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Tag Archive | communication skills
The Blame Game
Is It Her or Is It Me?
Couples invariably get to some point in their relationship when they start asking questions about whether any issues that they have, have to do with them, each other or some external factor.
Some of the questions that are asked can be about religion, culture or even age differences as a way of understanding why they are in trouble.
While these differences may impact on the development and growth of a relationship they are not the most important issues as there are just as many relationships with these differences that are successful.
And even in relationships that have no significant distinguishing variances there can be issues that result in the relationship not working.
So if it’s not the differences that ultimately put the greatest pressure on a relationship what is it then?
In all the years that I have worked with couples what I see as the single biggest destroyer of relationships is the “BLAME GAME”. It’s the individual’s unwillingness to take responsibility in their part of what went wrong.
Let me ask you a question – have you ever found yourself saying that if only your partner would be, do, think or speak differently then everything would be ok. Well what about you? What if you would be, do, think or speak differently what do you think would happen?
I constantly surprise clients when they contact me saying that they’d love to come into counselling but their partner doesn’t want to. What I tell them is to: “Just bring yourself into counselling. We can do couples work without your partner ever have to be there”. Then they’re further surprised when they notice things actually changing for them when they put into practice the things I suggest to them to do.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Top of this list of things you can do is to STOP THE BLAME GAME! Everything that your partner does happens for a reason and you are as much a part of that reason as they are.
Firstly they learned, either by observation of their parents are other close family members, or from their own life experience, what to do and how to act when they are in conflict. For some of you this might be to go quiet and withdraw, yell louder than your partner, or distract yourself with something, or someone else.
So when you are in conflict as an adult your tendency will be to return to those old ways of responding. And as you do it your way your partner will do it their way.
So until next time – Relate with Love
What is Unconditional Love and Where Do I Get It?
I think this is a brilliant question. It’s about the difference between Unconditional Love and Conditional Love.
I’ll come back to this question in a moment. Let me first tell you a story.
Barb, aged twenty-one, and Baz, aged twenty-four, have known each other for several years and are planning to marry someday soon. Both of them are still discovering who each other is and, like all young couples, have certainly had their fair share of ups and downs.
Barb has had some questions more recently about whether Baz really loves her while Baz is having his own concerns about Barb’s seeming constant need for attention. It seems that Baz is starting to pull away somewhat as he claims his own life back while Barb is feeling her self-esteem is being challenged.
In truth Barb and Baz are a fairly normal couple and are doing exactly what all normal couples should be doing at this stage of their relationship. Having passed through the “honeymoon” stage of their relationship, where everything is rosy and it feels like you have found your soul mate, you are now going through the stage where you actually can see each other warts and all.
This is now the stage when you are making the decision about whether you like each enough to want to spend the rest of your life together. It is the stage where you must separate somewhat from each other as you reclaim your identity separate from each other. Normally this also means that one of you will start the process before the other as the pull will be stronger for one of you over the other.
It is also a time where relationships are either made or results in you separating fully from each other because of the impact of this stage on your self-esteem.
There are many questions being asked at this time not just about your compatibility but also about whether you are committed enough to this relationship to continue to work on it as you work on your own personal growth.
As you both go through this mini separation you also are challenged by the learning that maybe you don’t know each other as well as you may have once thought and indeed at times it might seem like you don’t really know each other at all.
The difference between conditional and unconditional love is that conditional love has some proviso attached to it: “I’ll love you if …” Sometimes this is actually spoken out loud but as often it is just a silent thought, maybe only heard unconsciously.
Unconditional love is love that is given regardless. It has been said that the only time we really experience unconditional love is just after our birth and even then maybe only for as long as our mother and father are able to stay awake till they need to get to sleep themselves from exhaustion.
You then spend the rest of your life searching for that unconditional love again most often to no avail until you meet the love of your life. And even that only lasts for a short time before it too seems to be taken away.
And that’s when you are left with questions like the following: “When you ask your partner to hold you, and they do, are they holding you just because you asked them to or because they want to?”
In our fairy tale world we would like our partners to instinctively know what we want and provide it unconditionally. We are still seeking our mother substitute.
