The Anatomy of a Healthy Relationship

By Dr. Ismail Yassai

Why do I want to fall in love?
How can I find and have the love of my life?

We learn many skills in our lifetime, such as how to read, how to speak, how to dance, and how to play but no one ever taught us exactly how to have a healthy, thriving relationship. If youve asked yourself these questions, then this book can provide the route to finally answering them

The Anatomy of a Healthy Relationship is designed to help readers define their personal reasons and desire for a healthy and successful relationship with their lifetime partner. We all have emotional injuries, accepted beliefs, and personal values about relationships. These are important factors to understand in the dating process, as they may interfere with the ability to search for and accept a healthy relationship. This book explores the journey of a healthy relationship from meeting to dating, courting, falling in love, and making a lifetime commitment to your significant other. Each step of the way is clearly defined and accessible to the reader as they use the dating process as an opportunity for self- insight and growth. The ability to develop a healthy relationship may just be the most important skill we ever acquire in our lifetime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479777167

Dr. Ismail Yassai

Dr. Ismail Yassai is a clinical Psychologist who received a bachelor of arts and a master’s degree from Chapman University in Clinical Psychology. He obtained a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the United States International University, also known as Alliant University. Dr. Yassai has professionally been active in his practice for both in-patient and out-patient settings for the past 30 years. He was the clinical director of the Substance abuse programs at the Brea Psychiatric Hospital. He also directed the adolescent psychiatric treatment program at the Santa Ana Psychiatric center. Over the years, he developed a number of mental health facilities. Dr.Yassai is extensively involved in family relationships and authored a book entitled “Divorce, Death of a Relationship and the Beginning of the Rest of Your Life.” Dr. Yassai has been designated as Qualified Medical Examiner, QME and Agreed Medical Examiner by the State of California Department of Industrial Relations Division of Worker’s Compensation Medical Unit.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Ismail Yassai Ph.D.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013900522

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4797-7715-0

Softcover   978-1-4797-7714-3

Ebook   978-1-4797-7716-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 06/11/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1: Why Is This One Committed Relationship So Important?

Chapter 2: Your Nonnegotiable List

Chapter 3: Meeting: Going Out into the Jungle

Chapter 4: Dating

Chapter 5: Courting

Chapter 6: Marriage: Choosing Your Partner for Life

Chapter 7: Marriage Life Insurance

References

The Anatomy of a Healthy Relationship project has flourished due to the intellectual and creative efforts of Jackie Deese, MA, Bezhad Bernous, PSYD, and Tannaz Kalantary, MA. We wish to express our gratitude for their wonderful contributions.

IF YOU LOVED ME

If you loved me, I would see it in your eyes

True feeling and real love

No one ever could disguise

If you were truly my soul mate,

You would have come from heaven's gate

I know what will be my fate

To love, to live, and to die with you being by my side

No doubt, no fear, and no fault would have ever been in sight

In the sky war of love, rainy clouds never came

In sea of our life, every wave was very tamed

Flowers bloomed everywhere

Butterflies came and left

We would have love and happiness

At home, castle, or in tent

If you loved me, I would see in your smile

You couldn't leave me all alone

If we were parted just a while, you would have missed my voice and scent

You would have come back in my tent

To put your face on my chest

Closed your eyes where you rest

If you loved me, I would have heard it in your voice

The pain, longing, and unrest

Missing, craving very best

Wanting, running to my tent

To find, to love, to live, and to die with me was your soul intent

If you loved me, you would have trusted me with some faith

You will believe my deed and say

Yes, he is honest, he will pay any price to be real

Total trust is what I feel

Poem by Ismail Yassai Ph.D.

INTRODUCTION

Finding this kind of love and respect for another human being is a matter of mind-set. With the right skills, attitude, and relationship education, your life can become imbued with unconditional positive regard, growth, genuine respect, and love.

Relationship / re·la·tion·ship/, noun---the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.

It is Friday evening. The possibilities of the next twenty-four hours are looming. You're armed with your normal weapons of seduction: a new perfume or cologne, false eyelashes, the perfect hair product, and a fresh flask of tequila in case you need some liquid courage to approach new acquaintances with ease.

