How to build a healthy and lasting relationship?: Love or friendship

By Cristina Rebiere

« A lasting relationship of love (or friendship) is planning beyond feelings or emotions »: this is what Cristina Rebiere asserts in an effecient demonstration of the ins and outs of communication, truth and self-knowledge within a work of unique clarity. In a simple and direct language she puts us in front of the mirror and shows us our own routines and the constant and liberating questioning that will enable us to realize that rationality is not the enemy of love. It does not take away anything from it, but on the contrary allows us to extract from a relationship what is best in ourselves, ensuring its perenniality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cristina & Olivier Rebiere
• Release date: Apr 1, 2017

Cristina Rebiere

Courte biographie:Cristina Rebière est auteure de nombreux guides et livres. Elle a dirigé une maison d'édition, un parc d'aventures et mené à bien de nombreuses missions dans la fonction publique européenne. Elle est aussi spécialisée dans la formation continue.Ses origines:Après la Révolution roumaine, Cristina interrompt de brillantes études pour entrer à l'université en France où elle suit tout le cursus en faculté de droit et obtient une Maîtrise en Administration Économique et Sociale. D'abord chargée de communication dans un Institut Français en Allemagne, elle devient statisticienne à Bruxelles pour un bureau d'assistance de la Commission Européenne. De retour à Bucarest elle est successivement contrôleuse de gestion, directrice de maison d'édition, experte européenne puis professeure de français. En Roumanie elle fonde avec son mari une entreprise de team building puis le premier parc d'aventures jamais créé dans ce pays - construit de leurs mains - qui attirera des milliers de personnes, écoles et entreprises dans la pratique du sport et d'activités de cohésion en pleine nature. Avec son équipe, elle conçoit et construit des parcours d'escalade dans les arbres pour d'autres clients.Au rectorat de l'Académie de la Martinique, Cristina prend en charge la coordination de la Cellule Académique des Fonds Européens et de Coopération où elle accompagne les porteurs de projet dans le montage des dossiers, assure la formation en ingénierie de projet, gère un réseau de plus d'une soixantaine d'enseignants référents à l'ouverture internationale. Elle assure la gestion opérationnelle de plusieurs projets de coopération. Elle assure l'actualisation du site internet de la Délégation Académique aux Relations Internationales et à la Coopération.La pédagogie de Cristina Rebière est basée sur le pragmatisme et l'efficacité.Domaines de compétence:management de projet, voyage, marketing social de contenu, team building, formation initiale et continue, expertise en fonds européens, budgétisation, planification, productivité et stratégie, coaching, ingénierie financière, webmestre, statistiques, procédures, web intégration, conception graphique, communication, conception et construction de parcs d'aventure

Book preview

How to build a healthy and lasting relationship?

Love or friendship

© Cristina Rebière. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I - The journey preparation

1. Know yourself

2. The importance of Truth

3. Commitments to be taken

Part II - Choosing your journey companion

4. Make your choice

Part III - The beginning of the journey

5. The importance of time

6. Setting stages

7. Facing the hostility of the Other

8. Switching from competition to cooperation

9. Continuously align with reality

Part IV - Thinking a route »

10. The importance of reflection in the building process

11.The importance of communication in the building process

12. The importance of analysis in construction

13. Know how to question yourself

14. The importance of planning in the building process

Part V - Walking hand in hand

15. Building common projects

16. Recognizing the Other's progress

17. Communicating permanently

18. Always bother about what the Other feels and thinks

Conclusion

Author

Introduction

Arelationship of love or friendship has no chance of lasting long if it is not built up, little by little, by the concerned parties.

Most relationships between two human beings are unlikely to last long because there are few people who realize the importance of construction. It is often mistakenly believed that a relationship between two persons is the result of an irrational attraction, accompanied by an accumulation of affinities and that the relationship is built up during everyday life by the simple fact of living together or dating (for more modern friendship or love relationships). This illusion is reflected in reality by the millions of divorces or separations that take place in the world, but also by at least the same number of non-separations due to the lack of courage or routine: a big trap that prevents people to realize their lack of joy, happiness and serenity. This is also reflected by the millions of friendships that simply vanish, come to an end or to a tragedy in the worst cases.

