Sometimes I think that being completely clueless is a requirement for a job as a newspaper advice columnist. In the latest fiasco that I found, the columnist missed three obvious clues to the real problem.

The lady that wrote in described her problem like this: She got married 3 years ago, and then discovered he had a drug addiction. He won’t get a job, so she works a long night shift, counseling hasn’t worked, and no matter how she screams, pleads and cusses him, he won’t change. She also let drop the fact that they lived together 3 years before they were married. The advice columnist’s only suggestion is that he may be depressed and he should get a referral from his doctor for treatment for that.

Can you see the three clues she missed? Clue 1 – the woman lived with him 3 years before marriage and somehow didn’t notice he was doing drugs and didn’t have a job! Clue 2 – she married him anyway! Clue 3 – she’s been screaming, pleading, begging and cussing him, and it hasn’t worked! Yeah, like that approach ever has worked.

But our intrepid columnist doesn’t mention any of that. She also doesn’t seem to be aware of what I call my 1st universal law of relationships – if the other person has to change significantly for you to be happy, the relationship problems are yours.

In fact, if you find yourself in a relationship like that, it’s a sign of an old pattern in your life, usually from childhood, that you’re trying to resolve. This woman went out of her way to marry an addict who doesn’t respect her, support her or care for her. She even gave him a 3 year trial before she married him to make sure. Once having done that, she then tries to change him so he will support and care for her. What are the odds of that working?

What the columnist should have said was this: “You didn’t marry him in spite of his problems, you married him because of his problems. If you leave him, you’ll find another one just like him, unless YOU get into counseling and deal with these subconscious issues from your childhood. There’s a reason why you picked an unsupportive addict and you better find out what it is.”

But she didn’t. So the poor lady that wrote in is still in denial about whose problem it is, and will continue to suffer. The columnist’s response just confirmed to her that the problem was his. How sad.

In relationships, we all get angry once in a while. After all, nobody’s perfect. But there’s an important difference between anger and rage, and it’s pretty easy to figure it out.

Anger is always about something that happened in the present moment, or close to it. You did something, or forgot to do something, and the other person is angry about it. Sometimes it’s a repetitive thing that you do, so you hear, “Why do you always forget to put the seat down in the bathroom?” That one’s always popular!

But rage is different. Rage may be triggered by a present event, but the reaction is over-the-top excessive, and it’s almost exclusively global language. By that I mean things like, “why are you always like that? Why are all women (or men) always like that? Why does everyone treat me like that?” The fact is, rage is always about something that happened a long time ago, and that’s why it’s so excessive and inappropriate.

I saw this recently in an advice column, and the clues to rage were there. The woman writing in said it was “a silly matter” that triggered screaming, verbal abuse and borderline physical assault. The columnist gave correct advice, saying he needed counseling and that the wife should insist for her own protection, but she referred to it as an “anger” problem, which it isn’t.

The roots of rage are usually in childhood, when the individual was helpless to stand up to abuse from adults or older children. When something happens that triggers old memories, and those memories can be completely unconscious, the person reacts to the memories, not to the current situation. That’s why the behavior is so frightening, because it’s so unexpected and seemingly inappropriate.

In this advice column, there was another interesting tidbit. The woman writing in said that she knew when they got married that he had “a short temper.” That’s interesting, and I see a relationship pattern lurking in that statement. Why would you want to marry someone with a short temper otherwise? And now she’s writing to advice columns because she wants to fix him. Another telltale sign of a relationship pattern. And the columnist missed it, as usual.

Just remember that you can always talk out and solve problems that cause anger, but you can’t when it’s rage. That usually requires professional help. So know the difference.

One of the big problems that shows up in relationships is poor self image. Now, what does that mean? Well, it means that the person sees themselves as defective in some way. They feel that other people are better, smarter, more confident, more capable, better looking than they are. They feel incapable of doing what others do, and they have an unrealistic belief that things are easy for other people.

This belief shows up in two ways. Some people become shy, reserved, self critical and desperate at seeking acceptance. Others, especially men, become aggressive and combative, quick to take offense and sometimes violent. But the underlying problem is the same.

In relationships this behavior is very destructive because it breaks the chain of effective communication that relationships need. There’s no way you can have a relationship without occasionally rubbing your partner the wrong way or having a disagreement. Poor self image makes talking it out very difficult, because the person with the poor image takes everything personally. Any criticism is seen as confirmation of the fact that they’re defective or no good in some way, and so they react in extremely emotional ways that aren’t rational.

