7 Ssecrets of Happy Relationships
My parents had been married for 66 years at the time that my Mother passed away last year, and, apart from the beginning of their marriage when they were separated by my father serving abroad during the 2nd World War, they had only been apart for one week during the whole of their marriage, when my Mother took me on holiday after my divorce to try to cheer me up. She was miserable for the whole of that week as she missed my father so much, and so she wasn’t really much good at cheering me up, in fact I spent so much time trying to cheer her up that I did forget my own misery, but that hadn’t been the purpose of our holiday.
Over the years I had struggled to understand just why I couldn’t maintain a happy intimate relationship. I wondered if it was the kind of men that I was attracted to, or whether there was something wrong with me. No matter what I seemed to do I just could not make it work for me.
Even though I was a successful and respected Psychologist, and an ‘expert’ in helping people solve problems in their life or come to terms with life changes, personality and emotional difficulties or family or work conflicts, still I could not make my own relationships work.
Sometimes I thought that I was not setting my sights high enough because partners turned out to be lacking in some way. I wondered if, when selecting a partner, I was not using the right cues to their personality because I was so excited to be in the relationship I was blinded by their interest in me. Maybe I was not good at setting boundaries because they seemed to treat me so badly. Other times I decided that I wasn’t patient enough with partners, but really I knew that this wasn’t so because I was endlessly patient with my clients and their problems.
At other times I believed that I was just not good at choosing a partner, perhaps putting looks before character or charm before intelligence. Try as I may, it always came back to blaming one thing or another. Whatever I blamed for my lack in relationship staying power in my mind it always seemed to be my fault for a failing inside me, rather than the fault of the other person doing bad things to me. I loaded on the blame and self-loathing to no avail. All this did was make me feel worse about myself. My ego took tumble after tumble and I just gave up for quite some time.
Then one day I had a brainwave. I decided to put myself through the same programme that I put my clients through and analyse exactly where I was going wrong. I had decided that once I had done that I would then put myself through a self-development system that would change the way I thought about my life and the people in it. Wow, did that give me some realisations about myself.
It took me some time to discover the answers to my quest and to work through the self-inflicted programme, testing out what would work and what wouldn’t work. (Lucky I am a Psychologist and know all about testing out theories) Eventually I hit on the 7 secret ingredients that are necessary to ensure the success of a relationship and I wrote this report to help other readers that ‘shortcuts’ all my months and months of enquiry and research. Now, I am presenting this to you in my report ‘7 Secrets Of Happy Relationships’. Please Read On.
Secret 1
Learning To Talk Together
I bet you think that I have flipped my lid with this secret ingredient. Well, hold on now and think about it. When was the last time you actually had a conversation with your loved ones that didn’t involve your diary, making arrangements, telling them what you want from them or their telling you what they want from you? Do your exchanges revolve around conversations that are all about having a go at each other one way or another to score points or regain power and a puffed-up ego? If you have had interesting conversations I bet they were about telling them what you have been doing and giving news, or about them doing the same to you.
The trouble with relationships is that we just don’t seem to have enough time these days to actually have one. We are so busy trying to make life work for us, earn money to pay bills, go out and enjoy ourselves or take care of others that we just don’t have time to spare to just be. We crave for time to ourselves and use our spare time to keep fit or healthy or just crash out in front of the TV in welcoming silence or just the chance to spent time quietly relaxing on our own reading the paper, a magazine or doing the crossword or a Sadoku quiz.
Many partners disappear into the pub or wine bar on the way home just for the opportunity of ‘chilling out’ and letting go of the stress of the day. A few drinks spent in the company of sympathetic friends or even total strangers helps to brush off work or relationship problems. We need the space in order to prepare ourselves for home life.
Often attempts at integrating with the family, (guilt ridden moments of dedication to the needs of those at home or even willing challenges of spending time with our dependents) can be a disaster. We are so eager to ‘make up for lost time’ in order to ease our sense of guilt that our approaches seem stiff or ‘unreal’ or even an intrusion to the other party. We are surprised at a curt reply or a cool reception to our warm but possibly unusual enquiries or attempts at communicating.
If we are lucky we get away with family outings that seem to end up with children shouting or crying, arguments over where to go and what to buy at the shops or in supermarkets or kids nagging for the latest bit of technology that all their friends have got. What a disaster it often turns out to be.
Married or single, you are probably all stressed out from long hours at work trying to keep your job and the boss off your back, hoping that your company will not go under and / or competition will not result in you loosing your job or bonuses or the contract for the next year.
