dysfunctional person, when it happens to you ALL the time, you have to look to YOU and ask yourself what about YOU is attracting such people.

There’s something about you that’s causing you to attract them over the next man or woman. If you want to take control of your life, you have to look into that and rectify it.

Still confused? Read on….

2) Deal with Your Mommy/Daddy Issues

Because our parents or primary caretakers are the FIRST people we’ve ever had a relationship with, they colour every other relationship we have in life. For men, our mothers where the first women we fell in love with, and for women, your fathers you were the first men you fell in love with. Incidentally, they were also the first people that broke our hearts.

On some level, as kids, there was something that we needed from our parents that they couldn’t, wouldn’t, or didn’t provide for us, and within the limited understanding we had of life, it left a gaping wound in us.

Thus, as adults, we’re all running around on an unconscious level trying to get the unmet needs we had as kids through relationships with people that resemble our primary caretaker that didn’t give us that need.

This is the reason why if you’re a male and you had a controlling mother, you often hook up with women who are the same way. Or if you are a woman and your father was an alcoholic, you often date men who have similar issues.

Our primary caretakers are what we’re familiar with from living our lives, and thus we’re inclined to find people like them and look for them to fix what we weren’t given.

This is often the MAIN reason why we all go through the merry-go-round of dysfunctional relationships on some level or we repeat the same patterns over and over again.

In other words….THIS IS WHY YOU ATTRACT ALL THESE DYSFUNCTIONAL PEOPLE! It’s what you know and you choose it on some level, albeit unconsciously.

If you want to break the pattern, you have to delve into your childhood, find out what needs weren’t met by your parent(s), look for how you seek for it in relationships, and learn how to provide them for yourself. This may require some type of counseling or therapy.

Without this, you’re doomed to repeat history over and over again.

3) Learn What a Healthy, Sane, High Quality Person Looks Like

If you never shopped for a certain fruit before, like say avocados (yes, avocado is a fruit), you won’t know how to properly shop for one. If you wanted a specific type of avocado that you wanted to eat as soon as you got home, you’d have to do a bit of research and ask questions so that you know the appropriate one to pick.

It’s the same thing with choosing a sane, drama-free, together, holistically healthy person in your life. If everyone around you is a debacle, including family, friends and acquaintances, and all who they date are debacles, chances are you think that all who you think the world has to offer are debacles, and that’s who you’ll continually wind up with.

How can you even do better when you don’t even know what “better” looks like?

It’s time you step out of this box, and start learning about what an emotionally and mentally healthy, stable, responsible person who has integrity, and is an all around positive good person looks like. Open your mind to them being out there, and your brain’s reticular activating system (RAS) will start to notice them in the same way when you buy a car, you all of a sudden see all these people with the same car.

When you learn what one looks like you’ll know who to turn away.

4) Learn What a Healthy, Loving, Nurturing Relationship Looks Like

I hope you’re sitting down for this because this news might knock you off your feet, but going through your girl’s cell phone while she’s asleep to check to see if she’s hoing around on you doesn’t speak of a healthy relationship. Neither does barring your man from having any friends because you want him all to yourself. Neither does having vicious, knock down fights with each other so you can have passionate sex afterwards. Neither does him smacking you around when he’s frustrated. Neither does you giving her the password to all your email and social media accounts so she can do “spot checks” to see if you’re behaving yourself.

Gosh I wanna throw up….ugh.

HEALTHY relationships are based on mutual trust, respect, loyalty, interdependence, love, growing together, etc. When one or more of these aspects are missing, the said relationship is unhealthy on some level. If you have to go through your girl’s cell phone, you either have overall trust issues which you need to get checked out and rectify, or you have an untrustworthy girl which means you shouldn’t be in the relationship anyway.

Most people go from one dysfunctional relationship to another because that’s all they know. Their parents had one, and all the people around them that they know are either in one now, or were in one and are bound to get into another.

Just like I said in the last point, this is because most people don’t know what a healthy, loving, stable relationship looks like, thus they make do with what they know.

Take the time to learn what a truly healthy relationship looks like and then seek out people who are in such relationships. It’s then you can seek to create one for yourself, which will require an emotionally healthy partner, because if you didn’t already know, dysfunctional people are unable to create healthy relationships.

5) Pay attention to the red Flags DUMMY

What’s a red flag you ask?

In case you’re serious and not playing stupid, a red flag is a sign that people put on a path signal to travelers, “DANGER AHEAD” or “BEWARE” or even, “turn back around.”

I know we’ve all seen “red flags” when we first met the people we eventually got involved with that we ignored but later on wished we didn’t because those red flags were signs for “TRAIN WRECK AHEAD.”

Still confused?

Well, let me spell it out for you. The reason why you continue running into the pieces of work in your life is because you ignore those signs in the beginning that signal that things are not going to bode well for you.

Yes, the fact that he has three baby mamas where he doesn’t support ANY of the kids is a RED FLAG. The fact that she cheated on all her boyfriends is a RED FLAG. The fact that she stayed in an abusive relationship for YEARS and never got any help for it is a RED FLAG and bodes trouble down the line. The fact that he can’t seem to hold down a job is a RED FLAG.

Shoot, I’ll even through my own self under the bus. The fact that I told a soon-to-be girlfriend back in college at the young “wise” age of 21 that I didn’t believe in love and that I thought it was utter nonsense was a RED FLAG about me as she was soon about to find out when we started dating and she began to see how much of an unfeeling, self-protective emotional shell I was and eventually came to her senses and dumped me.

The wise, after making mistakes, learn to identify and pay heed to the red flags, and the stupid continue to ignore them and suffer the consequences.

6) Get to work, on YOURSELF

Oh, you didn’t think you were going to get away without doing any work on yourself did ya?

Yeah, but the movie, “The Secret,” says all we can visualize our ideal man or woman and PRESTO, one day he or she will just magically fall through our ceilings!

Not so fast.

Yea, I know you think you’re hot, or that fireworks come out of your private parts that any one in his or her right mind would die for, or that you have the body of an Greek god or goddess, but sorry, that ain’t enough.

For you to attract that ideal person, you have to become that person emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically that he or she wants to be with. That means being a better version of the person you are now who attracts all these douchebags, psychopaths and losers.

Why would anyone who’s put a lot of blood, sweat, tears and even money into themselves to be a halfway decent person of value to this world simply settle for you who hasn’t put any work into yourself simply because you feel you’re entitled to that person? Such a person knows his or her value and won’t just settle for anyone.

For you to attract better, you have to BE better. Which means rolling up your sleeves and step by step resolving the issues that caused you to be attracted to and attract the psychos, losers, douchebags and dysfunctional people in your life. As it stands now, you’re not even on the vibrational radar of the more “whole” people you desire in your life. Plus, even if one were to come into your life now, you’d either wind up ruining the whole thing or they’ll be able to spot you quickly and keep it moving FAR away from you.

It’s when you become a better version of yourself that you can then demand more from life and expect to get it because you DESERVE it!

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps,

Ike Love