The solution is to get help to work on the self image problem. The best solution is a good therapist, and there are lower cost alternatives too. One of these alternatives that I know can really be helpful is CODA groups. CODA is Co-Dependents Anonymous, a wonderful organization that is similar to AA but designed for people with issues like self image. You can find them online here.

Whatever you do, do something. It takes a healthy person to have a healthy relationship, and you deserve it.

Here’s another way in which patterns from childhood show up in relationships, and are blissfully ignored by advice columnists. A lady writes in and says she’s known “Joe” for over 6 years and they’ve been dating and she has just one big problem with him. He contradicts everything she says, puts her down and makes her feel devalued.

I’d agree that behavior like that is a big problem, wouldn’t you? Most women with healthy relationship boundaries would just move on. But here’s what’s going on: that behavior is exactly the reason that she’s IN that relationship!

A little exploration of the earliest times she felt put down and devalued would almost certainly take her right back to childhood. Could be either one of her parents, or both, but most likely Dad.

So with those wounds unhealed, her subconscious has picked out a guy who devalues her and she’s trying to be good enough to get him to change.

There are three red flag clues to the fact that this isn’t just a commonplace relationship issue. First is the fact that it’s just one big issue and she’s got a lot of emotion attached to it. Second is the fact that most women would be gone if they got treated like that. Third is the fact that for the relationship to work, HE has to change. These are the key characteristics that identify an old subconscious-based issue that your mind is trying to resolve.

You’ve heard me say before that the only person that you can change is YOU. If the other person has to change to make it work, then you should leave. Remember that your subconscious will continue to attract you to people that will trigger any issues you have, so handle the issues!

One of the things to remember about the people that you’re attracted to is that your subconscious mind is calling the shots. And the subconscious operates out of two major driving functions.

The first is safety, and safety is measured by comfort, and comfort is measured by what is familiar. The important thing to remember is that safety, to your subconscious, is not always what we think of as safety. That’s why a child raised in an abusive home will marry into an abusive relationship – it’s familiar!

The second major driving function of the subconscious is resolving old pains, traumas or other issues from childhood. Now if your mind just worked on resolving them in a healthy way, it would be a good thing. But that’s not the way the mind evolved to work. Instead your mind will seek to put you back in the painful situation and let you work it out from inside! That’s the second reason that people raised in painful or abusive homes marry back into them.

Suppose you were raised with a parent who was strict and emotionally distant. As a child you will grow up believing that the problem is with you, because kids usually own the problem and can’t see that it’s really the parent’s problem. So you will marry someone who is distant and controlling, with your subconscious mind telling you that this time you can be good enough to finally get their approval. To your mind, it’s familiar, so it’s safe, and it’s a chance to finally be good enough, so you can resolve the issue!

That’s the “comfort” zone that many end up in. Until you understand what’s going on you’ll just change partners and get another one similar to the last one. When you hear someone complaining, “Why are all men (or all women) like that?” you know they’re in this comfort zone trap.

A recent letter to an advice columnist told an old familiar story. The woman who wrote the letter had a problem – she was sure that her man was getting ready to cheat on her after 11 years of marriage. As kind of a side note, she mentioned that 3 previous men had cheated on her.

The advice columnist ignored the history and gave her the usual worthless advice to try to work it out. I don’t know why the patterns are so unimportant to the advice “experts” but they rarely seem to comment on them. But it’s clear that this woman picks men that cheat, and if they don’t, she’ll find a way to make them. I’ve got a lot of respect for the man in this case, since it apparently has taken 11 years for her to get him to cheat.

If you think that sounds cynical on my part, it’s based on experience. I was married to a woman like that, and although I didn’t cheat on her in spite of her efforts, she still told family members that I did. She also had 3 previous husbands who, in her words, left her for other women.

This is the way that patterns show up in relationships. If you have a relationship history that makes you think that all men or all women are a particular dysfunctional way, think again. You’re either picking them out for that, or encouraging them to act that way. The problem, my friend, is you.

One of the human characteristics that really mess up our relationships are the stories that we tell ourselves. There are two main things that contribute to this.

First, as we grow up we turn our experiences with our family into stories about how the world works. We learn what mothers do, what fathers do, what kids (us) are supposed to do and we have stories to go with all of that. Some of these stories are liberating, and some of them are critical and limiting. In our mind they are all the truth.

