Landmarks of Healthy Relationships Archives - Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue

Podcast Ep. 75: #Relationshipgoals, The Common Denominator, Wanting Love Is OK

February 10, 2017 By NATALIE Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Welcome to another episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions.

In episode 75, I cover:

#relationship goals: I was a guest on the Melanin Millennials podcast earlier this week for their relationships special and we got onto the topic of people posting photos etc with the hashtag ‘relationshipgoals’ and aspiring to other people’s relationships. This got me thinking about how we sometimes put our relationships under pressure to ‘hit’ goals but also how our perception of other people’s relationships is often projection not reality.

The Common Denominator: I explain what it means when we recognise that we are the only person who shows up to every scene, act and moment of our life, so if there are recurring themes in our hurts, frustrations etc, we need to be willing to examine our side of the street.

Links mentioned

Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl

It’s OK to want to love and be loved: I talk about why it’s very real need and desire to love and be loved, but whether we want a relationship or not, it needs to be from a positive place.

Links

Listener Question: How do I stop feeling guilty over my breakup that I didn’t even instigate?

What I Learned This Week: Sometimes we expect too much of ourselves and we have to cut us some slack.

Listen to the podcast episode below. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe either on Soundcloud or on iTunes. If you’re new to podcasts, find out more about what they are and how to subscribe with this handy guide.

Leave a comment or post on Facebook, and please, if you enjoy it, subscribe and/or leave a review on iTunes (how-to guide here)–it really helps in growing the show. If you know someone who would enjoy it, please help spread the word. It all helps. Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com. Got a topic you’d love me to cover? Let me know!

Have a great weekend,

Nat xx

Figuring out whether you have the landmarks of a relationship that’s going somewhere good

September 2, 2015 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Something I’ve noticed when I listen to people describing their relationship is that they talk about what the person does, with it often being linked to what a previous partner wasn’t doing. “They text/call me regularly”; “They don’t stand me up”; “They’re not treating me like a booty call”; “They seem like they’re over their ex”; “There’s no harem with this one”. These rather funny descriptions provide clues about what they deem as their barometer for feeling comfortable or even compatible.

While this stuff is all well and good within the context of a mutually fulfilling relationship, when focused on too much, we won’t really have a sense of what makes a relationship work never mind what is making this (our) relationship work. Sometimes we focus on these details because we’re quite simply unsure of what to look for emotionally and in the overall feeling and substance of our relationship.

We might get so caught up in breathing a sigh of relief that we’re not getting messed around like we were before that we either fail to acknowledge genuine positive qualities and characteristics as well as components of our relationship…., or we fail to acknowledge incompatibilities caused by clashes in core values.

For example, I hear from a hell of a lot of women in particular who, because they get dinner, flowers and romance periodically, it took them months to a year or so to realise that they weren’t in a relationship. They got caught out by what I refer to as the hallmarks.

A relationship with hallmarks isn’t an automatic precursor to a relationship with the landmarks of healthy relationships – intimacy, consistency, progression, balance, and commitment.

These along with shared cored values and care, trust and respect that lead to love, are what are present in relationships that not only stand a chance of going the distance (in whatever form that may take – remember that marriage is not the only form of commitment!) but are present in relationships where we feel secure, content and basically happy on a consistent basis.

We’ve got to stop procrastinating in unavailable relationships

April 15, 2015 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Over the years, many a reader has claimed that they’ve been emotionally available to an emotionally unavailable partner. Here’s the thing:

If we are truly emotionally available and want to keep our integrity and basically not be met with tumbleweeds or the equivalent of, “What? What was that? You’re breaking up…” or even a ‘dead ringtone’, why are we choosing to be emotionally available to somebody who is afraid of intimacy, commitment, progression, balance, and consistency?

Why are we claiming to be emotionally available to somebody who doesn’t want to ‘hear’ us and ‘feel’ us to the level of which we’re claiming that we’re available?

