People Who Do THIS Tend To Be Happier in Relationships: Learn Their Secret

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

What makes a relationship healthy?  Is it respect?  Mutual support? Open communication? You may know what a strong relationship looks like, but knowing how to get there can be difficult.  Sometimes, your temper flares up when you get frustrated by your partner, or life gets busy, and you find yourself being short and distant.

No relationship is perfect, but researchers have identified one skill that tends to lead to more happiness in all relationships, regardless of their imperfections- self-compassion.  Read on to learn more about self-compassion and how it can transform your relationships.

What Is Self-Compassion?

Self-compassion can be defined as kindness toward yourself, especially during times of hardship.  It means accepting yourself, flaws and all, and being gentle with yourself instead of critical.  Even when they make terrible mistakes, self-compassionate people understand that a bad decision is not the same thing as being a bad person, and that they are still worthy of love regardless of their imperfections.

How Will It Help My Relationship?

Kristin Neff, PhD. has conducted extensive research on self-compassion and found that kindness toward yourself can improve both your romantic and platonic relationships in a number of ways.  

For instance, research subjects who scored higher on Neff’s self-compassion scale were found to be more caring, accepting, and supportive of their partners.  They also reported being more authentic, affectionate, and intimate with their partners.

Because those who scored lower on the self-compassion scale struggled to meet their own emotional needs, they tended to be more domineering, controlling, and verbally aggressive with their romantic partners.  Their self-compassionate counterparts were more generous and giving and were more likely to allow their partners healthy freedom and autonomy because of their capability to self-soothe.

Overall, the more self-compassionate subjects reported more happiness in their relationships than those who scored lower on the scale.  Likewise, the partners of these self-compassionate people reported more relationship happiness as well.

How To Practice Self-Compassion

Self-Kindness:  One of the simplest ways to practice self-compassion is to talk to yourself the same way you’d talk to a dear friend in your exact situation.  For example, if your friend came to you and said they yelled at their spouse the night before, it’s unlikely that you’d tell them what a terrible, mean person they are.

Instead, you may validate their feelings, remind them that it’s okay to make mistakes, and offer some words of encouragement for the next time they’re in a similar situation.  You may also use terms of endearment, like “darling” or “love.”  Next time you find yourself using critical self-talk, choose to shift your language to the kind you’d use with a friend.

Common Humanity:  Another important aspect of self-compassion is recognizing that you are only human, and just like everybody else, you are imperfect.  We all make mistakes and experience pain.  When you’re being hard on yourself, you likely feel like there is no one else in the world who’s as messed up as you are, but really, everybody suffers.  Our struggles connect us.  Focusing on this commonality will help you feel less isolated during difficult times.

Mindfulness: The last necessary component of self-compassion is mindfulness.  Mindfulness means acknowledging and being present with yourself and your emotions, including pain.  When you’re going through a tough time, try noticing your thoughts and feelings exactly as they are.  Don’t exaggerate them, but don’t downplay them either.  Just witness your experience.  By doing this, you’re helping yourself become part of your own support system.  You’re also better able to respond to situations when you see them with this kind of clarity.

Go Forth and Love

Being compassionate towards others is much easier when you’re able to be compassionate with yourself.  Next time, you’re in the middle of a difficult moment with your partner, pause and take a self-compassion break.  Notice what you’re feeling, remember that you’re not alone in your pain, and then talk to yourself in the kind, loving way you would talk to someone else you care about.

Loving yourself in this way will help you feel calmer and more complete.  These feelings will pour into your relationships, just as negative emotions like stress and anger do.  To improve the relationship happiness of both you and your romantic partner, fill yourself with love, and watch how that love overflows into everyone around you.

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The Mindset Shift That Could Permanently Improve Your Relationship Satisfaction

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

Imagine you’re in the market for a new car.  There are several things on your list of qualities the car must have:  four doors, five-star safety features, adequate trunk space, and over 20 miles of miles per gallon of gas.

You’ll likely find a number of cars that meet this criteria, so what do you do?  Do you test drive a few and ultimately pick one that meets your needs and falls within your budget?  Or do you go above and beyond- test driving dozens, analyzing which rides the smoothest, which has a backup camera, which has satellite radio, a sunroof, the best speakers, built-in GPS navigation?

It turns out, the way you pick your next car is likely similar to the way you choose a life partner.  And your decision making process might actually impact how satisfied you are with your choice.

