Divorce is often caused by relationship breakdown and that is most often caused by the inability of couples to relate with one another. The relationship ceases to exist the minute one or both parties stop relating. What is relating - it is being open and communicative, it is holding respect and understanding for the other person, it is allowing yourself to be vulnerable and not hiding your fears or your love. It is being truly honest and yourself without fear of recrimination or judgment.

There are some marriages which were never destined to last the pace because one or both failed from the outset to be totally honest with themselves and the person they were marrying. It takes a great deal of courage to allow yourself to be open and vulnerable - to drop your guard, to move on from the fear of what the other person might think of you.

You have to be selfish to enter into a successful marriage or partnership. True selfishness means knowing what and who is right or wrong for you, it is knowing what it is about another person you really find a challenge, it is knowing what it is that you are hiding from them. For example, the times:

when their behaviour grates, or is inappropriate according to you

when something they say or do makes you sad yet you turn the other cheek because you were just being stupid/too weak/too soft

when you know that you like doing something which they don't and you stop doing it/don't admit to it

when your attitudes towards things are so completely different and your opinion is over-ridden

So often we shut down on feelings and emotions and what we are really doing is shutting our own self out - our own rights to be proud of who we are in order to fit into what we think someone else wants. The problem is that most of the time that's just an assumption - have you ever taken the time to ask? You know in Bridget Jones - Edge of Reason, Mr Darcy loved her even more because of what she perceived to be flaws, and she assumed that they were the very things she had to change to have any chance of him loving her. We do make up such silly nonsenses don't we!

Say you did remain open and you were willing to ask - what would happen if you found that you were loved for just that very way of being you have. And, conversely, what if you were told that under no circumstances could that be tolerated - would you actually be prepared to continue relating and being open and honest. Would you be prepared to give that thing/behaviour/feeling up and still be fully yourself?

Being addicted to relationships is as bad and toxic for you as smoking, drinking too much and drugs. If you need someone else, and very often it's anyone else, in your life more than facing up to what it is that makes you need them, I would very much like to encourage you to break the habit now.