Check out our new Landing Site
for a brief overview of the work of Codependency Recovery Inner Child Healing
Pioneer Robert Burney - including links to his articles on websites that
are user friendly on mobile devices.
Romantic Relationships -
an index of web pages
This dance of Codependence is a dance of
dysfunctional relationships - of relationships that do not work to meet
our needs. That does not mean just romantic relationships, or family relationships,
or even human relationships in general.
The fact that dysfunction exists in our romantic,
family, and human relationships is a symptom of the dysfunction that
exists in our relationship with life - with being human. It is
a symptom of the dysfunction which exists in our relationships with ourselves
as human beings.
And the dysfunction that exists in our relationship
with ourselves is a symptom of Spiritual dis-ease, of not being in
balance and harmony with the universe, of feeling disconnected from
our Spiritual source.
That is why it is so important to enlarge our
perspective. To look beyond the romantic relationship in which we are
having problems. To look beyond the dysfunction that exists in our
relationships with other people.
The more we enlarge our perspective, the closer
we get to the cause instead of just dealing with the symptoms.
For example, the more we look at the dysfunction in our relationship
with ourselves as human beings the more we can understand the dysfunction
in our romantic relationships.
(Text in this color is used for quotes from
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney)
"As long as we believe that we have to have the
other in our life to be happy, we are really just an addict trying
to protect our supply - using another person as our drug of choice.
That is not True Love - nor is it Loving."
This index page lists,
describes, and give quotes from the Joy2MeU pages which are focused
directly on romantic relationships.
Welcome to a page of
Joy2MeU
The Web Site of Spiritual Teacher, codependence
counselor, grief therapist, author, Robert Burney
and Joy to You & Me Enterprises
Announcing:
Joy to You & Me Enterprises is offering a series of Intensive
TrainingDays with Spiritual
Teacher, inner child healing pioneer Robert Burney.
Learn his innovative Spiritual Integration Formula for Inner
Healing. For the locations and dates of upcoming appearances
go to Day of Intensive
Training.
The Heartbreak of Romantic Relationships
The following quote was written as an introduction
to a web page called The Heartbreak of Romantic Relationships that
I wrote in February of 1999.
"In the past 3 or 4 months the Universe has led me to focus more
and more of my attention on the area of Romantic Relationships.
This led to me scheduling a workshop and announcing on my web site that
I would have some new articles ready by Valentines Day 1999. I have
had a great deal of trouble in writing those articles. I have been
talking about the issues and aspects of relationship dysfunction for many
years but have not written very much about it (perhaps because until recently
I hadn't been able to get past my own terror of intimacy.) So I
have an overabundance of things to say on the subject. The problem
has been trying to decide how many articles I was writing, what the focus
of each was going to be, and how to communicate as clearly as possible
about this issue. It turns out that there is so much material that
I may just be writing a book here.
Romantic Relationships may be the most powerful,
meaningful, traumatic, painful, explosive, heart wrenching single topic
for most people. As I say on my flyer for my new workshop "Our
hearts have been broken because we were taught to do the Dance of Love
in a dysfunctional way/to the wrong music."
Our hearts have been broken! And then
they were broken again.
If you can Truly own the pain in that statement - take some deep
breaths, visualize breathing White Light into your heart chakra (which
will break up and release some of the trapped grief energy) and say
out loud, "My heart has been broken." - you will probably not only produce
some tears but some sobs of emotional energy being released. If you cannot
own, feel, and release some emotional pain energy in relating to the Truth
of that statement, it could mean that you don't feel safe to be emotionally
honest in this moment, or that you don't feel safe to be emotionally
honest with yourself in regard to this topic. It could be a sad
commentary on how much you have had to shut down your heart, how closed
off you have had to become to the emotional Truth of how painful being
human in a dysfunctional, emotionally dishonest, Spiritually hostile,
Love retarded cultural environment has been.
It is not your fault. It is not your fault! IT IS NOT
YOUR FAULT!
It is a set up. We were set up."
In the year since that time I have done a lot more writing on the
subject - and in fact am getting ready to teach a college course on Dysfunctional
Relationship Dynamics and Healthy Relationship Behavior. So, perhaps
there is a book here - although I am already working on finishing two
other books, so this one is not in the picture in the immediate future.
The thing that is so important about the issue of Romantic Relationships
is to realize how we were set up to "fail" in romance - to really get
it on a gut level, so that we can forgive ourselves. Once we start
letting go of feeling responsible for something we were powerless over,
letting go of the false guilt and toxic shame about our "mistakes" and
"failures" in romance - then we can start to learn how to take healthy
risks. Loving and losing is much better than never loving at
all.