You might be out of work and living on government benefits or you may even be a student, in which case money is still your main stressor. Trying to find enough to keep financially afloat, enjoy a trip to the cinema or find something that you can do to entertain another person that doesn’t make you look like a pauper but is good enjoyable entertainment regardless, is always a problem.
In all the hurly burly of life we spend so much time inside our own heads that we become inept at speaking out, let alone speaking to our loved ones or the people we would like to love. Personal Audio Players and ‘iPod’ systems don’t help either. They act to alienate people more and more and the warm, cosy feeling of living in one’s own world draws the listening even deeper into their isolation.
It becomes easier to talk to complete strangers. Why? It is because strangers expect nothing from us. They don’t know us (or any of our faults) and we feel free in speaking without expecting to be criticised for what we say (or for something that we might have done or said previously). We can reveal our most intimate thoughts without the fear of regret, or it being used against us.
At home we come with baggage. We, and our loved ones, have history. We feel inhibited in talking straight from the heart less we are criticised, laughed at, ridiculed. So we clam up and keep our thoughts to ourselves anyway.
We don’t want to look foolish or small when we talk about how other people in our lives have made us suffer. We need to maintain an image of being in control, of being ‘normal’. We really fear that the information we give to our loved ones may be used against us in the future to gain control over us.
What bliss it would be to have someone really care about what we thought or felt. How wonderful to be able to lie in someone’s arms and pour out our heart whilst we feel warm, relaxed, nurtured. Yet reality dictates that we are cautious, closed and silent.
It is no wonder then that people just don’t get to know us very well. They cannot learn all about us because we don’t trust them enough to reveal our soft underbelly. We don’t trust them because they have laughed at us before now. We may have been hurt or embarrassed by them and so we hold back.
Perhaps there were many times in the past that you wanted to offload your thoughts, maybe even started to do so and then a slight smile or smirk, a glint of laughter in their eyes or an interruption sent you into a dumb-founded, helpless silence, and no amount of cajoling would get you to reveal what you had wanted to say.
In my book ‘Valentines Forever’ – 50 Ways To Keep Your Lover, (see my website www.relationshiphotline.com I talk in great detail about how to overcome the difficulties with learning to talk together with loved ones. It is a question of breaking down barriers and starting again with new rules. I encourage people to ‘practice’ talking together and to use some ‘rules’ that ensure that your conversations are value free and that no-one gets hurt. You need to agree to have a ‘truce’ where neither of you bring unfinished business or previous hurts into the conversation. You need to choose a time where you are both free to talk and when both of you will not be interrupted by children or commitments or the telephone ringing. It is especially important that you choose a subject to talk about that you are both interested in.
The purpose of this exercise is to learn more about each other and to learn to trust each other. Trust is very important in the process of deepening a relationship and I will talk more about that later. When you and your loved ones see that you are not going to get hurt by talking together you become more inclined to reveal your thoughts. Both you and they will learn more about each other. You will develop or regain a fascination with each other and be surprised at exactly how much you have misunderstood or misread them in the past. The more that you abide by the rules the more trust will flourish. You will learn that you can reveal your feelings without getting hurt. All this takes time. Having a good relationship takes time. You cannot rush these things. If you want to be together then you should be willing to let things take their natural course and to not be in a hurry. The journey is as pleasurable and as interesting as the arrival point.
Allowing people to have their say for a set period of time teaches you patience and allows them to feel that they are important to you. You are winning them over just by listening to what they have to say without interrupting or criticising or adding in your own opinions.
When they have finished and it is your turn to reply you will find them much more keen to listen if you have given them a chance to say what they believe in or to give their opinion, show their knowledge, etc without coercing them over to your point of view. What does it matter if they show that they have more knowledge about a subject than you do? You can learn from them as well as they can learn from you about some other piece of information that you know about thoroughly. Learning to share is an important part of developing trust and intimacy, two of the king pins to your relationship.
There is no need for domination, control or ego in a well-balanced loving relationship. Scoring points is for people who are damaged, for bullies, for people who fear losing or who are selfish or arrogant. These are not good traits for having a valuable and loving relationship. Let other people have their say, let them be right if they are right (or even if you know they are wrong), let them give their opinions freely without challenging them and damaging their ego and their stability and you will become special to them in many ways. Dominating conversations will never endear you to anyone. You will become marked as someone who is not worth knowing. Show generosity in your conversations with other people and they will keep coming back for more.
