Does lasting love really exist?

If you ask someone if they want to get married, you'll receive a variety of different answers. But if you ask them if they want lasting love, across the board, you're going to hear, "Yes. They do want to love and be loved". You're also going to hear some skepticism about whether or not lasting love really even exists anymore or whether or not they believe it will happen for them.

We are in a culture where this is a much more common problem than it's ever been before. In 1960. When my parents were dating, 72% of all adults were married. That meant that the other 28% were single, never married, widowed, divorced, or not married yet. But the rest, 72%, were married, and 59% of 30-year-olds were married. Let's fast forward 50 years, and in 2010, only 20% of 30-year-olds were married, and in 2015, 51% of all adults were married. We have experienced as a culture a huge shift in attachment!*

My name is Alisa Goodwin Snell, and welcome to the Lasting Love Podcast, where we feature real life, real people, and real love. If you enjoy this podcast, please share it with others that you feel would also benefit from it. And if you're anxious to start your own lasting love journey, please join me at the LastingLoveAcademy.com, where you can take advantage of my 30 years of expertise and extensive Lasting love Academy for as little as $27 a month. It just depends on the results you want to get. Depending on the program that you choose, the lasting love Academy includes audios, videos, books that are mailed to you, and workbooks on everything from dating to creating lasting love through engagement and marriage.  And we offer Personalized Lasting Love Action Plans that are based on a thorough Needs Assessment of your individual situation so that you can maximize your experience with the Lasting Love Academy and make sure it's tailored specifically to your needs. With our Strategy Sessions, you get hands-on expertise throughout your Lasting Love Journey.

Transcript

(Full podcast transcription below)

If you ask someone if they want to get married, you'll receive a variety of different answers. But if you ask them if they want lasting love, across the board, you're going to hear yes that they do want to love and be loved. You're also going to hear some skepticism about whether or not lasting love really even exists anymore or whether or not they believe it will happen for them.

We are all optimists. We want to love. We want to be loved. We want to believe that it can be different for us. But then, when we look around at our friends and family and associates, we can really question whether or not those lives are full of the lasting love that we're looking for.  When we see examples of divorce and unhappiness clashed against the social media representation of people in their relationships, it can be really difficult to believe that real life with a real person and doing real love will work or happen for them.

We are in a culture where this is a much more common problem than it's ever been before. In 1960. When my parents were dating, 72% of all adults were married. That meant that the other 28% were single, never married, widowed, divorced, or not married yet. But the rest, 72%, were married, and 59% of 30-year-olds were married. Let's fast forward 50 years, and in 2010, only 20% of 30-year-olds were married, and in 2015, 51% of all adults were married. We have experienced as a culture a huge shift in attachment!*

My name is Alisa Goodwin Snell from the LastingLoveAcademy.com. I'm so excited to have you join me in the lasting love podcast. The Lasting Love Podcast is designed for people like you who are on their journey towards lasting love. Whether you've never been in a serious relationship, you don't really know how to date, you date frequently but just can't seem to commit or get the commitment of the people that you're really interested in, or you're struggling to create lasting love with somebody and conflict is difficult or achieving lasting love and marriage is challenging for you, this podcast is for you. The intent of the lasting love podcast is to feature the stories of real people living real lives and offering real love as I've experienced them over the last nearly 30 years of my career.

I started off as a marriage and family therapist at a very young age. I will be getting into my story here in just a moment, but first, I want to introduce the stories of several of the clients that we are going to be following over the next so many weeks and the process that I have used to help them unlock the secrets of lasting love, stage by stage, step by step in their journey towards lasting love.

So first, let me introduce Karen. She's a 38-year-old divorced woman with three kids and comes from a bad marriage. She's got a rich history of pain and difficulties in her childhood and other experiences; you're going to be learning more about that in the weeks to come.

There are also Tim and Tara, who are 42-years old. They're both divorced and have two kids. They're engaged. They're looking forward to getting married, but at the same time, they have so much conflict that it's difficult for them to plan the wedding or to move forward because their communication is actually quite difficult. They have very high volatility in their relationship.

Then we have 22-year old Jeremy, who is a college student. He's never been married, and he's really never even been in a serious relationship. He's had very few first dates, and he's a little overweight. He's otherwise  got a lot of great qualities and is actually quite a good communicator, which can also pose some problems that make him seem like the too nice guy.

And then we have Jana, who is 32. She dates a lot, and she just can't commit. She's been in several long-term relationships. She has a bit of an affinity for the bad boy. In a way, she's tried to push herself forward in relationships with the kind of men that she knows would be good for her, and she's even gotten close to engagement a couple of times, but she just can't pull the trigger. Mostly, she feels that she's just not attracted to the people that she meets, and she's not feeling what she thinks she should be feeling, and without that, she doesn't see how she can commit.

