Speaker Series

June 4, 2004

“Dating Traps: Beware and Be Informed”: With: Marv Cohen, MBA, MA. MFTI

•Do you believe you need to make yourself more appealing to attract a partner and "selling" yourself with attractive packaging and presentation?

•Are you resigned to believing there is a limited supply of possible partners, so you have to take what you can get or be alone?

•Do you find yourself passively expecting your ideal partner to magically appear and live happily ever after without effort on your part, that it will just "happen"?

•Do you believe that if you develop an exclusive relationship with someone you are dating ("serial monogamy", "mini-marriage"), a successful committed relationship will eventually happen?

Any of the above sound familiar? There are ten more traps which we will cover, AND, we will show you how to avoid them, and to head down a path of "Finding the Love of Your Life, and The Life You Love"!

About the presenter:
Marv Cohen, MBA, MA, MFTI is President of Relationship Coaching Institute Silicon Valley and Cofounder of Relationship Coaching Institute (formerly LifePartnerQuest). He is a Relationship, Life, and Executive Coach, Mentor Coach, Teacher, Counselor, and a Marriage Family Therapist Intern #IMF 37636. Formerly an executive in the high tech medical electronics field, his passion for his work and life comes from his discovery of his vision and life purpose. Marv can be reached at 408 261 3332 ext. 2 or Marv@rcisv.org.

Review of this program:

Relationship Coaching Institute Silicon Valley
Dating Traps and Solutions

Marketing Trap
Believing you need to make yourself more appealing to attract a partner and "selling" yourself with attractive packaging and presentation. High risk of disappointment and relationship failure as people discover that the excitement and promise of the "sizzle" conflicts with the reality of the "steak".

Solution: Authenticity. You will attract compatible people when you show them who you really are. At the risk of mixing metaphors, "Birds of a feather flock together", so don't try to look like a prize-winning chicken when you are your own breed of duck!

Packaging Trap
Focusing on outside packaging, such as someone's body, looks, job, wealth, material possessions, etc, overlooking the reality of the person inside. Opposite of the Marketing Trap; instead of seeking to sell yourself with attractive packaging, you focus on the packaging of others.

Solution: Define your requirements for the life and relationship you really want and seek to balance your attraction to the packaging by paying attention to the reality of the person inside.

Scarcity Trap
Believing there is a limited supply of possible partners, so you have to take what you can get or be alone. Results in relationship failure when you settle for less and compromise your Requirements. A self-fulfilling prophecy when you get less because you expect less.

Solution: Define what you really want and persevere. Trust that if you apply yourself you can get what you really want in your life. You must be able to say "No" to what you DON'T want, to be available to say "Yes" to what you DO want. You have the power to choose who, what , where, when, and how, and can get what you really want if you make effective choices aligned with your Vision and Requirements.

Compatibility Trap
Assuming that if you have fun together and get along well, you are compatible and a committed relationship will work. Results in relationship failure when discovering the vast difference between a fun-focused, recreational "dating" relationship, and a serious long-term committed relationship. Being so different, the process and criteria for choosing a Life Partner needs to be very different from choosing a recreational relationship.

Solution: When you are ready for a Life Partnership, define your Requirements and use them to scout, sort, and screen potential partners. Do not try to convert a recreational relationship into a committed one, unless 100% of your Requirements are met.

Fairy tale Trap
Passively expecting your ideal partner to magically appear and live happily ever after without effort on your part. Believing that finding your soul mate will just "happen". Results in disappointment when the frogs that happen to jump into your life don't become princes.

Solution: Take personal responsibility for your relationship choices and outcomes. Have effective scouting, sorting, and screening strategies. Initiate contact and be the "Chooser", don't simply react to people that choose you.

Date-To-Mate Trap
Becoming an "instant couple" as if giving each person you date an extended test drive. Believing that if you develop an exclusive relationship with someone you are dating ("serial monogamy", "mini-marriage"), a successful committed relationship will eventually happen. Like the "Compatibility Trap", this results in relationship failure when discovering the vast difference between a recreational "dating" relationship and the complexity and challenges of a long-term committed relationship. This approach is a costly use of time and emotional energy. The inertia in this trap is pressure to make the relationship work, attempt to solve unsolvable problems, and fit the round peg in the square hole because breaking up and being single again is an undesired outcome.

