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.

Quote 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." - Robert Burney

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."  

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 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 (latest at the time I wrote the index page for my old website in January 2000 - what I wrote then still applies, so this is now the home page for this new site healthyromanticrelationships.com in April 2009):

"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, my articles that have now been transferred to this new website 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