You feel afraid to disagree with your partner

He now leaves his bags and coat in the car so he is unencumbered. After he turns the door key in the lock, his immediate action is to hold out his arms, ready to greet his children who rush to see him. He carries his three sons to wherever his wife is, and he describes the hug they enjoy as his `Disney' moment. The impact of these first few moments is seismic. After embracing his family and behaving like `the best dad in the world' for the first four minutes, he has created a powerful first impression. He claims that after this effort, he can go back to behaving like a miserable sod but nobody notices! In reality, they perceive him in such a positive light that he is more inclined to want to live up to these expectations, creating a virtuous circle. But from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. It may sound like heavenly stuff, but it is merely another way of saying that we get more of what we give. It is just the same for us and our behaviour when creating change. I leaned across to where Rob was seated and told him right away that there was vodka in my Caesar. He didn't protest or try to talk me out of it: he hoped that after over ten years of sobriety, I'd find my off switch and, in return, give him a wife who could have cocktails with him and just roll with the idea of feeling no pain after being tortured by so much of it. Caesars were followed by wine with dinner and a nice port to top things off. This was going to be a great vacation! When we got home from that booze-soaked trip (so much for the off switch), I managed to control my intake--one glass of wine after dinner, and never in front of anyone but Rob--right up until the day, one month later, that we said goodbye to Ontario and boarded a flight to our new life. Then I could imbibe all of the martinis and white wine I wanted! I felt I could freely numb the pain of the litany of horrendous losses we had suffered in the previous months: our child, proximity to our grandchild (because of our choice to move), my entire radio life and the identity I'd spent my career building up. Who was I now? Where was I? We knew a total of six people in the area to which we were moving, after thirty years of being in a city where I was surrounded by friendly and welcoming faces at almost every turn.

Wishes to be played with, hugged, or given attention don't end with childhood. These needs are healthy and getting them met is important. When we complain, however, we are often back in childhood when we expected our caregivers to be attuned to these needs and possibly even recognize them before we did. Adult relationships are more complicated. For example, when the man I reference in the example above was hoping for his wife to want to go to the game with him, maybe she was wanting him to go to a play with her. The one-way attention provided by parents is not realistic for adult partnerships. This doesn't mean the ball game can't be part of the picture. It does mean that the man needs to express his wish. And it may mean that the theatre will be on next week's agenda. Lead with Desire; Change action When Sir Clive Woodward was the coach of the England rugby union team, he thought deeply about his own behaviours, especially at crucial moments such as during his half-time team talks. He called it `second half thinking' and used the ten-minute break to influence the thinking of his players. Rather than worrying about whether they were winning or losing after the first half, he insisted on his players changing their shirts and wearing a new kit while he would think about his own behaviour and impact to influence the players. How many of us have thought (usually after a day or moment or event has gone disastrously wrong), `If only I could rewind and do that again'? This is a way of doing just that, even when something is halfway through. It's not too late. In the above example, the team is effectively getting the chance to start again halfway through the match. They wipe clean what's happened and focus on the way they want things to be in the next half. This is a way of making sure tomorrow is better than today and that you're not repeating the same mistakes over and over.

Suddenly, every insecurity I'd had since childhood came back with a vengeance: I was that new kid in school again, the misfit stranger. The kid who would decide with every meeting: introvert or extrovert? I hadn't realized until I arrived in our new province just how weird it would be to know barely a soul and not to worry about putting on makeup (which I still did for months, even for a neighbourhood dog walk) in case I was recognized or someone wanted to share a selfie. Rob and I both experienced the extreme loneliness that comes with uprooting and having to find everything from a doctor and dentist to a hairdresser and dry cleaner. We came to see our new home, with its breathtaking ocean and mountain views, as a nice, new place in which to be sad. For the first three or four months, as we settled in, I found myself sinking into a hole of remorse and regret. How much of that came from the aftermath of imbibing again, I'm not sure; I only know that enveloping myself in the days surrounding Lauren's death, as I did (and Rob did, too) for this article, pulled me down further than I'd been since the actual event. Do not think that I regret for a second agreeing to write and share these experiences with you! As I watched the numbers on my bathroom scale rise, the darkness under my eyes deepen and my ambition to stay active dwindle to nothing, I continued to indulge in unhealthy doses of both self-medication and self-loathing. Expect Positive Outcomes As we've discussed, that odd phenomenon called repetition compulsion means that, for a variety of reasons, we may be compelled to repeat the failures of early relationships. See if you can relate to the following scenario: You weakly express a desire, then withdraw as soon as your partner protests. Later, you feel rageful that you were cheated, that you weren't heard. So you express anger and bitterness to your partner, who appears clueless, which further enrages you. This kind of enactment is at the crux of vicious circles: you want one thing but facilitate something else. In this case, you want your desire to be satisfied but facilitate dissatisfaction and anger. Let's look a little closer (and don't tell me you haven't done this! Sara: I saw this nice patio set that might look good on our deck, but I know you're concerned about the money. Robert: Yeah, we need to watch our spending.