As I say in my latest article on the subject:
"The more we heal our childhood emotional wounds and change
the dysfunctional intellectual programming the clearer we can see reality.
The more we learn to have boundaries, to ask for what we need, to be direct
and honest in our communication, the healthier we become in our relationships.
Healthy enough to get out of them quickly if we see too many warning signs.
Romantic relationships can be a great adventure if our perspective
and expectations of them are realistic and healthy." Healthy Relationships
- Part 6 - Romantic Love
Hopefully, the pages in this index will help you to heal some
of your wounds and forgive yourself enough to start
owning up to the Truth that you do deserve to have a Loving relationship
in your life. ~ Robert Burney
Also available as two
eBooks in
Amazon Kindle format eBook 1 & eBook2 and in Barnes & Noble Nook format
eBook 1 &
eBook 2
As of Jan. 2016 also available for Kobo
ereaders eBook 1
and eBook 2
eBook 1 is also available as an audio book on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.
Joy2MeU pages which are
focused directly on romantic relationships
It is so important to realize how we were set up
to feel like failures in Romantic Relationships - to really get it on
a gut level, so that we can forgive ourselves.
Toxic Love -
A column originally written in 1996 that was expanded as part of the Codependent
Relationships Dynamics series in 1999. This is the updated version
that is part 2 of that series. "As long as
we believe that we have to have the other in our life to be happy, we are
really just an addict trying to protect our supply - using another person
as our drug of choice. That is not True Love - nor is it Loving."
Romantic Relationships and Valentine's
Day - This is the first column published by Robert Burney
in February of 1996. "Traditionally in this
society women were taught to be codependent on - that is take their
self-definition and self-worth from - their relationships with men,
while men have been taught to be codependent on their success/career/work."
Wedding Prayer/Meditation on
Romantic Commitment - A Meditation/Prayer written for
the Commitment Ceremony of two friends. "In
any specific moment you will have the power to make a choice to feel the
Love in that moment as if you have never been hurt and as if the
Love will never go away." The Heartbreak of Romantic Relationships
- A 3 page web article about how we are set up to have our hearts broken
in romantic relationships. "No one has the power
to make someone else love him/herself, we only have the power to change
our relationship with our self. We cannot love someone else enough
to make them love them self."
Part 2 of Heartbreak -
Includes Shame Core - Inner Child Healing and Emotional Dishonesty - Emotional
Intimacy. "It is a double set up for women
in this society. First of all the men were taught that it was not
manly to be emotional and that what makes them successful as a man is
what they produce - and then women were taught that they needed to be
successful in romantic relationships with emotionally unavailable men
in order to be successful as a woman. What a set up!"
Part 3 of Heartbreak - Includes
Sexuality, Metaphysical, and Reasons to take the Risk. "Romantic Relationships are one of the most important arenas
of Spiritual growth available to us - it is important to our souls to
be willing to take the risk of Loving and losing. It is also important
to our hearts to take the healthiest risks possible. If we are not
doing our healing, we are doing ourselves the ultimate disservice - we
are abandoning and abusing our self."
The Emotional Dynamics of Dysfunctional
Relationships - A 2 page web article about the inevitable
and normal dynamics of romantic relationships in a Codependent society.
"We need to be willing to make healing a priority
in our life if we are ever going to have a chance to have a healthy relationship.
Unless we are healing we will fall prey to the very predictable emotional
and behavioral dynamics - the Toxic Romance Two Step - that our emotional
wounds and intellectual programming set us up to keep repeating."
Part 2 of Emotional Dynamics
- Includes codependent & counterdependent behavior."Passive-aggressive behavior can take the form of sarcasm,
procrastination, chronic lateness, being a party pooper, constantly complaining,
being negative, offering opinions and advice that is not asked for, being
the martyr, slinging arrows ("whatever have you done to your hair", "gained
a little weight haven't we?"), etc."
Finnish Translation
A good friend in Finland (who dedicated a poem
to my writing that I have a link to on the Awards page) and some of his friends - have translated
some of the pages of this section into Finnish. Here are the pages
they have translated into Finnish as of January 2004. (While updating this page in November
2012, I checked out the site and see that they have 22 articles
translated from this section - and also 23 articles translated from the
inner child healing section.) Toxic LoveRomantic RelationshipsWedding Prayer Heartbreak of Romantic RelationshipsHeartbreak part 2Heartbreak part 3Emotional Dynamics
Codependent Relationships Dynamics
~ Healthy Romantic Relationships - Two series of short articles
about the ways in which romantic relationships in our society are set
up to be dysfunctional and the ways in which it is possible to be healthier
in romantic relationships. These articles were
originally published online on the Inner Child / Codependency Recovery
page that Robert edits for Suite101.com Directory - although bits and pieces
of the articles have been part of articles and web pages published previously.