Maximizers vs. Satisficers

Maximizers are people who attempt to make the absolute best decisions possible.  They often compare the small details of each option to one another and might even continue to compare their choice to others after making it.

Satisficers also want to make right decisions, but don’t compare choices nearly as much.  They simply look for what meets their needs, and when they find it, they accept it without worrying whether or not they could have found something better.

In the context of relationships, satisficers are more likely to settle down with the first person they date who treats them well and meets their standards, whereas maximizers may continue to date and break up with partners until they find one they feel is superior to the rest.

Who’s Better Off?

Nobody wants to marry or stay with the wrong person.  Maximizers often rationalize their decisions to break up with one “good enough” person in pursuit of someone “even better” by thinking this will make them happier in the long run.  Satisficers, however, may be the ones who are better off.

Research shows that the relationship satisfaction of maximizers, despite their efforts to find perfect partners, tends to be less stable than that of satisficers.  Maximizers are often happy with their partners initially, but experience more relationship dissatisfaction as their partner’s looks decline with change, or if their partner experiences a reduction in income.  Maximizers are also more likely to compare their partners to other people’s partners, which of course is a problem, since “the grass is always greener on the other side.”

Satisficers are better able to weather the changes in their partners’ looks and financial circumstances, since they chose them on the basis of their essential needs being met and don’t typically bother themselves with thinking about what else is out there.  They experience less anxiety, fear, and regret, as they’re not overwhelmed with options or thinking about what they might have missed.  Satisficers are, to put it simply, more easily satisfied.

How To Be More of a Satisficer

In a culture that promotes trading up via swiping on dating apps or even divorce, becoming more of a satisficer takes intentional effort.  The strategies below can help increase satisfaction with healthy, good-enough relationships, and reduce the impulse to continue searching for someone perfect.

List out your needs and wants

In relationships, needs are the qualities in a partner required for you to feel safe, valued, supported, and loved.  Wants are like the icing on the cake.  While they’re enjoyable, they are not absolutely necessary.  Whether you are dating or in a long-term relationship, listing out your needs in a relationship vs. your wants can help you realize when the person you have is enough to hold onto.

Limit your choices

Some dating apps allow for endless swiping, which can create the illusion that there is always someone better right at your fingertips.  Set a limit for yourself on how much time per day you’ll allow yourself to spend swiping, or opt for an app like Hinge that limits the amount of likes you can send in a day.

Commit

After identifying your needs and finding someone who fulfills them, make the decision to commit to this person.  As difficulties in your relationship arise, assuming they aren’t egregious offenses such as abuse, opt to work through them instead of dumping your person and beginning the search for someone better.  Remember, all relationships come with unique struggles, no matter how perfect your partner seems at first.

Communicate

When you notice an area for improvement in your relationship, openly communicate your feelings to your partner, rather than assuming you’d be better off finding someone with the qualities they’re missing.  Tell your partner what’s bothering you, get to the root of why it’s happening, and decide together what can be done to address it.  Communication will help fix the problem, and your vulnerability will bring you and your partner closer together.

At some point or another in any of your relationships, you will realize that your partner is not perfect.  Remember this truth as you date, as well as once you’re already committed.  While searching for the best of the best might seem like an attractive way to avoid relationship difficulty later on, the truth is, relationship happiness in the long run comes from finding satisfaction with your partner, as imperfect as they may be.

Questions To Ask When You Just Found Out You’ve Been Cheated On

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

If you found out today that your partner cheated on you, what questions would you have?  Would you want to know how many times?  What about what the other person looked like?  Would you want to know where their encounters took place or who was better in bed?

All of these questions are normal.  If you’ve been betrayed, trying to understand the experience better is part of coping with the pain.  Yet according to Esther Perel, a researcher who has studied infidelity for over a decade, not all questions are helpful.  What kind of questions, then, should you be asking if you’ve recently learned of your partner’s infidelity and are in the process of deciding what to do next?

Detective vs. Investigative Questions

Perel categorizes inquiries about your partner’s affair into two categories.  “Detective” questions are focused on the dirty details, such as what your partner’s fling looks like, what kinds of moves they had in bed, where they met up, and how their body parts compare to yours.

Investigative questions are focused on the meaning and motives of the infidelity.  One common myth society holds is that when a person cheats on their partner, it is because there was a problem with the relationship, they were no longer attracted to their partner, or the sex was subpar.  While these things might be true, it’s also possible that an affair has nothing to do with the deceived partner at all.