The sad thing is if we believe this we will never enter into a relationship at all. This is for the simple reason that there is no-one in the world who can know you as well as your mother did when she gave birth to you. Your very survival depended on her knowing what you needed and to understand what every utterance you made meant before even you did.
As adults, we are no longer connected with another human being that way, and it would be unhealthy if we did, which also means that if you want something from your partner you will have to ask for it or else they won’t know.
If they then fulfil your request don’t look too deeply into the reason why, just accept it as a sign of their unconditional love for you for which you need do nothing in return other than give them your love unconditionally when they request something specifically from you.
So until next time – Relate with Love
He Has Never Said “I Love You”
This email came through to my desk last week and it left me feeling very concerned for the young person who sent it. It said:
“I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend for two and a half months. We are engaged to be married early next year however I’ve some doubts about him. This is because everybody thinks he loves me except for myself. He has never said “i love you” throughout this period; not even once! I don’t feel loved enough and yet am scared to walk away. Do you think our marriage will work?”
In answering this email I will presume that this person actually has a choice in the matter as to who she marries as this email came from a non-western country. And as I have only a small part of the story I will answer it on the basis that I may be making a few assumptions.
There are a couple of issues being raised in this email. Firstly is the fact that this person has never heard her boyfriend say he loves her. Does this actually mean that he does not love you or that he doesn’t know how to say “I love you!”?
If he has never had it said to him by a parent or significant other as he was growing up then he might not be able to say it. Alternatively if he has grown up without love then he may not know what it feels like to be loved or to love someone else. In this regard he may not know that it could actually be safe to love someone and not be let down or disappointed by that person to whom he may have bared a very vulnerable part of himself.
Of course it may simply be that he does not love you and if that is the case then you should think very carefully about committing yourself to this man on a long-term basis. And as for everyone else thinking that he loves you; what do they base this opinion on? Has he said something to them that he is not willing to share with you? Or are they basing this conclusion on his behaviour and how he treats you?
The other issue that this email raises is whether such a relationship, where people don’t, or can’t speak their truth about love, can actually work. My thought on this is that no marriage can work if both parties aren’t willing to trust the other with their love and with their soul which involves the deepest and most profound parts of themselves.
When you don’t feel loved
Despite all of this the most telling part of this email is reflected in the statement “i don’t feel loved enough and yet am scared to walk away.” My only response to this is; if you don’t feel loved enough at the beginning of your relationship don’t expect to be loved enough later on. I’d like to qualify this by saying that as a relationship continues, and as you come to know each other better, the love generally becomes deeper and more heartfelt.
But this doesn’t just happen. It is the consequence of an open and expressed love that comes from the care a couple shows to each other over time. It could even seem that if that person were to go away that it would feel like having a limb removed as they are such a fundamental part of your own being.
I would also like to ask this person what it is you fear that prevents you from walking away. If you feel that there may not be someone else for you, there is. In actual fact there are probably millions of people around the world that you could be compatible with and with whom you could make a great relationship. If you fear your friends or families judgement remind them that this is your life to live and that you must make your own choices. If it is that you fear him or his retribution then you need to remove yourself immediately from this toxic environment.
Finally let me add one more point. You have only known this person for such a short time before making your marriage plans. Take the time to get to know each other. I don’t have a belief that there is a particular time frame you should be together before getting married but two months, especially when there are doubts, may not really be long enough to come to know anyone well enough to commit to them for the rest of your life.
So until next time – Relate with Love
When Is It Ok To Lie In a Relationship and When Is It Not?
You wake up in the morning and look across to the person you say you care for more than any one in the world. What do you really think about this person? Does he/she immediately fill you with love and adoration or are you thinking terrible or maybe even contemptuous thoughts about that person.
You get up and go to the shower in preparation for the work day. You weight yourself and realize that you have put on a few kilos. You say to yourself “Oh, that’s just because of the extras I had at dinner last night. It will be ok”.
You sit down to breakfast and find yourself wishing your partner were different somehow. If only they’d dress differently, act differently, weren’t so selfish, paid better attention to you or whatever it is. You don’t say anything.
