Putting the Forever Back in Love

Advanced Concepts in Relationship Building

Roland Trujillo

This book is dedicated to couples everywhere who treat each other with courtesy, who respect and honor the innocence of their children, who can laugh and admit when they have made a mistake, and who, when they encounter bumps along the marriage road or when temptations come along, do not forget their vows.

Preface

Introduction

What's Wrong with Relationships? Can't We Just Get Along?

"My Husband and I have Nothing in Common"

"I Can't Forgive My Husband"

"My Husband Argues with Me About Everything"

"Should I Tell My Wife About Past Affairs?"

What is the Main Cause of Marriage Unhappiness

The Power of Love

Finding the Counselor Within

A Lady Commits Suicide – a Tragic Tale of Resentment and a Lesson for All

Looking for Love Online

What Causes Depression – A Spiritual Perspective A Poem

Love Conquers All

Meddling Mothers and Distant Dads

Our Love/Hate Relationship with Food

The 12 Biggest Mistakes Women Make in Relationships

Biggest Mistakes Women Make in Marriage

Finding your True Identity

The Secret Power of Food

Failing Dads and Floundering Families

A Listener Asks about Coping with Bossy Parents

Love is Patience

Understanding – the Healing Force Between Parents and Kids

The Miracle of Love and Patience

Overcoming Learning Blocks

Absent Dad Disorder

"My Wife Asked Me To Leave. What Should I Do?"

"My Daughter Does Not Want to Clean Her Room"

"My Husband and I Argue All the Time In Front of the Kids – Should We Get Divorced?"

"My Wife Cheated on Me – Now What?"

Could Your Problems Have a Basis In Emotions?

How Important Is Dad?

"Are There No More Good Men Left?"

"My People Perish for Lack of Knowledge"

How Important Is Dad?

Coping with Manipulating and Confusing Parents

"My Son Doesn't Listen to Me"

Advice to Divorced Moms

A Heart to Heart Talk with Dads

The Authority of Love

How to Become Free Indeed

Preface

I am both a counselor and a spiritual care giver. I care about relationships and I also care about the spiritual side of life. The reader will find down to earth common sense relationship advice intermingled with references to God, the story of the Garden of Eden, and both Christian virtues and perennial philosophy principles such as forgiveness, patience, compassion and gentleness.

I say things the way I see them, and it is my hope that my forthrightness and unabashed love for God will not be an impediment, but will be a breath of fresh air and an occasion to think outside the box.

Just to give you a little preview, let's look at some of the aspects of the scene in the Garden of Eden and let's see if any of them can be found today in your current domestic scene, your parent's home or those around you.

Some people say that the Garden of Eden story is a myth, but I can see that it is not a myth because I see the Garden of Eden story repeated all around me. An apple does not fall far from the tree, and so your modern day Adams and Eves continue to play out ancient roles, steeped in intrigue and ending in tragedy. Playing their role, they fight and squabble, their kids are unhappy, there is a divorce or a life of secret unhappiness and suppressed resentment, their health suffers, and they cannot figure out what went wrong.

This is particularly embarrassing to professionals, such as managers, doctors, nurses, accountants, or psychologists.

How embarrassing it is to have your own family fall apart, with kids on drugs and a divorce or painful breakups. Having access to professional counseling, meds, as well as thousands of relationship books on Kindle or the bookstore shelves didn't help.

Now back to the Garden of Eden. Let us look at the elements in the scene: the man, the woman, the spoken word, and food.

First, there was the spoken word—the serpent whispered to Eve and she spoke to Adam. Adam, of course, being the foolish ambitious guy that he was, listened to her. Adam didn't do what he know in his heart was right. Instead he listened to the suggestions of another.

Now how about today? Do we not all listen more to what others say than to our intuition? We doubt ourselves and follow experts. We are subject to the spoke word. How about you men – do you do what your wife says and walk around on egg shells, or do you do what you know is right in your heart? Is your wife in charge of everything around your place?

Adam, you see, not only became subject to the spoke word, but also to his wife.

Ladies, do you have a weak man? Would you like him to be the noble knight that you hoped he would be when you married? Instead your support of him only made him weaker, more beastly, and spoiled. Does he look to you for support instead of standing on his own two feet? Does he go off to the bar, gambling, or another woman, and then come crawling back?