Other Reasons for Affairs

Often, infidelity has more to do with the cheater themselves than the relationship, the partner who got cheated on, or the person who the affair was with.  Cheating can serve as a way for the betrayer to get back in touch with a part of themselves they lost, grasp for independence, reawaken a sense of aliveness, or cope with a recent loss.  

While these motives are not excuses, you must understand them in order to make the decision of whether to stay or leave.  If you do decide to stay, understanding the reasons behind your partner’s affair will be essential for healing and rebuilding trust.

Ask These Questions

After finding out you’ve been cheated on, Perel recommends asking a series of investigative questions, such as:

• Were you thinking about us when you cheated?

• Do you want to stay together?

• If so, are you here for me or the family?

• What is it about us that you value?

• Did you hope I would somehow find out?

• Did you think about the children?

• What was it like when you came home?

• What do you think we can learn from this affair together?

These questions will get to the root of why your partner made their choices.  They will also highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the relationship, which you can use to determine whether or not the relationship is salvageable and what needs to be addressed if it is.

Fighting the Urge To Know Everything

Knowing that “detective questions” are not helpful won’t remove your desire to know their answers.  Refraining from asking them takes effort and self-control.  Acknowledge your desire to know the details of your partner’s extra-relational experiences, and remind yourself of something Perel, herself, frequently says to her clients:

“Do you want your partner to know you have this question, or do you want to know the answer?  Because once you know the answer, you have to live with knowing.”

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Hard to Love: Is an Avoidant Attachment Style Ruining Your Relationships?

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

If you’ve been dating for a while and have yet to find success, you may feel like your relationships keep ending for the same reasons over and over again.  Maybe you keep feeling like nobody you date is “good enough,” or that things tend to go great until the relationship becomes more serious, and you suddenly lose interest.  If this is the case for you, an avoidant attachment style may be to blame.

How Attachment Styles Form

When you were a baby, your understanding of relationships started with the ones between you and your caregivers.  Based upon their availability and ability to meet your needs, you formed beliefs about yourself and others that have played a role in every relationship you’ve had since.  These subconscious beliefs and the way they impact your behavior in relationships are called your attachment system or attachment style.

An avoidant attachment style is often caused by caregivers who were unavailable or emotionally unresponsive most of the time, or by caregivers who were dangerous.  A child’s response to such is often withdrawal and self-reliance.

How an Avoidant Attachment Style Impacts Relationships

Years later, an avoidant attachment style shows itself in romantic relationships in ways such as difficulty growing close to or bonding with partners, surface level relationships, extreme independence, difficulty expressing emotions or being vulnerable, and rigid boundaries.  If you have an avoidant attachment style, you may find fault with every person you date, have unrealistically high standards, or idealize a past romantic partner and compare each person you date afterwards to him or her, finding that they never measure up.

Because of your avoidant attachment style, others may characterize you as cold, nonchalant, or a “player.”  What many people don’t realize about the avoidant attachment style, however, is that it’s goal is to keep you safe.  According to an avoidant attachment system, if you never rely on anybody but yourself, others can’t hurt you or let you down.

The challenge with the avoidant attachment style is that all people are biologically hardwired for relationships.  Even the most independent people eventually find themselves feeling lonely yet unable to build a secure bond with someone else.  Thankfully, attachment styles are not set in stone.  These steps can help you heal and build connections leading to a deeper sense of happiness and fulfillment:

Step 1: Identify the Stories

Every time you have an experience, you subconsciously interpret its meaning based upon your past experiences.  For example, if you grew up with a parent who paid little attention to your needs, you might tell yourself that expressing your needs to your partner isn’t worth it because they won’t be met anyways.  If you were responsible for taking care of siblings at an early age because of absent parents, you might believe that it’s better not to get attached to anybody because ultimately, the only person you can count on is yourself.

Next time you date, or when you notice your partner’s attempts at physical or emotional intimacy, bring your awareness to the messages, or stories, you are unconsciously telling yourself.  Because you’re likely not used to noticing these thoughts and feelings, you might not be able to identify them right away.  Be patient and stay curious about your experience and see what you discover over time.