One of the things I’ve learned from experience and also through the stories of BR readers, is that when we habitually engage with an emotionally unavailable person, even if we started out available, in the context of this involvement, we adjust ourselves. It may be conscious, it might be unconscious, but we do.

We can pick up on cues that indicate that certain subjects or situations are not a good idea.

We edit ourselves.

Let’s be real: If we’ve been raised in an environment with a lot of tension or where feelings or discussions were a no-no, or where we’ve gotten into the habit of being a pleaser, we can be pretty damn adept at reading a room or reading for what we feel are signs of tension, and then adjusting ourselves.

What do you do when you feel as if you’re putting yourself out there with somebody who at one point, was all over you like a rash or certainly giving the impression of availability, and now they seem to be stepping back by quietly or even aggressively putting up walls? You become more guarded and stop being as honest and vulnerable as you were before.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting love and a relationship but the path we choose to achieve our desires has its own consequences

February 12, 2015 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

I listen to people express their desire for a relationship and romantic love and there are a significant portion of these who come across embarrassed and almost apologetic. They feel as if they have to defend how they feel and what they believe, and some of these people, when confronted with romantic partners who are presenting them with something less than mutually fulfilling, will back away from their desires for the sake of keeping the peace and not wanting to appear “uptight”. Next thing, they’ve been on a permanent date for numerous years with one particular person who keeps flip-flapping in and out of their life or who keeps putting the brakes on any movement. They believe that what they want is wrong or that if they hang in there and keep trying to be as pleasing as possible, that the other party will finally cave and meet their needs, expectations, and wishes.

It’s OK to desire love and a relationship. If we get involved with somebody whose preference is for something else, that doesn’t invalidate our desire. Their preferences are a matter of taste for their life. Imposing theirs upon us, whether it’s them or us doing it, is to carry on as if their preferences are objectively ‘right’.

Sometimes our attitude to relationships reminds me of our attitude to enjoying life and retirement; we work ourselves to the bone and by the time we retire, we might be too frickin worn out with ill health or shrinking energy levels to actually enjoy our lives.

Similarly, we could spend a significant chunk of our life pursuing that one person that we’ve decided will be ‘it’ and that they’re eventually going to make us the exception to the rule or, maybe we’ll chase variations of the same person. If we finally get them to succumb to a relationship, we’ll probably be emotionally exhausted and bankrupt of energy, esteem, and even the the other things that used to matter to us, that it will all be a bit of anti-climax. Is this it?, we’ll wonder.

It’s important to be honest about what we want, not just so that we can be more authentic by being and doing the things that are in alignment with our values including our needs, expectations, and desires, but also so that we can consider how we’re going to go about fulfilling our desires.

We must consider the consequences of the option that we pursue.

Sometimes we get so focused on what we want and the basic premise that, yes, we’re only human and it’s only natural for us to want to love, be loved, and desire companionship, that we forget to consider the fact that there are various options for arriving into a relationship, all with consequences.

‘I Can Change Him/Her’ syndrome: Don’t tie your worth to trying to control the uncontrollable

October 23, 2014 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

When people share their stories with me and a recurring theme emerges, I ask: If we look at this story a different way, why are you consistently attracted to and involved with partners who pretty much need to spontaneously combust into another person with a different set of values and habits in order to make you happy?

Many people believe that if a person loves you, they’ll change and make you the exception to their rule of behaviour and when this doesn’t happen, they personalise it and blame their worth. Why is our happiness and sense of purpose tied up in whether we can get somebody to make us the exception to their rule of behaviour?

‘I Can Change Him/Her’ syndrome is a habit of engaging in relationships that are fixer uppers. Like property, it’s where you take on a partner due to what you regard as their potential due to the return on investment you’ll make from renovating, redesigning, or even stripping them right back and raising them from the ground up.

