Tag Archive | communication in relationships

10 Secrets to Achieving Marital Harmony

Aug31

10 Secrets to Achieving Marital Harmony

Marital harmony can be achieved in a variety of ways. Sometimes it is the little things that maintain the peace in a relationship and sometimes it is more monumental decisions that can either harm or help the harmony in the household. While agreement is not always possible, it is important for the couple to realize that even during arguments it’s possible to maintain harmony. As long as you understand that disagreements are only temporary the harmony in your marriage will remain throughout all types of trials and tribulations.

  • Being aware of your partner’s likes and dislikes is one way to achieve marital harmony. This awareness allows you to operate in a way that keeps your partner’s preferences in mind. If you know what your partner likes and doesn’t like you can take precautions to not engage in an activity that will hurt your partner. Additionally, your partner will respect your consideration of their feelings. This consideration is necessary for those who wish to achieve marital harmony.
  • Sharing in the decision-making process is also critical to achieving marital harmony. This is important for a couple of reasons. First it gives the couple the opportunity to work together to make a decision and second it helps to make them both feel involved in the process. Also, if one person takes the responsibility of making decisions without consulting their partner it can lead to resentment especially if the decision turns out to be a bad one.
  • Another secret to achieving marital harmony is to work to balance your career and home life. It is easy to get caught up in your job responsibilities and to begin to allow your job to take precedence in your relationship but working hard to ensure this doesn’t happen will be beneficial to your marriage. It’s important to realize that no job is more important than your relationship. There may be times that you need to work late or on weekends but try to keep these instances to a minimum. Also, strive to not bring home your work, either physically or mentally, and allow it to encroach on your marriage. It’s acceptable to share information about your day and vent about any problems you may have had for a little while but going on and on about your job will cause problems in your marriage.
  • Any marriage is bound to have its problems and disagreements but it’s important to not let that problem linger. When disagreements arise, try working out an amicable agreement but when this is not possible sometimes you just have to agree to disagree and move on with your marriage. Remember that each morning is a new day and strive to wake up having forgotten any arguments you may have had with your spouse on the previous day. If you made your best effort to resolve the problem and were unable to reach a resolution, just let it go and start the new day out harmoniously.
  • Agreeing on financial matters is also key to achieving marital harmony. Money is one of the issues that creates the most arguments in a marriage. If both partners are aware of their current financial situation and are willing to work together to establish a budget and stick to it, you will avoid discontent related to financial matters in the marriage.
  • Perhaps an important secret to achieving marital harmony that is often overlooked is knowing your partner very well and discussing major issues before getting married. For example if you have always wanted children, it’s best to find out your partners view on children before getting married. Differences of opinion in an area such as this can doom a marriage. However, if you make sure you marry someone who agrees with you about these critical issues you will avoid having problems arise later in the marriage as these subjects come up.
  • Keeping politics and other sensitive issues out of your marriage is also important to maintaining harmony. It’s acceptable to have opposing viewpoints on issues and debate your beliefs but allowing these issues to create a major rift it your marriage is not acceptable. Two people can exist harmoniously in a marriage while holding opposing viewpoints as long as they respect each other’s opinions.
  • Allowing each other some time to be alone can also help you achieve marital harmony. It’s important to spend time together and share interests but sometimes too much time together can be stifling. It is important for each partner to have interests or hobbies that they participate in without their spouse. This time away from each other helps to maintain harmony by giving each partner a sense of individuality.
  • Being respectful of your spouse is also very important to achieving marital harmony. Couples that treat themselves and each other with respect are able to maintain a sense of civility and accord even during disagreements. This feeling of respect will help the couple to remain harmonious even in the most trying situations.
  • One last secret to achieving marital harmony is to share household chores. A couple that divides up the responsibilities in the household and strives to help each other out whenever possible will have an easy time maintaining harmony. Failure to do this, however, can be very damaging to a relationship. If you have to go as far as drawing up a list of chores and who is responsible for them, go ahead and do that. A written document illustrating who does what around the house will make it clear if one person is overburdened.