I will talk in this book about how you can build a lasting relationship of friendship or love, knowing that sustainability is necessarily linked to the depth of feelings you experience.

I will try to go to the basics so I am not going to write a whole treaty, difficult to read. If you are interested in developing a particular topic, you can write to me and I can detail it in an upcoming book. I do not write for myself, but from the perspective that the path I have traveled, the experiences I have lived, the shortcuts I have been able to find, could help you building lasting relationships with people you love.

One can have a relationship of friendship that lasts without deep feelings ; I will call it rather camaraderie or a relationship based on sympathy, but this is a superficial reciprocal knowledge of each other. In fact, many of us have this kind of camaraderie relationship with childhood buddies or colleagues from primary school, high school or college. We speak to each other from time to time, generally no more than once or twice a year, we meet with the same frequency if we live far away, and common memories bind us and maintain this relationship. For these people we do not feel intense and constant feelings: we are pleased to see them, to hear them or to read their correspondence from time to time and it is reciprocal. It may even be that in the past we had more intense feelings and started to know each other, but it only lasted a very limited time. We do not know each other thoroughly and this superficiality makes the relationship possible and sustainable in time and space.

There are also relations with people close to you: neighbors or co-workers. We meet each other, dine together a few times or we spend holidays together, often for children ... or for a common affinity. We help each other, but no strong feeling bind us to these people. If tomorrow we move away, the relationship will become at best the one presented in the previous paragraph and in the worst case, will gradually vanish with the passage of time.

As far as romantic relationships are concerned, there is a good part that is born and remains confined to their physical aspect, respectively sexual attraction. Many people are mistaken in thinking that there is more, but realize the truth once this physical attraction has disappeared. They realize then, that there is nothing that binds them to the person they thought they loved. In many cases both partners come to the conclusion that they do not know each other and that the characters they invented exist only in their imagination. This comes out by phrases like: "I do not recognize you anymore, You are not the person I fell in love with, You show your true face" ... phrases that in fact mean that both partners never really knew each other in depth.

I will try to write in this book not only about how to build a lasting relationship, but also how important it is to see reality as it really is, not to lie to yourself. I am going to speak about how to know yourself in order to have a chance to know the Other (one in your relationship) and thus make such a construction possible.

Part I. The journey preparation

1. Know yourself

In order to be able to build a relationship with anyone you must first know yourself. There are so many people who do not know themselves ... either because they have never thought about this question, or because they think they know themselves and have stopped questioning.

You should know that the human being is in constant change as well as the world around us. Those who think they are the same a whole life are mistaken because it is impossible not to change in a world that influences us, with which we interact all the time. It is true that we can keep some principles during a lifetime ... which some would call principles of morality ... We should also see if these principles are applied by us because they have been inherited from our family or our entourage, or because we really believe in them ...

As long as we do not put into question, deep inside of ourselves, the principles according to which we think we are leading our lives, they only are automatisms that are applied without even being analyzed ... We may be surprised one day that these principles turn against us or contradict each other.

I will give you a simple and universal example: religion. Religion is in principle inherited from the family because there are few adults who voluntarily and consciously assume the lack of their child's religious education. Consequently, the child does not choose his/her religion and often will not even question it during his/her life. The adult will go to church if his parents did it too. It may happen that in adolescence this practice is questioned by a spirit of rebellion, but it is rare that this will be a call to change. The adult who has been baptized Catholic will remain Catholic all his life and most often will believe in God ... the Muslim will remain Muslim just as the Orthodox will remain Orthodox, etc.

There are, however, some people who will question themselves at some point in their lives about this heritage because spirituality is an area that touches the heart of a person. These people can change their religion if they find another one in their path that speaks to them more than theirs, which helps them to better know themselves and flourish.

Other people will not change their religion, but will stop practicing it in any way,