the next 15 minutes are going to be important for you... because you're about

to learn secrets that most smart people never learn...

about what it takes to make romantic relationships really work.

We'll take a look at why you have attracted your romantic partner...

and if you're single right now - why you have attracted the romantic partners you have in...

the past...

and it's not what you think it's gonna be. We are also going to take a look at the five

stages that your romantic relationship is going to need to go through...

if you want to create long-term connection, stability,

security and love. We are also going to look at which stage you are most likely to get stuck in...

... and what to do if you do get stuck.

Finally, we are going to take a look at what to do once the...

blissful feelings of falling in love begin to fade as they so often do

in long-term romantic relationships so if you and I haven't met before

I'm bursts and I'm originally from South Africa County living in the Caribbean

hence the palm trees behind me and I'm really passionate about helping smart

people like new

bold unbreakable bonds with your arm into partner

and helping you experience all the joy the connection

intimacy and the freedom that a romantic relationship that works has to offer

without settling without compromising hand without losing yourself

in the process so mummy inside and let's get going

if you're anything like me then your relationship probably started out

as a series a magical moments with your heart pounding

and your spirits soaring and your stomach doing flip-flops just at the

thought of seeing him or her

right you felt so loved and you felt so wanted and appreciated and needed right

and you were joined at the hip and then one day

a terrible thing began to happen that feeling of falling in love

began to fade away and you start to realize just how different you were from

your partner

and perhaps how much of yourself it's sacrificed

in order to be in a relationship your partner and now the little things that

you used to love about your partner begin to

anoint you and before you know it your arguing about the dumbest things

and you vented what we call the power struggle stage

and what do we do when we into the pastoral stage well

in order to get on needs met an order to have the feeling of being in love

again we figure we better go about changing our partner

to be more like they used to be and to be more like us right

there's a sound familiar if you've ever tried to change anybody before

you've probably noticed that it never works so both you and your partner are

equally try to change each other during his power struggle stage

and before you know it the relationship that was once the safe haven love

now becomes this place that's for love uncertainty and we feel like you have to

walk on

eggshells around your partner and we you don't feel accepted

just for being the person that you are and when this happens we begin to feel

disconnected

and once we begin to feel disconnected we usually do one of two things:

we got to become needy and trying to reconnect with our partner

or we become shut down and need space and 10 withdrawal

there's any of the sound familiar am i close

well if you can relate to anything I just shared up a two things I want to

see sadu

one is your normal and it's not your fault

every relationship goes through this power struggle stage

when you leave the romance stage on the way for the stability

Yukon go around is only one way and next to it

and to there's hope paradoxically

in order to learn to love he to fall out of love

first and this is just an unnatural state you're going through and if you

educate yourself about how to get through the power struggle stage

on the other side is it deeper

more mature opportunity for romance intimacy

and connection that way beyond anything you could have experienced back here

in the Roman stage so how is it that we can go from

on one hand being head over heels in love with a partner to

on the other hand feeling like our partners causing us pain in the

relationship

one reason could be that relationships go through five predictable stages as

identified by doctor season Campbell in our study hundreds of couples

and the first stage is called the romance

stage when we fall in love

we fall in love with the single most incompatible person for us

in the universe the person most capable

of causing us the most pain and least capable of meeting of primary

human needs why it turns out that we human beings

are no different from anything else in nature where the growing

with dying of course nature wants us to grow

so nature makes us fall in love with the most incompatible person in the universe

the person most able and capable of make no worth

nightmares come true why

and because that person is going to be the most capable of pushing the buttons

and forcing us to grow and expand

and our lives so they're the perfect person to insure

our growth but if we knew this person with the most

incompatible person in the universe rest we would run as fast as possible for the