It is important to not confuse harmony with agreement. Couples do not have to agree on every issue in order to have a sense of marital harmony. There are many factors that contribute to whether or not a marriage is harmonious. Some factors may be bigger than others, but they are all equally important in achieving marital harmony.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Relationships – The Five Keys to Making Yours Super Successful

Jul27

Relationships – The Five Keys to Making Yours Super Successful

Relationships – The Five Keys to Making Yours Super Successful

Once upon a time there was a young girl who, full of dreams and wide-eyed, left her home town by the coast and followed her knight in shining armor to the city. Their wedding was a spectacular affair, befitting a princess and her prince and they came to live in a castle overlooking the sea.

Years passed, and it seemed that they had everything they could want, a lavish lifestyle, with all the trappings of a young family of standing in their community, and four beautiful children to share it with.

But fourteen years later, the young girl, now grown and much wiser, looked for more from her relationship than it seemed her husband was able to give her. So she ended the relationship and created a life as a single mum raising her children on her own until, with a very new understanding of relationships, she did meet her true knight in shining armor, a relationship that has now been enduring for twenty years and from which this woman, now much older, has drawn so much that she passes her learnings on happily to all those who come into her life.

She no longer sees herself as a princess but as a woman, and now a real woman.” And as all good fairy tales should end: She lived happily ever after.

This is actually my story, but it could be anyone’s. And what I have learned, that I now understand to be the keys to a successful relationship, is not so extraordinary that they are unachievable.

In fact, these keys are common to every one of us. If, in your relationships, these keys can be satisfied, then you will be truly able to live the ‘fairytale’, that so many only ever dream of, and get to ‘happily ever after’.

All of these keys refer to a need within us. If the needs are met then the door will be opened to a truly enduring relationship.

So here are the five basic needs:

  • Emotional needs
    Emotional needs include things like the need to feel, and to be told that you are loved and cherished just for whom you are … that you are a priority in someone’s life and that you are accepted flaws and all.
  • Physical needs
    Physical needs comprise the need to be touched and to be able to touch another. It also includes being, hugged, kissed and feeling loved and to have a rewarding sexual connection with another.
  • Spiritual needs
    Spiritual needs consist of the belief that your spiritual journey is supported by your partner, or by someone else significant to you, without judgment as well as a need to know, and feel, that your individual beliefs and differences are respected, if not shared.
  • Social needs
    Social needs have to do with all of the things that bring other people into your lives together with a shared enjoyment of that.
  • Security needs
    Security needs is about knowing that someone and maybe especially your partner will always be there for you, in good times as well as in times of distress, and that person will always be a “soft place” on which to fall when you need someone the most.

If we recognize these needs in ourselves, as well as in others, and accept our right to have these needs fulfilled, then we can all have the opportunity of creating and having a truly magical relationship.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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How to Decide Whether Or Not to End a Relationship

Jul20

How to Decide Whether Or Not to End a Relationship

 

So often I meet with couples who are on the brink of separation. It seems that even while there might still be a skerrick of hope they don’t know what to do about it and decide to separate because they simply can’t see any other way out.

Here is one question that came to me recently that follows this line.

“I have been married for ten years. In the tenth anniversary month, we are in the process of splitsville. One thing we both agree with is that the challenges “do not appear insurmountable”. But guess what, we just have not been able to crack. … No outings, limited intimacy living like roommates. At the moment we are getting ready for court, we are on the brink, what do we do, given that there is a sliver of hope?”

Deciding whether or not to end a relationship is just as hard as being left. Although you may be very dissatisfied or wonder if you have any love left, you may be reluctant to really make a break.

Tormenting yourself over whether or not to continue the relationship may interfere with looking at the changes you need to make in yourself. Don’t count on a new partner to take away any underlying insecurity you might have.

Before making the final decision to stay or leave, consider the following:

Do not expect yourself to feel love for your partner when you are feeling resentful. These two emotions are virtually incompatible. If you are feeling resentful at all you deal with that first. If you can’t talk to your partner about this just yet, speak to a professional Counsellor first to defuse it before it becomes too big to manage and it overwhelms you.

