7
Ways To Improve Your Relationship by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
Good relationships don’t just happen. I’ve heard many of my clients
state that, “If I have to work at it, then it’s not the right
relationship.” This is not a true statement, any more than it’s true
that you don’t have to work at good physical health through exercise,
eating well, and stress reduction.
I’ve discovered, in the 35 years that I’ve been counseling couples, 7
choices you can make that will not only improve your relationship, but
can turn a failing relationship into a successful one.
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF
This is the most important choice you can make to improve your
relationship. This means that you learn how to take
responsibility for your own feelings and needs. This means that instead
of trying to get your partner to make you feel happy and secure, you
learn how to do this for yourself
through your own thoughts and actions. This means learning to treat
yourself with kindness, caring, compassion, and
acceptance instead of self-judgment. Self-judgment will always make you
feel unhappy and insecure, no matter how
wonderfully your partner is treating you.
For example, instead of getting angry at your partner for your feelings
of abandonment when he or she is late, preoccupied and not listening to
you, not turned on sexually, and so on, you would explore your own
feelings of abandonment and discover how you might be abandoning
yourself.
When you learn how to take full, 100% responsibility for yourself, then
you stop blaming your partner for your upsets. Since blaming one’s
partner for one’s own
unhappiness is the number one cause of relationship problems, learning
how to take loving care of yourself is vital to a good relationship.
KINDNESS, COMPASSION, ACCEPTANCE
Treat others the way you want to be treated. This is the essence of a
truly spiritual life. We all yearn to be treated lovingly – with
kindness, compassion, understanding, and acceptance. We need to treat
ourselves this way, and we need to treat our partner and others this
way. Relationships flourish when both people treat each other with
kindness. While there are no guarantees, often treating another with
kindness brings kindness in return. If your partner is consistently
angry, judgmental, uncaring and unkind, then you need to focus on what
would be loving to yourself rather than reverting to anger, blame,
judgment, withdrawal, resistance, or compliance. Kindness to others does
not mean sacrificing yourself. Always remember that taking
responsibility for yourself rather than blaming others is the most
important thing you can do. If you are consistently kind to yourself and
your partner, and your partner is consistently angry, blaming, withdrawn
and unavailable, then you either have to accept a distant relationship,
or you need to leave the relationship. You cannot make your partner
change – you can only change yourself.
LEARNING INSTEAD OF CONTROLLING
When conflict occurs, you always have two choices regarding how to
handle the conflict: you can open to learning about yourself and your
partner and discover the deeper issues of the conflict, or you can try
to win, or at least not lose, through some form of controlling behavior.
We’ve all learning many overt and subtle ways of trying to control
others into behaving the way we want: anger, blame, judgment, niceness,
compliance, caretaking, resistance, withdrawal of love, explaining,
teaching, defending, lying, denying, and so on. All the ways we try to
control create even more conflict. Remembering to learn instead of
control is a vital part of improving your relationship.
For example, most people have two major fears that become activated in
relationships: the fear of abandonment – of losing the other - and the
fear of engulfment – of losing
oneself. When these fears get activated, most people immediately protect
themselves against these fears with their controlling behavior. But if
you chose to learn about
your fears instead of attempt to control your partner, your fear would
eventually heal. This is how we grow emotionally and spiritually – by
learning instead of controlling.
CREATE DATE TIMES
When people first fall in love, they make time for each other. Then,
especially after getting married, they get busy. Relationships need time
to thrive. It is vitally important to set aside specific times to be
together – to
talk, play, make love. Intimacy cannot be maintained without time
together.
GRATITUDE INSTEAD OF COMPLAINTS
Positive energy flows between two people when there is an “attitude of
gratitude.” Constant complaints creates a heavy, negative energy, which
is not fun to be around. Practice being grateful for what you have
rather than focusing on what you don’t have. Complaints create stress,
while gratitude creates inner peace, so gratitude creates not only
emotional and relationship health, but physical health as well.
FUN AND PLAY
We all know that “work without play makes Jack a dull boy.” Work without
play makes for dull relationships as well. Relationships flourish when
people laugh together, play
together, and when humor is a part of everyday life. Stop taking
everything so seriously and learn to see the funny side of life.
Intimacy flourishes when there is lightness of being, not when
everything is heavy.
SERVICE
A wonderful way of creating intimacy is to do service projects together.
Giving to others fills the heart and creates deep satisfaction in the
soul. Doing service moves you out of yourself and your own problems and
supports a broader, more spiritual view of life.
If you and your partner agree to these 7 choices, you will be amazed at
the improvement in your relationship!
About the Author
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and
co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up
Me To Be Loved By You?", "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be
Loved By My Kids?", "Healing Your Aloneness","Inner
Bonding", and "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By
God?" Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course:
http://www.innerbonding.com or
mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com
Title: 7 Ways To
Improve Your Relationship
Author: Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
E-mail:
mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com
Copyright: © 2003 by Margaret Paul
Web Address:
http://www.innerbonding.com
Word Count: 915
Category: Relationships |
