Most people suck at relationships.  And because most people suck at relationships, most relationships fail.   The average long-term relationship lasts approximately 2 years and 9 months and the latest divorce statistics are at around 40%.  There are many reasons for this poor track record and in this episode, you'll discover the main reason behind most relationship failures, why most people suck and more importantly, how to approach it differently.

People Fail to Learn from Failure

One of my favourite quotes is by George Santayana which says "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Most relationships fail due to not learning from past mistakes - their own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others. This prevents people from ever progressing towards the type of relationships they want. It is not uncommon to find people in the 30s, 40s, and 50s still hopeless at relationships as they were in their teens and twenties.

Instead of figuring out what works for themselves, they follow a prescribed path which inevitably leads to more failure.

Most People Are Romantic Dabblers

Most people dabble in romance.  They approach relationships with a dabblers mindset.  A dabbler being someone who pursues something without really obtaining any real depth of proficiency.  

Most people recognise the need and value of learning and developing themselves in order to build a career.  They will invest a number of years going through university and even postgraduate education in order to breakthrough.  

For example, if you wanted to be a lawyer, you would study law.  An artist would learn to perfect his or her craft.  However, people enter relationships with a seemingly unspoken assumption that they somehow are enough and possess enough to make them work and don’t learn from failure.

Why Are Most People Romantic Dabblers

The reason why most people end up being dabblers is because most people, assume that intimate relationships, are magical or mystical. They believe they will just work themselves out without any real need to develop the necessary relationship skills to succeed. 

Because people are romantic dabblers and rarely ever build sufficient proficiency in forming healthy intimate relationships, they usually enter the next relationship worse off than the previous one.  

They don’t get better with each relationship, they become more cynical, insecure, jaded and so on.  This is understandable when you recognise most breakups often leave trails of trauma and people become less trusting, loving, open as a result.  This has a domino effect and ultimately leads to further demises down the road.  

Takeaway Message

Become a student of love, intimacy and relationships. Your relationships will get better when you get better at cultivating various aspects of developing a healthy intimate relationship. Submit to the process of becoming a top class partner.

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