While I encourage couples to incorporate other useful ideas for building and maintaining a wonderful partnership, if you do nothing else, follow these 10 Steps, and your relationship will become rock solid.
10 Steps to Rejuvenate Your Relationship
Step 1: Increase the Positive Between You
Step 2: Talk Regularly and Take Turns Listening
Step 3: Deepen Your Individuality to Strengthen Your Relationship
Step 4: Discover the Depth of Your Commitment
Step 5: Address Any Issue Together--Whether It's Yours, Mine, or Ours
Step 6: Understand How You Manage Conflict
Step 7: Put Your Issues on the Table so They Don't Come Between You
Step 8: Turn Problems into Mutual Goals and Work Toward Them Together
Step 9: Practice the Art of Heartfelt Listening
Step 10: Resolve Conflict and Create New Options Together
You and your partner will be guided in both individual and joint exercises to practice the 10 Steps in a building-block fashion. You will add a step one at a time and incorporate all ten eventually. Some exercises will ask you to step back and look at the big picture of your relationship - what you value, desire, and envision. Others will require that you zoom in and focus on applying your Relighting Romance considerations and desires to the daily details of life - how you manage everything from household chores and schedules to finances, sexuality, and minor disagreements.
The lessons will build on the previous lessons until you gradually apply the tools of the Relighting Romance Style into your routines. As you incorporate these guidelines and tools, you will build together a rock-solid foundation for a satisfying relationship.
Most couples start with some combination of styles. As I mentioned earlier, the combination can be confusing if you unconsciously and randomly switch from one style to another. As you practice Relighting Romance, you will learn that it can include some elements that may look Traditional but are actually agreed upon as partners. For example, some couples adhere to the woman making the social plans and the man taking care of the lawn and the cars. If it is mutually agreed upon in their partnership, this is a Relighting Romance Style.
Another example would be areas of great independence approved by both partners. You don't have to revert to being Roommates to achieve some independence. You simply need to learn to work toward what satisfies you individually and together - and arrive at the win/win solutions together.
REHAB TOOLKIT
What is our style of relating?
Which relationship style, or combination of styles, do you see you and your partner using in your relationship? Take one minute to do this individually in your notebook, then save your responses for further exercises later.
Copy the following exercise into your notebook and fill in the blanks with the percentage of the time you feel that you and your partner spend in each style. (The four percentages should add up to 100 percent,)
1. Traditional Style ............. %
2. Merged Style ................. %
3. Roommate Style .............%
4. Relighting Style ...............%
2. Merged Style ................. %
3. Roommate Style .............%
4. Relighting Style ...............%
Total ...............................100%
Reflect on your assessment of your relationship. Why did you choose each of these styles? Then think about how you would like your relationship to be.
Making Decisions Together
When you choose the Relighting Romance Style, the way in which you and your partner make decisions is quite different from those of the other three styles. In the Relighting Romance, Our World decisions - those that involve both people - are made together. Your World and My World decisions are made individually but are supported by each partner.
In Relighting Romance, any issue can be brought to the table for discussion; however, nothing goes into the Our World circle until it is fully agreed upon by both individuals. Relighting Romance decision making is not necessarily about compromise. Neither is it about neglecting your own needs in order to attend to those of your partner. Rather, it challenges both partners to become imaginative and to recognize or invent new options together. This approach helps you master the fine art of blending each of your needs into something totally new and unique - an Our World that satisfies both of you.
One-time decisions - what to have for dinner, which movie to go to, or whether to stay home on Friday night - are easy. However, sometimes Relighting Romance means that couples will discuss and mull things over for a number of weeks. For instance, shortly after Marybeth and Ron were married, they began to pursue the topic of buying a house. It was a loaded topic because Marybeth wanted to live in the city, and Ron had always wanted a home on a lake. At the time, they found it hard to imagine how this situation might be resolved to the satisfaction of both, and they wanted to make sure neither of them settled or simply "gave in," knowing they'd be dealing with big resentments later.
Agreeing to practice their partnering skills, Marybeth and Ron spent much time talking, looking, researching, and investigating their alternating openness and resistance to each other's desire. They took turns looking by lakes and in the city. Then they found a little dream home in an unexpected place - halfway between country and city.
The Relighting Romance skills - the 10 Steps - helped them put a new home into their Our World circle within eight months. They have had no regrets or resentments. Not long ago, Marybeth called,
"I am still surprised at how Ron and I were able to come together on a decision when we initially appeared to be so far apart in what we wanted. Our choice of a little house near one of the inner suburban lakes has pleased both of us."
Since purchasing the home nine years ago, Marybeth and Ran have partnered on many other decisions. They have remodeled and expanded their house and landscaped the yard; Ron moved his offices out of the home; and they are three boys and a family dog in it since they made their Our World decision.
Decision Making Is a Big Deal
No matter how big or small your issues may seem, making decisions together is critical. Decisions may range from where to buy a house or how to divvy up household chores and childcare, all the way to healing from an affair or resolving a betrayal such as loss of financial stability or a job due to one partner's gambling or drinking. It's not the magnitude of the decision that is the tipping factor; it's how you make decisions. If one of you simply gives in, or settles, or compromises too much or too often, chances are resentments will arise sooner or later and undermine your relationship.
No matter how big or small your issues may seem, making decisions together is critical. Decisions may range from where to buy a house or how to divvy up household chores and childcare, all the way to healing from an affair or resolving a betrayal such as loss of financial stability or a job due to one partner's gambling or drinking. It's not the magnitude of the decision that is the tipping factor; it's how you make decisions. If one of you simply gives in, or settles, or compromises too much or too often, chances are resentments will arise sooner or later and undermine your relationship.
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