Hi! My name is Bruce Muzik.
And whether or not you're in a relationship
the next 15 minutes are going to be important for you
Because you're about to learn secrets that most smart people never learn...
about what it takes to make romantic relationships really work.
We'll take a look at why you have attracted your romantic partner?
And if you're single right now,
why you have attracted the romantic partners you have in the past?
And it's not what you think it's going to be.
We're also going to take a look at the five stages that your romantic relationship is going to need to go through...
if you want to create long-term connection, stability, security and love.
We are going to look at which stage you are most likely to get stuck at, and what to do if you do.
Finally, we are going to take a look at what to do
once the blissful feelings of falling in love begin to fade.
As they so often do in long-term romantic relationships.
So if you and I haven't met before... I'm Bruce.
I'm originally from South Africa currently living in the Caribbean
Hence the palm trees behind me.
And I'm really passionate about helping smart people like you
build unbreakable bonds with your romantic partner
and helping you experience all the joy, the connection, the intimacy,
and the freedom that a romantic relationship that works has to offer.
Without settling, without compromising, and without losing yourself in the process.
Follow me inside and let's get going.
If you're anything like me then your relationship probably started out
as a series a magical moments.
With your heart pounding
and your spirits soaring!
And your stomach doing flip-flops just at the thought of seeing him or her, right?
You felt so loved, and you felt so wanted, appreciated, and needed, right?
You were joined at the hip.
And then one day...
A terrible thing began to happen...
That feeling of falling in love began to fade away...
and you started to realize just how different you were from your partner
and perhaps how much of yourself you've sacrificed
in order to be in the relationship with your partner.
Now the little things that you used to love about your partner begin to annoy you...
and before you know it
you're arguing about the dumbest things.
You've entered what we call the Power Struggle stage.
What do we do when we enter the Power Struggle stage?
In order to get our needs met... in order to have that feeling of being in love... again
We figure, we better go about changing our partner
to be more like they used to be, and to be more like us. Right?
Does that sound familiar?
If you've ever tried to change anybody before
you've probably noticed that it never works.
So both you and your partner are equally trying to change each other
during this Power Struggle stage...
And before you know it, the relationship that was once this safe haven of love
now becomes this place that's full of uncertainty
and were you feel like you have to walk on eggshells around your partner.
Were you don't feel accepted
just for being the person that you are.
When this happens we begin to feel disconnected.
Once we begin to feel disconnected we usually do one of two things:
We either become needy and try to reconnect with our partner
or we become shut down and need space and want to withdrawal.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Am I close?
If you can relate to anything I've just shared, I've got two things I want to say to you
One is: "Your normal, and it's not your fault."
Every relationship goes through this Power Struggle stage
when you leave the Romance Stage on the way to stability
You can't go around it.
There's only one way and that's through it.
And two: "There's hope."
Paradoxically, in order to learn to love you need to learn to fall out of love first.
And this is just a natural stage you're going through.
If you educate yourself about how to get through the Power Struggle stage
on the other side
is a deeper - more mature -
opportunity for romance, intimacy and connection.
That's way beyond anything you could've experienced back here
in the Romance Stage.
How is it that we can go on one hand
being head over heels in love with our partner?
to on the other hand feeling like our partner's causing us pain in the relationship?
One reason could be: That relationships go through five predictable stages.
As identified by Dr. Susan Campbell in her study of hundreds of couples.
The first stage is called the Romance stage.
When we fall in love,
we fall in love with the single most incompatible person for us, in the universe.
The person most capable
of causing us the most pain and least capable of meeting our primary human needs.
Why?
It turns out that we human beings are no different from anything else in nature.
We're either growing or we're dying.
Of course nature wants us to grow.
So nature makes us fall in love with the most incompatible person in the Universe.
The person most able and capable
of making our worst nightmares come true.
Why?
Because that person is going to be the most capable of pushing our buttons
and forcing us to grow and expand in our lives.
They're the perfect person to insure our growth.
But if we knew
this person was the most incompatible person in the Universe for us
We would run as fast as possible for the hills
Right?