Someone with an I Can Change Him/Her habit of thinking and behaviour believes that the love and relationship is valuable if they have to work hard for or even fight for it and ultimately be made the exception. This is a key reason why people get involved with unavailable partners especially the heavy duty commitment dodger and assclown versions. When the person blows hot or throws crumbs, it feels like more than the loaf that could be gotten from an available partner.

Commitment: If they can’t show up for the basics, they won’t be able to show up for the long haul

June 13, 2014 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

So many people who feel twitchy about commitment say stuff like, “Natalie, it’s too much to expect somebody to know if they want to commit in the early stages of the a relationship”, which is the same as saying, “It’s too much to expect a person to make any decisions no matter how basic, in the early stages of a relationship.” A bit of probing and it becomes clear that that they’re twitchy about commitment because they associate the term with forever. Personally, I’d be damn scared of dating and being emotionally honest if I thought that me saying, “I like you. Let’s spend more time getting to know each other”, was going to be taken as an iron-clad forever agreement.

Commitment is a decision and we make decisions in all areas of our life and without even being conscious about half of the ones that we’re making – we use habits to take care of a lot of our decision making, sometimes too much so.

In terms of dating and relationships, when it comes to commitment, we phase it in – something I’ve written about before. At its most basic level, commitment is about showing up and then choosing and re-choosing to keep showing up to the relationship in a committed (decided at that level) capacity. If the person you’re with cannot show up for and with the basics, they’re not someone that you should be strapping yourself to for the long haul.

No matter whether we’ve just been introduced via a dating site or just met (stage 0), whether we’re dating (stage 1), whether we’re in a relationship (stage 2), whether we’re evolving into something more long-term (stage 3), or whether we’ve made a level of commitment that says that we’re in this for good (stage 4), all of these require us to show up.

This past Monday marked our two-year wedding anniversary – incidentally, after two years of being blanked, my father called and apologised but we’ll save that one for another day. One of the things I know with absolute certainty is that I can’t decide that I don’t feel like showing up to my marriage tomorrow. I can’t decide to emotionally check out or start shopping around. Well actually I could but in doing so, I would be making a decision that takes me in the opposite direction of commitment.

If I’d had a problem with showing up in the previous stages, that in itself would have indicated that we shouldn’t have been making another level of commitment through marriage.

I see relationships and the phases of commitment in a similar fashion to children learning to read. Here in England, they have different reading levels (by colour) and as the kids move up the levels, they enhance their literacy skills. Somebody who is on yellow – a preschooler – won’t have the same literacy level as someone who is a few levels along.

When we go from stage 0 and move along, we are becoming emotionally and relationship literate about each other, or at least we hope we are if we’re both working together.

Problems arise for instance, when we take stage 4 declarations seriously from someone who we’ve only been introduced to via a dating site (stage 0) or when we have ‘forever’ feelings and expectations for that person. This is Fast Forwarding and Future Faking. It also shows a lack of comprehension for what a relationship takes – action with time and experience.

The more assumptions you make, the more misunderstandings you have to deal with (Mo’ Assumptions, Mo’ Problems)

May 30, 2014 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

While sometimes our inability to understand each others’ positions on something can be attributed to incompatible values, sometimes it’s down to being at cross purposes – talking about different subjects without realising it and as a result, not understanding each other. Or thinking that you’re both communicating ‘correctly’ or the same… and not understanding each other. It’s easy to assume that because we feel a certain way about somebody or because we share similar interests or values, that communicating with that person or being understood, will be that much easier. We think that they’re the same or similar and feel safe.

This is our human disposition – to look for the familiar so that we don’t have to familiarise ourselves with new things or so that we can slip into default habits. Habits automate a significant part of our lives. We’d be exhausted if we had to think out every last move and make many thousands of decisions, hence if we can find someone who we regard as being on the same page as us, we can relax a bit and make some assumptions about what to expect. Of course as many of us can attest to, we feel confused, anxious, or even slighted when people don’t behave in the way we expect. Just ask anyone who’s been through the, But we have so much in common experience of sharing similar hobbies, interests, and even outlooks on certain issues, and yet not sharing the same direction or their characters clashing.