Now the other element in the Garden of Eden was the food. Do we not all have food problems? Did your mom use food to impose her will, and was your dad too weak and too busy gobbling her delights to be there for you?

Believe it or not, there is a curse attached to food – a hypnotic state of mind associated with eating. People eat and go into a mild trance. They sleepwalk through life, doing what is whispered or suggested to them.

Everywhere women are suffering because of the weakness of men. Kids are suffering because their dad was not there for them. And even decent people, who seem to have happy marriages or relationships, are often secretly unhappy. He feels trapped. She feels unloved.

There. Have I gotten your attention? Read on and you may discover the truth that sets you free from the subtle errors.

How true it was when Henry David Thoreau said: "Most people lead lives of quiet desperation."

Well, take heart. It doesn't have to be that way. There are answers and solutions that really work. But like I said, you need to be willing to stop the blame game for awhile, and be willing to see where you might be erring. If so, my book and my audio lectures will be a breath of fresh air. You might even ride off into the sunset together and live happily ever after.

Introduction

People's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

Mark Twain

This is really important stuff and you probably won't find the answers, strategies for success and the in-depth coverage in this book anywhere else.

Look--people are smart. I know that most people are much smarter than they are given credit for. Consider the skills people have, like at work for example.

Some people are tremendous craftsmen, fabulous administrators, experts in some field, successful at sales or at whatever their calling is. Just about everyone is gifted at something: whether gardening, mechanics, cooking, art, music, or working with animals. Often their extraordinary talent shows up in their hobbies. People are remarkably gifted.

But when it comes to relationships, or when it comes to their marriage--it is like they are actually trying to fail.

The greatest attorney, administrator or surgeon can be as dumb as straw when it comes to his or her relationship with partner and kids.

A lady might do everything she can to make a good home for her husband and kids, only to discover her kids are out of control and her husband says he doesn't love her. A lady might be married to a decent guy and good provider. Yet she finds herself unhappy, unfulfilled and depressed. A husband will scratch his head and be unable to figure out why his wife is unhappy or what she wants.

So such super smart people are obviously not getting the right information. They don't have a clue about why they are failing.

Another thing--psychologists, counselors, marriage therapists, social workers, ministers, marriage mentors, advice columnists, college professors, lecturers, and radio advice program hosts are also very smart people.

They are educated, well read, and have high IQ's. They are also usually up to date on the latest findings in their field too.

Yet somehow, the best they can offer is advice that is somewhat helpful, maybe, but at best is more like support and palliative care. It's some variation of "be nice, be a good listener, exercise more, and eat healthy food."

Perhaps, she is told to get her needs met; and he is told to do more around the house. For dealing with kids, the advice may be about quality time, behavior modification or psychiatric meds.

I don't need to tell you that many of these experts have emotional issues themselves, relationship problems, strained marriages, or kids who are unhappy or in rebellion.

I'm not blaming them. I'm pointing out that even though these experts are smart and well educated, they just haven't been given the right information either—the kind of intuitive and in depth information that could really help them, and help them advise others.

You've heard the old expression "all knowledge and no common sense." Well there is a lot of truth to it when it comes to many of the helping professions.

Today's counselors, writers, and marriage therapists are knowledgeable—perhaps too knowledgeable. They all learned from the same textbooks and authorities.

When faced with real life, they may arrive at the day when they have to admit that what they have learned is woefully inadequate or even downright wrong.

Something is missing. That is why if you are a marriage therapist or mentor yourself, and you wish to deepen your understanding, you may find this book provides the deeper look at family issues that you have been searching for.

If you are someone with relationship issues and you are looking for the kind of insights that might help you get unstuck and move forward, you may find just what you are looking for here.

Finally, if you are in a relationship and considering marriage and have some questions, or if you would like to understand what may have gone wrong with your parents' marriage so it won't happen to you, read on.

The first half of the book contains all new material and advanced concepts I have been writing about during the past year.

Some of the information is descriptive and is generally applicable to all partners. It is also prescriptive, in that I provide some insights and strategies, gleaned over 24 years of counseling, to help people cope with and resolve tough relationship issues.

