Carla Willis-Brandon - Is It Love or Is It Sex?: Why Relationships Dont Work

Is It Love Or
Is It Sex?

Why Relationships Don't Work

Carla Wills-Brandon

IS IT LOVE OR IS IT SEX? WHY RELATIONSHIPS DON'T WORK
Copyright 1989, 2000 by Carla Wills-Brandon

This electronic format is published by Tantor eBooks,
a division of Tantor Media, Inc, and was produced in the year 2012, All rights reserved.

This book is dedicated to my husband Michael, my partner in this life, to my son Aaron, who unknowingly forces me to continue my personal growth process, and to my sister Lila, to whom I can say, "We finally have a healthy relationship."

No creation has only one creator. Many people are responsible for making this book possible. Though many have contributed to these pages, I would specifically like to say a special thank you to a few.

I would first of all like to acknowledge and thank Ms. Rita Baker and all of her fingers for typing the original manuscript. I would like to express my gratitude to Marie Stilkind for going to bat with Health Communications for this manuscript.

I would also like to commend my family for putting up with me while I was working on this book. I would like to thank my husband Michael and my son Aaron for their support and patience. I tend to become "that grouchy person" (as I refer to myself) at times, while writing.

Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of the men and women who have had the courage to break the No Talk Rule about their own dysfunctional sexual history, sexuality and painful experience with relationships. Without their courage, this book would never have become a reality.

There are numerous books on shelves all over the world which discuss in depth such topics as what makes a relationship work why relationships don't succeed, sex in the marital relationship, sex and the single person and so on. I believe there are more definitions and solutions provided by authors, helping professionals, institutions and schools of thought to the question, "What makes a healthy relationship?" than for any other major issue facing us today. But even with all of these resources and opinions, the divorce rate in the United States and in Europe continues to be overwhelming. Most of us are still asking ourselves, "What does it take to have a healthy, successful, loving relationship with another human being?"

Humankind has been pondering the topics of love, sex and marriage (or relationships) for centuries. Throughout history, in poetry, fiction and nonfiction, the quest for relief from the frustration and confusion these topics produce is evident. Recently I was with a group of men and women, young and old, married and single, with various backgrounds, who were all in recovery from addictions to alcohol, drugs, food, sex, workaholism, co-dependency and the like. The topic of discussion in the group was, "What is love?"

Well, of course, with such a diverse group there were many, many definitions of love. As a matter of fact, there were as many definitions as there were people. No two were the same. Some of these definitions were:

Love is a feeling of connection with the whole universe.

Love is giving permission to those around us to be who they are.

Love is respecting someone we want in our lives enough to let them go.

Love is allowing our mates and friends to grow at their own pace, in their own way.

Love is being available to others in time of need with support and concern.

Love is a feeling of warmth inside.

Love is being at peace with everything and everyone around us.

Love is sharing feelings with one another, even when it hurts.

Even though there were many definitions, the final consensus of the group was that there isn't a single description of love, that the feeling of love is a personal experience. The group also agreed that the first concept of love comes from one's initial experience within the family of origin.

The group believed that if the family of origin was dysfunctional as a consequence of addiction of any sort or as a result of emotional, physical, sexual or spiritual abuse, then the members of such a family would most likely have a dysfunctional concept of love and not know what a healthy relationship is. Everyone agreed that to experience healthy love and healthy relationships, they had to weed out some, if not all, of the traditions and values they had learned in their original families about love and relationships. Only by doing that could they blossom into individuals who feel connected in a healthy way to self, to others and even to a Higher Power or spiritual concept.

At some point in our lives most of us want to reach out for and have a wholesome relationship with another person. Many of us have, at one time or another, had unhealthy and painful courtships, friendships, love affairs, engagements or marriages. Some of us still feel at a loss in our present associations and move from one to the next, disappointed again and again. We may be connected with someone in a way that feels empty and lonely but we dread abandonment so we stay, hoping for some miracle to improve things but unable to say what kind of miracle is needed.

This book does not tell why we have sick relationships; that answer can only come from within. What this book does is to provide direction and suggestions, ideas the reader may want to consider while seeking his or her own solutions. The second half of the book includes a workbook and some key questions. Your answers to those questions may unlock the doors you need to walk through to attain your personal recovery from dysfunctional relationships. This book is for those of you who are single and ready for a successful intimacy as well as for those of you who are already in a committed relationship but still feel that something is missing.

In 12-Step support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Co-dependents Anonymous, Adult Children of Alcoholics and others, there is a saying, Take what you like and leave the rest. It is my hope that you, the reader, will be able to take from these pages what you feel applies to your life and find your own definition of healthy love. Good luck to you on your path toward healing. Know that success is already with you.

Carla Wills-Brandon

Hello! My name is Carla and I am recovering from just about every addiction known to humanity. I have a friend who refers to himself as a dabbler in the world of addictions because he jumped from one addiction to another when confronted with pain, shame and fear. So I guess one might say I'm a recovering dabbler! And yes, this is another one of those books about addictive relationships. But it has a different twist to it.

Michael, my spouse and partner along the path of recovery, and I had been experiencing difficulties in our relationship for years. We are both professional therapists and, way back when, we thought we could solve our problems ourselves. I still tease Michael, saying that I was his dissertation project, in that he married me for the challenge of fixing me. Our relationship didn't improve over time but slowly disintegrated because we were both involved in a number of addictions. These addictions were much more powerful than all of our education, degrees and certifications put together. Eventually we both realized that the disease of chemical dependency had worn us down and that all of the brainpower in the world was no match for what we had been fighting. We admitted defeat and sought help.

Michael and I thought that with treatment for my chemical dependency, our relationship would suddenly snap right into place and, of course, be perfect. Little did we know we were living with denial and deluded thinking. As the identified chemically dependent patient in the family, I felt that I had forced Michael into a caretaker role and I took on total responsibility for the relationship. Neither of us realized that our relationship was a 50-50 deal and that we were equally dysfunctional long before the disease of chemical dependency became an issue for us. Eventually, after each of us had done a great deal of individual family of origin work, we discovered that we had an investment in our respective roles within the relationship. Michael and I realized that it was not by chance that we had married one another. We fit together like a couple of puzzle pieces.