But they’re so intelligent, attractive, work in the same profession as me, and they like 18th century poetry by blah blah blah, recycling, War and Peace is their favourite book, and yada yada yada – I don’t understand how they don’t understand me. I don’t understand why they have a different personality to me and/or they don’t want the same things. Because you’re not clones no matter how much you have in common.

When two people are trying to communicate their positions and end up being at cross purposes, what becomes apparent is that each party believes that they’re speaking the same ‘language’ and that they’re coming at it with the same thought process, when in reality, each has their own individual communication style and way of looking at things, which is only discovered through that discovery phase of getting to know someone and continuing on from there in reality.

Don’t confuse what you want to avoid with being the same as what you desire or need

May 28, 2014 By NATALIE Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Having an awareness of how we truly want to feel and the path we want to walk, is crucial for ensuring that we don’t be and do things that inadvertently take us away from those very things. Too often, we focus on what we want to avoid and we neglect to realise that the actions and thinking that go into avoidance are not the same as what would go into being and doing the things that reflect our needs, expectations and desires.

For instance, wanting to be happy within a mutually fulfilling relationship that allows us to be our authentic self, is not the same as having the desire for a relationship based on fear of being alone or fear of having to step up.

Can we honestly say that we would use the same thinking and actions for a healthy relationship as we would to avoid being alone? Would we make the same choices?

One is about love, care, trust, respect, shared values, interdependence, and personal security, and the other… is about codependency (excessive emotional reliance on others), and this only compromises all of the things that go into making a healthy relationship as well as leaving us with a very fragile self-esteem.

Attraction is prompted by instincts: If we lack self-knowledge, our intuition is off, which means our instincts are off too

January 31, 2014 By NATALIE Reading Time: 3 Minutes

If you’re involved with someone who backs off once they feel in control of the dynamic and then blows hot when they’re uncertain about you and basically out of control, that’s someone who lacks self-awareness and is running off of their feelings. When they feel panicky as the intimacy builds, or their desire wanes as they become vulnerable or when normality kicks in and you each have to deal with life’s inevitables’s, they’ll respond to those feelings and bail / play up and not consider the fact that they have intimacy and problem solving issues. They’ll claim, yet again, that something wasn’t right with the relationship or their exes. They have typical responses to their feelings but don’t really dig too deep (if at all) for reasoning and knowledge that would help them read their feelings and make more authentic choices grounded in a healthy sense of self.

A lot of what we do with regards to attraction is driven by instinct, and our instincts and intuition are very much governed by how connected we are to ourselves.

Do we feel all of our feelings? Are we willing to be emotionally honest and listen to our own thoughts and feelings? Do we live by our values? Do we even know what our needs, expectations, and desires are and how to step up for most of these as well as how to healthily seek them in others? Are we responsible and accountable, or do we tend to look for external solutions to internal problems? Do we, for instance, blame it all on qualities or characteristics of our ex when our relationships break down or even claim that all of our exes are ‘psychos’? Do we act first, think later? Do we get carried away and place too much stock in our intentions and so end up Future Faking and Fast Forwarding? Do we edge or even dive out of relationships claiming that we don’t want a relationship and aren’t up for commitment and then have our ex’s feeling more than a tad confused when they see us prancing around with a new partner claiming that they’re the ‘love of our life’ in two shakes of a lamb’s tail?

You may recognise flip-flapping, hot and cold blowing exes who you’ve probably lost some sleep over wondering why they’re with someone else and not you. You may be blaming you when actually, it’s not about you.

