The Formula: How I Found It and What It Can Do for You
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About this ebook
lucid and readable account of how the sexes relate to each
other, and how the partners in a relationship can understand and
empathize with each other to harmonious effect. Bernard Bushell
combines anecdote, personal revelation, social commentary and psychological
insight in a compact, entertaining and yet pragmatic synthesis:
he helps us all.
Gareth D. Williams, Ph.D., Professor, Columbia University
An excellent self-help book, its wisdom shared in the context of a wellwritten,
eminently readable life story!
Mathilda B. Canter, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, Phoenix, AZ, past
president, Division of Psychotherapy, American Psychological Association
Bernard Bushell
Bernard Bushell is a former public relations professional, whose work with thousands of women throughout his careers in real estate and retailing has provided the basis of this book. He is a graduate of Ohio University, with a major in Journalism from the E.W. Scripps School, who believes The Formula can lower our soaring divorce rate and remedy the damage it causes to relationships, families, and children.
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The Formula - Bernard Bushell
Contents
Introduction
Foreword
1. Your Inner Child May Never Grow Up
The Importance Of Compatibility
Reality Checks
High School
2. The Importance Of Knowing Yourself
The Importance Of Listening To Others
Up, Up And Away
3. The Hazards Of Coupledom
The Young Marrieds
Family Business (I)
Family Business (Ii)
4. The Hazards Of Singledom
Boardinghouse Blues
Getting It Together
The Fifty Women
5. Not So Easily Explained…
6. Finding Your Bliss And Following It
Inventing The World
Real Estate Is Destiny
The Ship Sails On…
7. Finding Good Advice And Following It
The Fifty-First Woman
The Second Time Around
Seeing The World
Getting To Yes
8. The Formula: Ego Over Security = Relationship
Life Lessons
Scenes From A Marriage
Version One
Version Two
In The Beginning…
How The Formula Works
9. Steps Toward Your Goal
Important: Asking For And Accepting, Help
The Formula: Beyond Your Significant Other
The Formula: Some Real-Life Case Histories
The Formula: Appendix
The Formula: Your Everyday Reference Guide
Appendix
The Formula: Books That Can Help You Understand
Acknowledgements
For My Mother Sadie:
She Always Believed That
Two Heads Were Better Than One—
Even If They Were Cabbage!
INTRODUCTION
What we don’t know about the opposite or same sex can result in a life of misery, or be transformed into happiness and forever improve all of our relationships—if we learn the secrets of The Formula. Knowing the differences in the sexes and how to see, hear and respond to communication is a powerful awakening.
We live in a world in which over 50% of marriages end in divorce and many more are based on misunderstanding. Using The Formula can prevent such misunderstandings and the broken relationships that often follow them even before they occur.
I married young, had three children, and separated from my first wife after eighteen years. For the next fourteen years I dated fifty women before finding Ms. Right. It was not an easy road, but many others have traveled the same path and suffered the consequences: vii a common pattern that has damaged families, children, and society, and has generated deficits of billions of dollars in lost productivity.
My road has ended more happily, with the luck of finding the right mentors, an ideal partner, and some inspired guidance. There are several disciplines that I have used to find peace of mind; I owe gratitude to all those who helped along the way.
It is my hope that by reading my story many people will be influenced by The Formula and enjoy its benefits throughout their lives. I wish them all happier and more fulfilling relationships!
01.jpgFOREWORD
This is how the story begins: On April 25, 1993, Natalie and I celebrated our marriage in an intimate setting and ceremony in front of our families and friends. For both of us, it was the second time around; Natalie had been widowed for four years and I was at the end of a fourteen-year search for the perfect female. I had dated fifty women in those years and was determined that number fifty-one would be different from the others. This time I was going to get it right!
For a long time, I did. Natalie and I were excited as our relationship flourished and grew deeper. We had everything in common and were also exceptionally emotionally compatible. Yet, after eighteen years of marriage I was becoming aware that something was holding me back from finding the ultimate fulfillment I had hoped for and was sure would be part of what we were destined to achieve. Was it, I wondered, her or me?