Learning how to talk to people and to know when to speak, what to say and when to hold back is part of the ‘Art’ of talking and developing this ‘Art’ is about knowing all about the rules of conversation. You will probably not remember learning about how to have a conversation at school. We take it for granted that we know how to speak and that we know this by instinct. In fact, we learn very early on in our life about the rules of conversation.
For example, when we learn to write we learn that a comma is just a pause, whereas a full stop is a much longer break and a paragraph end is usually the end of a train of thought. We pause longest here.
In a conversation, if we listen intently to what the other person is saying, we will hear their pauses and be able to take them as a cue for when we are able to speak. By listening to conversations, by listening to newsreaders, radio plays and overheard conversations at work, on the bus or anywhere at all, we can learn about and become very accomplished at conversational pauses and knowing when we can speak and when it is expected of us to speak. If we are in doubt we can always check with the other person whether they are ready for our response.
Knowing what to say is another part of having a conversation with someone. It is always a good idea to talk about what you know they are interested in. This not only shows consideration and that you have interest in them but is also shows that they are important to you. Another time they will be more inclined to listen to what you want to talk about. If you know the person well, write down some subjects that they are interested in and jot down some points about these subjects that you can mention.
If you don’t know the other person well, if you are just learning about them, ask them some open ended questions about their interests (“What are your main interests?”) and let them talk freely about their subjects of interest. You can then make a mental note about points that you can add and knowledge that you can contribute to the subject and reserve these until it is your time to speak.
Learning how to speak to each other using the ‘Art’ of good speaking practice is simply, though thoroughly explained in my book. Too detailed to do justice to all the pointers and simple suggestions in this report.
If you think about having a conversation with someone as being a game that you both play in order to get to know each other better you will be able to relax a bit more and enjoy the experience. The object of this game, though, is not to win or be ‘right’ or to get the better of the other, but to spend happy times in pleasant conversation, which, if you are lucky, will last a lifetime.
Secret 2
Listening Attentively
Do you know that there is an art in listening to other people when they speak? Most people believe that if they are facing the other person or if they nod occasionally they can get away with appearing to listen when they are not.
What is the point of this? People always know that you are not really listening anyway. Not only that but you are sending the message to them that your own thoughts or practices are much more important than theirs and that you haven’t even got the good manners to pay attention to what they say.
Perhaps you really do believe that you are better than the speaker, that you are more important than them, or that what they have to say is not worth listening to anyway. Well, if that is the case, what are you doing in their company? Get out and get a life. You are being rude, bad mannered, arrogant and unworthy of them. It is quite possible that you are the uninteresting party. Maybe they are fascinating to other people but because they hold no real interest for you or because they are no longer important to you, there may not be an advantage gained by you of being with them or listening to them, you have shunned them. People are not static beings, they change over the years and you may not ‘see’ them as they are today. Because of this, you may be missing out on many wonderful moments that you could be sharing.
If the person that you are with is worth anything to you and you want to have a good relationship with them, learn to listen to what they say and pay attention to them when they speak. You will find out new things about them that will rekindle your affections and remind you of why you wanted them in your life in the first place. You will gain fresh insights into what makes them tick, their likes and dislikes, you will learn how to please them and you will make them feel important. They will begin to feel that you are worth knowing and that, because you listen to them so intently, you like them.
Liking someone is much more important than being in love with them. We all know that. Because if we like someone we are more able to ride out the storm of their bad days, forgive them transgressions and cope with obstacles and life problems with them. If they like us the same will apply to us. Loving them, of course is important too. Relationships that are built on mutual like grow into relationships that develop deep and lasting love. Infatuation that is also combined with friendship will last the test of time. Infatuation that is about gratification and taking what you want will not last.
When you are listening to someone it is important to look at them too. How you look at them is very important. By gazing at them gently (not staring, showing passion, desire, scowling or absently) you convey that they are safe and important. You are not threatening them in any way and they will feel free to be with you in a relaxed and happy way. Science proves that your eyes are likely to travel between their mouth and their eyes as you listen. In your peripheral vision you will also notice their non-verbal behaviour, gestures and facial expressions and body positioning. This will give you more information about their feelings about what they are saying and how they feel about you too. The non-verbal information is very important to you when you are speaking as it gives you clues to how they are receiving what you are saying to them.
When they step back or slightly move away (disengage) they are less likely to like what you are saying to them or approve of your opinion about what they have just said to you. If they move closer, even by a hand gesture or by a tilt of their head you can tell that they are feeling warm towards you and that they like what you have just said. This gives you the options of moderating what you are saying, continuing along the same vein for longer or cutting short your response or changing tack as you are speaking.
