Relationship Coach Blog

This reminds me of the trite question that parents make to teens about whether they would jump off a bridge just because their friends wanted them to.

If your husband or wife wants you to do something that sounds crazy, weird, or dangerous, I would not recommend that you automatically disagree.  To cut someone off after a suggestion or request would leave you without some important information.

Instead, I would recommend you to ask the following question after such a request-”How would that be good for us?”  Even though you may have good reasons not to do a thing that your spouse didn’t think of, first hear your spouse out.  What you may discover is that the reasons for the suggestion are actually positive.  For example, they may have to do with having more fun in the relationship or becoming closer, even though you don’t like the method.

Then, knowing your spouse’s motivation, you are in a position to offer another, more acceptable suggestion for achieving the same results.  On the other hand, hearing your spouse’s motivations may actually encourage to try something a little out of the norm for you.

Listening for the motivation in the message is one of many communication skills that you can learn from your relationship coach.

Are you brave enough to ask your spouse how he or she would like to see you grow?  Is your spouse brave enough to answer that question?  In a strong relationship, there is little need for bravery with such a question.  In a bad relationship, people are so much on the defense that they have a very hard time even with a small suggestion.

Most often, there is a really good suggestion contained within our spouse’s “suggestions” for us, even when they are put to us in a bad way.  If we really want to grow, then we will stop focusing all of our energy on defending ourselves and spend a little more energy looking for the nugget of truth.

If your spouse does not have good skills for making positive requests, you can set up a little “complaint converter” in your mind.  If, for example, your spouse says something like, “Living with you is such a bore,” you can convert this in your own mind to a positive request.  In this case, the complaint becomes, “I really want to do more fun and interesting things with you.”  It’s not the way your husband or wife said it to you, but it is a large part of the meaning of what was said.

You will never argue your way to good relationship, but by learning handle complaints in a productive way, you can make your relationship better.  Practice this skill with your relationship coach this week.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Making a chain stronger means working on each of the individual links.  This analogy has implications for our personal lives and for our relationship as well.

Normally, people spend the most time in the area where they are strongest and feel most confident.  A person who is great at his job may spend most of his time there, even when another part of his life is becoming a weaker and weaker link in the chain.  It could be his relationship with his children, or his wife.  Or maybe it is his physical health.  If that weaker link should break, then it would also harm his career–no matter how strong it was.

Couples that are wonderful at managing a home may become better and better managers and their home may become very beautiful and an envy of the neighbors.  But, if they let other areas of their relationship go such as communication, intimacy, or sexuality, then their beautiful home could end up with a for sale sign in front of it.

A careful assessment of your weakest links can help you to work on those things that make your entire life and relationships better.  Your relationship coach can help to do such an assessment.  Typically such an assessment is one of the first steps in relationship coaching for just such reasons as mentioned here.

Milestones are markers along a trail that let you know you have traveled another mile toward your final destination.  Without such markers, the trail seems endless, and the destination ever far off.

In terms of your relationships, what was at mile number one? Was it talking to a girl or boy outside of your family for the first time?  Your first date?  What other milestones have there been for you in your relationships?

If you have been with your current partner for some time, then doubtless you also have milestones for your relationship.  You can make a list of the milestones along with the reasons why each was important for you.  Such a list can give you the sense that your relationship has been meaningful and that you are headed in the right direction.

There are other purposes for milestones.  They can let us know when we are moving backward rather than forward.  They can also let us know if we have slowed down so much that we might not make it to the next milestone.

No one can go from mile 7 to mile 9 without passing mile 8.  Focus on one mile at a time for your relationship and get help if you need it.  With each passing mile, the view is nicer, the air fresher, and the feeling of accomplishment greater.  Your relationship coach will be a good guide along your trail.

Because intimacy involves vulnerability, there is no way to increase intimacy without also being afraid at the same time.  Intimacy involves a step of faith.

It is not necessary to have a “leap” of faith, however.  Relationships should develop over time with small steps of faith.  That way, we risk a little but will not be devastated if our love is not returned or if we are used or mistreated.

Developing a relationship takes time.  Trust is built slowly over time, and so is intimacy.  This is also true when partners are rebuilding intimacy after it has been lost.  Small steps and small risks allow one to try again another day if something should go wrong.

If you want something to last a lifetime, don’t try to build it in one day.

Your relationship coach will always encourage you to take small steps. This is not because you are incapable of more, but because you will have more success that way.

Becoming intimate really means becoming close. To some people it means being sexual. But it is quite possible to be sexual without being intimate. To some people intimacy means talking and sharing things that are important to you. But that can also be done without being intimate. What is it that can make these things “intimate”?

Intimacy in terms of human relationships refers to you and your partner being separated from the rest of the world, but not from each other. It is as though the two of you are inside of a love bubble. Being inside this bubble makes relationships special.

How can one get inside of this “love bubble”? This happens when two people open up a part of themselves that is normally not shared with others and which makes one vulnerable to being hurt. It is risky, and particularly scary for people who have a history of being hurt when they have made themselves vulnerable. But, when our partner also responds with tenderness and vulnerability, then there is a joining.

