1 Why a tutorial?

Introduction for each tutorial:

An insight we might admit to from our personal as well as our professional world might be that:

Partnerships do not collapse because of a lack of love
but rather from a lack of knowledge.
If we knew more we would make them work better.

Does that seem too easy? Perhaps, but it is easy to agree that we all want the same things, i.e. happiness and contentment - especially in a partnership. But how can we achieve them? When we look at our families and friends we can't help but be shocked at the number of separations and divorces. Moreover, many couples who do remain together do not give the impression of being particularly blissful. Why is this the case if everybody longs to be contented?
Could it be that some of us never learned how to be happy in a partnership? After all, how many of us had the opportunity to consciously prepare for a partnership or in-deed for married life?  In an age of specialization, society does not have a single specialist institution that we might consult when it matters - i.e. before we commit ourselves. A lucky few of us have role mod-els, but how many of us have ones that are really useful?

We believe this model might be. We would like to invite you to work your way through it - alone, with a friend, or with your partner. This tutorial could give you knowledge that would enable you to change the quality of your partnership and to make it more se-cure, more relaxed and happier.
Partnership, love, family are the themes that affect our personal lives. Talking about these themes means having to get personal i.e. talking about things that mostly remain in the private sphere.

We intend to talk about personal matters. Each tutorial is built around three sample relationships. We have created them from the multitude of stories that have been lovingly shared with us in our professional lives. Some points from some of the stories we have heard are reflected in the samples. However their circumstances have been altered in such a way that nobody's individual story can be recognized.
You might feel that the stories depicted in the examples are exaggeratedly simple. That is the intention. We believe it is beneficial to use sharp contrasts in order to clearly demonstrate the efficacy of altering conditions. The stories are not intended to be great literature but rather working papers. The representations of common situations with their potential for sudden conflict are intended to demonstrate the universality of one’s own problems, i.e. that they are “normal.”
The seemingly simplistically harmonious solutions depicted in the second part are an envisioning of one of our fundamental beliefs; i.e. that apparently small modifications in our dealings with each other can have dramatically positive and happily permanent consequences.
Occasionally, you might recognize a slightly altered story in a later tutorial, which treats an apparently dissimilar topic. The reason for this is: depending on the particular point of view, a further issue (conflict) might come to the fore. Relationships, like communication networks, are very much intertwined.
We invite you to learn from the experience of others - as we always have done and continue to do. We invite you to share your experiences and insights with us and with others. To facilitate this, we have created a guest book where you can ask questions but also respond to the questions of others who are working with the tutorials. Perhaps it will be your idea that will make the difference in somebody's life.
But who are these other people? We think they are people like you: People who take their relationships seriously enough to want to improve them: People who believe they themselves and their relationships can be improved: People who are prepared to take advantage of the Internet - to learn - with and from others: People who value flexibility. We believe this offer is equally useful to men and women, young and old, to young people in relationships that feel old and to older people who want to re-invigorate relationships that have gone cold.
As in all our projects, we are assuming that you agree with us on the fundamental equality of men and women. This conviction is reflected in the language we use. The statements usually apply equally to either gender.
From our point of view, such tutorials are an optimal method to work profitably on one's own relationship at one's own pace. The first 14 tutorials deal with the basic rules of how to deal with conflict in the partnership in such a way that a more relaxed relationship can be established.
Let us agree on something else. Conflict is a normal part of every relationship. They will arise anew and will have to be solved anew. However, neither our upbringing nor the role models in our societal environment have ever been of much help in either resolving existing conflicts or avoiding new ones.
 We rarely meet people who can be of real help with the specific issues we need to successfully resolve or who can tell us how or why to make a specific move.
To help overcome this problem, we have created an overview of the tutorials. This will help you identify the tutorial, which contains the topic that is important to you right now. It makes more sense to begin with the topic you and your partner have identified as most relevant to you regardless of its sequence in the list of tutorials. Search it out together and work through it together. Sim-ply doing this with your partner is an important step in improving your current situation.
What does it mean if you cannot identify any success? In our experience, change takes time. Another factor is the length of time we have already used to get used to an existing pattern of behavior. This applies even when we intellectually recognize that; “this isn’t working and we have to make changes.” Even then, the power of habit plays a role. The longer we have taken to form a habit, the longer it may take to (re)-form it.
If time has passed and there is still no success, it might be because there is an unconscious “objection” to your achieving success, contentment or happiness.
We will be dealing with this question from tutorial 30 onwards (expected in the 3rd quarter 2010)
Tutorials 1 to 18 can and should be gone through in the sequence of your choosing. Tutorials 20 –30 are designed to deepen topics that have been previously addressed. They are most useful if you have already worked through the particular topic.

Copyright:

This document is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. The purchase and receipt of this “Learn to Love” tutorial permits private use only. All commercial use of this “Learn to Love” tutorial outside the private sector is prohibited. Violators will be prosecuted.