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Copyright © 1999, 2008 by Bill Ferguson
Return to the Heart
P.O. Box 541813
Houston, Texas 77254
U.S.A.
(713) 520-5370
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of an audio recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use without the written permission of the publisher.
Book design by Mark Gelotte www.markgelotte.com
Library of Congress Catalog
Card Number: 98-94052
ISBN 1-878410-25-3
ISBN: 9781878410467
Made in the United States of America
CONTENTS
1. What You Do Now Makes the Difference
2. Put the Focus on Having Your Relationship Work
3. Acknowledge the Love That’s There
4. Don’t Hang on; Let Your Partner Go
5. Create the Experience of Love
6. Let the Other Person Be the Way He or She Is
7. Heal Your Hurt
8. Find the Inner Issues That Destroy Love
9. Forgive; Let Go of Your Resentments
10. Accept Your 100% Responsibility
11. Forgive Yourself
12. End the Cycle of Conflict
13. Remove the Distance
14. Release the Other Person’s Upsets
15. Be Willing to Flow
16. Resolve Issues Without Conflict
17. Have Your Attorney Work for You
18. It’s Up to You
CHAPTER 1
WHAT YOU DO NOW MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
Any relationship can heal. No matter how painful or destructive your relationship may be, it can now be restored. Sound impossible? Well, it’s not! Antagonism and defensiveness can be dissolved. Anger and resentment can be replaced with forgiveness and compassion. Conflict can turn into cooperation.
Maybe you’ll fall back in love and stay together in a way that works. Maybe you’ll need to go your separate ways. Whatever happens, you have the opportunity and ability to heal your relationship. You can be free of the hurt, the anger and the resentment.
The key to healing your relationship is you.
How you interact with the other person determines how that person will interact towards you. How you interact towards each other determines whether your relationship will be painful or supportive.
Once you discover your role in any disharmony, you can heal your relationship. Until this happens, you will forever be ineffective.
As a former divorce attorney, I’ve worked with many couples whose relationships were painful and destructive. In each instance, the individuals involved were totally unaware of their role in the conflict.
By not being aware of their role in the conflict, there was nothing they could do to end it.
This is what happens in most relationships. We only notice what the other person does to us. We then treat the other person accordingly.
If we receive love and appreciation, we’ll give love and appreciation. If we receive criticism and resentment, we’ll give criticism and resentment. We call this “giving people what they deserve.”
The problem with this is that the other person is doing exactly the same thing. That person only notices what is received from you. Then that person treats you accordingly. Then you treat him or her accordingly.
When you treat each other based on how you get treated, there is no telling what will happen. It’s like sailing with no one at the helm. When no one is in charge of the ship, your relationship is in big trouble. You’re likely to end up on the rocks.
Usually it’s just a matter of time until one of you gets upset. When you get upset, you automatically put up your walls of protection and either resist, attack or withdraw. Then the other person gets upset and does the same thing to you. Then you get more upset and react even more force-fully towards the other.
Without ever knowing, you create a cycle conflict, a cycle of resisting, attacking and withdrawing from each other. This cycle then goes on and on without either person ever noticing his or her role in the problem.
Sides get drawn and issues become something to fight over rather than something to resolve. Walls of protection get fortified and distance grows. The experience of love quickly fades away.
We hurt each other over and over, feeling fully justified for everything we do. Serious damage is done, and none of it is necessary.
If you want to heal your relationship and be free of the suffering, you need to end this cycle of conflict. You need to interact with the other person in a way that works.
Two people are required to create and maintain a cycle of conflict. Only one is needed to end it.
When you put the focus on you and your actions, you can put water on the fire instead of more fuel. You can interact in a way that gains cooperation instead of resentment. You can heal your relationship.
What you do today determines what will happen in your relationship tomorrow. Whether your relationship is painful or supportive is up to you.
— EXAMPLE —
Helen and Karl constantly argued with each other. Each had become very defensive and critical of the other. They were deep in the cycle of conflict.
When Karl came to my office, he was planning a separation and wanted some advice. Karl knew he had something to do with what was happening, but he didn’t know what. All he could see was how Helen treated him.
As we talked, it became obvious that he wanted his relationship to work. He just didn’t know how.
The more we visited, the more Karl saw what had happened in his relationship. He saw how much both he and Helen had hurt each other and how each of them had become defensive and resentful towards the other. He saw his role in the cycle of conflict.
I worked with him some more and showed him how to release his anger and resentment. I showed him how to be free of his hurt and restore the love in his relationship.
He was excited with the opportunity and went home to be with Helen.
As Karl applied the principles in this book, he noticed an immediate difference in his relationship.
With his new set of tools and with his anger and resentment gone, Karl was able to interact with Helen in a very different way. He treated her with love.