Later, as we get old enough to begin to sample relationships we create some new stories based on our experiences. These experiences, of course, are created within the framework of the stories about ourselves from childhood, and within the framework of what we learned about relationships from watching our parents.

Most of the time we’re completely ignorant of the stories that we’re bringing to our relationships, or to life in general. If you want to get a start on cleaning these stories up, first you’ve got to figure out what they are.

Ask yourself some questions. What are men like? What do men like? What are women like? What do women like? Who makes decisions? How are you supposed to argue? Who handles the money? Is there enough money, or is it always scarce? How do most men treat women? How do most women expect or need to be treated? What are you good at? What are you never going to be good at? Pick any subject like those and write down your story. Go with the first answer that comes up.

If you’ve had relationship problems, the answer to them is NOT in finding the right person, but changing your story. Start there.

What do you do if you find that your Significant Other is keeping secrets? Not just the little ones that we all do from time to time, but big ones – like finances, appointments, mail, phone calls, etc?

Well, the first question I would suggest you ask is how did a person that secretive became your significant other? Why were you willing to overlook that unwillingness to be open and honest? Remember, when you have serious relationship problems like this, it’s NOT the other person’s problem!! Yes, it’s their behavior, but the problem is that they’re in YOUR life, YOU put them there, and that means it’s YOUR problem.

If you don’t figure it out, you’ll do it again. Because it’s a sign that you have a subconscious attraction to people like that. You see, it’s not that you didn’t notice it before, you either ignored it (when he/she sees how wonderful I am they won’t do that any more) or it was actually what attracted you to them.

Whatever you do, don’t try to fix the other person. You can’t, only they can, and usually they don’t want to. You should at least have a discussion about how you feel, calmly, and see how they respond. No demands, just your feelings. Then you’ll know what to do. If you can’t work together, in open and honest communication, saddle up and hit the road.

To fix yourself, counseling or a group like CODA (Codependents Anonymous) can be life saving. Don’t get another relationship without doing the work.

Another great relationship story culled from the advice columns. A daughter with a history of relationships with men “who treated her badly” is now in a relationship with a “really nice guy.” So the parents do a little background check and find out everything the guy told her about his back ground is false!

As Louie said in “Casablanca”, I’m shocked!

If this daughter has not done any good work on herself, with a counselor or therapist hopefully, there is no reason to expect her to make different choices in men. Her subconscious programming that drives her choices will accurately pick out a lying, cheating scumbag in a room full of altar boys.

Her parents, who taught her everything she knows, will continue to “hope” she makes better choices, but it’s like hoping that your car won’t roll downhill with the brake off.

I repeat, the reason you feel strongly attracted to someone (not just sexually) is because that person fits your subconscious program. If the program is warped, all your choices will be warped and you’ll be wondering “What are they all like that?”

Don’t look for another relationship until you fix the program.

It seems like there is no end to the stories from women who are allowing themselves to be mistreated, and seem to think that it’s normal. Here’s a brief synopsis of  a recent one:

“My dad said he’ll bless our marriage..few weeks after that my bf pulled back and got cold feet ..said he wasn’t ready for this kind of commitment. He didn’t even say goodbye, said that he could never have the courage to say that to me  and that it would kill him..he just sent me a txt msg with what he felt and then his mom whom I’m in a very  good relationship with told me how he feels about all that and how he loves me but he can’t get married  not now at least..”

So after this immature and “momma’s boy” behavior, she still asks me this:

“I know how much he loves me ..up to this point I’m not mad at him..my bf can never live without me, and I can’t either…its been almost 2 weeks now and he’ll call me very soon, I’m used to that:) but should I forgive what he did now and get back to him when he decides he’s ready?”

So my answer went something like this: “Your problem is this – why are you attracted to an immature man who treats you so badly? Do you not have pride in yourself as a woman who is worthy of being treated with respect?
If you don’t learn to respect yourself, it won’t matter if you go back to this same guy or not. You’ll find another guy, and he will disrespect you, too. You are a wonderful human being and you deserve to be treated right. Please do not settle for anything less in a relationship. Remember, when you are dating, the man is showing his best side. It will NOT get better after you marry.”

So what causes this? What the woman learned in her family. She learned that she isn’t important and waiting for the man to be nice is normal. She watched her mother be treated this way and she was treated this way by her father. To her it was normal. So now she has a guy who treats her like that and she is hoping that she can be good enough to be worthy of some attention.

How sad.