9. You think about your ex more than him. You constantly compare your last relationship to this one and fantasize more about the past than the present or your future together.

8. His job search is going nowhere, and you’re tired of the recession excuse (and supporting his lazy ass). He doesn’t have to make millions, but he should contribute something.

7. He’s more in love with this phone than with you, and it’s become incredibly difficult to carry on a face-to-face conversation about anything except the latest Yahoo! news…

6. He’s a Republican. (Enough said.) Seriously, you should share some of the same core values and goals if any sort of commitment is in the cards for the two of you.

5. Your fights have turned physical more than once. He can’t seem to gain control over his anger and aggression no matter how hard he’s tried. Like substance abuse (see #10), physical abuse is a deal breaker unless significant changes are made – like it stops.

4. He won’t introduce you to his family. He doesn’t have to force it down their throats, but openness and honesty are the building blocks of healthy relationships, and it starts with those closest to us.

3. You can’t leave the house without checking back in with him every 10 minutes. Everyone is insecure to a certain extent, but you don’t want to feel like you’re wearing an ankle bracelet and have a parole officer.

2. When your friends ask you what attracted you to him in the first place, you can’t think of anything beyond his incredible body or witty sense of humor. He doesn’t pass the friend test, and more than anyone, they want the very best for us – not just physically but emotionally as well.

1. In your heart you know that you’re settling. In your head, you keep hearing the lyrics to Madonna’s song, “Don’t go for second best…!” You know more than ever before, she’s talking directly to you, honey.

So how do we, in fact, get ourselves into a regular workout routine? Look at the last time you promised yourself you’d go to the gym after work and didn’t go. What excuse did you make to yourself? Were you too tired or just too busy? It could be deeper than that – you might have a stronger commitment to feeling bad about yourself. Even though you had every intention to working out, your first commitment won out and prevented you from taking an action that would lead you to achieving your goal.

Becoming aware of these unconscious commitments, as hard as it may be to get honest with yourself, is the first step in overriding them so you really can achieve what you really want for yourself. If left unexamined, these unseen forces will continue to shape our realities and there will continue to be a large gap between what we say we want and what we actually experience.

Go back to the roots, the unconscious decisions you’ve made in the past. If you keep saying you want to get organized and stay on track with your schedule but find yourself in chaos day after day, perhaps it’s because you were strictly disciplined as a child and your first commitment is to being a free spirit. If that’s the case, and you’re unaware (until now) of that stronger agreement you’ve made with yourself, getting organized and staying on schedule will remain an elusive goal.

Once these commitments are brought to light you can start questioning what it is truly more important in the moment. Suppose you’ve promised yourself you’d organize your home office on Saturday morning and the time has come, you have nothing else to do. You have two choices – you could fulfill your promise to yourself, or you could put it off to another time. One leads you to fulfill your deeper desire and the other leads you further away. Instead of putting it off, how else could you express and validate that first commitment of being a free spirit, if that’s what it is? Many people struggle with this inner conflict – they don’t like anyone telling them what to do, not even another part of themselves.

We have a choice, and we have control over our choices, once we are aware and tell the truth. If we say we want to move up the corporate ladder but always get overlooked for the promotion, perhaps we might realize, “I’ve been wanting to create a successful career but now I can see that my first commitment is to having someone else take care of me.” Once you acknowledge this truth, you can begin to transform and shift your behavior. You can examine your choices and look at what is empowering and what leaves you feeling powerless, what will lead you toward our goal and what will lead you further away. At last you can understand why you’ve been stuck in the same pattern of behavior and finally see the way out. As the saying goes, “the truth will set you free.”

It’s important not to criticize ourselves for having these underlying commitments. They arose out of our need to compensate for things in our lives that overburdened, overwhelmed or undernourished us. We made these commitments at a time when we didn’t have the freedom or the power to make our own choices. At some point in our lives, these first commitments served us. Once you become present and aware, you can powerfully choose the direction of your life and make new choices. Questioning your truths gives you the power to choose a new path and gives you the inspiration to fulfill your deepest desires. Every time you make a new, empowering choice, you will be inspired by yourself, feel proud that you’re honoring your true self, and feel confident that you can continue to get whatever it is that you really want for yourself, your relationships, career and broader life direction.

Coaching conversations can help partners get real with themselves, and learn strategies that will help them sustain long-term love as partners, while learning to accept themselves in a committed relationship – and maintain great friendships with other committed couples.

• How they plan to handle conflict.
• How they know that they are being truthful with each other.
• How they can help each other grow as individuals while becoming closer as a couple.
• How they can keep it fun and exciting!
• How a couple can maintain their sexual attraction as well as romantic intimacy.

One of the key benefits of an effective coach is one who encourages such exploration and deepens the client’s learning about himself. As a result of discovering what you stand for and what you’re really here to accomplish, you can live to your legacy. This level of coaching could very well catapult you into a dimension you never knew existed!

At the same time it can provide strategies that will help the couple gain acceptance from both sets of parents as they intertwine backgrounds and cultures on both sides.

Accepting themselves as individuals – then together as a couple – is essential for a successful relationship. What anyone else thinks about them then becomes less important, especially if acceptance from others – including parents – isn’t forthcoming.

Coaching will help you find clarity of purpose and desire and the strength to stay true to new goals of sobriety and wellness – even in the face of old friends and long-term bad habits. Certain coaches can also provide real coping strategies to assist you in staying true to new life choices and goals beyond 12-step and other programs of recovery.

Coaching can help you find the core of who you are as individuals with diverse sexual biographies as well as a couple. This way you can begin to build the foundation of a truly intimate relationship.

Coaching can help your partner be more gentle with himself, reclaim his life and start living on purpose – every day to the fullest. It can also support you in finding strategies that will allow you to adapt to the new reality of living with HIV in a loving relationship. (Note that if there are deep wounds relating to the emotional effects of the disease, it may become necessary to work with a psychologist either before or in concert with a coach. This would be discussed and referrals possibly made.)

Before telling anyone, a life coach can help you explore:

• Your own feelings about being gay.
• How well (or not) you have accepted this truth about yourself.
• Your own uniqueness in other ways.
• Ways to communicate with parents or significant others.

Being open with your parents and other family members can result in everyone becoming much closer and emotionally healthy. In fact, often times the reaction is way better than expected. If not, well that can be dealt with, too. When the burden of hiding who you are is lifted, it can open your world in unimagined ways