So why not do a similar breakdown for the first few minutes of your own day, or the first few minutes of a meeting, or the first few minutes of a conversation and focus on the change-creating behaviours which you want to demonstrate to others? Use the following table to list these behaviours. Mirror, mirror on the wall. You could also consider adopting a really simple technique of writing these desired behaviours in a place where you will see them on a daily basis - for example, the mirror you use to check your appearance before leaving the house. I know this seems slightly bizarre as no one doubts that the primary purpose of a mirror is to see what we look like on the outside, but the mirror could also act as a window into what we look like on the inside - and perhaps, more importantly, how we want to look and behave. The mirror could act as a window into what we look like on the inside. This was the basis for a fantastic psychological study conducted one Hallowe'en. That was the treat part of the experiment. And here's the trick: what the children didn't know, besides the fact that they were in a cleverly devised experiment, was that someone was watching them through a hidden camera. That person was another research assistant who had the job of recording whether each child behaved dishonestly by taking more than one sweet. Rob and I both were in a deep state of mourning for the lives we'd left behind, and this was how we dealt with it, together. You might be asking the same question we asked ourselves: How is it that I survived the loss of our daughter but began drinking a year and a half later? I have a few theories: after decades of answering to others (including three pre-dawn alarms), I had no one for whom I needed to behave responsibly in this new post-radio life. No early mornings, no show to carry or to which to contribute; We were rudderless with no horizon in sight, floundering aimlessly with only the mission of writing this article to tether us to any kind of duty or feeling of purpose. Without hesitation, I said yes, and with that, I had a reason to get up each day and find things to talk about in a concise (and hopefully interesting) manner. And I had to answer to someone besides my bosses: listeners. Of course, my daily online blog had continued, but in this case, radio was much more of an immediate demand. And I wasn't going to let anyone down. So I started to find some purpose, once again.

Sara: OK, just forget it. Note that Sara not only expects resistance, she plants the resistance and then conforms to it. It is a powerful shift to expect that your desire will be met and that your relationship will improve. With this attitude, what happens next may be less clear. You may get no fight at all. Or, your desire may not be met in the precise way you present it. For example, Sara and Robert may decide to target a future date for purchasing the patio set, allowing them to save the money and reduce Robert's anxiety. Or Robert may disclose something he had his eye on, and the two of them will contend with how to meet both of their desires. Your partner's input will challenge you to distill what is most important, and you will provide the same challenge to your partner. The outcome is then a creative product of the interaction rather than a repetition of what is expected. But the researchers wanted to see whether they could reduce the rate of theft through the use of a mirror. In these cases, before the bell rang, the research assistant angled a large mirror by the bowl of sweets in such a way that the trick-or-treaters had to look at themselves in the mirror when they took the sweets. The theft rate with the mirror? I used this same approach with one retail organisation and adapted the dress code so that all employees were required to wear a tie as part of their uniform. A mirror, with the perfect employee behaviours on it, was also distributed to all stores. Staff had to use the mirror to put the tie on correctly and so, when they checked their appearance, they were subconsciously reminded of the required behaviours. Where could you remind yourself of how you want to behave on a regular basis to help bring about the desired change in your life? Analyse your daily routine and identify three potential points where you could remind yourself of your best behaviours. This simple task acts as a good trigger to help you refocus on the things that matter. It can be small notes stuck on frequently used things, like phones and computer screens.