You go to the office and find yourself seeking out that one special person who is always so nice to you. You flirt with them and find yourself requesting or agreeing to meet after work for drinks. Over time this leads to more regular meetings until one day this becomes more serious. You convince yourself this is not an affair but just a “bit of fun” that you can control and that no-one is being hurt by it.
And then one day you lose the control and the innocent flirting becomes a one-night-stand, the one-night-stand becomes a fling and the fling becomes a full-blown affair that now seems to have a mind of its own.
You have reached the point of no return and you realize you are now in really deep trouble.
How many lies were told in this story?
The truth is we all lie sometime and most of us lie most of the time.
We lie to ourselves about what is going on in our life and we lie to ourselves about what is going on in our relationships. And we lie to each other about what is going on in our relationships as well.
The lies are expressed in one of two ways; either by what we actually do say but most often the lies are expressed by what we don’t say.
So what should you do when you find yourself lying or catch someone out in a lie?
I often get asked questions about lying. When is it ok? When is it not? What to do when you find someone has lied to you? Should you forgive a lie?
The answer is not as simple as it might appear. You might be thinking that you simply should never lie. But as Allan Pease, in his book “Body Language”, says; to be socialised is to lie.
In other words every day we are confronted with situations, such as the first utterance we make when greeting someone, when we say: “how are you?” (As if we really care). The inevitable reply is: “fine thanks, how are you?”
We say this when what we’d really like to say is something like: “I feel terrible; the kids are mucking up, my husband does nothing to help me, and I’m fed up.” Or for the man who might really want to say; “I’m so over it. I work hard to provide for my family and there’s no thanks when I get home; just nagging to do more around the house and for the kids.”
This response would be heard as complaining and, while it might be the truth, is most often not aired in public.
So what about the lies that should never be told?
This is how I advise my clients. If you have done something wrong for which you think you should tell the truth about ask yourself these questions first.
- If I tell the truth about this for whom am I doing it? If it’s just about my own feelings of guilt – then think carefully about the good of that for the other person. If it’s because they really deserve to know then you must tell the truth.
- If I tell the truth what good will it do? If it means an opportunity to start afresh then you must tell the truth and deal with the consequences as they come.
- If I tell the truth what do I want as the outcome of doing that? Keep that outcome in mind to give each of you a chance to get to that rather than having the truth lead you to a place of regret.
And here are a couple of things you can do to help you both get to the best outcome.
- Create a good place and time for the conversation to happen.
- Alert the person to what it is you want to talk about prior to the meeting so they can prepare themselves for it.
- Before saying what you want to say in truth, let the other know how you would prefer for them to respond eg “There is something I need to let you know, and I hope that once you’ve heard it you will be able to find forgiveness for me so that we can continue our relationship.”
- Be willing to forgive yourself and the other person for any part they had to play in the situation that led to creating the lie in the first place.
So until next time – Relate with Love
How to Truly Forgive and Then Truly Forget
It constantly amazes me how some people can remember the smallest details of everything that happened around a particular event while others don’t remember clearly what happened yesterday let alone last week, last month or last year.
Actually these attributes clearly describe the difference between my life partner and me. My partner can recall events from his past as clearly as if they were happening right this minute while for me it’s more like out-of-sight-out-of-mind.
There is an upside and a downside though for each of these positions. For my partner the upside is his brilliant recall allows him to remember the wonderful people we’ve met and the places we’ve been to on our many journeys around the world. The downside for him is that he finds it hard to let go of past hurts often holding grudges which should have been let go of long ago as they prevent him from fully enjoying the company of friends and acquaintances.
For me though, as I forget about old wrongdoings so easily I sometimes also forget the lessons I should have learned and have to learn them again. On the good side I don’t tend to hold grudges as I move on quickly putting old hurts behind me. The appearance to others of me is that I harbor no bad thoughts of people and I truly can forgive and forget.
So all of this got me thinking about “forgiving and forgetting” and the benefits and disadvantages of doing this when someone has crossed you.