hills right

so nature drugs s

yep that's the only way we could possibly 411 most incompatible person in

the universe

your brain releases a series of chemicals like bill by let me in Osito

sand and dopamine

that have you fall in love so you can only see a partner

through rose tinted glasses you only focus the Roman stated how you and your

partner the same

and you ignore their differences you'll do anything to please your partner

and have them like you because you're high on drugs

if you weren't good run a mile right what happens

is that this drug induced high loss for anywhere between two months

and two years and probably never reach for the six-month

before it begins to wear off and when it begins to wear of you have what I like

to call

love hangover and you wake up in bed with the most

incompatible person in the universe you got

and the power struggle stage begins

and this is where the highest percentage a first marriage divorce is happen you

hear on the three

to four-year at the relationship mock

what ends up happening is that once your brain stops releasing the oxy toast and

the dopamine Liz beautiful drugs

you wake up when you realize just how much of yourself you sacrificed in order

to be in a relationship with this person

and now you want yourself back to you when we can you independence

and your autonomy so you enter into this kinda

tug-o-war this battle of wills with your partner

trying to be in a relationship and yet still be

independent and what happens is because most couples

ninety-nine percent of them I reckon are not educator around how to navigate

conflict

how to actually communicate how to deal with possible stage

they end up dealing with it in one of two dysfunctional waz

I the breakup or they survive the break up groups

usually happens with people who have been kinda see a real date as they are

on a run around in there are Roman state falling in love that feeling of being in

love in a drug induced high of being a drug addict

and I like to say the only difference between a drug addict and falling in

love is that

falling in love is legal and therefore I love this feeling of being high on love

and then day in the pink serial daters the minute they had the possible stage

they run away from their relationship

and find the next one the second way people deal with the pass from state

without actually moving beyond it

is to survive in that they usually resigned themselves to compromise

or sacrifice and they give up what they really want to know to be with a partner

of course them

relationship emotion he dies they die internally I've been there and done this

in the past two

and then their sex life dies as well and often does end up in infidelity or

at the partners is eventually growing apart and

the relationship breaking up in the end or the relationship surviving

a lifetime of pain when the power struggle happened to me in my

relationship

I was court completely off guard

we gone so quickly in a matter of months from being head over heels in love

to being in conflict and fighting with each other things we could have a

conversation that just felt connected

without it being blown out of proportion into an argument

I couldn't understand it because I've been a seminar leader who'd helped

thousands of people or on the will transform their lives

and yet I couldn't seem to accomplish the simple call ask

our game the woman that I love to respond to me in a way that

had us feel connected and in love with each other

and then something completely unexpected happened

she left me and she moved to another country

and I was shocked in court completely of God and I decided that

this woman was my soulmate and I was going to do whatever I could

to get her back so being the geek

that I am I went in I studied with successful couples who've gotten through

the power struggle stated done

to build a lifetime love love I started studying communication skills

I started studying conflict resolution and i came up

with an alternative to the first two options of breaking up

or just surviving and I like to call this taking the third option the option

that most couples don't even know about let alone

take taking the third option

involves learning how to love consciously

involve instead of saying your partner as the most incompatible person in the

world

you start to see them as the most qualified person to help you grow

instead of your relationship just being something that makes you happy and

secure

you transform your relationship into a crucible that allows you to grow and

mature as human beings together

an order to accomplish a love this you gonna need to learn some skills that you

definitely want

taught by a Paris or by a teaches at school

certainly that's what I had to do

it took a six-month of negotiating our differences before she phoned me up one

day and said

Bruce nobody makes me feel as loved and has accepted

as you do I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you

and as you can imagine that was the happiest day of my life

and we didn't get there by accident

do we still fight do we still have arguments

of course we do but they never turn into them mudslinging matches that they use

to

they never turn into name-calling they turn to opportunities for us to become

more

intimately connected through every one of our arguments now we're able to turn

around and move through them

to that that cycle of repeating the same arguments over and over again

stock happening and we started getting arguments complete

so once you've learned to fight in a way that has both have you win

you enter into the stability stage and this is a beautiful stage we can take a

deep breath

hi relax as the romance from the Roman stage returns

but it deeper more mature way and all that connectedness returns

and you realize that you're never gonna change your partner and they're never

gonna change you

and you've given up even trying to do so and you're happy to accept them just the

way that they are

and the stage if you love monster the communication skills and you learn

mutual respect

you move on to the next stage which is the commitment stage if you don't Moscow

skills and you don't learn that mutual respect you go back to the power

struggle stage

round and round and round and round until you

die not a pretty picture but that's how most relationships end up and that's why

we have a divorce rate

that higher than 50 percent so let's take a look at the commitment stage

in this stage you choose your partner just as they are

you begin to experience a beautiful balance of fun