The title of this book, Romantic Relationships: The Greatest Arena for Spiritual and Emotional Growth, is a truth that it is vital to recognize if you ever want to have a functional romantic relationship. We were set up to fail in romantic relationships by the dysfunctional perspectives and expectations of love and romance we learned growing up, according to the author. Robert Burney is a Spiritual Teacher and pioneer in the area of codependency recovery/inner child healing whose first book, Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls, has been called "one of the truly transformational works of our time". His second book, Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light - Empowerment, Freedom, and Inner Peace Through Inner Child Healing, was published in the summer of 2011. This is part 1 - the first of two audiobooks that he will publish as his third hardcover book.

We were set up to feel like failures in romantic relationships by the dysfunctional perspectives and expectations of love and romance we learned growing up. There is no happily-ever-after that we can reach when we find our prince or princess. As an adult you obviously know that intellectually - but emotionally you are still looking for it because it is what we were taught as children, it is part of the foundation programming that determines how we relate to life. On some level you are probably judging yourself because you haven't reached happily-ever-after.

As I state on my website in the section on Romantic Relationships, "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." It is very important to start realizing how we were set up, so that we can change our attitudes, definitions, and expectations of romantic relationships into ones that are more functional - into ones that can help us start to learning how to approach love and romance in healthier ways.

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 and make better choices. It is better to love and lose then never love - but we need to change what we are expecting from love and romance in order to even have a chance of being able to start learning how to have an interdependent relationship that can work for us.

When speaking I sometimes say, "There are things that I have written in ways that I like so much that I quote myself." One of the main sayings of mine that I quote - and have used in my writing for years - is, "Romantic relationships are the greatest arena for Spiritual and emotional growth available to us." So, it was pretty easy when I started putting this book together to pick a title. Romantic Relationships: The Greatest Arena for Spiritual and Emotional Growth was a natural. The subtitle - Codependent Dysfunctional Relationship Dynamics and Healthy Relationship Behavior - speaks to some areas it is important to focus upon. First it is important to realize that our patterns in relationships, especially romantic relationships - although normal in a dysfunctional society - are not normal, natural interaction patterns, they are dsyfunctional inter-reaction patterns caused by codependency, by our childhood emotional wounding and intellectual programming. Secondly it is vital to start learning how to behave in a healthy loving way in relationships so that we can give ourselves the gift of being available for a romantic relationship that can be a great adventure with someone else who is working on learning how to be healthy in their relationship with self and others.

It is very much worth it to learn to love - and reading this audiobook could be a huge step in helping you to become capable of having a romantic relationship.