Forgiveness is the act of excusing someone for a wrongdoing but unless you are also willing to forget their transgression you aren’t truly forgiving them. I qualify this by adding that ‘forgetting the transgression’ is really quite different from forgetting that it ever happened. It’s about not harboring the bad feelings associated with an event but instead becoming neutral to it.
You may have been wronged in a situation and your feelings of anger may be completely justified but it’s important to truly understand your feelings in order to forgive and forget.
It is imperative that you realize that the actions of the other person may have hurt you or made you angry but that reacting in a hostile manner as a result of these feelings is not beneficial to your relationship.
While your feelings of hurt of anger may be justified, taking the time to work through these emotions before offering forgiveness may help you to forget your partner’s words or actions. If you rush to offer forgiveness before you have had the opportunity to vent your own frustrations it will be difficult for you to forget your partner’s wrongdoing.
You also need to understand the feelings of the person who offended you. It is also important to speak to your partner about why they committed the offense against you. It is not fair to them to make assumptions about why they acted the way they did.
Giving them the chance to express their side of the situation will give you a better understanding of why they acted the way they did. You may learn that everything was a misunderstanding or that you were not hurt intentionally. Allowing the other person a chance to offer their take on the situation will enable you to see their motives.
Understanding your own emotions as well as your partner’s will help you to really forgive and forget.
This kind of forgiveness can only be achieved by understanding your own feelings as well as those of the person who wronged you. It requires you to express your feelings in a rational way, realizing that your relationship is more important than being right. It might also include accepting the other’s apology whether this is your partner’s, your friend’s or a collective of people.
Give yourself a little time to manage your own feelings and collect your thoughts so that when you approach your partner you are able to speak about your feelings in a rational manner. It’s best to wait until both you and your partner are ready to speak about the conflict in a calm and rational manner than to rush in and come to regret something said or done.
A crucial aspect of forgiving and forgetting is valuing your relationship more than you value being right in a disagreement. While you may be completely right in a situation, being right is not worth destroying the relationship over.
If you are able to put your love for your partner ahead of the need for being right you will be more willing to forgive and forget. Also, forgiving and forgetting will allow your relationship to continue to flourish simply because working through conflicts makes a relationship stronger.
Finally you can never really forgive and forget unless you are truly willing to accept your partner’s apology. Harboring feelings that the apology isn’t genuine will damage the relationship because you will never forget their offending action.
Listen sincerely to your partner’s apology and have faith in them that their apology is heartfelt and genuine. Then let them know that you accept their apology and are willing to not let this situation interfere with your future interactions.
True forgiveness involves not only excusing the transgression but also effectively forgetting it as well. You cannot truly forgive someone if you don’t also agree to forget the offence. Refusing to forget indicates a lack of trust in your partner to not repeat the offence.
So until next time – Relate with Love
The Secret to Winning Her Back
Here’s the story of Tom and Pamela. They met; fell in love, and everything seemed so right. To him that is.
For her it was far from right. Then one day, out of the blue, she tells you she’s “had enough” and is gone, or worse still, she asks you to pack your bags and move out. Sometimes she doesn’t even ask you to pack your bags but she does it for you or just throws your stuff out on the street.
That would be the most humiliating experience anyone has ever had to face and happens more times than we might think.
What do you do now?
After you’ve picked yourself up and settled the anger that’s raging inside of you, you need to ask yourself a few questions.
- Do you really want to be with your girlfriend again?
- Do you still love her very much?
- Is it more important than anything to be with her again?
If yes, then you will have to be careful and restrained. If you really want her back, you need to follow some tips. The first thing you need to do to get her back is to:
Think from her perspective. i.e.: Think like a girl.
You see the problem here is simply that you’ve been thinking like a guy. Guys always seem to miss the subtle clues that girls give off constantly that lets you know if you’re doing the right thing or not. And the most frustrating thing about this is that girls expect you to know this without having to tell you. It will be subtle and you are being tested so always pay attention to what is not being said as well as what is being said.
Really; only when you stop thinking like a man and start thinking like a woman can you possibly understand what’s really going on. And once you’ve got this figured out you will be able to act the way she likes.
