A while back, I read a study that stated that - the average couple spends less than 30 minutes a week in one-on-one personal intimate dialogue. If this is anywhere near accurate, it is a sad commentary on the quality of today’s relationships. (Keep in mind this time was quiet time when not: having sex, having dinner with the kids, shopping, working in the yard or whatever. It was dedicated - let’s talk time.)
You can’t build a positive, nurturing, loving and lasting relationship on 26 hours of shared time a year. It is even hard to build a real, solid, and long lasting friendship in this amount of time. How are you doing? