00:00 [Music] hello everyone and thank you for tuning in if you celebrate hope you had a good holiday just think in just a few days it's going to be a new year and I know many of you they're listening or saying good riddens so on Monday New Year's day I'll have a special episode but in the meantime I'm going to take a request of a listener named darl and talk just a bit about relationships thanks for the requests darl and thank you for your support it is much appreciated one of the things I feel is

00:59 a really good idea idea is to consider taking stock of yourself just an overall snapshot of your life more specifically I'm going to talk about relationships a little bit because functional relationships are very important for your happiness now of course there are many different kinds of relationships but in this case I'm going to be talking about relationships that are bit more personal such as husband wife girlfriend boyfriend domestic partner whatever you call it that kind of relationship now as things currently

01:44 stand in your life as far as this is concerned how's it going if it's going great well of course that's fine I'm happy for you I hope it keeps going that way but but if things are not going that well maybe now is the time to do a bit of re-evaluation you see one of the things that I'm reminded of with a new year is the simple fact that time moves on and if you're not careful you can be in a relationship that is mediocre at best for several years not even realizing how much time is passing next thing you know

02:31 it's six seven or eight years has passed and then you end up having the big breakup and after that you'll be kicking yourself simply because that much time in your life passed and you'll be angry because compared to the goals you had in mind that time was wasted and that's one thing a person definitely doesn't want to do is waste time we all only have so much and we're not going to get anymore so speaking of time let's jump right into that part of relationships that I would consider to be bad and time

03:16 wasting because actually it's fairly simple and straightforward now you'll notice when I started talking about this I said it in such a way that a assumes you are not the problem person but of course I have no way of knowing that only you would but there are a few key things I can tell you and this is backed up by much research that in order for a couple to have any possibility of getting anything decent out of this life you're going to need amongst other things to have simular goals so say for example you're sick of

04:04 being poor and doing all you can do to try to change and improve your life the other person is only being half asked about this you need to quit that relationship because that other person is in a different reality and not a very good one at least as far as your life is concerned now on the other hand if you are both dysfunctional and if that doesn't change then the story is not going to end well most likely for either one of you because certain kinds of dysfunctionality destroy Futures and if you share that whether that be together

04:52 or separate you still stay on a much higher probability of failure but make no mistake even two people that have this one dysfunction that I'm going to talk about it's like a plane that has two engines and one of them goes out yes it can still fly for a while but it's much more likely not going to be able to make it where it needs to land the dysfunctionality I'm talking about and please stick with me and hear me out is drugs and alcohol more specifically alcohol you see there's actually a lot

05:39 more people with alcohol dysfunction than drugs and alcohol because most people don't see alcohol as nearly as bad as drugs or doing both drugs and alcohol not to mention the fact that alcohol is legal and corporately pimped consistently on TV and of course available almost anywhere the short and not so sweet of this is that the vast majority of people are actually whether they will admitt it or not addicted to alcohol and alcohol damages everything in your body including your brain's cognitive ability that is current scientific

06:31 fact alcohol even a small amounts negatively affects every part of your body particularly the brain so if you're somebody and you don't uh you're somebody that doesn't drink you know alcohol or do drugs well you know good for you but don't stay with somebody who does because ultimately even if they have a good job at the moment and they are what is known as a very functional alcoholic in time they will fail and they will drag their life down as well as your own I know that sounds harsh especially when love

07:17 is involved but life is Harsh and drinkers don't love themselves and if you don't love yourself you can't really love someone else so now that I've possibly gotten one of the worst case scenarios out of the way let's talk about the middle ground this is where I feel most people are and I feel it deserves the most attention now having said what I just said I don't want you to get the impression that I'm telling you to throw the baby out with the bath water some relationships can and should be repaired

08:02 if possible but it requires a commitment from both people so if you can get the drugs and alcohol out of the picture the next hurdle is something that many people don't stop to consider some of the many issues that come up between families and even friends I would like to take a brief moment with a message for our sponsor you now if you found this episode interesting or informative I would really appreciate it if you would hit the Subscribe and notification Bell it really does help the channel grow if you

08:47 want to contact me or offer some support you can do so from the links in the description below well even a cup of coffee would be greatly appreciated and now back to the show you see uh a couple should never let others come between them and yes that includes children I have known for example people that were together who obviously loved one another but over time and this is especially the case of mothers who have children from a previous relationship let's say those kids are teenagers and those teenagers have teenage reasons

09:34 why they don't like the man or the woman and say or do things deliberately intended to drive a wedge between the parents relationship that needs to be nipped in the bud in such a case for example that a woman has kids from a previous relationship it would be the the mother's responsibility to tell the children that regardless of what they think this is Assuming he's really not a bad person that that is the man she loves and she expects them to respect him they don't have to love him but they are expected to respect him and if they

10:25 disrespect him they are disrespecting her and there will be consequences now what those consequences are are unique to the given situation but whatever they are they need to be followed through otherwise the words are meaningless and teenagers will always test you but you must remain firm because as another life lesson you'll be teaching them that words actually have meaning and consequences are consequences they may be angry at you now but they'll thank you later in life there's so much more I could say

11:12 about this but alas time is short so I'll leave you with this closing thought it is for this and actually many more reasons that you should never strive to be your children's friend in any way seeking their approval you are their parent their teacher and if that aspect of the relationship can be firmly established as a parent you'll have a much greater chance that your kids will develop into decent and functional adults not adult children and the world sure as hell could use a lot more functional adults

12:00 today until next year this is earnest wishing you a happy New Year your health wealth and good luck