Do you have relationship issues?

Are you in crisis mode in your relationships? Do you have very real problems? Does it feel like there is no way out?

Or is more like a long, s-l-o-w drawn out death by disinterest?

Or perhaps not bad, but just not good either…

Relationship issues are a huge source of stress for a lot of people. This is because relationships are important and if they go wrong we don’t like it. But relationship issues can be simple to deal with - simple but not necessarily easy.

Personal relationships have much in common with any other goal. First you must know what you want.

“That’s easy,” I’ve had a wife say to me. “I don’t want him leaving his mess all over the place whenever he comes home.”

“She has no money sense. All she does is spend, spend, spend with no thought to other bills.”

“He’s so emotionally unavailable. He only seems to switch on a couple of times a week when he wants some sex.”

“She is so needy, so clingy.”

Take a minute to look at those statements…

Each of those comments are about what someone doesn’t want, rather than about what they do want. And it is a good place to start.

But it is not enough. And even before that you need to believe and know that you can have really good personal relationships that can and do meet all of your needs.

Step 1: Believe that YOU can have excellent, fulfilling relationships

Because if you don’t believe that they are possible you won’t even try. You have to believe that your relationship issues can be addressed or you won’t think it is worth doing something different.

Step 2: Know what you want and express it in the positive

Now let’s go back to what you don’t want and reframe what you do want in the positive.

“I want him to put his own mess away when he comes back from fishing.”

“I want us to live within the budget of the money that we have coming in.”

“I want a more rewarding emotional relationship with my husband.”

“I want her to have a life of her own and to be able to spend a couple of evenings on her own during the week so I can go out.”

Next you need to remember that the other person’s values and ideas about what they want are different to yours.

Do you know what they are? Have you asked them?

This is where it starts to get tricky. The immediate response can raise anger and easily take you off track.

It is very important to step back at this stage and go back to Step 1 - believe you CAN have successful and positive relationships. This will help you to stop snapping back at them when you hear something that annoys you.

So when they respond you stop yourself from reacting to the information at that stage. All you want is to know why they do what they do.

At this stage all you want to do is:

Step 3: Listen to their answers and take it on board. Remember Step 1 and DON”T react at this stage.

You might hear something like:

“We’ve been through this before. I have to put the fish away and then she wants me to do something with the children, then…”

“He doesn’t have anything in the budget for what I need. So I have to just go and get it. He always has money for himself and none for what I need…”

“Oh, great, you want sex every night then?”

“But I’m so tired in the evenings. I just want to relax with you, dear.”

Now you will have some idea of what is driving them. They do not think the same way as you do and they have priorities that are different to yours. They may well also have different ways of showing that the priorities are the same.

You both have the children as a priority. You both want a nice house. He shows his love for his children by scooping them up in his arms (priority 2) as soon as the fish is in the refrigerator (priority 1) and talking to them about their respective weekends. You would rather he did that AFTER he had put his smelly things away.

It is about now that you might find you have another priority - yourself. You have been dealing with hyperactive children all weekend by yourself while he was out with the boys. Now you need to add this into your conversation - but not while he is cuddling the children on his return.

Step 4: Become aware that you (and your partner) will have needs and values you won’t even have thought about yet

When you do discover them they will need to be added into your ongoing conversation with each other. Very strong needs like the need to belong, the need for personal space, the need for physical contact of particular sorts, the need for social status will be so strong that if you don’t meet them for each other then you WILL have problems.

In most situations such as these the woman will want to sit down and discuss them in a deep and meaningful conversation. If you have a supportive husband or partner this might happen. However in many, many cases this just won’t happen. He just won’t do it.

And even if they do sit down and talk it doesn’t mean that the conversation will be meaningful. If they are anything like my husband they only go through the motions in order to keep you quiet.

So how do you deal with such relationship issues?

If you want to know how men think differently to women then you would really find it useful to check out these resources. He has lots of suggestions for dealing with getting your ideas across to the man in your life who thinks so differently to you. [link to come]

What has worked for me is to take up the conversation at a time when we are working together or taking a slow paced walk somewhere.

My response now to the issue of not putting his fishing gear away when he comes home would be to bring up the topic while going for a walk.

“Darling I think it is lovely that you want to talk to the children as soon as you come home, but could you please leave all your fishing gear outside until you have time to deal with it - otherwise it makes the house all smelly if you just leave it lying around. It’s been bugging me, and it really would make a difference if you would do that for me.” And smile at him.

Or alternatively, as he comes in the door after a weekend’s fishing,

“Honey, give me the fish to put in the fridge while you put your fishing gear out of the way, then come and say hi to the kids.”

The second approach would probably be more effective but the first suggestion works with my husband.

For a lot more detail on the choices for women on how to deal with their men folk then check out these excellent examples. [link to come]

HP
22 Jan 2009

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