Relationship Rescue
By Phillip C. McGraw, Ph.D.
 Bucking the Trend: You can Make Your Relationship Work
First: it is not too late. If you do not allow yourself to believe and accept that, you will think your way out of this relationship before we have the chance to save it. You may think your relationship has failed, you may feel like you have tried everything, you may feel tired, deflated, and defeated, but I’m telling you, you have to get that thought out of your head or you are dead in the water with an anvil tied around your ankle. No matter how many times you’ve been hurt – no matter how many times you’ve been desappointed, no matter how many times you’ve believed it could be different only to be blindsided again – you have to be willing to give yourself one more chance. Even if you have hurt so long and so badly that you weren’t at all sure if you care whether your relationship survives; even if you’re not sure you can ever subject yourself to any more pain from a relationship; even if you do not feel motivated or very hopeful, you can start getting out of your ditch if you will just say to yourself, “I wish I felt good about my relationship again.” That’s all we need. If all you can muster in your mind and heart is to say, “I wish I felt good about this relationship again, and I wish I felt lovingly toward this person again because I know that at least one time in my life, those emotions felt good,” then that is enough of an ember for us to fan into a flame.
Second: you are not alone. You might feel bewildered and demoralized right now, engulfed by the loneliness that comes with a deteriorating relationship. You may feel intimidated and overwhelmed by what may seem like insurmountable problems or hurts that tend to run so very, very deep. But I want you to know that from now on, you have a partner. You have a partner who is willing to walk with you through this intimidating maze of emotion and who is willing to interact without judgment or criticism, but with the willingness and courage to tell you the truth. I am going to be that partner for you. I have now counseled thousands of people and taught tens of thousands of seminars, helping them create and maintain the key relationships in their lives. I have learned what you know and, more important, what you don’t know about sharing your life with another person. I have designed this approach to meet you at whatever point you find yourself in your relationship and give you the power to make changes – power that can come only from learning the absolute naked, unvarnished truth. Indeed, once you learn the real truth about how you got into this mess, and then once you learn what you can do to get rid of the mess, you will shudder to think you almost walked away. You are closer to success than you could ever imagine if you just have the courage to get real with yourself.
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