A Gesture A Day

You've heard of the adage, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away?" This is considered preventative medicine. What do you do for preventative medicine for your relationship? A small gesture everyday can make a world of difference as you let your partner know how you feel about them. Whether it's snuggling a bit in bed before starting your day, leaving them a love note or even just reaching for their hand & squeezing it as you're walking together, such gestures demonstrate to your partner that your involved in the relationship and you're happy to be together.

What Are You "Really" Arguing About?

Have you ever noticed how you want to discuss something important to you, but in presenting it to your partner, you realize your issue has been skirted and now you're talking about conflicts that might have happened a week, a month or even years ago? How did it go South so quickly? How did unrelated topics get brought into the original conversation? Trying to yell over one another and bringing in unrelated topics can be destructive and hurtful. Here's some ideas to make your discussions more productive:

1) Write out specifically what you want to say. This will help you remain focused and stay on task.
2) Don't read off the entire list and expect your partner to absorb it all, especially if your requests are going to focus on your partner's behaviors.
3) Read one item at a time and discuss each item separately. If either of you begin to demonstrate any defensiveness, postpone the conversation, and the list, for a later time, to give each of you a chance to process what has been said so far and to calm yourselves down so you can resume your discussion.

What is Commitment?

It's real easy to say you're "committed" to another, but what does that really mean? Does it mean you vow not to be physically intimate with anyone else? Does it mean you want this person to be in your life for eternity? Or does it mean something else?

If you haven't really given much thought to this word "commitment," I encourage you to start think about it now. To make a relationship work, "commitment" must be much more than just the act of promising fidelity to your partner. It's also not so self-centered that it means to want this person in "your" life for "eternity." "Commitment" must be the demonstration of what you're willing to do to for your partner...to demonstrate that you want to be invested in their world more than they are a part of your world. By demonstrating your own willingness, your partner will want to reciprocate that demonstration of willingness and commitment.

If you realize you're working harder at demonstrating commitment to your partner more than they are reciprocating, then it's time to evaluate if the level of your partner's commitment is enough for you. If it is, then great! You've made a good match. If not, then you may need to evaluate whether this is the right relationship for you. You cannot convince your partner to be more committed any more than your partner can convince you to be less committed than you want to be. But if you haven't had a discussion as to how the 2 of you define commitment, you may want to start here and determine if you're on the same page to minimize misunderstandings and disappointment of unmet expectations.

Starting off the New Year Right!

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a peaceful and joyous holiday season as we start the 2nd decade of the new millenium...

The holidays are stressful for many people. You can either choose to linger onto the tension that was created by family, friends or loved ones, or you can learn from it and bring those lessons with you into 2010. Holding onto anger and becoming resentful of your partner doesn't provide you the space needed to foster a loving relationship. Take a look at what you can do differently when your partner begins to evoke negative feelings within you and realize you have the control to respond differently. You don't have to engage in an argument if you don't want to. You don't have to respond to your partner when you know you're being baited into conflict.

It's easy to think, "Sure... you say that, but if I don't respond they're going to get angry with me!" That may be true, but think of this...If you're about to get baited into an argument, then your partner is going to get angry anyway. So either way, the result is an angry partner. But it doesn't mean you have to get angry with them. Look at how you would choose to handle a situation and make a commitment to follow through with that choice. If a peaceful, sit-down discussion is your preference, but your partner isn't in the frame of mind to handle such an interaction, then do what you must to maintain your own boundaries. Your partner will either consider your feelings or they won't, but at least you will have maintained your level of integrity in the situation.

Happy New Year!!