Imagine yourself living with your partner on even days and living apart on odd days. Contemplate what it feels like in each of these scenarios to test whether it feels more right to be together or to be separate.

Do not let anyone pressure you into a decision. Only you can make the correct choice for you. If you are not ready to make it just yet then it’s best to pause making any decision until you are ready. It might mean that your partner will make their own decision to separate in the meanwhile and if this happens you will have to accept the consequences.

I teach my clients a strategy which I call “Traffic Light”. Red stands for ‘stop’. So when you need to make a decision, or you are being asked to do something which you are not sure about, stop whatever you are doing and take some time to think about what is happening. This is represented by the yellow light; slow down and be prepared to take careful and well thought through action. Green stands for ‘go’. Take the action that has been well thought through and is the best action to take for the situation you are in.

Discover how you allow yourself to be a victim by talking to friends or a Counsellor. You will not stop feeling resentful until you stop giving up your power. You can control your life and what you think, do and say and know that if you take the time to consider your situation carefully you will make the right decision.

Identify one change you are going to make in yourself to develop your decision-making skill. Make this change consistently until you sense that you are no longer acting like a victim.

Make a final decision only after making these necessary changes in yourself. This will give you a much better sense of what you need to do next.

Often people, by their inaction, stay in relationships far too long often until they have no love left. If this sounds a bit like you take action now. Don’t let the situation go until you get to that point of resentment. And if there is any hope at all make a commitment right now to do whatever you need to do to really give this relationship the best chance you can give it.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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When Partners Are Constantly Yelling At Each Other

Jul14

When Partners Are Constantly Yelling At Each Other

So often I hear from couples that they get to a place in their relationship where they are just constantly yelling at each other. And not only do they complain of having constant yelling matches but also that the arguments are as often as not about nothing so that afterwards they are left wondering what was the point of it all anyway.

It may surprise you to know that there is actually a point and if you think that that is actually nothing to do with the topic of the argument you would be right.

The point is this. As you come through the honeymoon phase of your relationship there is a need to re-establish your own identity separate from each other. All this time you have been entangled with each other in a dance only for two. You now need to pull away from each other again in order to get on with your own lives.

This is totally normal and as it should be. You need to re-immerse yourself in your work, in your friendships and in your own interests to ensure that you continue your personal journey as you carry on with your couple’s journey.

To allow this you subconsciously start to find the flaws in each other. This includes the discovery that each of you are human after all with all of the faults and failings that comes with being human.

For so long you have simply only seen each other through rose-coloured glasses. This is now the time to take off the glasses and notice that your partner is not all you’ve attempted to convince yourself they are.

You struggle with this idea. Your prince or princess is really human after all just like you.

The only way you can humanly separate from another person is to create conflict. Just like an adolescent separating from his or her parents has to create conflict so too you do. Otherwise why would you move away from each other at all?

The tricky bit in all of this is firstly to recognise that the fights are for a good reason even if there seems to be no reason at all. Then, and maybe even more importantly, it is going to be critical for each of you to embrace the opportunity that you are providing each other here for growth ensuring in the meanwhile you don’t lose sight of your relationship in the process,

Something to note here is that there are people who are addicted to love. These people are likely to use these fights as a way of leaving the relationship and to seek another to replace it. Some people go their whole lives flitting from one relationship to another. They may even believe that the relationship is over so can’t even contemplate that maybe it’s just a phase.

Then there are others who just believe that they will never actually find love at all and give up even trying to find the way out of the current dilemma.

So if you find yourself yelling and arguing with your partner, pause a moment before making a decision about whether to quit or not. If the arguments really don’t have much substance, other than it being a tug of war to prove that you are right, maybe there is something else going on here.

If this happens take the time to really look deeply within yourself to check whether this is really just a phase and it’s worth the effort to work through or is this truly a sign that you are simply not compatible and maybe should separate from each other before too much damage is done.

If you can’t see the difference clearly seek some professional help before making a decision you may come to regret.

One strategy to really test this out is to commit to going all out for at least thirty days giving 100% of your effort to this relationship without question or regret. Love your partner unreservedly with all the love you have. This might even mean stepping back to allow that person some space to grow in as you take space for your own growth.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Am I Jealous Or Just Insecure?