Announcing the publication of my newest book - or at
least the Kindle e-book version in July 2012. The actual
book was published in September and is linked above.
Codependent Relationships
Dynamics - part 3, Codependent & Counterdependent Behavior
- Both codependent and counterdependent behavior are part of the
condition of codependence. "Both the classic
codependent patterns and the classic counterdependent patterns are behavioral
defenses, strategies, designed to protect us from being abandoned.
One tries to protect against abandonment by avoiding confrontation and
pleasing the other - while the second tries to avoid abandonment by pretending
we don't need anyone else. Both are dysfunctional and dishonest."
Codependent Relationships
Dynamics - part 4, Come Here, Go Away - Fear
of intimacy keeps people in a come here - go away dance. "It is very boring and incredibly painful to keep repeating
dysfunctional relationship patterns. The way to stop repeating
those patterns is to start healing the wounds that we suffered in childhood."
Healthy Relationship Behavior
Healthy Romantic Relationships
- Interdependent, not codependent - an updated and expanded version
of the article Codependence vs Interdependence. "You may find your prince or princess but they will have
issues to deal with."
Healthy Romantic Relationships
- part 2, Clear Communication is the foundation - an article focused on
the vital importance of clearly communicating. "The single most useful tool is simply to ask.
"How do you define that word?" or "What did you just hear me say?'"
Healthy Romantic Relationships
- part 3, Emotional Honesty Necessary - If we are reacting to old
wounds and old tapes then we are not being emotionally honest and are
incapable of healthy emotional intimacy. "Just to think of how many ghosts are in the room,
when two unconscious people are interacting, is mind boggling."
Healthy Romantic Relationships
- part 4, Partners in the Journey - An article focused on the priceless
gift a relationship can be if both people are in recovery from childhood
wounds. "My issues are my responsibility to
work through, it is not the other persons job to compromise her self to
accommodate my fears and insecurities."
Healthy Romantic Relationships
- part 5, Healthy Joyous Sexuality - When two people are connecting
in a healthy way on all levels - physical, emotional, mental, and Spiritual
- the physical union can become a sacred experience. "A Loving God/Goddess/Great Spirit would not give us sensual
and sexual sensations that feel so wonderful unless we were meant to
enJoy them."
Healthy Romantic Relationships
- part 6, Romantic Love as a Concept - about the importance of changing
the dysfunctional definitions of romance and love that we learned as
children. "Another way it is important to change
our perspective of love is to own that falling in love is a choice.
It is not some camouflaged trap in the sidewalk you are the victim of
falling into."
Healthy Romantic Relationships
- part 7, Valentine's Day 2000 - A completely rewritten version of the
column listed second above. "It is very sad
that it is so hard to connect with another being in a healthy, Loving way.
It is very sad that so many of us have had to shut down our hearts and lock
the romantic part of us away in a deep dark place within us."
Healthy Romantic Relationships
- part 8, Pay Attention and Communicate - Seeing and hearing clearly,
and communicating honestly are vital to becoming healthier in romantic
relationships. "The purpose of saying "I
am afraid you will get angry" is not to prevent the other person from getting
angry, it is to help the other person understand you (in-to-me-see)."
Healthy Romantic Relationships
- part 9, The Greatest Arena for Spiritual growth - A romantic relationship
is an adventure in growth, an joint expedition into intimacy.
"A relationship will be work. It will be challenging
and exciting, frustrating and painful. It will help us to access
Joy and get us in touch with grief."
(The pages above are linked together so that
you may go from one to the next in the order listed.)
An Adventure in Romance
- Loving & Losing Successfully - In December of 1998
Robert had an adventure in romance that proved how miraculously the healing
process works. This is the story of that experience.
"It is a tale of how my greatest fear came true
but my response to it took me to a place of Joy and Love that is sublimely,
exquisitely, magical and mystical - and Amazingly miraculous." Letting Go of Unavailable People
- An article in a series focusing on how the Spiritual
principles of twelve step recovery can be applied to facilitate learning
to have healthier relationships. "Codependents
focus on others to keep from looking at self. We need to let go
of focusing on the other person and start focusing inside to understand
what is happening." - Newly added 8-03
There is also a series of 17 articles focused
on issues involving gender,
sexuality, romantic relationships which
evolved into articles focused on fear of intimacy - here
are links to those articles without the description and quote.
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert
Burney is copyright 1995. Material on Joy2MeU web site (except
where otherwise noted) is copyright 1996 thru 2016 by Robert Burney
PO Box 98 Fallbrook CA 92088.
September 2012: Announcing
the publication of 
Romantic Relationships ~ The Greatest Arena for Spiritual &
Emotional Growth