So, these are the real people, real, life real, love stories that we're going to be following over the next few weeks as I journey with them towards lasting love.

But the first real life, real people, real love story I'll be sharing is my own. I grew up in a somewhat large family from a religious culture in which there was a lot of conflict between my parents. I was the middle child, so it was easy for me to fall under the radar, but as my older siblings grew up and moved out, I found myself in the position of trying to mediate some of my parent's arguments. I remember at one point sitting my dad down on one couch, my mom down on the other couch, and saying, "Dad tell mom what you told me. Mom tell dad what you told me".  That was my first attempt as a marriage counselor, in which I gloriously failed.

They divorced a year later when I was 18 years old, and I headed off to college. I remember I was in the library and studying the book for my family studies class, and I just became alive with thoughts and feelings about how fabulous these ideas for marriages were. If only my parents had no these things, could they have possibly saved their marriage? I just knew at that point, I wanted to become a marriage and family therapist.

So I graduated at 22, went off to my master's program, and graduated from my master's at 24. I was full of optimism and enthusiasm and somewhat aware of my own issues that had drawn me to the profession, but mostly I became a marriage and family therapist because I never wanted to get divorced.

At 24 years old, I graduated. At 25, I get married. At 27, I had my son, and at 28, I had to confront the reality of the situation I was in and the many decisions my former spouse was making. I decided I could not live in that situation any longer and raise my son in that situation. There were a variety of very toxic elements to the relationship, but what was controlling and toxic during the marriage became terrifying and threatening during the divorce. So I was blessed to have a protective order and start to rebuild my life.

Coming out of the divorce was pretty challenging. I had nothing. I was living with a friend just to be able to make ends meet. I felt broken, foolish, traumatized, and worried about how I was going to provide for my son. I didn't have any resources to rely on, and I wasn't willing to go live with my mom and stepdad. At this point, I was also having panic attacks before or after interacting with my ex-husband.

It was particularly challenging for me because I was also a marriage and family therapist, and I had become a marriage and family therapist because I never wanted to get divorced. This was a really painful, challenging time in my life. I suffered from depression and anxiety during this time, but slowly I started to pull myself out of the situation. I  began a private practice.

As I was still doing marriage and family therapy, I was watching these couples who had bad relationships, or there was verbal abuse, control, manipulation, personality disorders, dishonesty, infidelity. I was trying to help them to find hope and use the skills that I had learned to overcome their relationship challenges. The good thing with this is that there were some people who were doing amazing. I really loved watching some of the transforming experiences that I was having with my clients.

But there was a common denominator between those couples that didn't seem to get any better and those couples that did: it was a lack of empathy, a lack of self-control, and a lack of personal responsibility by one or both partners. It really became apparent to me that the best way that I could have a better outcome was by looking for somebody who had empathy, self-control, and personal responsibility because, if they brought those skills into the relationship and I'm offering those skills, we would be able to find a way to make things work.

The challenge was believing that those people existed, that I could date them, I could find them, that they would be interested in me in return, that I could actually get it right, and that I'd see it accurately.  I knew that if I did succeed in marrying somebody with these personality qualities, I'd be far more likely to be successful. But what if I got it wrong? What if they really didn't have those qualities, and how would I know?

So I'd love for you to join me on my next podcast as I continue my lasting love story and journey with you, as well as the lives of Karen, Tara, Tim, Jeremy, and Jana. My next podcast will feature their stories and the advice that I was using for them to transform their situation.

And if you're anxious to start your own lasting love journey, please join me at the LastingLoveAcademy.com, where you can take advantage of my 30 years of expertise and the extensive Lasting Love Academy for as little as $27 a month. It just depends on the results you want to get. Depending on the program that you choose, the Lasting Love Academy includes audios, videos, books that are mailed to you, and workbooks on everything from dating to creating lasting love through engagement and marriage. And we offer Personalized Lasting Love Action Plans that are based on a thorough Needs Assessment of your individual situation so that you can maximize your experience with the Lasting Love Academy and make sure it's tailored specifically to your needs. With our Strategy Sessions, you get hands-on expertise throughout your Lasting Love Journey.

This is Alisa Goodwin Snell. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it with those who you think would also benefit from it. Thank you for joining the Lasting Love Podcast, where real life, real people, and real love is within your reach. I look forward to helping you to have a life and love changing experience. All rights reserved by the LastingLoveAcademy.com.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

*References:
Cohn, D’Vera, et al. “Barely Half of U.S. Adults Are Married - A Record Low.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, 13 Dec. 2011, www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/12/14/barely-half-of-u-s-adults-are-married-a-record-low/
“The American family today.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, 17 Dec. 2015, www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/1-the-american-family-today/
Women, Men and the New Economics of Marriage. Retrieved October 30, 2017, from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/01/19/women-men-and-the-new-economics-of-marriage/