Relationships with your Partner

In all the time I have worked with couples, I have never seen a relationship fail simply because of one person’s failings or shortcomings. Both people contribute to the break up of a relationship. To me, it only makes sense to look at our own contribution to the mix. Why? We are wasting our energy trying to get our partner to change. People pretty much are who they are and they do what they do until they, themselves, are ready to change.

Relationships from the InsideOut:

• Learn to discern who owns the problem about which you complain.
• Take responsibility for your own problems and their subsequent solutions.
• Understand your basic needs and the needs of your partner.
• Learn to avoid the destructive relationship habits.
• Begin to substitute healthy relationship habits instead.
• Create the perception that just because someone else sees things differently from you, doesn’t make either of you “wrong.”
• Avoid jealousy and increase trust.
• Move forward after an affair.
• Negotiate in a way that you win, the other person wins, and your relationship is strengthened.
• Advance from conflict, to tolerance, to acceptance, and finally, to appreciation.
• Consciously give your partner what he or she wants instead of offering what you would want in a similar situation.
• Effectively evaluate the three relationship options of changing it, accepting it or leaving it.
• Stop being victimized by another person’s behavior.
• Discern when and how to let go and move forward with integrity and dignity.