Step 2: Challenge the Stories

Once you’re aware of the unhelpful stories you tell yourself, you can begin to challenge them.  If you catch yourself thinking, “This is weird,” when your partner shares something vulnerable, reframe the thought by saying something to yourself like, “Vulnerability is healthy.”  If you realize you’re starting to pick apart a partner you were once crazy about in an effort to distance them as the relationship gets more serious, try reminding yourself that nobody is perfect, but relationships between two imperfect people can be healthy, supportive, and enjoyable.

Step 3: Sit with Uncomfortable Feelings

Noticing your internal stories and challenging them is not comfortable.  Neither is opening up to another person when you’ve learned to be entirely self-sufficient.  If your goal is to be in a relationship, practice sitting with the discomfort that comes up as you face these obstacles.  Breathe as you notice these feelings and resist the urge to act on them by pulling away from your partner.  With time you’ll find that your discomfort becomes weaker and weaker, until it finally subsides entirely.

Step 4: Share Uncomfortable Feelings

As you do this work, share your experiences with your partner.  Tell them what you are feeling, where you believe the feeling comes from, how important it is for you to work through it, and what they can do to help.  Sharing your feelings will allow you to feel supported by your partner, and it’s a valuable exercise in intimacy.

If you have an avoidant attachment style, reading these steps may have brought up feelings of discomfort for you already.  Now is the time to practice uncovering the roots of these feelings, challenging your limiting beliefs, and sitting with the discomfort.  As you get more and more familiar with your experiences, you can begin to share them with trusted friends, family, and of course, the person you ultimately want to be in a healthy, mutually supportive relationship with.

If you’re interested in learning more about your attachment style, how it formed, and what you can do to change it, reach out to an ELEVATED Life Counseling therapist by clicking the “Contact Us” tab above.

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How To Choose Your Partner Day After Day- Even When You Don't Want To

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

Remember that blissful feeling at the beginning of your relationship, when you swore your partner was absolutely perfect, and there was no one in the world you’d rather spend time with?  When was the last time you felt that?  If you’re in a long relationship and realizing that’s been days, months, or even years since you last felt passionate about your hunny, don’t worry.  You’re actually in the majority, and there’s something you can do about it.

According to research, infatuation, or the my-partner-can-do-no-wrong feeling I described above, typically lasts from 6 to 18 months, and up to 3 years if you’re exceptionally lucky.  After that, you might have a deeper sense of love for your partner, but it will likely be accompanied by the sudden realization that they do have flaws- many of them annoying- and you might find yourself less inclined to be around them every moment of every day.

We’ve all heard the saying, “Love is a choice,” meaning after a certain point, you must choose to dedicate time and effort to your romantic relationship, even when you don’t feel like it, because you value the connection and the emotional wellbeing of your partner.

It is possible to re-experience old feelings of adoration, no matter how long you and your partner have been together.  Use these strategies to choose love with your partner everyday, even when you don’t feel like it:

Set Aside Time for Each Other

Each day, intentionally set aside at least 15 minutes to spend with your partner.  Turn off the TV, put your phones in another room, and talk about how your day is going, movies, music, current events, or whatever else comes to mind.  It doesn’t matter what you talk about as much as it does that you’re taking the time to connect.

Make Sex a Priority

Having sex with your partner releases oxytocin, otherwise known as the bonding chemical.  Frequent sex is also linked to reduced stress, greater intimacy, and even lower divorce rates.  There is no magic number when it comes to how often you and your partner should be having sex.  Instead of setting a quota, talk to your partner about how often each of you need sex in order to feel satisfied and connected.  Decide on a frequency that works for both of you, and stick to it.

Express Your Gratitude

Even when you and your partner are in a slump, you can still find something to be grateful for.  Notice when your partner does something you appreciate, such as washing a dish after they use it or helping the kids get ready for bed.  Then, thank him or her sincerely.  It may feel forced at first, but with time, gratitude will become a habit that helps bring your attention to strong points in your relationship.

Stay Respectful

Let’s be honest, it’s not always easy to be nice.  You’re going to feel annoyed with your partner, and sometimes, you’ll be tempted to snap.  Set boundaries for yourself around how low you’re willing to let yourself go when you’re angry.  For example, you might decide that no matter how frustrated you are, you’re not going to ignore or call your partner names.  These limits will stop you from becoming downright disrespectful and damaging to your relationship, even on your worst days.

If you’ve been in your relationship long enough, you likely already know that naturally occurring feelings of passion only last so long.  It takes work to maintain the connection with the person you’re committed to.  While the strategies above might not always sound fun or even helpful right away, stick with them.  Both you and your partner will thank yourselves years down the line.

