1.        Be Proactive

Perhaps the most famous personal improvement book of all time is Stephen Covey’s, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989). The first of his habits is ‘Be Proactive’. Being proactive is taking responsibility for finding a solution or achieving a goal, taking the initiative and trying to make something happen. It is the opposite of sitting back and just hoping things will get better or blaming circumstances and others for a current difficult situation. It doesn’t guarantee an ideal or favourable outcome, but it does give us more of a chance of that happening through at least feeling like we are doing something positive.

If you have organised an appointment (and turned up) for relationship counselling then you have taken the first step in being proactive regarding trying to improve your relationship. Good work! Throughout the counselling process, we will be attempting to find other ways, big and small, you can be ‘proactive’ in strengthening your relationship.

2.        The 3 “Mutuals”

A very wise colleague once shared with me the way she saw a quality relationship as being characterised by three factors - mutual attraction, mutual respect and mutual benefit. Everyone is after benefit of course, they want their relationship to satisfy many needs like love and belonging, safety, warmth, intimacy etc. However, this needs to be experienced by both parties in a couples relationship. Couples are generally really good at the ‘mutual attraction’ part at the beginning. This is what gets us together, often with excitement, fun and fireworks. But this doesn’t sustain a relationship, it can wax and wane (mostly wane) over time with challenges, unexpected difficulties and plain weariness.

However, where relationships generally run into real problems is with the mutual respect part. It’s usually ok at the start when mutual attraction is thriving and everything seems perfect, but then life happens and financial pressures, work demands, family complexities and other life stresses start to overwhelm us and fights, yelling, arguments, criticising, stonewalling, walking off, disengaging, addictive and self-destructive behaviours, nagging, threatening and punishing can take over. These disconnecting and disrespectful behaviours kill relationships.

3.        Choosing Connection

To rebuild respect and an intimacy that truly sustains a relationship, we need to learn to use connecting behaviours like listening, supporting, encouraging, trusting, negotiating and accepting. This can be hard, but this is the only way of improving a relationship and being happier. It doesn’t mean we approve of everything our partner does, it doesn’t mean we agree with everything they say but if we can learn to manage these issues in a more respectful way, we might, just might, be able to build or rebuild, the foundation of a truly loving, intimate and mutually needs fulfilling relationship.

These 3 ‘foundations’ are just a starting point, so contact me for an appointment and we can go into each one in more detail and build a more solid framework.