Turn into Rubber and Bounce Back From Relationship Adversity

Doesn’t it seem like some people are simply unshakable? Everyone knows someone that seems to be made completely out of rubber. Life knocks them down and they bounce off the floor right back to their feet.
So what’s the formula to turn emotional mush into optimistic relationship rubber?
1. Build your personal value. I pound on this point incessantly. You need to work on raising your personal worth up. Focus on the positive things that you have to offer. You may be loyal and supportive, entertaining and fun, or intellectually stimulating and interesting. You have your strengths that are appealing to people around you. What are they? Find them and accentuate them. (This isn’t just the physical things. You can’t push your tits up to your chin and call it a day ladies.) Know these things and you will have more confidence that the last one won’t be the last one.
2. Reflect on what happened, but only briefly. I have advocated a rule of one month per year of relationship to be alone and get yourself back to being you. I consider this to be brief. Try to keep it brief. Take the steps that I outlined in my blog about getting over a break up and concentrate on making it happen. Learn what you can, get focused on you, and get past it. Take the time to get it right, but don’t waste time moping.
3. Learn to believe that some things have nothing to do with you. A lot of women beat themselves up trying to make sense out of things. They can’t figure out why he would do something like that, or how it could go from seemingly so great to so bad. They tend to think it was something they did or didn’t do. Sometimes things happen that would have happened no matter what you did. If he cheats with his coworker, maybe he was just a cheater. Maybe there wasn’t anything you could have done to change that at all. You could have been the best looking, more interesting, most entertaining and amazing woman ever, and he still would have done it. Sometimes, there isn’t anything you need to change at all. Some things are simply out of your control. Learn to accept that.
4. If it didn’t work out, it wasn’t the relationship you were looking for anyway. This is one of those cliché things that people say to you to make you feel better. “You’re too good for him. He isn’t the right man for you anyway.” There is some real truth in this. If it didn’t work out it wasn’t going to work out. It’s better that it didn’t work out now rather then not working out two more years from now. No matter what the reason was that it didn’t work out, the bottom line is that it didn’t. If there is an issue for either one of you that’s a deal breaker, it’s always better to know. Every relationship has its issues. The right relationship is about both people being compatible enough to not have major differences, and being committed enough to work through the minor ones. Do you really want a relationship where your partner is on the opposite end of major beliefs from you? Do you really want a relationship with a partner that isn’t committed enough to work through the minor things.
5. There really are plenty of fish in the sea. There are about 60 million men of dating age (17-45) in the U.S. Although women outnumber men 51% to 49% this isn’t true in the dating age group. Men outnumber women in this group. Of that 30% are have never married, 9% are single again, and 27% are about to be single again. 80% of men in the U.S. have high school degrees or greater. 86% of them are considered “in the work force.” (actual jobs) If you break that down, there are about 27 million single men of dating age, which have jobs and some education, in the U.S. For those of you living here in the Sacramento area, that works out to about 103,000 just in the city of Sacramento. Now subtract how many of those you have personally dated, and notice the number doesn’t change much.
Here is the bottom line. Focus on the positives, play to your strengths, be patient, and keep it in perspective. The end of a relationship can feel like a knock down. If you work on being a little more like rubber, you’ll be surprised how fast you bounce back to your feet.