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3 Strategies to Help You End Relationship Anxiety for Good

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

What if my partner stops loving me?  Are we really compatible?  Am I with the right person?  Are they cheating on me?

These are questions that anyone who’s ever been in a relationship has likely asked themselves at some point.  Frankly, never questioning whether you and you and your partner are a good match, if they’re faithful, and what you would do if the two of you broke up wouldn’t be healthy.  But if you struggle with relationship anxiety, these thoughts can quickly become obsessive and even detrimental to your relationship.

What is Relationship Anxiety?

Relationship anxiety can be defined as persistent and excessive worry, overthinking and hyper-awareness about your relationship.  If you have relationship anxiety, you may often fear that:

• you are dating the wrong person

• you are not attracted to or losing attraction to their partner

• your relationship is moving too fast or too slow

• your partner is cheating on you

• there is someone better for you out there

• you are not good enough for your partner

• you will emotionally hurt your partner

• your partner will leave or abandon you

All relationships include uncertainty, and some anxiety about them is normal. Difficulty or inability to stop the constant stream of questioning and doubt, however, may be an indicator of relationship anxiety.  

Relationship anxiety can show up at any stage of a relationship.  While some may experience it early on, others may begin to grow anxious after several years of dating the same person or even after marriage.

The Effects of Relationship Anxiety

Anxiety in any form can be distressing.  In extreme cases, it can lead to physical problems, such as headaches, muscle tension, nausea, fatigue, and gastrointestinal problems.  

Relationship anxiety may cause you to constantly overthink what you say, how you look, how you feel, and how your partner behaves.  You may feel distracted by your thoughts and grow less present in your relationship or begin exhibiting relationship-interfering behaviors.

Relationship-interfering behaviors associated with relationship anxiety include

• withholding your opinions or feelings about issues in the relationship

• pushing your partner away physically or emotionally

• picking fights to see how your partner responds

• trying to make your partner jealous

• withdrawing or avoiding your partner

• scrutinizing your partner or becoming overly critical

Although they are often done in effort to reduce or cope with relationship anxiety, these behaviors can cause the exact problems in your relationship that you originally feared.

What Can You Do?

Mindfulness

You know the phrase “going down the rabbit hole”?  It’s one of my favorite ways to describe what happens in your brain when anxiety takes hold.  Anxiety is a chain reaction.  It starts with one uncomfortable thought or feeling, like fear when you remember that time last week when your partner looked at his phone and smiled, then said he saw a funny meme.  All of the sudden, you’re imagining him texting someone else and sifting through every detail of your last 5 dates, obsessing over whether you missed any signs he’s really cheating on you.

Anxious thought spirals often seem helpful, like they’ll eventually lead you to figuring things out, but they really just create more confusion.  To tame anxiety, practice noticing your thoughts one by one.  After noticing each thought, let it go.  This will help you stay present in the moment, where you can truly learn more about your partner and your relationship.

Communicate

Constant worry about your partner getting angry or annoyed by you can make it difficult to voice your concerns about the relationship, but avoiding these topics will only increase your chances of struggling with unresolved issues later down the line.  Instead of holding back, voice your needs to your partner in a calm yet confident voice.  Spend time journaling about what you want to express beforehand to increase your confidence during delivery.

Talk To a Therapist

When you’re stuck in your head, it can be difficult to differentiate between anxious and realistic thoughts.  Talking to a therapist can help you sort out your thoughts and feelings in order to determine which are worth paying attention to.  A therapist can also help you understand what you’re looking for in a partner and what it means to be in a truly healthy relationship.

If you’re struggling with relationship anxiety, relief and clarity is possible.  For more information about relationship anxiety or a free 15-minute phone consultation, reach out to admin@elevatedlifecounseling.com.

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You Seem Distant: withdrawing in relationships

By Erinn Williams, LCPC

We all have patterns in our relationships we know are not helpful for the longevity of the relationship.  You may act passive aggressively.  You may retaliate with hostility when you’re feeling stressed or angry.  You and your partner may bicker or fight often, leading to disconnection.  Whatever you may find yourself doing, very few things approach the sadness and destructiveness of a partner who withdraws from the relationship when feeling displeased, angry, or hurt. 

