Top 5 secrets of an outstanding relationship (unbelievably simple)
Here at damn good listener (DGL),
We have been listening for years to many many stories about relationship, breakdown, break-up, re-fashioned, repurposed etc
But we get asked a lot, "What are the ingredients for a truly loving, healthy and sustainable relationship?"
That's a great question and that's why we have been building the relationship recovery roadmap. We have added our experience with couples and relationships in our own experience and here is what we have discovered.
We have poured our 12 years experience and our work with 100's of couples, in difficulties ranging from financial, to parenting, to addiction and sexual problems, to determine the correct process and ingredients to get it to work, so here are the TOP 5 just for you:
1) Work as a team: You must be able to work as a team, when one is feeling low, the other has to be able to carry more of the load and when that reverses, the opposite also must be true. There are caveats to this, when one partner sees that they always have to carry the extra load over 10 years, that's a lot of extra load and that 'giving' can easily become 'resenting'. On the whole life and raising children asks a lot of you so this is number one
2) How you respond to conflict: This is perhaps the hardest one, because of ego, pride, our inherent emotional wounds and pain, folks find it very VERY hard to be wrong. Why? 1) you don't believe you are wrong 2) You are clueless about what is actually right and wrong 3) It's painful and you fear what people might do to you/say about you if you admit to being wrong. Instead, we argue back, we defend ourselves and defense is the first act of war, we don't really listen to what our partner is trying to communicate and that is fatal.
3) Seek to understand your differences and resolve them: You have both inherited different life paradigms and have had different life experiences. All of that stuff becomes a part of your relationship, how could it not? We can become very attached to our way of doing things. That's OK when it's just you, but when 'me' becomes 'we', we must seek new ways of seeing things differently, opening ourselves up to the input of our partners, allowing their strengths to combine with our strengths. Most importantly, 'we seek to understand before seeking to be understood' ~ Dr Stephen Covey. Couples make a fatal error in this regard, everyone really believes that their way is the best way and so we attempt to persuade and at times, use our anger to force our partners to see it our way. We must seek to take the time to understand and resolve these differences, even if some are completely unresolvable - what matters is your partner first, your opinion second, in that order. Even if you do not and cannot have exactly the same opinion - this is especially important in the area of sex, kids and money.
4) Understand your victimhood: Yes, yes you have it and lots of it too. Victimhood covers, acting like one, blaming others for when things don't go the way you want them too or think they should, blaming yourself, manipulating people to get what you want, feeling sorry for yourself, lying, withdrawing or shutting down when conversations become challenging, getting angry when people inconvenience you (and suggesting you were merely frustrated), abdicating your responsibilities, judging others, out of control negative reactions to events etc. Unfortunately most of the above is hidden from view because we are distracted by pleasures, phones, busyness and of course other people's mistakes, so we almost never see ourselves clearly and it is a huge cause of your relationship suffering.
5) Ask for help: Sheesh, I find this one perhaps the hardest of all. There is something for all of us in that word 'help'! We bolt onto to it:
'People who ask for help are weak, soft, real men (women) shouldn't have to ask for help, nobody is there to help me anyway, whenever I ask for help people always want something from me in return' and on and on the stories go.
When we ask for help, we reach a healthy space of "I don't know". This can be very important because sometimes we just need to be shown how to do it differently, we do what's instinctive, we don't always do what works. So bare that in mind, just because you can be ina. relationship, doesn;t mean you know how to build a healthy loving version of one - you already know the truth in that.
Look, building strong relationships that last is a full time job - it's OK to ask the people that are experts in that field to help you along.
We now have a team of coaches that offer different price points to help support you and help you move on. SO if you are feeling disconnected, constantly frustrated with each other, communication has become non-existent outside of the kids and you are housemates rather than lovers - then maybe we can help you.
Reply to this email or whatsapp Ben on 07947625074 and we will arrange for a free consultation - go ahead, why not?
Ben and Kerry
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