I’m currently attending an on-line relationship conference and in a presentation by one of my favourite relationship experts, Harville Hendrix and his wife Helen La Kelly Hunt, Harville was saying that people often ask him if they should quit their relationship and his response is:
“Quit! There are lot’s of things you should quit but your relationship is not one of them.”
So over the next few weeks I will share my top things to quit IN your relationship that will help make your relationship feel so good you won’t want to Quit it!
This week - BLAME
When I ask my couples in the first session why are you here, I invariably get a range of reasons that have more to do with the other person or may start off neutral and then become about the other person: “ hate it the way my partner does …(blame)” or “I want to work on our communication (neutral) because I don’t feel my partner listens to me (blame)” or “I don’t feel connected to my partner (neutral) because they do…(blame)”.
It’s natural - we are wired to focus more on danger around us - we actually have to learn to look within for the answers and some of us come later in life to that lesson.
When things are not feeling great in our relationship space it is so easy to make it about what the other person is or is not doing. I call it the partner improvement project (PIP). If they would just do more of or less of something then the relationship would be great. And then we focus our energy on getting them to change.
There are 2 main problems with this approach – firstly that it takes your focus away from things that you could be doing to improve the relationship and puts it all on the other person to change to make your life better. But secondly and I think most disheartening is that when we think it is all about our partner we give up our power and belief that we can make changes that will improve our relationship whether our partner works with us or not.
How to quit:
Take the focus off your partner and back on to you: when you catch yourself thinking that something is all about your partner turn it around and ask yourself what is my role in this and what can I do differently here? Using the example of connection: If you want more connection instead of blaming your partner for not putting down their phone when you entered the room ask yourself what are the ways in which I ignore moments of connection in our relationship and work to eliminate them.
Ask: remember that you can ask for something without blaming the other person for not giving it to you previously. Again with connection - You can work at creating more connection by asking your partner to join you in a phone free coffee date.
Check your attitude: intimate relationships do not work on a quid pro quo model – that is you don’t give to get. If you say I’ll only connect with my partner when they make an effort to connect with me then you are setting yourself up for a no win for anyone.
Seeing your relationship as a learning and growing opportunity enables room for mistakes to be made and growth to happen as a result.
Next week…Criticism