Address Any Issue Together - Whether It's Yours, Mine, Ours
In the initial steps of this program you have focused on rebuilding your foundation: calming things down and increasing positive interactions (Step 1), listening to each other again (Step 2), learning to stay Adult (Step 3), and staying committed no matter what is going on between you (Step 4). Continuing to integrate each of these foundational steps will strengthen your connection.
Keeping your connection strong is necessary as you move forward - learning a new perspective and new ways to constructively work through your problems together. In this post, you will learn Relighting Romance Step 5: Address Any Issue Together - Whether It's Yours, Mine, or Ours.
Adding this step to your toolkit will stretch you beyond your personal limits to include consideration and care for another - your partner. In Relighting Romance, you are inclusive and expansive of your partner, knowing your partner will do the same for you. You are in this together.
In addition, you are both attending to and inclusive of the entire Partnership Universe. This Universe includes everything: your world, my world, our mutual world, your commitments and agreements, your words and activities, your joys and sorrows, your dreams and desires, and so on. In this post, you will reflect on becoming more inclusive and openheartedly - fully nurturing each other and your partnership. When you develop a heartfelt, inclusive approach it opens the way for you to experience vibrancy and joy in your lives.
On a day-to-day level, the communications and actions that accompany Step 5 reflect your willingness to consider all needs or requests equally and to address them together as partners - even if they are not your needs, even when they are not important to you.
Addressing Any Problem in Your Relationship Together
One of the most difficult things in any relationship is to acknowledge that our partner may experience aspects of our relationship differently than we do. Things that make us feel content, happy, or even neutral may be bothersome or downright annoying to our partner. For example, the amount of clutter, amount of time spent on the telephone, rising early or going to bed late are common differences that many partners face. What may seem benign to one of you may drive the other "crazy" like the proverbial toilet seat; what causes you no pain or sadness may be painful to your partner. Best Way Getting The One You Love Back
For example, a harsh tone that you use in business may remind him or her of a father's abusive language when your partner was young. As you strengthen your partnership, you are expanding your awareness that what affects one of you affects both of you. As partners, you become responsible for creating a nurturing environment and addressing any issues that come up for one or the other or both of you. You do this because you generously and openheartedly want your partnership and each other to flourish; your partner wants the same.
Addressing issues in any relationship is more difficult when one person is content and the other sees a problem. Jane and Anna's relationship is a case in point.
Jane and Anna have intermittent eruptions in their relationship, partly because Anna is more outgoing, while Jane is more contained. Anna reverts to childlike acting out of her anger to get attention, while Jane becomes overly calm and unresponsive. Jane thinks the relationship would be just fine if Anna would only stop acting out. When questioned, Anna knows she wants Jane's undivided attention a little more often. She feels that communication takes place only when Jane wants it to happen.
Then there are Brian and Suzanne. Brian also feels his relationship is just fine, but Suzanne admits to feeling frustrated and throwing tantrums to get Brian to talk to her about things she feels are important. She is dissatisfied with the frequency of sex. She is concerned about whether they should buy a bigger house and whether they're going to have children - she wants them; Brian is ambivalent. She also wants Brian to be more emotionally responsive and to give her undivided attention at times. Brian dismisses Suzanne's pleas for discussion to resolve these issues. He thinks their relationship is pretty good just the way it is. He's not sure he wants children, and he feels that Suzanne would need to calm down in order for him to ever consider having children with her.
To get to the root of what each of these couples calls a stalemate, we decided to use a scale to explore the similarities and differences in satisfaction level and the degrees to which each partner felt individual needs were being met. Both Jane and Brian said their satisfaction level was at 7 or 8 on a scale of from 1 to 10. Each of them was getting 70 to 80 percent of their needs met. That's pretty high.
On the other hand, Jane's partner Anna and Brian's partner Suzanne reported a satisfaction level of 4 to 5 on the ten-point scale, in comparison to their partner's rating of 7 or 8. This is quite a difference in perception of satisfaction and needs. No wonder both couples had a stalemate.
This difference in contentment regarding one or many aspects in a relationship is not uncommon. Yet many couples continue with the status quo even when one person is not fully happy. At these times, the more contented person in the relationship wields power when he or she dismisses the partner's unhappiness or concerns. When this power is paired with denial of, or lack of empathy for, a mate's pain or a dismissal of a partner's needs as unnecessary or frivolous, then unconscious power becomes uncaring. In any relationship, if something affects you adversely, it is eventually going to affect your partner. Best Way Getting The One You Love Back
To safeguard against a lack of mutual happiness or contentment, Relighting Romance makes lack of contentment a partnering issue. Jane and Brian can deny or ignore that there is a problem between them and their partners. On the other hand, they are both experiencing the unhappy consequences of their mate's dissatisfaction. Both Anna and Suzanne admit to acting out their dissatisfaction regularly, either by picking fights, crying, complaining, or criticizing their mate.
Sometimes partners will deny there is a problem in the relationship because they feel helpless to respond to the other person's needs, or they don't know how both of them could have their needs met at the same time. This might apply to Brian and Suzanne's situation, in which one definitely wants a child and the other is ambivalent. Rather than avoiding communication about difficult or heated topics, the Relighting Romance approach - using all 10 Steps - can provide safe ways to talk through and ultimately resolve difficult issues.
I have see many partners gracefully work through their seemingly irresolvable issues in that way. If the issues are too big to deal with on your own, agree as partners to get help from a trained pastor, marriage educator, mentor, or therapist.
Let's explore some other thoughts that contribute to being inclusive-learning to expand your awareness and responsiveness to include not only you, but also your partner and the our world you share. The entirety of the Relighting Romance Universe is your partnership. Practicing Step 5 will assist you in developing an expansive mind and heart that helps you stay inclusive - aware and open to this vibrant Relationship Universe the two of you are creating together.
Let's explore this large concept of inclusiveness and reflect on some additional features that are a part of practicing this essential step. These include
- reminding yourselves that partnering is a joint effort;
- pulling your weight in the partnership, no matter what your partner is doing;
- making and keeping clear agreements with each other.