Jul9

Am I Jealous Or Just Insecure 2

 

A question I was asked recently was about the apparent need for a fiancé to continue to contact previous girlfriends. It went something like this:

“I wonder why my fiancé can’t get over with his past relationships. We’ve been together for two years and I recently found out that he was trying to reach his ex-girlfriends. It hurt me so much. I wasn’t expecting that he was the one who took the first move. We had a fight over this. The conversation was so nasty. Is it my fault? Or am I just insecure or jealous?”

I was saddened to read this as it seems to come up again and again for couples. I think the real culprit here is simply that some people, despite the fact that they no longer are in a relationship, have not yet really finished their business in those former relationships. And interestingly this can even be the case for the person who initiated the ending of the relationship in the first case.

So let’s take a closer look at what this might actually be about. As you are growing up the way you are treated by your parents and other close family, together with your observations of others in relationship, shapes the way you become as an adult in your relationships. This shaping defines what you do, think, feel and say and how you present yourself to the world.

My theory is that the resulting beliefs directs us to fall in love with people who on the surface may appear quite different from us but who underneath we unconsciously know will reaffirm the beliefs we already have about ourselves, others and relationships.

We then go on in one of two ways. We will both embrace the differences, as opportunities for learning, and take on some of those qualities becoming more whole in terms of the options we now have for responding to life’s events. The other option is that we turn against those differences as we become more fixed in our own opinions.

The problem with this is that you don’t learn anything from the experience. And as you stand fixedly in your position you run the risk of losing the relationship as the conflict between you will invariably escalate.

So what has this to do with what so often happens in future relationships?

Well there is a reason why you are attracted to all the people who come into your life. If you have finished your business with them you are more likely to come to the conclusion that you are simply not ever going to be well-matched. You can then step away from that part of your life and truly move on as you embark on another, hopefully more healthy, relationship.

The alternative is that you simply walk away from the relationship as a reaction to whatever was going on, or not going on, without ever really having learned or rationally made any sense of what actually happened and why.

You leave still angry and then go into another relationship unresolved to the previous one. Why then would you not still be attracted to those from earlier relationships as the opportunities for growth are still to be found there if only you open your eyes to it.

So for the new partner there may indeed be a sense of disconnection from this person. And while there is still some unfinished business for the other, there is also something for the new partner to learn as well. It might feel like jealousy or insecurity, and maybe the other person might like you to wear the responsibility for what might not be working in your relationship so they don’t have to. But this actuality may not be yours entirely.

The way through this is to take responsibility for what is yours, and your thoughts and feelings are your responsibility, to come to accept that you are OK. Your partner also has to take responsibility for their thoughts and feelings; to figure out what it is that s/he needs to learn to truly be able to put that old stuff aside once and for all so they can focus fully, without any distraction, on the current relationship.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Seven Rules for Effective Problem Solving

Jun3

Seven Rules for Effective Problem Solving

 

I’m often asked why when a couple starts a conversation about something that is really important to them it often just ends in another fight.

Improving your skills in this area will help your relationship mature in a healthy way keeping it strong and happy.

For a couple to reach decisions without unnecessary battles needs skill.

Here are 7 rules for couple problem solving that may be helpful for you to keep in mind for when you are trying to solve a problem that has come up between you and your partner:

 

  • 1
    Remind yourselves about why you are there. Take breaks as needed throughout the conversation as needed to keep your energy positive.
  • 2
    Focus on only one issue at a time. Agree on what the problem or issue is, so you are not trying to solve multiple problems at once or work at cross-purposes by trying to address different issues.
  • 3
    Avoid being attached to a particular outcome. Avoid stating something as absolute fact. There is really only a perspective: yours and the others.
  • 4
    Encourage and freely share thoughts, feelings, and opinions with love, respect, and kindness. Avoid criticism or domination of each other. Strive to be open to all expressions without taking offense.
  • 5
    Carefully monitor and modify your attitude and tone of voice. If underneath your words is criticism, disrespect, or sarcasm, your spouse will hear them, even when your words are positive.
  • 6
    Listen to each other carefully and without interruption and request clarification as needed.
  • 7
    Strive for shared agreement, even when it takes longer. At times you might need to agree to disagree or even to deferring to the other’s solution. Regardless still look at and carry out the decision as a jointly agreed. But do not defer just for the sake of getting consensus. It may be better to take a break and come back to it again.