Helen started feeling safe around Karl. She dropped her defenses and became more understanding and accepting. The arguing stopped.
As time went on, Helen and Karl appreciated each other more and more. They treated each other with love and respect.
By learning how to heal his relationship, Karl was able to end the fighting and restore the love. Now he has a relationship that works, and so can you.
— ACTION TO TAKE —
CHAPTER 2
PUT THE FOCUS ON HAVING YOUR RELATIONSHIP WORK
Once you establish an intimate relationship with someone, you will have a relationship with that person for the rest of your life. This is true whether you live together or apart. Even if you move to the North Pole, a part of the other person will still be with you.
To the extent your relationship is supportive, your life will be more enjoyable and more productive. To the extent you have conflict, you will suffer.
You will get upset any time you are with the person or even think about the person. You will become tense and frustrated. You will lose your happiness, your energy and your peace of mind.
When a relationship doesn’t work, it affects every aspect of your life. Sometimes the fear and upset can be so consuming that you lose all your effectiveness. You can’t move forward.
Even your future relationships are affected. You carry the past wherever you go. Until you heal your relationship, you will never be totally free. The anger and hurt will follow you forever.
The nature of your relationship also determines your ability to resolve issues. Couples who cooperate resolve their issues quickly. Couples who work against each other create a nightmare.
When couples use lawyers and the courthouse to do their fighting, the situation becomes a disaster. Bringing in an adversarial attorney is like bringing in the heavy artillery. Everyone gets hurt. You make your situation much worse.
Whenever you take action to come out on top, without regard to the other person, you create opposition against yourself.
The other person doesn’t like coming out second best any more than you do. So whenever you do something to put yourself first and the other person second, you force that person to fight to protect him or herself from you. Then you have to fight to protect yourself from the other person.
You create a cycle of conflict that produces tremendous damage and usually lasts for years. It’s just like war.
When you resolve issues by force instead of cooperation, you play tug-of-war with each other’s well-being. The name of the game is survival. The motivator is fear and resentment.
When there is no focus on resolving issues, they don’t get resolved. Conflict goes on and on with no end in sight. The damage and suffering become greater and greater.
People think that if they just fight hard enough, then somehow the issues will get resolved in their favor. It just doesn’t work that way. Issues usually get resolved somewhere in the middle with both sides being disappointed.
People spend a fortune in legal fees and lots of heartache to get what they could have worked out by themselves.
To make matters worse, the divorce decree they’ve fought over isn’t worth much. You can have a decree an inch thick, but it’s only as good as the relationship.
When someone is full of anger and resentment, some paper signed by a judge won’t gain his or her cooperation. It won’t make sure the decree is honored. If someone wants to get back at you, that person will find a way and the decree won’t help one bit.
So, as a legal and common sense strategy, it is very important to have your relationship work.
The more you gain the other person’s cooperation and concern for your well-being, the easier your life will be. Disagreements get resolved quickly and everyone’s well-being will be preserved.
How you interact with the other person will affect the quality of your life from here on out. So put the focus on having your relationship work.
If you decide to go your separate ways, a supportive relationship can allow you to part as friends. If you decide to stay together, a supportive relationship will certainly make your life a lot more enjoyable.
Whatever happens, have your relationship work. Have it work whether you stay together or not.
— EXAMPLE —
Linda was very judgmental towards Roger. She was constantly putting him down. Then Roger would get upset and put up his walls of protection. Both resented the other and both were deeply hurt.
Finally, Roger moved out. He was so full of anger and resentment, he never wanted to see Linda again.
When Roger came to me, he wanted an attorney who would protect him. As we talked, he soon realized that the best way to protect himself was to make peace with his attacker.
Initially, the thought of making peace with Linda, not only seemed impossible, but counter-productive. He didn’t want to have any kind of relationship with her.
Then he realized that he did have a relationship with her, and that this was true whether he liked it or not. The relationship just happened to be a painful one.
Although Roger didn’t want to get back together, he knew that his life would be much easier if his relationship with Linda was more constructive. He decided that making peace was worth a try.
He also knew that if his relationship with Linda was going to heal, he would have to initiate the process.
He started by doing whatever he could to make peace. He forgave Linda and accepted her just the way she was. He refused to fight or draw sides against her. He made sure she felt loved, accepted and appreciated.
Gradually, Linda dropped her walls of protection and stopped her fighting. She even became friendly.
As time went on, their relationship became more and more supportive. They enjoyed being with each other and eventually got back together. Now they have a marriage that works.
They could just as easily have gone their separate ways, but if they did, they would have done so as friends.
— ACTION TO TAKE —
CHAPTER 3
ACKNOWLEDGE THE LOVE THAT’S THERE
We seldom notice the love that’s present in painful relationships.