All this information and opportunity would have been lost if you were not paying attention closely. Find out more about getting people to like you and how to engage people in conversation in my book ‘Valentines Forever’ – 50 Ways To Meet (And Keep) Your Friends. You can find out more about this book by clicking on the link below: http://www.relationshiphotline.com
Secret 3
Honouring The Other and Showing Consideration
What do you really value in life? Do you seek happiness, fame, or fortune? Are you longing to help or serve others and make life better for them? Do you want to fight for causes, rise to challenges, or be known for your powers of management? What would you like to read as your epitaph when you have gone?
By thinking about what you value in life you are getting in touch with your core being. By knowing what is really at the heart of you, you are able to write a paragraph about your aims and objectives in life.
Once you know this, you can then look at the people in your life, the decisions that you take and the way that you take them and see whether you are being true to yourself, honouring yourself and others, and living in line with your values. This is the way to emotional peace and contentment.
The decisions you take about yourself, your life and your goals are not taken in isolation. They involve the people that you know, whether they are work colleagues, friends, family members or your intimate loved ones. By acting outside your values you are hurting yourself and you will undoubtedly hurt them.
Honour is about respecting other people sufficiently to care about how they feel and to care about how you affect them. Honour is all about treating people well, behaving politely, to use a kind way of dealing with both your needs and wishes and theirs without damaging either party.
You honour your relationships when you make them important enough to consider the results of your actions before you act. It means asking the other about their opinions, taking decisions together, explaining where you are coming from and listening to them when they express their needs and wishes, and remembering these as you go through life together, taking them into consideration when you make simple choices. These choices could be as small as buying trinkets for gifts or choosing the weekly shopping content or as big as where or how you want to live, work or play.
Considering the other, honouring their needs may affect you when you want to participate in an solo activity that you know will get in the way of your normal life together. Choosing an appropriate time to arrange this will also affect them and by making arrangements with this in mind you are honouring the relationship.
Little things like helping out when there is an obvious need as well as when there is no need pays homage to your relationship. It is not about being ‘soft’ or ‘doing man’s / women’s work’ it is about a willingness to contribute to the betterment of the other’s life. When people are ill, stressed, vexed or worried it is so much nicer to feel that the people in your life care and are willing to support you. There are times when being willing to talk or just listen does the trick. Other times more practical help is needed. When you are feeling under the weather it is a relief when someone offers to wash the dishes or pick up the kids toys or help you write a report or fix the car or plan a meeting or speech. Helping out with a task which is normally outside your domain shows consideration and caring, even it if is only once in a while. Doing something once does not make you considerate, but being willing to help out from time to time shows that you care deeply about the other person, especially when it is a voluntary response. Doing this for no reason at all is not only honouring the other party but is honouring the relationship. You will score many ‘Brownie Points’ and enhance your standing in the relationship too.
Talking things over when you have an unexpected invitation or need to make a spontaneous decision is not only polite but says much about you. Other people (if they are worth knowing) will respect your need to check things out first with other people in your life. If they laugh at your need to do this it is because they are selfish or trying to rebalance the scales in their favour because you are blocking their selfish needs and desires. Understand this and you will not go wrong. People who laugh at your decisions or actions are trying to manipulate you into doing what they want without questioning their own motives. Beware! They do not have your own interests at heart.
In the world of business, honouring the other and working with consideration for others is called Emotional Intelligence. How you handle your staff or colleagues will have repercussions on their output and your success. Treating people correctly does not make you a weak manager. On the contrary, by demonstrating a consideration towards the people who work with you or for you, you are ensuring their loyalty and making it easier for them to do their own work. By taking decisions together, by keeping them informed of what is going on in the company and how they contribute to the positive outcome is worth the time it takes to do this. Weekly meetings together to trouble shoot and brainstorm problems that affect your staff or your colleagues will bring dividends to what can be achieved by you all together. It demonstrates that you care about them. They become participants in the ‘grand plan’ and understand the role that they play and know how they can contribute, that they are supported. Because of this, more cohesion and collaboration will take place. Just ask them what they need in order to do their job well and how you can support them in achieving their needs and you will win them over.
The same applies within the family group. Use this model to create more cohesion and consideration between your family members and you will find that the relationships flow and grow deeper. By asking them what they need in their lives to get the most out of it and how you can help them to achieve this you are showing that you are willing to put effort into their lives. If their needs (I mean needs not wants) have a financial basis, them you must sit down with them and work out how the money to achieve their goals can be raised, partly by other members of the family but mostly by themselves. Creative brainstorming together could reveal methods to raise money that had not been considered before, such as a family car boot sale, doing odd jobs, saving on other expenses, etc. Sitting down and working things out together is what will help to build the family group and create cohesion, a willingness to be mutually supportive of each other in times of hardship as well as through the good times.