If we’re disconnected from aspects of ourselves, our instincts will be off base and this means that until we’re aware of the patterns of thinking and behaviour that result from us running off what we believe to be the ‘correct’ information from our instincts, we’ll be driven primarily by feelings that we may not be aware of the origins of or may even be mislabeling them. The less we truly know about ourselves and the trickier we find it to have an honest conversation with us and be willing to look within, is the more muddled our intuition will be, which in turn will mess with our instincts, which will not only affect our fight or flight response, but also who we’re attracted to.

This means that not only do we have to stop owning other people’s behaviour to the extent that we do but that we also have to recognise that we ourselves are going to be making some unhealthy ‘instinctive’ decisions if we don’t know ourselves either and have our own emotional unavailability issues to deal with.

We cannot expect to be in a mutually fulfilling relationship with the landmarks – consistency, commitment, balance, progression and intimacy plus shared values – if we lack the self-knowledge that stems from knowing our own needs, expectations, wishes, feelings, and opinions. Not knowing these is why we wake up knee-deep in a relationship feeling hungry and recognising that there are issues around compatible values.

When we are willing to know ourselves more, we change not only who we’re attracted to (and why) but are also happier with the results of who we’re attracted to, instead of carrying the same baggage, beliefs, behaviours and attitudes and choosing similar people and then wondering why we’re getting the same results, and then lather, rinse, repeat.

Until we’re willing to recognise and represent ourselves, not only will we struggle to have self-trust, but we’ll be living off of our feelings and lamenting why we can’t make a healthy relationship with an unhealthy attraction. The two things don’t match! We won’t have the instincts to assert our boundaries, because we won’t have the self-awareness to use reasoning and knowledge to back us up. The way we treat our feelings will keep leading us astray.

Change doesn’t come without change. The most radical change you may have to make is being willing to know yourself more. That can only be a good thing.

Your thoughts?

Revisited: Relationships in a Nutshell – Co-pilots & the importance of a joint agenda

August 7, 2013 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

After much observation and plenty of experience, I believe that healthy relationships have joint agendas and co-pilots and unhealthy ones have drivers and passengers with solo and hidden agendas.

When you recognise the importance of being a co-pilot sans a hidden agenda, not only will it be far harder to be swept along by an unavailable or assclown tide, but you’ll no longer be ‘helpless’ in your relationships and will have the ability to work out where you’re at.

We can become very focused on the ‘hallmarks’ – these are what we consider to be the ‘markings’ of a relationship such as sleeping together over an extended period of time, having things in common, great sex, a ‘connection’, ‘chemistry’, future talk, being introduced to people, etc as well as big ticket commitment items like moving in, babies, marriage. These are nice, great even, to have, but without the landmarks, your relationship is all shirt, no trousers.

Many people chase stuff like passion, chemistry and common interests and then wonder why it’s not working. They assume that if these elements are present that the landmarks will automatically follow.

The landmarks of healthy relationships are intimacy, consistency, balance, progression, and commitment as well as shared values and what should come as standard in any relationship – love, care, trust, and respect.

If you have the hallmarks without the landmarks, your relationship is either casual and/or unhealthy. Before you go doing any big ticket commitment items, I suggest you make sure that the landmarks are present first.

As individuals, we each have our own agenda which caters to taking care of our self-esteem with boundaries and healthy beliefs, as well as our values that tell us what we believe are the most important things for us to live authentically and happily.

We use dating as a discovery phase to discover the facts about one another and ultimately whether we can have a shared agenda that respects each party healthily as individuals while creating a common journey for the relationship.

Healthy relationships have co-pilots steering them along with open discussion about the joint agenda as well as all of the landmarks – no hidden agendas. You will steer and plot your journey together and even if at times, one has to man the steering, they continue with the joint agenda. These are mutually fulfilling relationships.

Unhealthy relationships/casual relationships have a driver and a passenger.

The driver steers the relationship on their terms, agenda, and ‘route’. They may have a solo agenda that they’re open about and/or may have a hidden agenda. They’re sometimes egotistical enough to assume that their agenda is the joint agenda because it’s what they want.