So... Nature drugs us.
Yep! That's the only way we could possibly fall in love
with the most incompatible person in the Universe.
Your brain releases a series of chemicals like Phenylethylamine and Oxytocin
and Dopamine
That have you fall in love so you can only see your partner
through rose tinted glasses.
You would only focus in the Romance Stage
on how you and your partner the same
and you ignore your differences.
You'll do anything to please your partner
and have them like you.
Because you're high on drugs!
If you weren't you'd run a mile, right?
What happens is that this drug induced high
lasts for anywhere between two months and two years
and probably an average four to six-months
before it begins to wear off.
And when it begins to wear off, you have what I like to call a "love hangover".
You wake up in bed with the most incompatible person in the Universe
and you go AHHHH!!
AND the Power Struggle stage begins.
And this is where the highest percentage of first marriage divorce's happen
Usually, around the three to four-year into the relationship mark.
What ends up happening is that once your brain stops releasing the oxytocin,
and the dopamine, and all these beautiful drugs,
you wake up and you realize just how much of yourself you sacrificed in order
to be in a relationship with this person.
And now you want yourself back! You want to reclaim your independence
and your autonomy.
So you enter into this kind of tug-of-war...
This battle of wills with your partner
trying to be in a relationship and yet still be independent.
And what happens is because most couples
- ninety-nine percent of them, I reckon -
Are not educated around how to navigate conflict.
How to actually communicate and how to deal with this Power Struggle stage
They end up dealing with it in one of two dysfunctional ways:
They either breakup or they survive.
The breakup route
usually happens with people who have been kind of serial daters.
They go round, and round, and round in the Romance stage.
Falling in love with that feeling of being in love
in a drug induced high of being a drug addict.
And I like to say "The only difference between a drug addict and falling in love
is that falling in love is legal".
And they fall in love with this feeling of being high on love
to then, end up being serial daters. The minute they hit the Power Struggle stage
they run away from their relationship
and find the next one.
The second way people deal with the Power Struggle stage
without actually moving beyond it
is to survive.
In that they usually resigned themselves to compromise
or sacrifice.
And they give up what they really want in order to be with their partner
Of course, the relationship emotionally dies.
They die internally. I've been there and done this in the past too.
And then their sex life dies as well. Often this ends up in infidelity or...
the partner's just eventually growing apart and...
the relationship breaking up in the end... OR the relationship surviving a lifetime of pain.
When the Power Struggle happened to me in my relationship
I was caught completely off guard
We've gone so quickly in a matter of months from being head over heels in love
to being in conflict and fighting with each other.
It seems we couldn't have a conversation
that just felt connected
without it being blown out of proportion into an argument.
I couldn't understand it!
Because I've been a seminar leader who'd helped thousands of people
all around the world transform their lives.
And yet I couldn't seem to accomplish the simple task
of getting the woman that I loved to respond to me in a way that
had us feel connected and in love with each other.
Then something completely unexpected happened...
She left me...
and she moved to another country.
I was shocked and caught completely off guard.
I decided that this woman was my soulmate
and I was going to do whatever I could to get her back
So being the geek that I am...
I went and I studied with successful couples who've gotten through the Power Struggle stage and have done
built a lifetime of love. I started studying communication skills
I started studying conflict resolution. And I came up
with an alternative to the first two options of breaking up
or just surviving.
I like to call this taking the third option.
The option that most couples don't even know about, let alone take.
Taking the third option
Involves learning how to love consciously.
Involves, instead of seeing your partner as the most incompatible person in the world
you start to see them as the most qualified person to help you grow
instead of your relationship just being something that makes you happy and
secure
you transform your relationship into a crucible that allows you to grow and
mature as human beings together.
And in order to accomplish all of this you're going to need to learn some skills
that you definitely weren't taught by your parents
or by your teachers at school.
Certainly, that's what I had to do.
It took us six months of negotiating our differences
before she phoned me up one day and said:
"Bruce, nobody makes me feel as loved and as accepted as you do.