It is obvious that many people have lost their way. This is especially obvious when it comes to marriages. Look into many families and you will find misunderstanding, resentment, suppressed anger, and hurt feelings. Husbands and wives argue not in a spirited debate that produces solutions, but in selfishly immature ways, or even hurtfully and maliciously.

Parents and kids yell at each other. Communication is poor or nonexistent. Even worse, families are breaking up and divorces are rampant.

Perhaps you have heard that long ago--when a young couple had marriage issues--a grandmother, a Dutch uncle, or an old and trusted friend would be called in. Often that person had common sense, patience and understanding. They had a mysterious know-how. They had kindness, perhaps a twinkle in their eye. They bore good will: they really and truly wanted the best to happen. They did not experiment with theories or approaches. Their guidance was solidly grounded in common sense, patience, and understanding. Perhaps I can temporarily be that person for you.

Perhaps with some insights, you can once again trust in your own intuition and start to apply love and wisdom in everything you do and say.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could find understanding to deal with your marriage and family issues? If you, yourself, had understanding then you could solve your own problems. And if when you got information from external sources, your understanding and common sense would permit you to see which advice is good and which is not.

In the light of intuition, you would begin to see the reason why we squabble. Let me give you a few clues.

For example, you would begin to understand the mystery of the relationship between the sexes. It is an ancient and reoccurring cycle of ambition, rebellion, and failing. Just as in the story of the Garden of Eden, the woman is still used today to entice and support her modern day Adam to be ambitious. When Adam looks to the woman and her guile for support, instead of to principle, paradise is lost and the family suffers. She feels used, and he feels trapped and betrayed.

Without understanding of the real dynamics in the man-woman relationship, people continue to hate and blame each other. Forgiveness is truly the answer. But in order to forgive, we must have insight into the deep dynamics behind all the squabbling we see in families. We simply need to see, really see, where we are failing and why. When you see that we humans are all in the same boat, you could be more forgiving toward your partner instead taking everything personally.

When it comes to marriage and family relationships, we need to understand why we fight. We need to understand our own inherent pride and see what is wrong with it. With understanding, we can observe our own failings with compassion. We need to understand what other's true needs are. We need to understand that most of the time your loved ones are not being cruel on purpose. They are out of control.

The second half of the book contains some of my very best and most popular previously published essays. I don't want anybody to miss out on the important insights they contain.

I also decided to add specially selected chapters from my parenting books. The family is a holistic and interdependent unit. What affects the parents also affects the kids. Many couples have children, and so a couples-counseling book would not be complete without addressing children in the discussion.

The family is the bedrock of civilization. The relationship between the man and the woman, within the institution of holy matrimony, holds the key to happiness, prosperity, and domestic tranquility.

The family is the matrix in which the next generation comes forth, and it is the family which supports, nurtures and maintains the best of what it means to be a human.

Yet everywhere you look in the world, you see families boiling over with intrigue, betrayal, cruelty, suffering, and misery. Each and every couple starts off expecting to be happy. But something goes wrong. We need to understand why.

I also realize that although many couples do not have children, their issues stem from a faulty relationship with their parents, so the insights may be relevant to them also.

Included are carefully chosen essays and articles I have written over the years about parenting, about divorce and reconciliation, the role of father, and advice for single and divorced parents.

These are designed to be instructive for parents who have issues with their kids, and for parents-to-be who wish to proactively prevent poor communication from developing. This section also offers insights to adult children from dysfunction families. It should help them unpack and disentangle, in the light of understanding, what went wrong to help them find forgiveness and prevent the baggage from the past from impinging on their future.

Note: this book is a collection of some of the best of Roland's articles and essays. Each article was intended to stand alone.. For this reason, the reader will occasionally find some duplication. Roland sometimes took the very best part of an article and used it as the foundation for another article covering a similar but different topic. His advice for husbands and wives is also good advice for moms and dads, for example. Roland's articles are gems, and rather than altering them, I chose to present each in its entirety. Each chapter is thus a whole, and a reader who selects one chapter concerning an issue will find a compact but surprisingly comprehensive treatment of it. We beg the indulgence of a reader who notes any duplication and hope that this explanation will satisfy. Editor

- 1 -

What's Wrong with Relationships? Can't We Just Get Along?