You will know you’re involved with a driver if you attempt to co-pilot and meet restrictions and conflict – they take a parachute and jump, or pull up on the route to say that they need to go to the ‘toilet’ and then disappear. Or maybe they’ll steer the relationship so crazily that you panic and agree to let them be in control. You get the gist.

Drivers are about getting their needs met. They often need a passenger for their ego etc, but they don’t want to step up and put the needed effort into a co-piloted relationship – they’re controlled and often controlling.

Passengers basically take a backseat in the relationship. They tend to get swept up in other people’s agendas because they’re not as street smart (read: relationship smart) as they should be. They may actually be on this journey because through a lack of boundaries and latching onto the hallmarks of a relationship, they were not paying attention to code red and amber behaviour.

They will tack on to the drivers agenda assuming that this is what ‘love’ is about, so they end up not living congruently with their boundaries and values.

Many passengers however, actually know the driver’s agenda and hope to change it. They think if they love enough, get the driver to change, cry, beg, plead, wait, give them their money, that the driver will become a co-pilot and they’ll have a joint agenda.

Passengers with very low self-esteem look to others to create their agenda for them and give them validation. When the relationship ends, they feel lost.

Passengers tend to have hidden agendas even though they won’t always admit it. Sometimes the agenda is about changing the relationship (could be a mix of playing Florence Nightingale and trying to be the exception to the rule or I Can Change Them), but it’s also often about catering to the self-fulfilling prophecy of negative and unrealistic beliefs.

Sometimes passengers try to be drivers or backseat drivers and get shot down. When they end the relationship or they get back together after the driver has promised that things will be different ‘this time’, they may actually feel like the driver.

In some instances, it can seem like it’s passenger:passenger – ie you’re both really messed up together but you will find that under those layers, someone is actually the driver.

Most drivers and passengers are trying to be drivers – they have ‘ideas’ about how they want the relationship to be and try to steer it that way. There are some passengers who actually want to take a backseat role and may be inclined to be victims or helpless.

Passengers and drivers have unhealthy relationship habits and are invariably emotionally unavailable so until they address their issues, being a co-pilot in a mutually fulfilling healthy relationship is unlikely because they are not prepared to be honest and vulnerable enough to risk a joint agenda.

They forget that in a healthy relationship, each party is sharing the risk of being vulnerable to healthily emotionally engage and be authentic in the best interests of their own sense of self and the relationship.

I’ve written before about why relationships don’t always work out – because you’re two potentially compatible people who may be doing stuff that’s counterproductive that eventually ends up making you both incompatible or because you’re actually incompatible, whether it’s because you’re two great people with different agendas due to your values etc or because it’s an unhealthy relationship.

It’s important to recognise that addressing issues in relationships needs to be co-piloted too – you can’t work at something where another person has their foot out the door, has already moved on, or is in denial.

When you leave a relationship that isn’t working for you, it’s because you recognise that your agendas cannot be a joint one.

If you want to establish a relationship on a good footing or quickly determine if you have a ‘driver’ on your hands, do not accept the default role of passenger and take an active role in shaping your relationship with partners. If you discover you’re involved with a driver, don’t burn up your life fuel trying to sort out what you think are their problems – address the issues that make you a passenger first.

In some instances, when you change, the driver may adapt as well, but you’re also likely to find that the relationship is no longer attractive because your mentality has changed.

Basically always seek to be a co-pilot with a co-pilot.

That is relationships in a nutshell.

Your thoughts?

