Sex Spoken Here: Risk assessment in relationships 2

Welcome to my virtual therapy room!  I am Dr Lori Beth Bisbey and this is Sex Spoken Here.  As this podcast contains adult material, if you don’t have total privacy you might want to wear headphones. 

Today I am continuing my series on risk assessment in relationships.

We started last week talking all about consent and discovered that it is a many faceted topic.  This week we are going to talk about the red flags that arise when you are just beginning relationships that let you know you might want to slow down or stop all together.

Joining me today is Dr Sue Mandel is a psychologist and a certified life coach and a certified data coach.  She’s been in practice for 30 years seeing couples, single women over 40 and relationships.  She specialises in the psychobiology of intimate relationships.

We talked about red flags ranging from poor boundaries, to feeling rage seething underneath the surface.  We spoke about the importance of paying attention to your gut instincts and your level of comfort.  Sue suggests that when people are self-absorbed you need to take notice as this is a big red flag.

We talked about people who ‘never get angry’ and avoid conflict and cannot resolve conflict and that this is also a big red flag.  Sue highlighted the passive aggressive behaviour that you might see with a person like this.  She spoke about people who are denigrate the people around them, people who don’t introduce you to their friends, are evasive and people who lie.

Sue spoke about working with her clients on trusting themselves and acting on their feelings.  She said that it is often hard for people to leave a relationship if they don’t know why they were attracted in the first place.  I pointed out that I often tell people to work on their patterns in coaching but to trust gut instincts and act on the red flags even if they don’t understand why they are feeling the way they are feeling. 

We spoke about people who put you on a pedestal and heap tons of praise on you and then switch to heaping tons of denigration on you.  We spoke about how hard it is to walk away from someone who praises you and treats you like you are the best thing since sliced bread even if it doesn’t feel entirely comfortable. 

Sue pointed out that getting into a relationship to ‘fix’ someone is never a good idea and that many women think that they can do this and learn the hard way that it does not work.

Sue can be found at:

www.drsuesconnections.com

 Thanks for joining me this week for Sex Spoken Here with Dr Lori Beth Bisbey.  Write to me with suggestions for the show, questions you want answered at drbisbey@the-intimacy-coach.com, follow me on twitter @drbisbey and check out my YouTube channel.  For a free 30 minute strategy session with me, go to www.the-intimacy-coach.com and click the button that says Schedule Now!  If you are curious and ready to explore more, join me for my webinar/telecall 4 Secrets for Arousing and Igniting Your Authentic Sexual Self .  Click the link to register.  I look forward to seeing you there and next week for part 3 of this series.  Please leave a review if you have enjoyed this podcast on either iTunes or Stitcher. Thanks.