Tenderness, sharing, and vulnerability trigger intimacy. No matter how much you work on communication skills and sexual skills, you will not get to intimacy until you learn to set aside your fears and risk being open with your partner.

Identifying your fears and working on them is a great way to work on having more intimacy. Remember, it is fear stops you from having what you really want.  Work on a small fear with your relationship coach to test it out for yourself.

A relationship is like a ball game where a ball is being passed back and forth.  This is also true of friendships and other relationships.  The game keeps going until someone stops passing the ball.  When we are first dating, the ball is passed back and forth very quickly.  It is an intense, fun, ball game.  If someone drops a ball, that’s ok.  We pull another from our pocket and the game gets going again.

After we are married, it happens sometimes that our partner does not pass the ball back to us.  But, we are still ok because we have a couple of more balls in our pocket.  So we pull out another ball and pass it to our partner.  But, then, sometimes our partner just keeps that ball, too.  We are giving without receiving.

Our anxiety level at that point it increasing, as is our frustration, and anger.  We ask our partner, why he or she hasn’t passed a ball back.  Our partner says that you only passed him those two balls because you had extra.  That if you really loved him, then you would pass your only ball to him and he would happily pass it back to you.

At this point, do you give him your last ball, to show that really you do love him and trust him (have faith in him), or do you hang on to it and prove that your desire for self protection is greater than your desire for the relationship?  Sacrificial giving demands that you give your last ball.  It is scary, it doesn’t seem fair, your friends will tell you it is foolish, and it doesn’t match your culture (culture says always take care of yourself first) but it demonstrates one thing.  It demonstrates that your love for your partner and your desire for your relationship is greater than your desire for self-protection.

We can’t see how much someone values a relationship with us until it costs them something. Also, we can’t see how much we value a relationship until it costs us something.  Giving with your whole heart and whole mind is a tremendous risk.  Most of the time you will be spit on or strung up in a tree.  But if you find only one true love, it will have been worth it.

If I have a big bag of food and I give you some, there is no cost involved.  If I have only a little food and I give it to you, that is sacrificial giving.  Giving in your marriage may mean giving time when you really need to rest, giving energy that you don’t have, or doing something for your partner even when it prevents you from doing what you want.  Marriages which last a long time are typified by this kind of sacrificial giving by both partners.

How much we value a thing or person is proportional to how much it costs us.  If we are willing to only give a little, then we will only have junk.  What people try to do, however, is to find quality merchandise at a low price.  They want to pay a little and get a lot. In a relationship, you will never find a bargain.  You get out what you put in and no more.

Give what your partner needs and not just what you want to give.  It doesn’t promise to be fun or easy, but it is the essence of relationship.

A long time ago, many currently developed nations were less industrial.  Families were large and resources were fewer.  For a family to survive, some had to go without so that others could have what they needed.  Brother needed new shoes, so you couldn’t have the doll you wanted.  As nations became industrialized, families became smaller and resources increased.  Sacrifice no longer seemed necessary.  “Sharing” became a moral because it was no longer a necessity.

Increasing independence came at the cost of decreasing intimacy.  Friends, who previously needed to pool their resources (such as helping each other to build and furnish a home) were no longer necessary.  People could simply hire someone to build their home and go buy their own furnishings.  “Having friends” became something nice to have if you have time, because they were no longer a necessity.

At the marriage level, people no longer got married because they needed a partner to help them manage the costs and struggles of life.  Marriage, at first though, was still seen as moral.  Over time it became merely optional and romantic. When the romance was gone, then the reason for the marriage was gone, but by then, divorce was also optional.

There are still a vast majority of people who want to have a long term relationship, but now are far removed from the time when people were true partners (either with friends, family, or spouses).  A return of poverty will make people more interdependent, but waiting for poverty seems a poor way to strengthen a marriage.  Instead, we must learn to give sacrificially.  Giving from abundance is cheap and meaningless.  Giving sacrificially demonstrates the importance of the relationship over our individual well being.

There is a tendency for some people to stop being romantic once the wedding rings are exchanged.  There are many factors that account for this, but probably the number one factor is people’s conception of marriage as entirely different from dating and as husband and wife being very different from girlfriend and boyfriend.  Since we tend to act out whatever we visualize, the way we conceive of marriage has a lot to do with the things we do after getting married.  And almost all of it happens at a subconscious level.

Many married couples that I have worked with have said that the best part of their relationship was actually before they were married.  Such couples characteristically identify dating as “fun” and marriage as “work.”  They often become so busy with the work of running a household that they do not have enough fun.   Moreover, they see that as “normal.”

This can be changed by changing your view of marriage. I am married and I have a girlfriend.  Who is my girlfriend?  My wife. My wife is my girlfriend, my friend, my lover, and my partner.  Seeing her that way helps me to enjoy our relationship more than if I just saw her as my “wife.”  This is because I have the same stereotypical images that come with the word “wife” as others from my culture.  But, by redefining my wife as my girlfriend, friend, and lover, I break out of the fixed stereotype.  And, the fact is, she is all those things.

Many “rules” that we live by are unnecessarily restrictive.  A relationship coach can help you to break free of the rules that make your life and relationship dull.