The most important thing you should know is DON’T BE CHILDISH. Do not beg, do not follow her everywhere like a puppy and most importantly do not become a stalker. If you will do so she will get even more irritated and will dislike you all the more. That will probably leave you even more desperate.
So don’t show up at her work or wherever she is, thinking she might get back with you if you do. If you do anything like this then you will never be able to get her back.
You need to control your emotions. Girls don’t like men who beg or plead. Women choose men with a healthy ego. Girls like men with an attitude.
PS ‘an attitude’ though is not about thinking you’re better than everyone else. An attitude is about thinking and knowing you are OK no matter what.
And do not call her ten times in a day. Let her know that you still want to be friends with her, by calling her once after one or two weeks have gone by in which she’s had some time to decide what she really wants.
Maturity is the quality that girls like the most. Show her that you are still interested and mature enough to be willing to look at your faults and to hear her out before deciding if there is something you could or should do differently.
It might be that there are some things you’d like her to do differently as well but now is not the time to be highlighting those. Just use this time to really listen to her. Find out what the issues are and decide what there is to learn from this experience so you can then demonstrate a change in how you are with her.
And if that is good enough you’ve got a real chance of winning her back. If not she’ll let you know that too.
Follow these tips and you might not even have to ask her to get back with you. She might just ask you to come back herself.
So until next time – Relate with Love
How come the sex is great but we don’t know how to talk to each other?
Good Sex and good communication are possibly two of the most critical components in determining whether a marriage or a relationship is a happy one. And maybe, along with love, is what makes a relationship strong enough to make the distance.
If your relationship lacks any of these three components, you definitely need to do some serious thinking, or you will very likely lose it. So a relationship with only love and sex without communication is as much at risk as love and communication is without sex or sex and communication is without love.
For this article I’m going to only address love and sex without communication as it is the one that seems to come up most often.
Reasons for Not Talking
There can be many reasons that you do not talk with your partner. It may be that when both of you work, you do not really have time to talk. You also have less time for each other and therefore for your relationship.
If this is how it is for you, you will need to consider the impact that this will have on your relationship and consider whether this is really to your advantage long-term. Of course sometimes the situation you find yourselves is unavoidable because of your families needs or because you have jobs that require shift work or your jobs take you away from your families. In these situations you need then to consider very carefully whether the price of holding such positions long-term is worth it especially if the price is the loss of your relationship and maybe your family.
Now you really will need to have a conversation to figure out what you could do to ensure that your work commitments do not impose so heavily on your relationship.
Sometimes you can’t change the circumstances but maybe, with a little imagination, you can make the most of what you’ve got. At these times you really need to get creative. One simple resolution could be for you to make other time to get together. Maybe this could be a lunchtime outing, even if it’s only a short break. Maybe you can both plan to take some time off together and go to breakfast or maybe a restaurant for dinner to create for you some quality time. Some real talk time.
Radical Differences
If finding the time isn’t the issue, then the reason might be more about something to do with the existence of radical differences between you. Maybe your thinking is also quite different from each other and whenever you talk, you end up arguing about something or maybe you just don’t feel you have anything interesting to contribute to a conversation with each other.
Then there are those people, who are just very shy or introverted. They do not share much of their life with anyone including their partners. If this sounds like your partner, you need to arouse in them the desire to speak, by talking about things they like. If this sounds like you then you need to find something in your life that you can get excited enough about to want to share the experience with your partner. This means for you to be involved in whatever it might be away from your partner which then gives you something to share when you come back together again.
Above all it’s important to know that communicating effectively is a skill. It is not there at our birth. It is learned initially from our parents who demonstrate the skills of their own communication styles in the way they addressed you and other family members when you were young. From these experiences come your beliefs about yourself and your right to a voice and to the expression of that voice.
So start in small ways. Maybe turn the TV off for a while and read to each other, a book or even the newspaper to give you some topics to begin to talk about. Then you might find it easier to speak about yourselves and what is important to you.
So until next time – Relate with Love
Relationship Remedy 