Self Improvement Online Relationships - Does Your Relationship Need Help Page

When to Ask for Relationship Help

By Rinatta Paries

ThirdAge.Com is a great romance and relationship resource site.

It's not your job to figure out how to fix your new partner so that you can have the relationship you have always wanted. Even if you are really good at figuring out what your new partner needs to work on, it's unlikely your partner will make these changes for the sake of the relationship.

People make permanent changes for their own sake, not for a loved one's sake -- that's just how human nature works. For example, you can't get an addict to quit an addiction for his or her relationship -- only for the sake of his or her own life. People will sometimes try to make changes just because it will please the other person, but the changes usually don't stick.

If you and your new partner like each other and maybe are beginning to fall in love, but yet keep running into problems and issues, get outside support -- a therapist or a coach, a book or an e-class. If one thing doesn't work, try another.

The longer you keep trying to problem-solve and fix your relationship yourself, the more heartache you are likely to feel later on, when you still have to get outside help to make your relationship work. The more mature your relationship gets, the harder the two of you will have to work to change it.

If your new partner values the relationship and his or her growth, bringing needed changes to light is all you can do. Whether the changes are made or not is up to your new partner and whomever he or she chooses to support the changes.

It's not your job to save, revamp or dry out your new partner, or to put up with his or her bad stuff -- in other words, to fix your new partner. This is hard to resist, especially if you are good at seeing what needs to be changed. But if you value the relationship and want it to last, you will reach for help instead of trying to be the help yourself.

Master Certified Relationship Coach Rinatta Paries coaches singles to attract and build loving, fulfilling, long-term relationships. For more information about Coach Rinatta Paries and the myriad of services she has created for singles, visit her Web site, WhatItTakes.com.