It is Sunday morning. You wake up feeling a sense of accomplishment at a successful weekend of letting go and having fun. You danced the night away . . . But the original goal sits heavily at the back of your mind. You wanted to meet people, to get numbers, to score a potential dinner date for the following Friday, but somehow your prospects didn't measure up to your expectations.

There are plenty of methods and literature out there to give you advice on how to get a hookup or to fix your current relationship. If you're not looking to invest in a long-term relationship, then this model of creating a healthy relationship from the very start may not be for you at this juncture in your life. This book is for the individuals who are looking for love but haven't found the right place, right time, or the right person.

Some may already be involved with a significant other---if this is the case for you, this book may provide new insights on how you formed your current relationship. From the moment you met your partner, you started creating patterns of communication and building a relationship with them that shapes its current state.

From your first meeting to your final commitment, you are creating the growing, dynamic bond with your partner that will, hopefully, flourish for a lifetime. This book is intended to serve as the first relationship manual ever created to guide you from your disconnected Friday nights to finding the right kind of relationship for you.

From dating to mating for life, the healthy relationship model is intended to apply to all ages, cultures, races, and sexual orientations. Although the vignettes in the book may feature heterosexual couples' names and we use the term marriage to signify the legal commitment to your life partner, we have not excluded the benefits of a lifelong, committed relationship based on any multicultural or diverse context. A healthy, committed relationship is accessible and achievable to everyone.

The ability to develop committed, dynamic relationships is a unique quality of mankind. While a few species have been recorded as having the capacity to form a relational structure---such as the primate and other animals that form packs for traveling, hunting, and mutual survival---humans are drastically set apart. We are the only known organism with the abilities to create intricate, connected relationships to one another, which serve a variety of our needs and have built the foundations of our spiritual, emotional, and cognitive experiences. Not only are our relationships multilayered and multifaceted, but they also exist in a contextual realm that supersedes all other human pursuits. Relationships build and are maintained by social support, networks, culture, values, and our community environments.

Our capacity to be relational has been responsible for the tremendous advances made by our species, moving us from the forest, to the high-rise, and then to the moon. Man has been able to make significant changes in his environment, his diet, himself, and the quality of the life he lives. The sophistication of mankind has come about as a result of this ability to form relationships. Our human capacity to communicate with others on an individual level with another person or group has been instrumental in the exponential improvements to our environment, our habitat and daily routines, and our societies. As people, we have cultivated the ability to provide care for one another and those in need as a community survival mechanism. Whether for spiritual or economic purposes, forming groups has contributed to the flourishing state of humanity, trumping individual physical Darwinism with group energy and motivation for human achievement and growth.

Our journey from a primitive lifestyle to our current state of societal development is astounding. Using the ability to establish relationships with other individuals, friends, and family, man was able to use his ability to give his experience a higher level of meaning through emotions. When our basic emotions are applied to simple life experience, we are able to assign value to these feelings and, therefore, create relationships. These relationships are the highways where man has traveled from simple existence to a thriving level of sophistication that he is able to enjoy today.

The most significant part of the human relationship is the family unit. This tight-knit relational setting impacts our past, present, and future in a pivotal way. We do not choose where to be born or who our family members will be. All of us have to form relationships as a child, an adolescent, and an adult with family members that shape our relational styles for our lifetime. Our relationship with each and every one of our family members will influence our beliefs, values, feelings, and coping skills. Thousands of experiences of trusting, caring, and sharing with each and every one of them will play a part in shaping our personality, perception, and expectation for most of our lives. During our experiences, gradually we will develop the skills to improve our ability to communicate with and influence others. Therefore, our success or failure is shaped through relationships with people we did not choose and were not provided with any template to succeed.

Our capacities and abilities are much different as an adult. We can decide to choose the most important and only family member we will ever have: our mate. To do this most important relationship in our life correctly, we have to understand the uniqueness of the relationship, develop understanding of its nature, have the necessary skills to make the choice, and be prepared to take each and every step necessary in this relationship. This is the process of choosing and becoming a mate.

This book is the first template you will ever receive on how to build a healthy relationship from the ground up by simultaneously understanding your own needs and desires while calculating how much you have to offer to a potential life partner.

CHAPTER ONE

Why Is This One Committed Relationship So Important?

The importance of the mating relationship has been recognized by mankind through