When all of the family members feel supported by each other then petty jealousies will disappear and a happier atmosphere between all the family members will ensue. All the family members will thrive, each feeling that they are cherished in turn. For more information see my book ‘Valentines Forever – 50 Ways To A Loving Family downloadable at my website:
http://www.relationshiphotline.com
By looking at the problems in each of the family members lives, (problems as they see it, not as you see them) you can gain insights into the hurdles that they are jumping in their life, and value them for the effort that they are having to exert in order to succeed. Judging family members on the basis of our own abilities and values and choices is not only unfair but does not take into consideration our individual differences. We all excel at different things. We all have talents (even if we believe that we don’t have them at first glance) and we all have desires, hopes and dreams that are likely to be different to other people around us. By getting to know what these are for each individual we are not only gaining power to understand them better and insights into how we can motivate them to succeed, but we are building a foundation on which to build a healthy family (or relationship) that is able to blossom and grow with our support.
Secret 4
The Win-Win Process
Are you the kind of person who rides roughshod over others or are you kind and considerate? Unfortunately in today’s world it is too easy to get caught up in our needs and wants and we forget that other people have needs and wants too. We forget their right to a happy existence and we also forget that in the pursuit of our goals we could be making other people very unhappy. Happiness in a relationship is all about being able to get what we want without making the other person unhappy in the process.
Determination to get our own way will be sure to mark us out as difficult, uncompromising, or selfish. If we are serious about having a good relationship with someone there is no point in pursuing a ‘macho’ image and pushing home our ideas or enforcing our will on people. Being responsible for someone else is not about taking all the decisions for themselves on their behalf, either. Allowing them to decide things for themselves based on your advice or input is different to forcefully ensuring that they do your bidding. Bullying someone into doing what you want out of fear in your relationship will destroy it. Getting your loved ones (or friends and colleagues for that matter) to do things your way out of fear of the consequences will lull you into a false sense of security and wreck your relationships, bringing you nothing but misery in the end and leaving you scratching your head and wondering what you did. Why are you doing this anyway? Are you so in need of keeping control that you are prepared to loose everything in the process?
There will be a few times when you will need to make the decisions for all the parties in the relationship yourself, and this will not affect the relationship if you make sure that this happens only occasionally.
For most of the time then, the rules of negotiation apply.
A win-win situation brings a good outcome for all the parties and is the secret to any negotiation process from a new or a long-term intimate relationship to a multi-million pound or dollar business negotiation.
First of all you need to fully understand what it is you really are trying to achieve, and why. Your first thoughts about these questions are unlikely to reflect the deep level motivation for your desired outcome.
Think about the emotions involved in wanting your particular outcome. The ‘why’ question will reveal much to you about your motivation. Will the outcome make you feel good about yourself or do you want this outcome to block someone else’s desires? Are you ‘game-playing’ to improve your position in the relationship or are you seeking this outcome for the betterment of yourself and others too? Do you want a ‘convenient’ outcome that fits into your plan of things? Knowing ‘why’ reveals your underlying motivation for what you want.
Will the outcome you want serve your own practical need or is it a frivolous desire? Can you afford it? Will it inconvenience others? What will be the negatives attached to getting what you want? How will the outcome effect other people and who will suffer? Write all this down and think about it carefully.
Do you still want to achieve this goal?
OK, so you have decided that you still want to go ahead with it. If you push this decision onto another person when the outcome affects them you are likely to meet immediate hostility or objections. They will certainly have an interest in the decision one way or another.
You first need to find out what they think about it and what outcome they would want before you put your point of view. Not to do so will be certain to cause hostility or unhappiness, causing a row and / or an unpleasant outcome. Acquiring this knowledge will become the basis of a good outcome for all the parties concerned.
Consider the common ground that you share. Perhaps this is the family group, the social group that you both belong to or members of that group, the work environment that you share. Think about whether you share a common ground in a desire to protect or cherish the relationship and the parties in that relationship. In other words, how much do you need to protect the relationship from possible negative outcomes from your goal? Your common ground may be about the way that you choose to do things together or the likes and dislikes that you share, friends or family members that you might alienate.
