How to Engineer A Relationship

I had a palm reader look at my hand last year and say that everything in my life would require way more work than most people would have to put into their lives. For example, if I wanted a husband I wouldn’t be one of those people that would casually date and then have someone appear out of the ether. Anyone who has intimately known me knows my love life has been one giant never-ending train wreck. I’m not upset about this, it’s just how I inadvertently stacked the deck. I’m learning to appreciate my fate though. Adversity is a teacher.

Last year I met someone and they emotionally derailed my life (surprise!). During the derailment though, I realized that there were a series of steps I could have taken to prevent it and instead secure a healthy relationship. I watched a lot of videos by Matthew Hussey, got into Shaun Galanos’ instagram (@thelovedrive), and then leaned into some videos on toxic relationships to help clarify negative cycles I had experienced with Mental Healness.

Through all of this I realized that meeting and building a relationship with someone was basically a 3 step process: Connection, Commitment, and Attachment. This helps make sure that the emotional commitments I am making with someone are in alignment with my higher good and personality.

Connection: This is the first step of meeting someone. You find out that you’re attracted to them, but also feel like your personalities mesh.

• Determining the full scope of a connection is a 2-3 month process.

• You want to get to know the person, see if your values are in alignment, if your personalities are healthy for each other, and if you have similar interests and lifestyles.

• The connection phase is basically a research project on the other person. You don’t want to get emotionally attached during the connection phase, so you’ll want to stave off sleeping with them. You want to keep things objective, like a scientist would. You’re dissecting and better understanding each other.

• This probably means a lot of people you will connect with won’t pass this initial phase. That is okay. Relationships are a numbers game and if something doesn’t work out with one person, process the loss, and then continue forward until you find someone else.

• You want to pay attention to any red flags during the connection phase. Getting to know someone over 3 months can bring red flags to the surface. Because you haven’t attached yourself to the person, it will be easier to extricate yourself from the dynamic if it isn’t right for you.

Commitment: This is the easiest and shortest part of the romantic cycle.

• After you’ve gotten to know someone you both decide to enter in a relationship. This is where you define what type of relationship it will be (monogamous, non monogamous, etc), and what you’re both aiming for (long term, short term, marriage).

Attachment: Now that you’ve determined that this is the right person for you to connect with, that you’re values are in alignment, and you’re committed to each other, you can start building a deeper attachment to this person.

• This is the part of a relationship where the basic elements of intimacy come into play, for example you’re sleeping together, they spend Sundays at your apartment, you make dinner together, you meet each other’s families, you take vacations together, etc.
• The attachment phase is probably the most fun because it’s where you get to do all of the things that make relationships exciting. Having done a lot of leg work in advance also creates an incredible amount of safety. You’re not anxious about where things are going because you’ve established that from the beginning.

Note: It’s important to make sure that the attachment phase is the last phase of the romantic cycle. This prevents situations where you act like a couple, but the reality is there are no parameters in place for what the relationship actually is. It also helps weed out red flags and issues in advance, so you’re not blindsided while you are deeply emotionally invested in someone. This isn’t perfect, there are always variables that can impact a romantic situation, however being proactive and trying to manage as many of those variables in advance increases the chances of things working out for you.

I’m probably going to write more stuff like this, like how to date, or how to have a contingency plan in place when in a relationship, or how to prepare for a relationship. I’ve been reflecting on this stuff a lot and am hoping it will benefit others 🙂