Practices for Helping a Couple achieve a Satisfying Relationship :

Practices for Helping a Couple achieve a Satisfying Relationship :

1. Like where you are at. Be happy and recant the reasons why you love and chose to be with this person.

2. Appreciate where you are at. Don't get frustrated about what you havent experienced with your partner yet, appreciate what you do have. Find the good you have in each other.

3. Embrace where you are at. Live in your relationship. Do not live comparing your relationship with anothers. Embrace the uniqueness of your developing relationship.

Accepting that you both may have different needs may help you to understand the kind of person you both are and make efforts to support each other rather than getting into power struggles and frustrating arguments. Embrace what you have in your partner. It helps you to reassign your focus away from fears of missing out, making a mistake, or becoming disatisfied because you want a quality you see in someone else's relationship. Remember relationships are a process and the expressions of a couple are based on the efforts they have put into developing their experiences together. What you may see and appreciate in another couple took effort to achieve. Be just as committed in cultivating that in your own relationship.

4. Be willing to understand where you are at.

Take time to understand your needs and the needs of your partner. They may be different. This difference may become very apparent over time. Every relationship has seasons of change and adjustment. Part of being in a relationship is being able to comfortably discuss what your needs are as a person and partner. Be willing to undertake the process of understanding each other with a "no fail" attitude and catch yourself before you shut down on each other. It helps you to navigate the climate of the day and the season of the relationship. Through this commitment you can avoid or reduce power struggles over time, energy, resources, and attention. Collaboration and support is a skill that is learned. Once learned it can be a very rewarding skill to have in practice. However, avoidance, frustration, fear of failure, and neglect are not welcome guests in any relationship. This can happen when we don't take time to understand one another.

There is a process to accomplishing meaningful exchanges. (We talk more about that in my relationship workshops.)

* Remember to give each other room to learn from each other's mistakes by becoming more graceful in the way you talk about a need. As you want mercy and forgiveness given to you, also remember to extend mercy and forgiveness to your partner as you convey your need. To be understood means that we must also be willing to understand, to allow for growth from our mistakes. Opportunities to develop your relationship come with forgiving yourself and allowing for new opportunities to experience love through growth (giving yourself permission to change your mind and act differently). Forgiveness extended to your partner also gives them an opportunity for them to recover from mistakes, (make different choices) instead being perpetually put in a powerless, guilt driven way of relating which may end in frustration and feelings of hopelessness. "Getting over it" Is a two person job that can be very rewarding to both.

5. Develop it. Keep in mind that your relationship is a process. It is fillied with the experiences you both create for each other.

Communicate your needs in loving and respectable ways. It's easier to understand each other and build collaboration when the lines of communication are open and your attitude is pro-relationship.

6. Be excited about seeing where it is going. Keep your dreams about the relationship in front of you. You may begin to see those dreams happen as you keep your focus.

7. Create moments. Be mindful of what you leave your partner with as an experience after you interact with them. Moments matter. They either build confidence in the relationship or tear it down.

8. Create memories. Things that you can reflect on and draw strength from later. Small bricks build big buildings.

9. Have good things to share about your relationship on the ready. Be ready to have a positive word to share about your partner to others. It doesnt hurt anything to give your partner an inner smile. A little feel good can go a long way. Why be stingy with the good stuff? Empower and uplift your partner when you can. Be able to laugh with them, show enthusiasm about their interests/Projects. Be their bigest cheerleader and biggest supporter in the best way you can.

*Evaluating Your Daily Interaction:

At the end of every day did you give your partner a flower or a thorn?

Calvin L. Smith, MA, LPC

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