Then ask yourself what would you be willing to give up in order to achieve your goal. Perhaps there is something that the other person would like you to do that you have held back from doing which could act as a bargaining tool. Perhaps there are things that your partner or the other person would like you to do more of. Work this out before you voice your ideas about what you want to achieve as your goal to the other party or parties.
The simple solution is to ask them what they feel about X (X being your desired outcome) and why. You ask the ‘why’ in order to find out the motivation behind their opinion as well as the reasons for their opinion. You will generally find that the ‘why’ question reveals their fears about the outcome. Their point of view and the ‘why’ answer may reveal their own personal fears, or it may reveal a fear linked to their values connected to the relationship and your life together (whether personal, work, friendship or family). People fear what they do not fully understand or what they believe will cause them harm or uncertainty. People do not want to loose their standing, their status, or their privileges. Bear this in mind when you listen to what they are saying to you.
The next step is to ask them what would be their own desired outcome, and why. You will then be able to fully understand where they are coming from and compare this to your own thoughts that you identified previously.
This is the time to state your desired outcome and why you want it, what you will use as a ‘bribe’ for the outcome and what you are prepared to give up in order to gain ground. You now have the knowledge that you need to work together to get a mutually acceptable outcome in which all parties win something and no-one looses. Once you can both ‘negotiate’ a desired outcome that you are both happy with you will be able to use this decision making process to achieve outcomes time and time again without causing distress to anyone concerned.
Do you see now how you win by practicing this method of ‘getting what you want’? Because you have considered the other people involved in your decision event they will be happy to please you. By pleasing you they are getting an outcome that benefits them too. Not only will you be a contented person to be with, but you are also showing them that you are prepared to compromise or give something in return for their compliance with your wishes.
You are offering the other person something that they want in exchange for something that you want. Not only that, you are prepared to give bonuses for their effort and consideration of your needs.
By knowing the reasons behind their need as well as understanding your reasons behind your need, a decision can be agreed based on a mutual understanding of where you are both coming from. Compromises can be reached for the sake of the opportunity of continuing with the relationship and the opportunity to return to the negotiating table again in the future is left open because all parties come away with pride intact. Everybody wins something from the experience.
Secret 5
Being A Couple Or A Working Partnership
It doesn’t really matter if the relationship that you want to cherish is a work one, a relationship within your family or your relationship with a loved one, personal partnership or spouse. One thing is for certain, loyalty to the relationship is paramount.
Some people criticise people of another race or creed and yet they admire the way that that group stick together. They wonder at how they are always doing things for each other, supporting each other and financially investing in each other. By these actions the social group, each family within that social group and each member of each family is bound to survive all ills from without and from within. This attitude of loyalty and support is a necessary practice for any relationship. It becomes stronger the more you invest in it and the more you give it pride of place in your life.
Yes, we all need a balanced life. Work, Social, Religious, Family, Friendship and Community, Health and Fitness and Intimate Relationships are all important to us if we are to have a well rounded and balanced life, leading to a healthy mind and body. But our relationships with the individuals in our life are one of the most important aspects that span all of the life areas. If the relationships work, our life will work. Getting this right is the one thing that is bound to lead to happiness and contentment. For, by getting our relationships right we are then able to move forward in harmony with the people who share our life from the time that we wake up until the time we fall asleep, day after day after day.
There will always come a time when you have the choice about how you proceed with the relationship. Do you put personal goals before the wishes and dreams of another? I have talked about that and I am sure that you realise that I believe the relationship should come first.
And what if you have other conflicts apart from just yourself and another. What about third parties, the rest of the family and society as a whole? We have seen many examples in the cinema of stories where the whole film plot hinges on the delicate pivotal balance of a personal dilemma. Choosing to support our partner or friend or family member against others tells everyone exactly how we feel about them. By putting the relationship first we are ‘stating our case’. The relationship slowly takes on a life of it’s own.
Fighting for the relationship is a way of building it’s strength and resilience against the rest of the world. It develops longevity. The more you invest in a relationship the harder it is to break it down and destroy it. By giving respect to the relationship itself, by making it an important part of your life, you breathe life into it and support it, encouraging it’s growth.
At work, loyalty to a colleague, refusing to accept decisions that involve them without checking with them first or refusing to engage in gossip about them behind their back is showing that the relationship that you share is more important than power or amusement. The treasured relationship places a burden of responsibility on your shoulders that should be given careful attention, but the rewards are manifold. For example, you will appear to be sometimes on the outside when others mean harm to your friend or colleague, even in jest. However, the insiders would be the first to admit that you are an admirable friend, one who they would love to be ‘on their side rooting for them’.