Those who withdraw do so in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.  Withdrawing can look like taking more time to oneself like watching TV in a different room.  Some might get more involved with friends or their communities, leaving less time for home and their relationship.  It can look like less communication about how one is feeling, less quality (or even neutral) time spent with a partner, more hours at the office, or even cheating.  Withdrawing mentally can happen with thoughts like: I’ll just stop caring, or I’m going to check out.

Now don’t get me wrong, space and individual development is completely healthy and to be encouraged within relationships, but be aware of the intention behind the need to take space.  Are you engaging in the things in which you’re interested or are you engaging in anything except your relationship?  Withdrawing is the latter.  

Just as withdrawing is not the same as healthy individuation it’s also not the same as getting even.  I’ve written before about partners who get even through retaliation.  Many of the withdrawing behaviors can look like the things we do to get even (e.g. silent treatment, pouting, abruptly leaving).  However, there is one key difference between people who get even versus people who withdraw: resignation.  

For those who want to get even, they are actually trying to seek change in the relationship, albeit ineffectively, which proves they are still invested in the relationship.  Those who withdraw do so because they often feel like there is no point to trying anymore.  There is no point having the same argument anymore, it won’t go anywhere.  There is no point in expecting him/her/them to meet my needs, so I’ll find another way.  There is no point to hoping that things will get better, so I better fend for myself.

Hopelessness becomes the companion to the resignation.  These two feelings cause someone to move in a particular direction when things get tense in a relationship, either inward or outward, but certainly not toward one’s partner.

If withdrawing is part of your pattern, what can you do about it?  First, be aware of all of the thoughts and assumptions you are making about your current situation and check to see if they are factual.  Is it really true that there is no way to change something you’re displeased about in your relationship?  Is it a fact that there isn’t a different way to approach a particular challenge?

Discuss this pattern with your partner.  When you’re both calm and comfortable talk about how you tend to disengage a bit from the relationship when things get tough.  Chances are your partner has noticed this already.  Talking about it increases accountability and also provides a launching point to discuss longer standing issues in the relationship.  Withdrawing is often a consequence to those longer standing issues.

When you find you want to withdraw, stop yourself and try to lean toward your partner instead of yourself.  Start small: if your tendency is to physically leave or distance yourself, stay for as long as you can.  If you stop talking in the midst of a difficult conversation, acknowledge to your partner that you are disengaging and talk about what feeling is triggering it.  It’s okay to take a break, but push yourself to set a time to re-engage in the conversation.  Identify small action steps that produce an orientation toward the relationship rather than away from it.

When it doesn’t seem like things will get better in a relationship, withdrawing makes sense.  However, if you are still committed to your partner, you’ll want to work out this tendency to distance yourself.  As always individual and couples therapy can be helpful in this process.   

Happy Couples Edit

By Erinn Williams, LCPC

If you’ve ever been to a therapist and talked through the stress that your partner is putting you through, a common question your therapist might ask you is, “Have you talked to them about it?”  The question is usually followed up by encouragement to “share how you are feeling” with your partner.  This well-meaning piece of counsel, however, can lead you down the wrong path.

In the west we partner with and/or marry because of love, not because of pragmatism.  And in the name of love we expect a certain level of emotional intimacy in our relationships.  There is a common belief that the more we share and open up to our partners, the closer we become.  Brene Brown has called needed attention to the power of vulnerability and how it promotes connection.

However, so many of us don’t have the proper skillset to actually be vulnerable (it’s not something they teach you in elementary school) and so a common trap can be overdoing it.  We vent to our partners, citing all of the ways they have failed us or have not met our expectations.  John Gottman calls it criticism.  Terry Real calls it unbridled self-expression.  

In Real’s book, The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work, he gives this humorous example, “Hey let me tell you in exact, lurid detail just how miserable you have made me by your shortcomings.  I need to vent.” as he then describes puking into a bag and handing it to your partner and noting how much better you feel.  Needless to say, nobody likes being puked on.

The interesting note about unedited expression is that it doesn’t actually provide connection in the way that Brown promises because it’s actually not vulnerability.  Brown would agree that it’s not vulnerable to spew all of your feelings about someone.  In fact, unedited expression actually demonstrates a lack of vulnerability - let me get this out of the way by talking at you, not allowing any space for you, and not connecting with how I am actually feeling.  Where is the connection in that?

Believe it or not, you don’t have to say everything that you are feeling about your partner to them, even if your therapist encourages you to share how you’re feeling.  Happy couples edit!