 

And just as importantly review significant decisions after some time trying them out to assess whether they are working or whether you need to start the process over again. Stay aware for when you need to involve someone else, like a counsellor or mediator, in a discussion or decision to ensure the greatest success.

Decisions work best when you have equal voices in couple discussions. It is important for you both to express what is on your minds and in your hearts freely. Either withholding your opinion or dominating the other in the conversation may negatively affect the outcome.

If one of you tends to be more dominant in speaking, you will need to be even more attentive to give the other an opportunity to have their say. The quieter of you may also need to practice assertiveness. Free expression happens when you are both willing to listen to each other without interruption giving whatever time is necessary to ensure that both of you fully understand what the other is saying before saying what you want to say.

It is important to ensure the genuineness of your motives and intentions in any discussion. If either of you has a hidden agenda—an unspoken intention or goal, or you just want to manipulate the other, any decision you come up with will most likely not work.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Are You Thinking of Leaving? Consider These Seven Things

May25

Are You Thinking of Leaving?

Being the one to decide whether or not to leave a relationship can be just as hard as the one being left, and for some even more so. The one being left really has no say in the matter. The one making the decision to leave is the one taking absolute responsibility for what will happen next.

And although you may be very dissatisfied with your relationship or are wondering if you even have any love left, you may feel reluctant to really make the break.  When you’ve been in a relationship for a long time fear of the unknown can stop the most determined of you in your tracks making the decision even more difficult.

Here are a few things to consider before making the final decision to stay or leave.

  1. Do not expect yourself to feel love for your partner when you are feeling resentful.  These two emotions are almost incompatible. Actually part of the process of leaving anyone is that you must feel the resentment and even anger otherwise you probably wouldn’t consider going at all.
  2. Do not let anyone pressure you into a decision. Imagine yourself living with your partner on even days and living apart on odd days to see if you can get a really good idea for how it’s really going to be like to be separate from each other.
  3. Discover how you allow yourself to be a victim by talking to friends or a therapist.  You will not stop feeling resentful until you stop giving up your power. Tormenting yourself over whether or not to continue the relationship may interfere with looking at the changes you need to make in yourself.
  4. If the decision is too hard for now take some time first to focus in on yourself and figure out what there is to learn about relationships that you may have missed that put you in this predicament in the first place.  Identify one change to start with that you are going to make in yourself for the better.  Make this change consistently until you sense that you are no longer acting like a victim.
  5. Only when you have learned your own lessons and made some changes in yourself make your decision.  Don’t be hurried into it either by yourself or by others. The years you spent together deserve that much thought. This will give you a much better sense of what you need to do. And of course don’t be surprised that in the meanwhile your partner may make your decision for you as they are going through their own process and challenges.
  6. If there are problems with physical or substance abuse, a separation may be needed to save the marriage or to save that person from their habit.  Often, people stay in such relationships until they have no love left.  It is better to recognise problems early and insist on living separately until the other person has sought help. Promises to get help should be ignored until the person takes action and makes significant changes.
  7. Whatever the decision you make about your future it must be viewed from the perspective that it took the two of you to get you to this place so each of you must take responsibility for your part in it. Only when you accept responsibility and do your own therapy around that can you really make a good decision for yours and your partner’s future together.

And let me add one more that is probably even more important than the ones above.

Do not leave one relationship on the promise of another.

These relationships rarely survive as until the lessons are learned from the previous relationship the likelihood of coming back to exactly the same place is actually fairly high. That’s why they call them “rebound” relationships.

Oh and don’t count on a new partner to take away any underlying insecurity you might have. That is why new relationships, gone into too soon after the last one ended, can be fraught with danger and are likely to end you up in exactly the same place.