You benefit from earning the respect of your friend and colleague, for they are bound to learn of how you defended them and supported them.
By using skills to work things out together in a step by step approach, by understanding how you can both use decision making techniques to get through a problem or a conflict of interests, by using the methods described in this paper to negotiate mutually beneficial outcomes, you are demonstrating that you are a respectful and honest colleague. Your opinions will become sought out and your solutions will be listened to and adhered to.
There is nothing quite like a Mother’s love, unconditional and eternal. That is how the story goes and certainly that is the ideal. How many times have I supported and counselled people who were not that fortunate? People who’s Mothers or Fathers or Siblings just didn’t seem to love them or demonstrate loyalty (even as much as human consideration to them). It is sad, but I’m afraid it is very true that this happens within families.
What is a person to do? In my digital book Valentines Forever – 50 Ways To Love Your Family I show many useful ways of working through family problems and letting go of past hurts and pain.
Learn more about this book at: http://www.relationshiphotline.com
Amongst these are suggested ways that you can begin to sort things out and come to terms with their behaviour, even if they have passed away from life. I believe that once this has happened you can move on to a phase of being able to be a whole family again, and incidentally, a whole person again.
In the same way that you build a relationship with a work colleague or a friend, you can build a ‘family unit’ that withstands time and conflict from without and within by making the family equally important to you and the other family members, irrespective of what has gone before. You start again with a new understanding and accept what has happened and move on to new, firmer ground.
What about your personal relationship? Becoming a ‘Couple’ is about supporting each other, standing up for each other and putting the ‘Couple’ status above individual wants and machinations. When other people begin to see that you are strongly bound together they will leave you alone and focus their needs for conflict and excitement on others less fortunate who show their shortcomings for all to see. Making a strong ‘Couple’ identity by being loyal to each other and knowing about and sharing mutually held beliefs and behaviours and responses to attach from without, however minor or even amusing, you are strengthening your life together. Just like when a child ‘tests’ the parents by asking each one separately if they can have an expensive toy or forbidden luxury in the hope that one of them will relent, so a relationship ‘Couple-ship’ gets tested by the many challenges and day to day events that require a united front.
Find time to talk about your likes and dislikes, behavioural, emotional or otherwise and you will be able to build a common response to challenges of all kinds. The more you talk this through, the more you decide together on how you will respond to outside influences, the stronger you become as a ‘Couple’.
Secret 6
Spending Time Together
It doesn’t matter if we are talking about your most personal relationship, the ones that you share with your parents, children or other family members or the ones you share with your friends and work colleagues. The rules are the same. If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, leave time for your relationships and nurture them just as you would a seedling plant or a new baby.
It is just no good saying that you are so busy you don’t have time to give to your friends, colleagues, family members or intimate partners. What you focus on expands. If you neglect the people in your life that you rely on, you will turn around when you need them and find that they have moved on to someone who will cherish them.
You can say that you spend hours with your work colleagues, but does that mean that you spend hours talking to them, finding out about them and what makes them tick, what makes them an individual? Do you know about their hopes and dreams, their gifts and talents, their finer qualities? Do you care? Or does it mean that you are in the same building, office or take a hurried sandwich lunch together in the canteen?
What about your family? Do you spend part of the weekend with an elderly parent no matter how irritating their ways have become? Do you play football with your children, or take them ice skating or rowing, or shopping for pink fluffy dolls? My bet is that you reluctantly go shopping in the supermarket for necessities together and when your kids nag for something that catches their eye it becomes a battle to see who wins. Failing to see that they are desperate for your attention and a sign that you care about them (the desired object and your willingness to give it to them) you are missing out on valuable cues about their needs. What about brothers and sisters? Do they know that you care about them and that they (and for adult siblings, their own family unit) are an important part of who you are? Have your let the years that you shared together as children drift off into the blue yonder as wistful memories? Do you need to forgive transgressions and move on to a new level in order for you to be a whole and contented person?
Getting together with family members, even if it is on birthdays and holidays is so important to feeling good about your self, and having a balanced contented life. The guilt of neglect eventually eats away at your relationships and you may find that years elapse between meeting points. As the years go by it becomes harder and harder to build bridges until the ‘tipping point’ is reached and it becomes impossible to bridge the gap of neglect. As you push the guilt further and further away into the recesses of your mind you feel a temporary relief, and yet you wonder why you feel vaguely restless and unsatisfied with life. Research shows that the people with the most well rounded lives, who give themselves to others and share the life of other loved ones are better able to withstand stress and conflict and loss in their life. They are better able to deal with problems and they feel good about their life and themselves. They are able to ward off depression and emptiness which more than makes up for the time they spend building relationships and mending bridges.
