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Relationship Advice: Scratch An Adult, and You’ll Find a Scared Child Underneath

admin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:57:15 +0000

“Scratch an adult, and you’ll find a scared child underneath.” Who said this? I did. Ok, it’s not a very famous quote. But, I do say it, over and over. And people shake their heads yes, acknowledging that they know what I mean.

“Under stress, we regress.” The man who trained me many years ago said this. And I say it over and over again to people all the time. Given some stress, we drop back to a younger way of behaving, feeling and thinking. You might call it the “knee jerk reaction.”

So, this is the problem with many of your relationships. We see it in the boss who over-reactes. It’s in the over-wrought parent who abuses a child in the name of discipline. And it is certainly in the relationship spats we have with our lovers.We’re all scared children reacting in knee jerk ways as soon as any stress builds up.

Unless you’re more aware than most, this pattern is not immediately obvious. It can be a mystery as to why you blew up over nothing, or why your partner seems so unreasonable when you’re trying to be so logical. At some level, and it’s usually unconscious, we’d scared. We’re afraid of experiencing some level of discomfort, and our primal training moves us to react in inappropriate ways.

Add to this that our brain has spent years and years associating negative expectations to all kinds of events and it is amazing that we can have such normal relationships most of the time.

And what about those people that “never” react? They are always so pleasing and never would say anything unsettling to anyone else. I guarantee that they are doing the same process on the inside. They cringe, they run away, they feel pain. Their over-compliant ways are actually a form of knee-jerkiness that defines a life-time.

Compliant niceness and super-negotiability are, more often than not, a way to handle their own deep down fear that they will cause someone to have such a knee jerk reaction towards them.

The Solution:

How I wish I could give you a single, smart, simple answer for this problem! Not a chance! You’ll be learning to live in more productive ways for the rest of your life. In fact, working on this one personality reality is what your relationships are particularly suited for.

Here’s the solution as simply as I can put it.

First, be aware that “Under stress, we always regress.” And good stress is still stress. Ever wonder how two people at a wonderful wedding celebration can suddenly have a huge argument? It’s because the wedding is stressful. It’s good stress, but it’s still stress. Just acknowledging that this is how life works helps us to name it and bounce back faster.

Secondly, realize that you can not stop regressions from occurring. With practice you’ll identify it faster and recover quicker, but our reactions will always be with us lurking beneath the surface. You’ll just become better and better at handling it.

Thirdly, realize what maturity really is. It is NOT stopping it, but getting out of it faster and faster each time. What bothered me several days last year, may only bother me several hours this year, and next year it may only be a three second blip. It is still there but I become less and less reactive to it.

This is the basis of my therapy work with couples. I help them get used to the things that each of them react to, to recognize what stresses each of them, and to grow in maturity so that they don’t react so strongly in the future.

I encourage you to take this short outline to heart. If I could get this little lesson deep within you, you’d never have to read another of my articles.

You will ALWAYS react, but with time and awareness you can lower the power of this reactivity and create peace and serenity for you and your partner.

Article Source: ADB Article Directory

Steve Roberts is an experienced Marriage and Family Therapist who shares tips and real life relationship secrets from over 20 years of practice. Get Insight and Wisdom for your Relationships at: www.WhatWorksForCouples.com

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Relationship Advice and Tips That Could Save Your Relationship

admin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:42:31 +0000

Relationship advice and tips are always a hot topic among any age group, showing that love is not something you always come to understand over time. Different people rub each other in different ways and sometimes things just happen and there’s really nothing anybody can do about it. So are there any clear-cut relationship advice and tips that can help just about anybody? Definitely!

Know when you’re right, and know when you’re wrong. Don’t always assume that you’re right or that your significant other is wrong, look at things from a logical point of view. Many people look at things with a clear bias towards their side without even realizing it and come off as a sort of bully in some cases.

Respect your partner’s wishes. You may not agree with them sometimes, but never force the person you’re in a relationship with to do something they don’t want to do. You don’t like to be bossed around, do you? Why would the person you love?

Consider your partner’s feelings at all times. This pertains mostly to men because they often ignore how the woman feels and accidentally hurt their feelings without even realizing it. Think about what your partner is comfortable with and likes and work with it, not against it. If it’s drastically different from what you like or want to do, then you might be better off with someone who is more like you.

Trust your significant other. Trust is a big component in long term and meaningful relationships, and often when there is no trust the relationship doesn’t last very long. If one or both of you do not trust each other and drag the relationship on it’s going to lead to some pretty big fall downs in the future. Clear up your trust issues as soon as possible and learn to love your partner for who they are.

Don’t take a “What’s mine is mine” approach to things. Share your belongings with your partner, it will make them feel special and like they’re really a part of your life. You may not like letting other people touch your stuff, but if you love each other chances are you’ll be living together at some point and then you have to share things with each other. It’s not as tough as it sounds.

These are the most all-encompassing relationship advice and tips you can get and will solve or prevent most problems that come along in any relationship. Many people don’t realize what they’ve done wrong until it’s too late and it feels awful to lose a relationship because of a simple problem that you could have worked out very easily. If you love the person you’re with, you’re going to be willing to make some changes and sacrifices to keep things strong and last as long as possible together.

