Are You the Victim of a complex Equivalence in Your Relationship?

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Author: John Alanis

Article source: http://www.mybestshop.co.uk/. Used with author's permission.

I've written many times about a controversial piece of relationship advice that I strongly recommend. What is it? I believe it's important to get a women you are trying to attract into bed quickly, no matter what kind of relationship you want to have with her. That sounds "edgy" in this day and age, doesn't it?

After all, most so-called "psychologists" take a different view, claiming that couples who waited to have sex had more successful relationships than those who jumped into bed quickly. Why would I promote a concept so contrary to such orthodox statistics? The flaw with that view is, it doesn't take into account the relationships that never happened because the guy didn't "close the deal" quickly, and she took off looking for a man who would "define authority for her."

What about those couples in the "psychologists" study? Why would those who "waited" be more "successful" than those who didn't? The answer to that question can save you a ton of future pain and heartache in your current or future relationship. Are you ready? Good. Come closer, and listen carefully, because this is important.

The reason the "couples who waited" were more successful than the ones who didn't in thier own relationship, has to do with what's called a "complex equivalence." What's that you say? Simply this: a complex equivalence means that a person takes a set of events and makes them mean something completely different, even though the meaning has nothing to do with reality. Then they take action based on the meaning they created in their heads, not reality.

Let me give you an example-it will make this more clear. A friend of mine told me a story about a couple in a married relationship he knew. It wasn't a good marriage, with the husband always cheating on the wife. She didn't want to leave him, but she wanted the cheating to stop. So, she went off the pill (without telling him) and got pregnant. Her thinking went, "If we have a child, he'll stop cheating on me." Of course this is NOT what happened… she had a child and he cheated on her as much as he did before.

Her complex equivalence was this: having a child=no more cheating. She created this complex equivalence in her mind, and took the action of getting pregnant, based on the meaning she created. She acted out of a complex equivalence, and, as usually happens, the results were devastating to the relationship. She had a child to raise with a cheating husband. This was her new reality that was created, and now she was worse off.

If you stop and think about this, it makes no sense in reality. But that's the point I'm trying to make here: very few people make decisions based on reality. They make decisions based on complex equivalences they create in their heads. So why did those couples in the study who "waited," have more successful relationships? Because they based their decision to have their relationship on reality, not a complex equivalence. See, in reality, successful long term relationships have little to do with attraction in the moment.

They are based on long term shared values, mutual goals, similar outlooks and lifestyles, mutual orientation towards a long term relationship, and what I call "shared map and model of the world" Sure, attraction has to be present in the beginning, but attraction is transient, and wears off quickly. What's left, determines the success of the relationship, and if the above things are not present the relationship implodes.

Consider the couples who slept with each other quickly and decided to have a relationship. Most likely the reason they slept together quickly was because they both experienced a powerful sense of attraction. Nothing wrong with this at all. But the problems occur when they make the complex equivalence of: powerful feelings of attraction=long term relationship. The two have little to do with each other, yet a lot of people get into relationships based on this complex equivalence. Then the attraction fades and they discover they have nothing on which a true long term relationship can be built.

So, the true meaning of the study is this: couples who make the decision to have a long term relationship based on reality succeed at a much higher rate than those who make the decision based on a complex equivalence. This is often why people who get married young, get divorced young… they don't have enough of an understanding of reality to be able to avoid a complex equivalence. They believe that "love conquers all," an extremely dangerous complex equivalence that has been perpetuated for ages.

I'm going to talk much more about this in future articles and im my programs and courses, but the way to avoid acting out of a complex equivalence is very simple: awareness. If you feel a powerful sense of attraction and you start making plans for a long term committed relationship, just stop and ask yourself, "Am I acting out of reality, or am I making a complex equivalence that will get me in big trouble in the future when this transient attraction wears off?"

Now, there's nothing wrong with enjoying attraction- it is a wonderful, wonderful feeling. But it has nothing to do with a successful long term relationship. You've heard the saying, "love is blind." A better saying is, "attraction comes with blinders." It prevents people from making reality based decisions. They can't see the reality due to the attraction. When the attraction wears off they are left with the reality they created while in the "throes of attraction." And oftentimes it is a mess that requires a lot of cleanup. So, the proper "equivalence" of attraction is this: powerful attraction=enjoyment of wonderful feelings. And that's it.

Think about this as you go through your day, guys… it will keep you out of a lot of troubled relationships as it has me.

-John Alanis "The King of Let 'em Come to You"