Learn what there is to learn about yourself, others, life and loving and then, if your love is still there, renew your commitment to this relationship. If however the time is right for you to move on then do so without regret, without resentment, without anger but with love and gratitude for the time you have had with each other and all that you have learned and experienced together.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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True Love, Lies and Deceit

May4

True Love Lies and Deceit

Is it possible for someone to truly love you and hurt you over and over with lies and deceit?

What a great question this is to get me going for the week

The short answer is this:  NO! Someone cannot truly love you and hurt you over and over with lies and deceit. But it may be a little more complicated than that.

Lying and deceitfulness can be a natural response to being constantly tormented, fear of being found out, or from the modelling we get from the most important people around us, generally our parents.

There are also gradients of lies. There are the lies of omission when we don’t tell someone that what they are wearing doesn’t go with whatever, their body shape, the occasion etc.

On the other end of the continuum are the really big lies that have a huge impact on people’s lives, individuals or whole countries, which can and do change the course of history.

My curiosity is pricked when I hear that someone is being deceitful in their relationship. Is this a cold-hearted act of cruelty with no regard for the impact the lie has on another or is it something much more than that?

My belief is that lying is a complex issue that really needs to be viewed not just in the context of the current event but in the context of a whole lifetime of experience.

When we are very young we learn to tell lies as part of socialising us to the norms of society. So we are taught to hold our tongues when we get crushed under the hug of our big, fat aunties and respectfully say ‘thank you’ for the gift that we really didn’t want. We also learn in the process that lying can protect us from being punished, sometimes in very, even too harsh ways. Lying can even become habitual as a way of avoiding the anger of someone in a position of authority over us as well as a means of avoiding the feelings of fear that can go with that.

As an adult we normally grow out of this behaviour as we meet with other adults face to face, in truth and in good will, to manage our conflicts in an adult way no longer needing to resort to old patterns of behaviour. Sometimes however old behaviours are so entrenched that the habit has become hard to shift. Alternatively the person is triggered to feel the same sort of fear they experienced as a child and respond from an internal child part of themselves rather than an external adult part.

In these situations the lies and deceit are not intended to hurt but become the habitual response of someone who doesn’t yet have the skills to manage themselves in a more mature way.

So to come back to the question at the beginning of this article

Love is a mature adult feeling that is pure and clean with no unresolved issues attached to it. So to truly love another implies that you are fully there with this person in the most vulnerable way possible. This means that your heart, soul and body are open and exposed without any defences. So to put it more simply, love and lying simply cannot be present in the same moment.

While we are humans, and we will slip up, for us to be truly in love with another requires us also to be truly honest. If we cannot be truly honest then we can’t possibly truly love because instead of being there fully in the present we are being held back by something from our past that will need resolution.

So if you are being lied to and hurt constantly by your partner and they are unable, or unwilling, to do what it takes to change then you really do need to think about the long-term viability of your relationship.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Ten Reasons Why People Cheat and What to Do About It

Apr20

Ten Reasons Why People Cheat and What to Do About It

Betrayed By A Fiancé/Fiancée?

I receive many emails asking about the meaning of affairs and what to do when you catch someone out. This question is one that comes up regularly both in my rooms as well as via email. In this post I will try and put my thoughts down about what I understand about affairs when they happen and what you can do about them.

Let me first define what an affair is and what an affair is not. For me, and you may agree or not, an affair is when someone creates a relationship with another person, with or without sex, in which that other person becomes the centre of their attention at the expense of their partner.

An affair is not a “one-night stand” where someone gets carried away in the moment and has a sexual encounter with someone outside of the marriage/relationship. Both, however, may be considered equally a betrayal and unforgivable to the other party in the relationship.

When someone has been caught out in any kind of unfaithfulness some of you have simply decided to walk away and others have decided to forgive and move on. There is no right or wrong way to respond to this. It is up to each of you to decide how significant the indiscretion is to you and decide on how you yourself should best react.

Often the actual decision made is more likely based on your personal value system. For some of you, when someone betrays you, it feels like the worst thing that they can do and there is no room for stepping away from the hurt or the loss of trust. For others of you there is such a strong value in your love and commitment that you will find a way to forgive even this most unforgivable of betrayals.