Solution: Date a variety of people and have fun without being exclusive. When you are ready for a committed relationship define your Requirements and use them as tools to scout, sort, and screen potential partners. Make a careful relationship choice and consciously use a "pre-commitment" period to determine if this is the right relationship for you.

Attraction Trap
Making relationship choices based on feelings of attraction. Interpreting a strong attraction to someone as a sign that the relationship is a good choice and "meant to be". This approach results in relationship failure when unsolvable problems surface because you ignored the red flags while infatuated. Unconscious choices usually result in repeating unproductive past patterns.

Solution: Balance your attractions by defining your Requirements and use them to scout, sort, and screen potential partners. "Choose your life's mate carefully. From this one decision will come ninety percent of your happiness or misery." (H. Jackson Brown, Jr. from "Life's Little Instruction Book").

Love Trap
Interpreting infatuation, attraction, need, good sex, and/or attachment as Love. "If it feels good, it must be Love." "Love is all you need." "Love conquers all." Results in relationship failure when you discover that love is not enough to meet your requirements and needs.

Solution: Make conscious relationship choices by defining your Requirements and use them to scout, sort, and screen potential partners.

Sex Trap
Singles who pursue a relationship based upon sexual chemistry, and then risk relationship failure when the hormone-induced intoxication wears off and reality hits.

Solution: To avoid the Sex Trap, you must balance your heart (and hormones) with your head. This means combining chemistry with common sense. While good sex is important for a sustainable relationship, you need to make your partner choices by paying full attention to your vision, values, goals and requirements- while feeling all those exciting sparks!

Rescue Trap
Hoping a relationship will solve your emotional and financial difficulties and bring you happiness and fulfillment, something like winning the lottery. Results in desperation, neediness, and relationship failure when problems multiply instead of disappear.

Solution: Define your Vision for your life and relationship and "Live your Vision" as a successful single person. Resolve emotional, financial, and other problems prior to seeking a lasting committed relationship. Seek to be in a position of "choice" and "want" rather than "need".

Co-Dependent Trap
Expecting someone to love you and give you what you want by giving them what they want. Attempting to earn love and happiness by acquiescing, giving and helping. Needing to be needed often results in unconsciously attracting and choosing a relationship with a person that needs you, but you later discover is unable to give you what you want.

Solution: Define your Vision and Requirements and choose a closely aligned partner. Learn to be assertive, identify and ask for what you want and need, identify and assert boundaries, and develop the ability to say "No". Be the "Chooser" and cautious of people that choose you!

Entitlement Trap
Believing you deserve to be happy and get what you want in your life without effort or changes on your part. Results in relationship failure as you rely on your partner to bring happiness and fulfillment and inevitably experience disappointment. "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got."

Solution: Take personal responsibility for your life and relationship. Define your Vision and Life Purpose and live them when single.

Virtual Reality Trap
Believing that "what you see is what you get." Making hasty long-term relationship decisions based on short-term impressions and inferences instead of actual experience and knowledge. Results in seeing what you want to see and relationship failure when later reality doesn't match.

Solution: Assume "you don't know what you don't know" and stay in a "pre-committed" stage until you have solid experience and knowledge that this is the right relationship for you.

Lone Ranger Trap
Believing that you don't need anyone's help in finding your Life Partner. You evaluate people you meet for their relationship potential and do not take the opportunity to cultivate new friends. Results in isolation, perception of scarcity of potential partners, and risk of settling for less than what you really want because you don't want to be alone.

Solution: Develop a support network/community of friends of both genders and be supportable by enrolling them to scout for you.

Elements Of A Successful Life Partner Quest

Clear Vision and Life Purpose (who you are)
Thoroughly defined Requirements and Needs (what you want)
Effective Relationship Plan (how to get what you want), including effective strategies for scouting, sorting, and screening.
Take personal responsibility, be the "Chooser"
Ready and available for commitment
Self-knowledge- traits, values, habits/patterns, etc.
Relationship knowledge- experience, skills, understanding
Community- network, support, coaching
Live your Vision- be a "successful single", "build it and they will come."
Assertiveness- boundaries, disengagement, saying "no" to what you don't want and taking responsibility for getting what you do want

Marv wants to thank everyone for all the kind words of appreciation.

Please contact Marv for more information about individual coaching, counseling, groups, or workshops. There are openings in Tuesday and Wednesday evening groups for men and women, and a new, easy way to qualify!