Holiday Update

I saw in the comments about turning Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl into a movie – I won’t say much but… there is a movie script being written all the way over in LA by a couple of screenwriters who love BR. But don’t get too excited yet as we all know that this movie malarkey is a precarious business!
I skipped out of the house today and had most of the day to myself. I popped to Brockley (it’s South East London) for the first time to collect some yellow Sun-San sandals for myself and as I walked out, I heard “Hello Baggage Reclaim lady” and I got to meet BR reader Simone Lia, who also gave me a copy of her graphic novel (as in comic not x-rated), Please God, find me a husband! I started reading it on the tube and was dirty laughing within minutes! I’ve just heard from Saria (6), ‘Mummy, why are you reading a book called Please God, find me a husband?’
I also met up with our best man today for lunch in Shoreditch and left with a dodgy tummy. I honestly didn’t think I’d make it home!
I’ve been so busy yapping with my mother-in-law each day and hanging with the girls that time has been flying this week! I have lots of ideas cooking but… I’m just writing them down at the moment!
Saria had a talk at school about private parts a few weeks ago. I heard the girls ‘educating’ their grandma yesterday about ‘gino’s’ and ‘pennies’ and wept laughing in the bedroom.

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Revisted: How To Avoid Being a Passing Time Candidate – 30 Signs That Somebody Isn’t Interested Or Is Half-Heartedly Interested In You

July 26, 2013 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

On the fence. 30 Signs of Disinterest. Photo by Nick Tiemeyer on Unsplash

One of my most frequently asked questions is, How do I know whether he/she is interested in me? What often trips us up, isn’t whether they’re interested in us but what they’re actually interested in us for and whether we have a match. Us humans are inclined to be blinded by the ‘hallmarks’ (gifts, shags, big talk and even being introduced to their parents/friends) but are often left hungry due to the lack of ‘landmarks’ (consistency, balance, progression, commitment, intimacy plus shared values with love, care, trust and respect). When we have the landmarks, we have the interest.

In this post, I share 30 signs of disinterest that not only undermine any perceived landmarks but that also put a serious question mark over any hallmarks.

About this list

In the past, I made a lot of excuses for the behaviours of people that I was involved with, the anxiety that I felt with them and my continued investment. Over the years of writing this blog, I’ve read thousands of comments and emails where we make excuses, rationalise shady stuff, ignore code red and amber alerts and our own needs, and basically linger or even stay rammed stuck in relationships long beyond their ‘use by date’.

We do this all on the basis of a couple of things: the person is still ‘there’ in some capacity and we assume that they have ‘some’ interest that can be made into ‘more’. Cue trying to prove ourselves, seeking validation and attempting to avoid rejection. One of the things that we must do–and by we, I mean both men and women because these issues affect both sexes–is to recognise when someone isn’t interested or is ‘vanilla’ in their interest.

The key here is to avoid splitting hairs about what level of interest they have because it all boils down to two things:

This person is either in or they’re out and they’re either treating you decently or they’re not.

If any of the following signs of disinterest are in your relationship, I’d take a parachute and jump because all 30 of these either on their own or joined up with others make for an unhealthy partnering. You deserve better. Don’t sell yourself short.

Recognise signs of disinterest so that you don’t allow someone to ‘pass time’ with you.

1. They’re not contacting you or are sporadically contacting you.

2. They may not even bother speaking with you and rely predominantly on emails, text messages, and instant messenger.

3. They treat you like an option.

4. They don’t want to put both of their feet in and commit. They’d like you to ‘go with the flow’ even if there is none and not expect beyond that.

5. The relationship doesn’t progress – it goes in fits and starts, stalls, or goes into reverse.

6. They’re keeping you a secret.

7. They tend to be around/call you up when they want something (read: they’re a user). It might be money, attention, an ego stroke, sex, an armchair psychologist, but if you think back to all the times when you’ve heard from them, you may notice that it was a preamble to something.

8. They leave it to the last minute/short notice to make plans. They may not even bother to make last minute plans – they might just show up late at night expecting you to be around.

9. They create drama to hint at their disinterest because they’re hoping that you will do the dirty work and end the relationship.

10. When you’re broken up with them, they get in touch, often in a lazy manner just to ensure that you still jump to their beat. In fact, take the fact that you’re not in a relationship with them as a major sign of disinterest. Don’t make the mistake of thinking they got in touch because they want to get back together.