In either situation it seems to come down to which value is the strongest – the value around love and commitment or the value around fidelity.

When someone has been unfaithful it is worth pausing for a moment to take a look at why they may have done it before deciding what the best course of action is.

Reasons for being unfaithful may include:

  1. Fear of committing to one person at the exclusion of all others
  2. The behaviour was modelled by a parent or someone close to the person
  3. Curiosity, especially for the inexperienced, of what sex might be like with someone else
  4. Boredom in the current relationship
  5. An escape from reality into fantasy
  6. A lack of, or insufficient, intimacy in their marriage or relationship
  7. A way to experiment with sex that might not be welcome in their marriage
  8. A spontaneous response to the moment with or without alcohol or other drugs present
  9. A way to exhibit a position of power over another person
  10. An escape from an otherwise tedious or unfulfilling life

Once you have ascertained what might be behind the betrayal then you can make the best decision about what to do about it. You may ultimately decide it is totally the responsibility of the wrongdoer or you may decide that you have to take some responsibility for what has happened as well and change some of your own behaviours.

My belief about this is that when two people truly love each other and are totally committed to their partner then unfaithfulness simply does not have a place. Instead when there are issues they will talk them through until they get a resolution.

And a word of advice: if you ever find yourself in a situation where there has been an infidelity, I would really encourage you to seek professional counselling before making any decisions you may come to regret.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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If You Were Someone Else, Would You Marry You?

Apr6

If You Were Someone Else, Would You Marry You?

I started this article by considering a question sent to me by a client, and echoed by many others, who wanted to know what was reasonable to expect from a partner in marriage. As I was scouring other emails to see what related questions there were on this topic I came upon this pearl I just had to use it as it summed up so beautifully exactly my thoughts on the topic of expectations.

The email started with the line that is the title of this week’s article and then went on to say: “Worry less and be happy. Because the happier you are with yourself and your life, the more attractive you are to your partner. .. Start today to work on being the kind of person you would want to know, date, and marry. If you’re not that kind of person, how can you expect your spouse to stay attracted or stay passionate?” I absolutely agree with these sentiments.

What can I expect from marriage?

The way to live this is simple: remember when you first met and what it was that attracted you to your partner in the first place. It might have been their smile, their easy laugh, their care and consideration of you or their willingness to listen to you ad nauseam.

Now contemplate how you responded to that.

Your response would naturally have been happiness, in being paid so much consideration, and joy at being the centre of someone else’s attention pulling you even closer to each other.

While we all start our relationships this way the sad thing is that somewhere along the way we returned to our selfish habits and forgot what it was we did at the beginning that endeared us so compellingly to the other.

So the way back to that special place is, as my client suggested, by being the best and the happiest you can be and behave in the way that you did when you first met every day of your life. In addition expect no less than that from your partner.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

A famous Couples Counsellor by the name of John Gottman speaks of four distinct ways of interacting that doom your marriage to failure. These are the absolute contradiction of how you should relate to your partner and expect your partner to relate to you.

  1. The First Horseman – Criticism – this involves attacking with blame someone’s personality or character, rather than a specific behaviour. If there is something you don’t like about what your partner is doing let them know what that is and what you would rather they do instead.
  2. The Second Horseman – Contempt – this has a conscious or subconscious intent of insulting or belittling your partner with words or actions. Just remember your partner has all the faults and failings of all human beings, yourself included, and deserves to be treated with the respect that everyone deserves.
  3. The Third Horseman – Defensiveness – This has to do with denying responsibility or making excuses or whinging and whining when things don’t go your way. Stand up and be willing to accept your part in any misunderstanding that comes up between you and do what you need to do to repair the damage done.
  4. The Fourth Horseman – Stonewalling – This happens when you refuse to respond to your partner or even to get into a conversation to find a resolution to an issue. Of course there are going to be times when it’s not good for you to respond because of high emotions. If this happens simply let your partner know that now is not a good time to have this conversation with a promise to return and/or even a time to make that happen.

So be yourself the person you would want to marry each and every day. There really is no greater joy as, in being that, so can your partner be.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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