Are You the One for Me?. Barbara Angelis De

in love? You think about how the other person is feeling, what they need, what makes them happy, how your behavior affects theirs, just to name a few examples. It’s no wonder, then, that we often get into relationships not because we have found the right person but as an excuse to avoid our own life.

       ARE YOU USING RELATIONSHIPS TO AVOID DEALING WITH YOUR OWN LIFE?

      Read each of the following statements and ask yourself if it applies to you now, or if it has applied to you in the past:

      

I have a history of unfulfilling relationships.

      

I don’t go for long periods of time without being in a relationship.

      

The relationships I get involved in are very time-consuming.

      

There are many areas of my own life that are not operating the way I’d like them to.

      

There are projects or dreams I’ve had for a while that I haven’t followed through with.

      

When I’m in a relationship, I devote less time to my own interests and friends.

      

I tend to become romantically involved with my partners rather quickly.

      

As a rule, I don’t enjoy spending time alone, and would rather be with other people.

      

When I am working on a task or project, I tend to become easi­ly distracted by phone calls, unimportant errands, other people’s needs, etc.

      

I find it easier to motivate others to solve their problems than to motivate myself to solve my own.

      If you relate to several of these statements, you may be using relationships to avoid taking care of your own life. What you have been thinking is your obsession with love could very well be your addiction to not facing yourself and your problems. After all, if you are busy loving someone else and working full time to make them happy and meet their needs, you won’t have much time left to meet your own needs or realize your own dreams.

      Some people have relationships because they are bored with the lack of passion and purpose in their lives, and rather than looking within to find out why they feel that way, they get involved in a love affair and make that their purpose. These relationships never work because you aren’t in love with the person—you’re in love with the distraction. And when the relationship ends, you’re left with yourself once more.

       WHY MARY BETH NEEDED TO GO ON A ‘RELATIONSHIP FAST’

      Mary Beth stood up in one of my seminars and announced that she was suffering from ‘relationship burn-out,’ a syndrome I wrote about in How to Make Love All the Time. ‘I am so sick of going from one man to another,’ she complained. ‘I feel like moving to the mountains and becoming a nun. I get in these stupid relationships and stay until I can’t take it anymore, and then I leave. For a few weeks I am so happy to be on my own. I clean up my apartment; I do the things I’ve been wanting to do but didn’t have time to when I was seeing my latest guy. But all of a sudden I start to feel restless, and before I know it I’m at a party or a bar and getting fixated on some new man.’

      I asked Mary Beth what she did professionally, and noticed that she instantly became uncomfortable. ‘Well, right now I’m doing hair in a salon downtown, but that’s just until I start my own business.’ Mary Beth had a dream of being an interior decorator. But as I questioned her, it became clear that she had never done anything about it. She kept telling herself she should go back to school and get a degree, or look for a job with someone in interior design. Yet she never did. Each time she would be single again, she’d get excited about her goals for a few days or weeks. Then she’d come up against her fear of failure. And suddenly she was on the prowl for a partner again. She used each new relationship to keep her from facing her procrastination,