For more top-notch relationship problem advice then visit the #1 relationship & dating resource on the net: Relationships-Advice.net

Article Source: http://www.thecontentcorner.com

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Well-Known Advice For Relationships

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:25:54 +0000

Advice for relationships is a dime a dozen. You can get it from your family, friends, sometimes ex-lovers, and even people you don’t know at all. But the question is: Is all advice equal? Not really. Most of the people you know will have a blatant bias towards your side and you probably don’t divulge every bit of information to your peers and especially not to people on the street. Besides all the bunk and biased advice for relationships, there are some solid bits of advice out there that can fit just about anyone’s romantic situation.

First off, trust your partner. This can not be stressed enough. Trust is a big part of any relationship, and a relationship can’t grow if the two people in it can’t trust each other. You may have had problems in the past and things might have happened, but that doesn’t mean that your current partner will do the same things that your last one did. If your partner has a history of cheating, you need to take a little more caution, of course, but don’t ride their back trying to find out what they’re doing all the time and ensuring that they’re not cheating on you. If they want to cheat, they’re going to find a way to cheat. Go into relationships like that with caution for at least a little while until you’re sure they won’t cheat on you.

Second, have an open line of communication between you and your partner. This doesn’t mean to tell them about every mundane thing that happened to you today or the hot guy or girl you saw at the coffee shop, it just means to be honest and to not hold things back from your partner, no matter how hard it can be. Many of the most long lasting relationships are very verbally open and both sides are completely okay with that. Love grows the most when you are both learning about each other every day and sharing the things that are important or significant to one or both of you.

Third, don’t try to force your opinions on your partner. Nobody likes it when they’re being forced to do something, especially not in a close relationship. It can feel like they’re trapped. Especially when your opinions and beliefs differ from theirs and you’re very strong in trying to push them onto him or her. Being too forceful with your opinions can break a relationship faster than anything else.

The three of these points are all solid and well-known pieces of advice for relationships, and should be common sense to most people. Unfortunately, when love is concerned, common sense doesn’t come into play very much and you think with your gut, not with your head. Train yourself to think with your head with your loved one, and you will both end up much happier for it.

For more top-notch advice for relationships then visit the #1 relationship & dating advice resource on the net: Relationships-Advice.net

Article Source: http://www.thecontentcorner.com

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Relationship Advice: What to do when Your Partner is Blue

admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:45:44 +0000

What do we do when our partners feel blue? Try to cheer them up? Let them sit in it? Try to talk them out of it? Take it personally?

1. Listen closely. What’s going on? What is your partner’s perspective on things (it doesn’t have to agree with yours!) Are there parts of this that could deepen your relationship, if only you understood them?

2. Is this an infrequent mood or a melancholic disposition? All people become blue now and then. Express concern and wait for it to pass.

Some people have a life-long blue attitude. You can’t fight it, you can only learn to live with it, or encourage your partner to get into therapy.

Research now indicates that we all have our “set points” for how happy we can be. We have a range of happiness we’re probably not going to exceed except for brief periods. However, why not learn how to live at the top end of this range? Therapy can help the melancholic individual do this.

3. Empathize. Empathy is a mild experience of what the other is feeling. We do not have to give up our own joy to have a mild experience of our partner’s blue day.

Imagine what it would be like to feel that way, to think that way, or to have a similar experience of loss, disappointment, or hurt.

If your first reaction is to try to argue the other out of the feeling then Stop It! It just doesn’t work. Your partner’s unconscious knows whether you’re really understanding and appreciating the dilemma. Until you’re “really there” with the other, your words won’t really get through.

4. Take care of yourself. When our partners are moody they aren’t going to be very available for our emotional needs (or perhaps for our other needs, as well.) This means you need to be able to self-soothe, to tolerate your aloneness, and to not take personally your partner’s inner decision to not be available.

Fair? Of course, it doesn’t seem fair! But life is what it is and we had best learn to live with it as best we can.

Go for a walk. Call a friend. Meditate. Pray. Ride a bike. Swing on the playground. Read a book. Take a soothing bath.

5. Take stock and assess how your needs are being met. If your partner’s moodiness is infrequent then hopefully your needs get met regularly.

If the moods are common and your needs seem to be unmet most of the time then you’ll need to confront the issue at some point. Don’t be too quick about it. Give yourself time to be sure. Give your partner time to get some therapy, and plan on going along yourself.

But, if nothing changes, hard decisions do eventually show themselves. I hope you never have to get to this point!

6. Celebrate the difficulty of your relationship! Anything worth doing is usually fairly difficult at first. By the time you have this thing working you’re going to be a real relationship expert!

Article Source: ADB Article Directory

Steve Roberts, “The Couples Guy,” is an experienced Marriage and Family Therapist who shares tips and real life relationship secrets from over 20 years of practice. Get Insight and Wisdom at: www.whatworksforcouples.com/

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Relationship Advice: What to do when Your Partner is Blue

admin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 11:56:55 +0000