It should have been easy to determine. After all, I had spent a lifetime searching for answers to what makes people in general, and women in particular, tick. I had been intimate with enough women, and had enjoyed interacting with so many more of them professionally, that I thought I had them figured out. Yet I had never quite solved the puzzle of why my own first marriage had failed many years earlier. Worse, I realized that some of my fears and patterns were reemerging in my second marriage. But after having been single for so long there was no way I would give up on my marriage to Natalie, so I continued to worry about the problem without being able to discover a solution. Perhaps there was still something more I had to learn…
Then, one starry night while lying in bed, I had an epiphany. I thought back to what I had experienced at a Vipassana Buddhist Meditation retreat in 2009 (http://dharma.org) where I spent a week in virtual silence. It was there that I first thought of writing a book about relationships between men and women. Now, in an Aha! moment of inspiration (the middle of the night is always good for that), I realized how I could do it. If I could find a way to translate the primal relationship between men and women into a clear formula for all to understand, both sexes would be able to comprehend each other’s nature and needs from the get-go. It would be a real accomplishment—not only for myself, but also for the 50% of couples who cannot make a go of it who could be helped by my discovery.
With my mind racing, the formula I devised was — for.jpg Ego over Security equals Relationship. At that moment, I was certain, men were all about Ego, having been hunters for millennia. Women, I was just as certain, having been gatherers and nurturers, were all about Security. I believed that if a woman did not support a man’s Ego, and if a man did not offer a woman emotional Security, their Relationship at best could never reach its full potential and, at worst, would never work!
Remembering my failed first marriage, I knew the toughest parts of divorce were the devastating effect it has on children (my own included) who never recover from the breakup—let alone the adults who remain bitter and angry for years afterward. And, to go one step further, the inevitable financial stress and loss of productivity that rule while the combatants try to recover from the storm. I was an expert on the subject, having lived through all of its stages and an exceptionally long recovery. I knew (from decades of life lessons and self-help courses), that good communication would be the single most important factor in getting the most out of The Formula. Since most couples are not entirely satisfied with each other once their initial fire has cooled, improving communication skills had to be the first goal in improving a relationship; keeping that goal in mind, I pondered how to apply it to my second marriage. Once I saw the light, I knew how strong a concept The Formula was and was grateful for my middle-of-the-night (and mid-life) epiphany from that day forward. It worked for me, and for Natalie, and allowed us to reach the ultimate fulfillment both of us had hoped for (see Chapter Six).
I realized how lucky I was and would have been content to contemplate our future without further angst, since my enthusiasm for it had already compelled me to begin research for what would become this book. But, from time to time, my mind continued to race in the middle of the night to see if there was anything about The Formula that I had overlooked. I had come from a fairly conventional background in suburban Long Island, where growing up, getting married, and having children was the norm. But even I was becoming aware that the world was changing at warp speed—especially with regard to the roles and nature of the sexes.
Once again I was favored with an epiphany: while men and women may now require support of their Egos in different and complex ways and have different needs for Security (especially among younger people), the principles remain the same. The best solutions to problems in any relationship appear when its partners each know what they need, and what, and how, to give each other in return. This is certainly essential for creating strong intimate relationships, but also remarkably effective in improving relationships with friends, relatives, and business partners as well. And yes—full disclosure—I have come to understand that today’s intimate relationships are not only between men and women and may bear little or no resemblance to those that were the norm
when I was growing up.
This book is the story of the journey leading up to my epiphanies—the Aha! Moment that created The Formula and the understanding of just how well and how universally it could be adapted. It was a long journey, with many adventures. Some of them taught me valuable life lessons (more about those in forthcoming chapters) and some of them were learned with outside help. Each of them imparted something I hadn’t known before, and I was always energized by the prospect of growth and transformation. Because I was a late bloomer (more about that in forthcoming chapters, too), I am proud to be living proof that you can teach old dog new tricks! The best part of it is that The Formula is truly inclusive. It changed my life for the better, and can change yours, too.
When my first wife and I separated in 1978, I was despondent and unsure where to turn next. I hadn’t learned my own life lessons yet, but I was drawn to a course on self-improvement at