July 13, 2017

Interview with Karla Downing: How To Stop Attracting the Wrong Men

Interview with Karla Downing_ How To Stop Attracting the Wrong Men

Interview Transcript

Mike: This is Mike Hennessy and on behalf of the team at LoveEvolveandThrive.com, I am pleased to welcome you to today’s interview with Karla Downing. Karla Downing is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the founder of Change My Relationship. Go to www.changemyrelationship.com if you would like more information.

Karla, in our last interview, we talked about the reasons why women may be attracting the wrong man over and over again. Now this time around, can you offer our subscribers practical tips and strategies that they can use to break out of that pattern and start attracting more healthy relationships and better partners?

Karla: Absolutely and this is crucial that they commit doing whatever it would take to break that pattern. Otherwise, it will just continue again and again and again and so much time is lost, so much emotional energy. There’s just such a high cost for picking the same type of guy over and over. That it’s not good for you.

The first one is you commit to getting yourself healthy no matter what it takes

This is going to take time and you have to be committed to the process. It might mean a support group, maybe a 12-step group, maybe just another support group, getting involved with a group of women who are committed to doing whatever it takes to work this through together.

It could be professional therapy and this is the hard one. Maybe not dating for a while until you really figure out why you’re doing what you’re doing. Focus on yourself. Get healthy and then when you’re ready, start dating again.

The second one is to trust the people you know well and truly have your best interest in mind.

Ask them. Give me feedback. Early on when you’re dating somebody, go out to dinner with another couple or with a couple of people or maybe invite the person to a family function and the people that you really trust, ask them. Give me your input. Give me your thoughts. Be open to it and don’t ignore them or excuse the things that they’re saying. Listen to their feedback. Take it to heart. Don’t stay a long time in that relationship to prove them wrong.

The third one is to get knowledgeable about the red flags of unhealthy men.

So you can recognize them. Do some research. Find some books on that. Actually look what are the signs of a guy who’s a chronic liar, a guy who’s a player, a guy who’s unfaithful, a guy who’s an addict, a guy who has got some type of emotional illness or difficult personality. Watch for the signs of an irresponsible guy. Pay attention and know what those red flags are.

The next one is to learn to trust your instincts and to value your intuition.

I gave you some signs in the last one. When you have a physical sign, headaches, can’t sleep, stomachaches, emotional signs, fear, uneasiness. You’re uptight, hyper vigilant. Spiritual signs. Do you feel convicted or uncomfortable about the relationship? You don’t tell people the truth about him or mental signs. You think about his behavior, excuses, obsess, worry, over-focus

These are signs that your intuition is telling you something is wrong. Value them. Trust them and act on them. The next one is to get to the point where you truly believe that you are better off alone than an unhealthy, wrong relationship.

The next one, stop excusing bad behavior.

Don’t rationalize it, explain it, discount it or deny it. Number eight, work on improving your self-esteem and self-respect. This includes making choices that you respect yourself for. If you don’t respect yourself, you’re going to pick people who don’t respect you. If you respect yourself, it’s contagious and then the guy who doesn’t respect you, you’re going to dump him.

The next one, stop reacting to the dysfunction in ways that make you a part of the problem because this keeps you stuck and makes you vulnerable to his accusations that it is your fault.

So if you find yourself reacting to him, that’s a sign that that’s not a healthy relationship for you. You keep doing that, it’s going to be very hard for you to say, “Hey, this guy is unhealthy.” So I teach women and men in relationships to detach, to step back, to separate themselves from the problems and not get emotionally entangled to where they can see, “Ah, I see this behavior. I don’t like it. But they’re not a part of the problem.”

The next one is don’t take it one more time and it is that thing that keeps happening that you say, “If it happens one more time, I’m going to break it off.” So when it does, break it off.

Number 11, learn the difference between normal versus dysfunctional and healthy versus unhealthy behavior because if you don’t know it, then you can’t recognize when it is unhealthy and you won’t know what to look for in a healthy relationship.

Well, don’t wait for him to make decisions for you. You take back the power to control your own destiny in life. If it’s not a good relationship, you break it off.

Number one thing you do in a relationship is you don’t ask yourself, “Does he like me? Does he want me?” You say to yourself, “Do I like him? Do I want him? Is he a good guy for me?” Stop worrying about if he likes you. You own the power to control your own life.

Next one, learn about how your childhood has affected you.

Work through the pain so you can put it behind you or as we learned in the last segment, it will sabotage you and you will recreate the pattern.

Fourteen, don’t offer trust until it has been earned.

Make the guy prove he’s truthful and trustworthy. Not to the point that it sabotages a relationship because you don’t trust anything. But just offer trust in slow, small increments.

The next one, work through your fears so you don’t let them sabotage your future.

If you have those fears, fear of abandonment, fear of intimacy, fear of being alone, fear of commitment, work through those.

Number 16 and final, accept that you cannot make another person change.

Do not stay in the hope that you will change him.

Mike: Practical, solid advice that has the potential to be life-changing. Thank you so much Karla Downing. It is a pleasure to speak to you always and this is Mike Hennessy and on behalf of the team at LoveEvolveandThrive.com, I would like to thank you for listening to our interview and wish you the very best in your relationships.

Our guest expert today was Karla Downing, a licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of Change My Relationship at www.changemyrelationship.com.

For free tips and insights on relationship advice for women from hundreds of experts and authors, please visit our website at www.LoveEvolveandThrive.com.

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