Men and women are locked into a mysterious love/hate relationship which starts with sex and often deteriorates into violence. There is plenty of resentment too; and suppressed feelings and repressed anger. Not to mention a heaping serving of guilt.

Each partner seems to bring out the worst in the other and each complicates the other's issues, as both become more wrong and also full of blame. Each senses that the other person is somehow exacerbating their problem, but fails to see his or her own part in what is going amiss.

In such a relationship, both are wrong--he in his way and she in her way.

The situation might not be so bad if there was sound instruction around--men and women of wisdom, who understood what was going wrong and knew how to help the couple navigate their way back to happiness.

Unfortunately there is precious little understanding around. And for this reason, the human race has deteriorated to a low level of abusing and being abused.

Believe it or not, all the horrors of violence and intrigue in the world have their origin in the man-woman relationship gone awry.

The home is the spawning ground for all the crime, mental illness, and violence you see in society.

If men learned how to love women properly instead of using them, we could collectively usher in heaven on earth instead of the hell on earth that you now see.

We need to discover what love is. But, as I said, there is precious little wisdom about such things around. Few are they who have both the courage and the wisdom to tell the truth--which might awaken the people and rescue them from their current suffering.

Mostly the advice from the sex experts, psychologists, counselors, and marriage therapists revolves around the misguided notions that sex is love and that marriage is for the purpose of getting our needs met.

We all know, especially those who have been in and out of relationships, that sex is not love. Yet sex love and romance are what the popular culture, the arts, music, and the movies around the world, and even the misguided so called experts, are telling us love is all about by precept or subliminal suggestion.

We are being degraded by the ones who pretend to help us. They treat us like animals, suggesting that pleasure is the highest good. We are, in their eyes, pleasure seeking animals.

We are told that a relationship is to get our needs met. And of course, they tell us that one of our needs is sexual pleasure, and more and more of same. No wonder relationships fail, when the partners are taught to be selfish, looking for self gratification at the expense of another, and calling it love.

When the cultural icons and experts lead us into troubled relationships and we become unhappy; we are again degraded by being told that the answer is more sex, better sex, other sex, or more varieties of getting our ego needs met.

They cater to the lowest common denominator. They stroke our ego. By buying into the lie, we become more determined, based on their wrong counsel, to assert our wants and needs, leading to more abuse, more arguments and hurt feelings, more frustration, and more unhappiness.

When error leads to unhappiness, we are again degraded. This time we are told that not only are we animals, but that our unhappiness is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain.

The truth is that we are spiritual beings. Sex is not love (though we can have sex with love). The human race is not rising, it is falling. We need to hear the truth spoken clearly, so that it is like a breath of fresh air.

Then we can heave a sigh of relief, because what we always knew in our hearts is confirmed.

We need some simple principles that will hold us in good stead, but we also need them explained so that we won't have a misguided notion of how to apply them.

Mostly we need to understand what our true needs are and what our partner's true needs are; and we need to learn how to love each other so that we help each other and not hurt each other.

Take heart. Probably no one has ever shown you the way. Many well meaning parents, teachers, counselors and clergy do give proper advice, but they just don't have the courage of conviction; so they waffle and waiver, they doubt the truth in their heart, or they have part of the answer but not the whole thing.

Much of this book will be devoted to pointing out error and relieving you of the faulty notions that are wrong but nevertheless generally ascribed to.

A lie can harm you. For example, we all know that getting in a car with the wrong person, having sex with the wrong person, or doing something risky that everyone assures you is "safe" can be fatal. Similarly, buying into lies about human nature or about relationships can lead to unhappiness, wrong choices, ruined lives, destroyed marriages, broken families, and harming the children.

Just look around at the current state of families, rampant physical and mental health issues, and a coarsening of society as a whole. Ask yourself whether people are getting the kind of advice that leads to wholeness, happiness and marital bliss or not. It is obvious that something is wrong. People are being misled somehow.

Therefore, this book may at first seem negative, but it is only because I first must point out errors clearly, so that you can see the truth about the errors. Secondly I won't tell you the usual foolishness about romance and passion, flowers and candy, hot tubs and Valentine's Day lines--you've heard plenty of that already, and how much good has it done you?