OK, so you decide to give it a go and spend quality time with your loved ones. What does this mean, this quality time? Quality? Quality for whom?
The best way of dealing with this one is to take it in turns to choose what the quality time should be spent doing. If each person is prepared to spend some hours pleasing the other by participating in one of the other’s favourite activities, then not only will you learn more about what makes the other person tick, but you will learn about ways you can please them, motivate them and nurture them. Likewise, they will learn so much about you too. You build family strength by being willing for each member to patiently put their heart and soul into another’s activity choice and you build character and consideration at the same time. What better way could there be to strengthen your family group?
Especially where children are concerned, learning about their favourite pastimes can lead to a masterly stroke of ‘award activities’ as the pay-offs for future ‘toeing the line’, without you having to think too deeply.
Also with your work colleagues, the small ‘treats’ for loyalty and support in helping you with tasks and outcomes will be all the more appreciated if it relates to a personal hobby or activity that you would not know about if you didn’t spend time talking to them at the ‘work outing’ or department dinner.
Spending quality time with your intimate partner or spouse is probably one of the rare things that happen in your life. Possibly finances, work pressures and social and community (even family) commitments mean that quality time together has to go on the back boiler to keep for later.
This is where you need to work hardest. Sharing trips out, not just to the supermarket to buy the weekly shop but also to a place that you choose together at a time that you set aside for your ‘relationship’ will pay dividends. You will have the luxury of knowing that you will not be interrupted. You will be able to relax (if you leave your mobile phones at home) and just get on with the business of sharing each other’s company. Taking it in turns to choose the outing destination or activity will demonstrate the same willingness to consider the other and you will learn so much about your partner that you didn’t know before and keep up to date with their new interests and thoughts, that I am sure the effort will reap dividends later.
Organising others to take care of children, video timers, commitments and work loads will ensure that once in a while a day trip out together or an evening spent doing something truly ‘special’ will give your relationship a boost and renew your commitment to each other.
Secret 7
Cherishing Moments and Intimacy
I expect that keeping a scrapbook would be considered ‘old hat’ now. We are used to taking photos of our children from birth to adulthood, but what about others who mean a lot to us? Do you think about keeping a scrapbook or photo album about them too? Keeping fond memories alive may be considered maudlin or sentimental, but it is good to look back together over past times and activities and remember the quality of the moment. Recalling happy memories and laughing together about incidents that now seem funny with but which seemed momentous at the time, serves to reinforce the treasures of your relationships. The wise manager will post up photos taken at the office party or company event so that the photos of the staff and their colleagues bears witness to the happiness shared at the event, and these act as ‘bonuses’ that reinforce cohesion and future loyalty and co-operation.
It is very important to respect the other person’s need for privacy. Secrets told in a moment of intimacy should remain just that, a secret. Betraying a trust could bring devastation to your relationship when a few drinks at a party loosen your tongue and you divulge privileged information. With a few drinks inside you, you fail to see the importance of the information and it weighs light against the urgency of the moment. You are sure to regret it one way or another.
Gossip is shallow, even if it seems fun and the time and you consider it will help to bond a new or unlikely friendship. Harmless talk about facts and incidents are not the same as gossip about another person’s experiences and shortcomings. People who gossip to you are also likely to gossip about you. What is a minute’s fun at someone else’s expense could be fun at your expense the next time.
Men are supposed to be more likely brag about their conquests together, especially young immature ones. I don’t know if this is true, but many a relationship has ended to the distress of both parties because one of them bragged about their conquests or the antics of their partner. So many TV shows attest the truth of this. Bragging to friends can lead to them believing that you do not value your relationship with your partner and that the other party is ‘up for anything’. Disloyal friends may welcome the opportunity to get into your partner’s good books and into their bed by ‘telling on you’. I have seen it happen, heard the results. Not only is it not good form, bad manners and distasteful to get your kicks this way, but you are earning a very bad reputation in the process.
If you don’t treasure your friendships (your partner and your friends of both sexes) you are bound to loose them. Don’t cry afterwards. Don’t blame them or others for your disloyalty and betrayal. When other people judge you, you will have earned disrespect, no other conclusion is possible.
Staying true to your relationships will be rewarded with long lasting happy relationships that can last a lifetime. This, in itself, will bring you joy and contentment and a well rounded fulfilled life.