How to Keep Relationships Healthy
Maintaining a relationship is a commitment that can last a life time. After a period of time together, couples can assume they know each other well, their thoughts and what they plan to do. They can find they take each other for granted. However, none of us will know our partner totally and perfectly. It is important that both members of a couple realise that there will be aspects of their partner that they do not know about or understand. There are so many things that we all think, but never say.
One of the main causes of relationship deterioration is lack of clarity about the set of expectations with which we enter the relationship. In the flush of the initial stages of relationship formation, we may tend to see things very optimistically, and not to give adequate thought to what might go wrong. Therefore, we often fail to think about our wants, needs and expectations or if we do think about them, to communicate them clearly to the other person. In the facet of every day stresses and interactions, we might be dismayed to realise that there are areas of misunderstanding or blindness between us that can lead to resentment and larger misunderstandings. Even if we have talked about such matters early in the relationship, things change, and new factors can arise to influence our feelings, thoughts and behaviours. This is why one of the most effective strategies for dealing with stresses or challenges in a relationship is to use straight talk to increase our understanding of each other’s point of view, needs and expectations.
Agreement/Contracts
Most relationships are a form of contract that is intangible and rarely expressed. Of course, some contracts, such as marriage, are very tangible and are entered into as part of the commitment phase of a relationship. Agreements require the active participation of both parties, and are generally preceded by:
All the best intentions in the world do not enable people to stay motivated to achieve their goals. What is required is a firm commitment from both parties to achieve mutually agreed upon objectives, and most importantly, a backup plan for failure or mistakes. Clients must remember (as we all must), that mistakes are growth points. Agreements or contracts help display a willingness to exert effort for the relationship. They allow both parties to demonstrate their willingness to invest more into the relationship to further the relationships growth and future security. It also allows each party to show that they are demonstrating their responsibility for their commitment.
A successful agreement takes into account the needs and wishes of both parties, and provides a commitment for the active cooperation of both parties. Not all clients will need to create agreements to ensure they will begin to incorporate communications skills within their relationships. Certainly, if you are counselling an individual on how to improve their interpersonal relations, it would be more advisable to suggest that they keep a diary of the interactions with others and the communication skills they tried to employ within each interaction.
What is essential is to remind clients that old habits will only be phased out slowly and that incorporating any new skill requires constant practice and dedication and may take as long as 6 – 12 months before the integration of new skills feels comfortable.
During this phase, or at any time, there are a number of other measures that can be taken to help maintain a relationship and improve the quality of the interactions taking place. These include but are not limited to: gifts of service, positive self-talk (‘I am good becoming a better communicator. I can achieve a satisfying joyful relationship’), perceiving a rewarding future, intimate play, re-evaluating regularly, ensuring quality time. Encouraging the clients to view and weigh up all the possible other alternatives (current relationship compared against other relationships), can also provide a balanced perspective.
So the first step for any couple to create a healthy relationship is being willing to work together. Many couples will leave difficulties in their relationship until it is starting to fall apart, rather than challenging those difficulties when they first start. A simple little irritation at the start of the relationship can become a major bone of contention a few years down the line. This is why honesty at the beginning of a relationship is essential
Praise and Gifts of Service
In order to maintain relationships, it is necessary to keep up the level of rewards and to manage effectively, any conflict that arises. One way we can achieve this is through identifying what a number of authors describe as ‘love languages’. These involve ways of showing someone that you care for them, by showing affection, telling them that you love them, giving them encouragement and praising their efforts, giving them gifts, or performing acts of service. All of these actions communicate care and concern for another, even though no words may be used to communicate them. When this type of language is ‘spoken’, it helps to not only build a relationship and the intimacy within the relationship, but to maintain the level of closeness.
A common complaint from many people in relationships is that the relationship grew stale because one or the other person felt like they were being taken for granted. We end up relating as if we are expecting that the other person will always be there for us. Sadly, the other person may find someone else who shows their appreciation in more tangible ways, which allows them to feel more accepted (close to) and valued by the other person. For some, their dominant love language might be showing affection; for others it might be praising another person’s efforts continuously or giving them gifts. Determining your love language can help you appreciate the way you communicate your care in the relationship and prevent any misunderstanding of how your appreciation is shown. Another use for love languages, having identified the ones you ‘speak’, is being able to communicate in the love language the other person prefers.
It has been said by some that loving someone is all about loving them they way they want to be loved, not the way we want to give our love. While, many might believe that this is going slightly too far, if a balance can be struck between the two, then there would be more of a shared language to communicate with and less misunderstanding.
Straight Talk
What is straight talk? Sometimes referred to as assertive communication, it is a way of communicating that is based on two elements: honest disclosure of thoughts and feelings and respect for the other’s thoughts and feelings. It sounds simple, but in practice, it can represent quite a challenge, and may require a complete change in attitude. When we commit to straight talk, we are committing to more and more honest disclosure of our real feelings. This can cause us to feel very vulnerable.
From childhood, we learn to disguise or hide our true feelings, needs and thoughts. We are taught to hide anger, feelings of envy, impatience, and dislike, and to put on a polite face. In fact, politeness requires us to pretend, and while it has enormous value in smoothing and easing our relationships with others, and in avoiding needless conflict, politeness also requires that we suppress or deny feelings or needs. On top of that, as children, we learn that expressing our true feelings or needs and earn us disapproval, anger or blame.
Consider, for instance, the child who does not want to share a favourite toy with a visitor. Her mother, wanting to teach the child to share, rebukes her child mildly and insists that she share the toy, even though she clearly does not want to do so. What the child learns from these experiences is that it is wrong to disagree or to want things for yourself, and that others’ feelings are more important than her own. She also learns that conflict is bad and will bring disapproval, or maybe even punishment. No wonder she grows into an adult who is deeply ambivalent about her own needs, and riddled with guilt.
Defence mechanisms such as repression, are one way in which the personality hides from itself those unacceptable thoughts and feelings. Other ways that we learn to deal with inner and outer conflict is to distance ourselves from the problem by blaming others, or finding justification, or by distracting ourselves and others from our real feelings and concerns. By the time we recognise that this approach has resulted in general frustration, ambivalence, suppressed emotions, unmet needs and wants and guilt, and is causing our adult selves distress and impeding our ability to relate effectively with others, we may not even recognise what we really think or feel. What makes it difficult to escape that cycle of non-disclosure is that we have learned to deal with negative emotions with the language of conflict, oppression or victimisation. We have learned to rationalise our conflict approach, and we have developed a whole set of reactive patterns based upon it.
The good news is that negative patterns can be changed. We can learn to behave and think differently. However, for many of us, it takes a negative change in a relationship, or our attitude towards it to motivate us to make those changes. For this reason, maintaining relationships is ongoing, as we discover new impediments to successful relating in our thinking and behaviour and unlearn what we have learned or patterns we have fallen in to. The work is also challenging and can be exciting, for through our desire to maintain and nurture our relationships, we are brought back to the truth about ourselves, and seek ways to communicate that truth. This experience, hopefully, makes us more receptive to the needs and truth of the other person, and we can move on a path of more productive, authentic communication.
Straight talk is not to be confused with bluntness. Bluntness has its value, and can help us cut through deceit, manipulation or resistance to confront an issue that is being avoided or disguised. However, bluntness, like all forms of confrontation, can be seen as aggressive and intimidating, and badly used, it becomes simply an excuse for being insensitive, judgemental or cruel. Straight talk is forthright, but in the context of relating, it is most effective when you are communicating both how you feel and your desire to consider the other person’s feelings.
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