I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you".
As you can imagine that was the happiest day of my life.
And we didn't get there by accident
Do we still fight? Do we still have arguments?
Of course we do!
But they never turn into them mudslinging matches that they use to.
They never turn into name-calling.
They turn into opportunities for us to become more intimately connected.
Through every one of our arguments now, we're able to turn it around
and move through them,
so that that cycle of repeating the same arguments over and over again
stops happening. And we start to getting arguments complete.
So once you've learned to fight in a way that has both of you win
you enter into the Stability Stage.
And this is a beautiful stage were you can take a deep breath
(SIGH)
and relax... as the romance from the Romance stage returns
but in a deeper more mature way.
And all that connectedness returns.
And you realize that you're never going to change your partner,
and they're never going to change you,
and you've given up even trying to do so, and you're happy to accept them
just the way that they are.
In this stage if you master the communication skills and you
learn mutual respect
you move on to the next stage which is the Commitment Stage.
If you don't master those skills and you don't learn that mutual respect
you go back to the Power Struggle stage,
round and round and round and round. Until you.... DIE.
Not a pretty picture, but that's how most relationships end up and that's why
we have a divorce rate that's higher than 50 percent
Let's take a look at the Commitment Stage.
In this stage you choose your partner just as they are.
You begin to experience a beautiful balance of fun,
power, love, belonging, and freedom!
And you can honestly say to your partner:
"I love loving you just as you are. Flaws and all"
This is the first stage where
you're really ready to make a commitment and get married
or do whatever your version of that is. Perhaps do a
spiritual partnership commitment. Unfortunately, most couples get married
or commit to each other
in the Romance Stage when they're COMPLETELY high on drugs
and they have no idea who each other are.
And they have no idea how to navigate through conflict when it happens.
And then they wake up one day, and they're trapped in this marriage,
and before they know it they've gotten kids
and they don't know how to navigate it.
This stage of the Commitment Stage
is the first stage where you're really ready to make an explicit commitment to your partner
And if you do... and you do it correctly, you end up moving to the next stage
which is called the Bliss Stage.
And in the Bliss Stage the two of you as a team
go out into the world and you move beyond your relationship,
and your relationship as a third unit actually becomes a gift
that goes out into the world and makes a difference together.
Perhaps you're working on a project together.
Perhaps you're doing something in your community together.
Perhaps you start a business together. Whatever the case may be, your relationship
serves the world as a gift and you get to make a difference together.
There you have it! The five stages of relationship: Romance
Power Struggle, Stability, Commitment and Bliss
Now, which stage are you at? Tell the truth to yourself.
Where are you?
In the next video I'm gonna teach you some skills for how to fight for love
I'm gonna teach you two myths that if you believe them will actually destroy any chance
of your relationship lasting a lifetime.
I'm going to teach you two mindsets for de- escalating conflict
when you're fighting or arguing with your partner.
We're also going to look at the anatomy of a fight and how fights work and why they happen?
And then we're going to finally move on to how to break that cycle
of having the same arguments over and over again, never resolving
the actual issue at its root.
I hope you found this video valuable
And you were able to see yourself in one of those five stages
I'd love to hear from you about what you thought
and perhaps what you're struggling with
in your relationship right now going through the Power Struggle stage.
So please do leave me a comment down below and I'll do my best
to address your questions in a future video
I'm going to be launching the LOVE AT FIRST FIGHT coaching program soon.
Where I am going to be teaching these communication skills I have been talking about...
So, if you'd like to get notified before anybody else is...
about when we open the doors to that program. Just pop your email address in a little
box down below
and hit the button and we'll send you an email before we send the email out
to everybody else
And finally... if you thought this video was valuable and there are other
people in your life whom you feel
would get value out of watching it. Please, use the share button.
Share this on Facebook... email it to your friends...
so that other people can get the same value out of this as well.
So...from my home in the Caribbean, I am signing off.
Wishing you a day filled with love,
and passion, and connection with your partner.
I'll talk to you soon... Bye...