What you need is the truth so you can wake up from your misdirected lifestyle and see through the lies and believe them no more. The truth may at first seem like a wet blanket, spoiling the fun--but if you look carefully, you will see that happiness and right choices are just on the other side of letting go of error.

We do need love. In fact, most of our issues stem from not having received the right kind of love, especially in our formative years. Love is not comforting (at first). It is corrective. But it must not be with anger.

Love has understanding in it and patience. It helps you to see the truth and wakes you up so you can begin to function from your own intuition and center of dignity.

When you were a kid or teen--did you ever have a teacher who set standards and was tough? She would not accept excuses and she demanded good performance. She was not mean; she just had a no nonsense attitude. Well, that is very close to what love is. Love does not put you on. Love does not assure you and reassure you that wrong is right or make excuses for you.

Love tells you the truth so that you can see for yourself what is true or right. And love does not pressure you either. It gives you the space to choose without pressure.

I do not wish to be your leader. I only wish to tell you the truth with patience and kindness, but also with firmness--so that you have a chance to hear it clearly.

Then you will be able to see the problem so clearly that you also see the need for patience with each other and with yourself.

The knowledge we need is of the mystery of the relationship between the sexes, so that we might understand where we are going wrong. It is an ancient and reoccurring cycle of rebellion against God. Just as in the Garden of Eden, the woman is used by the serpent to entice Adam to turn his back on God.

Both the man and the woman are then used by principalities and powers to rebel against the Creator and bring suffering on humans. Without understanding how they are being used, people continue to hate and blame each other.

Forgiveness is truly the answer. But we also need insight into the spiritual reason behind all the squabbling we see in families.

The relationship between the man and the woman, within the institution of holy matrimony ordained by God, holds the key to happiness, prosperity, and domestic tranquility.

The family is the matrix in which the next generation comes forth, and it is the family which supports, nurtures and maintains the best of what it means to be a human.

In order to do this, what we need is a very special kind of knowledge called understanding.

You cannot get understanding from a book, even a religious book. Understanding comes from intuition--what we know in our heart--when we look within and trust what we know in our heart as our authority, instead of looking to worldly experts. I do not wish to be your authority. I wish to awaken you to truth and love, so that you can have insight and delicate understanding in your relationship with others, patience with them, and patience for yourself.

Intuition is first hand and alive. External knowledge applied without understanding is second hand and lifeless. External knowledge is useful when it awakens understanding. Of course you can listen to what others have to say; just remember to run it by your gut instincts to see if it sits right with your intuition.

- 2 -

"My Husband and I have Nothing in Common"

When asked about the secret to their 50 year marriage, Billy Graham responded: "My wife and I are both happily incompatible."

Gravity is not responsible for people falling in love. Albert Einstein

My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked." Winston Churchill

In one of my most popular articles I addressed this issue and said that it is very common for one or both partners to come to this conclusion.

Probably every married couple has felt this way at times. But when this conclusion lingers for weeks, months or years, it is not just a temporary upset after a squabble. It goes deeper, so it needs to be looked at.

It is generally not a statement that a newly wed or someone married a year or two will make. The realization that we have nothing in common is generally one made after many years of marriage, and even more frequently after the kids are raised and off to college.

Kids provide a joy, something to be busy with, and a source of daily happiness and challenges. Kids also are a buffer. Although two people may have little to talk about and little to share together, the kids are a distraction and a focus of attention. Alone the two might be a constant source of irritation to each other. But the kids are a diversion.

Presumably both partners are decent, but they are just on different pages or coming from different places.

Yet there is something in common to hold them together (the kids), and in the presence of which, they put aside their differences or mask their secret unhappiness - and put up a good front.

We all do this at work and out in public. We dress up a little, we put on a smile and for the sake of our coworkers, the client, the patient, or the customer, we put our personal unhappiness aside, carry ourselves cheerfully, and focus on the work at hand.

Many do the same at home. The respected advice columnist Ann Landers once said that we should treat people at home with the same respect we do to people out in public. Courtesy and civility grease the wheels of society and also make home life more tolerable and pleasant.

The Center for Common Sense Counseling