Many of the strategies to help you edit are similar to the strategies that I have been writing about in my recent blog posts about wanting to win arguments and the tendency to control your partner.  The first step is to recognize if you have a tendency to release everything all at once on your partner. If this is you read on.

So what does editing look like?  Take a note from Gottman about the difference between criticism and providing feedback.  Criticism characterizes someone’s faults as general attributes to the person whereas feedback cites specific examples of behavior.  It is the difference between “You’re so lazy, you never help with the housework” versus “Yesterday I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of housework and I could have used a hand.”

What you need to realize about moments where you don’t edit is that it actually won’t be that effective in getting what you want.  Just because you’ve shared explicitly how disappointed you are about your partner’s behavior, doesn’t actually lead to changes in their behavior.  Instead, be clear with your partner.  Directly ask for what you want and be clear about what you need.  If your partner struggles to provide this for you, help them, because after all, you do love and care for them too!

It is important to find the words to be constructive with how you are feeling.  It’s not enough to identify feelings like disappointment, anger, or frustration, but how might you express them in a way that your partner can actually hear them?  Try to find a time where your partner would be most receptive to hearing you, not just when you need to be heard.  Leave space for your partner to talk about their experience and truly listen to their experience instead of planning your response mid-comment.  Finally, work together to create effective solutions to get needs and wants met in the relationship instead of letting things add up.

Trying to Control Your Partner: a Hindrance, Not a Help

By Erinn Williams, LCPC

What happens in a relationship when you try to bridge the gap between what you want and what you have?  Control issues pop up.   If you’ve ever found yourself saying or thinking things like:

“You should do/think/act like this” 

“I’d be happy if only you’d...”  

“You would be more _______ if you loved me”  

“I need you to be more like so-and-so”  

then chances are you are trying to control your partner.  Trying to control your partner can lead to major issues for a couple.  Let’s explore why some of us attempt to assert our control and why it ultimately is not healthy in your relationship! 

Why do we attempt to control our partners?  We tend to find ourselves partnered with people who display the same traits we attached to growing up.  In other words, we marry/partner with versions of our parents.

In relationships we work out our past with our partners.  Matching with someone who has similar traits as our parents can be seen as an attempt to heal our unfinished business.  In the worst cases, our relationships trigger so much past pain that we can’t recover and the relationship ends.  In the best cases, we work through these triggers and heal from our past through and with our partners.  

“If only he wasn’t so controlling, like my mom” or “I need him to be more connected, unlike my dad” are examples of ways we attempt to control our partners while attempting to heal from our past.    Unconsciously we believe that if our partners would just act the way we want them to act, we would see these issues resolve themselves.

That seems great in theory, but have you ever felt like someone was trying to control you?  How did that go? Terry Real, author of The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work states, “Here’s the real deal on control: It’s an illusion.  Short of outright collusion or holding a gun to someone’s head, nobody gets anyone to do anything.  Which, unfortunately, doesn’t mean you won’t try.”

Love and connection cannot thrive when control and oppression are present.  Our partners may comply when we attempt to control them, but it comes at a cost.  Often the consequences of controlling our partners look like rebellion, either quietly or quite overtly.  Sometimes you may see your partner become more and more resentful, and they may feel like a martyr in the relationship.  Other times, the thing you want your partner to change may become exaggerated the more that you push.  All of this gets worse when you feel like you need to be right all the time.    

It’s not so much that you can’t ask things of your partner or express your needs in the relationship.  The strategy to get through the control tendency is two-fold.  First, recognize if this is you.  If you are attempting to change your partner in any way, own it.  Be clear to yourself about why you want them to change, not just what you want them to change.  Is it for their own good?  Is it for the good of the relationship?  Or is it particularly sensitive to you because this was a painful part of your past?

When talking to your partner instead of asserting your control, use phrases like “I need...,” “I feel hurt when…,” or “In this moment can you…” These phrases convey more of a specific need you are trying to express rather than a general criticism of something they need to change.  When you find yourself being manipulative (you know who you are and you know when you are doing it), take a break from the conversation.

Secondly, work toward healing these wounds yourself.  If you didn’t feel seen by your mom growing up, work toward feeling healthy, self-compassionate individuality as an adult.  If you were often fearful of your dad, work to recognize the power you hold as the mature adult that you are.  Often therapy, tapping into spirituality, and active reflection can help with this process.  When we work to recover from past wounds, we become a much better partner than when we expect our partners to heal these wounds for us.