Years ago, the famous cartoonist, Walt Kelly, wrote this immortal line for his character, Pogo Possum: "We have met the enemy ... and he is us." When it comes to relationships, we often turn out to be our own worst enemies. The true enemy could be "inner me." Once we get rid of our self-defeating practices, we have won half the battle. To follow Sun Tzu's advice, in The Art of War, if you know your enemy, it allows you to outsmart and defeat him. Applying that principle, knowing ourselves (the enemy) will allow us to defeat the patterns that we have followed over and over, leading to unsuccessful relationships.

In order to change our patterns, we must rethink the ways we've been doing things. We must apply new standards to our lives and dating experiences. For example: You will not meet "Mr. Right" in the "wrong" places. If you do not want a bar fly for a husband, do not look for men at a bar. Often, women will meet a man in these types of places and begin to date him, and then when it turns out that their man wants to hang out in bars all the time or is an alcoholic, they are surprised and disappointed. What did they expect to find in a bar if not a man who likes to go to bars? One should not expect to find gold in a coal mine.

Sometimes the problem women have is dating the wrong types of men. Women often get burned emotionally over and over because of their repeating patterns. For example "players" and "bad boys" are exciting to be around and might show you a nice time, that is, when they have time to fit you into their schedules. However, you can end up being continuously disappointed. What is the problem with dating men of the playboy variety? They grow from boys to adult men, but keep their childish ways. They do not stop playing; they just change toys.

Some women are drawn to powerful men. As Henry Kissinger once stated, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." However, these women often find that the powerful man they attracted lacks the sensitivity that is also important to her. Powerful men are often self-absorbed...that focus on their personal goals is how they became powerful. With many of these men - top executives, politicians, pastors - their families and significant others take a back seat to their first love...their vocations. Many have not found the balance between work and home. Be careful...relationships with these men can often be a lonely journey. Your favorite credit card is poor company!!

We often look at wealth and success rather than looking at the man who truly loves us for who we are. We look for a man to already be all that we desire instead of one who, with our love and support, can grow to be all that God wants him to be.

Many times, we choose partners whose basic values are totally different than ours. It is critical that what is important to him matches what is important to you. Watch the signs to determine what is important to your significant other. This can prevent the tendency to walk into a bad situation.

We need to destroy the negative patterns that keep us repeating the same mistakes over and over. After all, you cannot make a different dress using the same old pattern. As the saying goes, "if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got."

Do not move forward in a damaging relationship out of fear of not having another choice or chance. We should not only learn from the bad choices that we make, but learn from the mistakes of others to avoid making them ourselves. In that way, we can move from being our own worst enemy to being our own best friend.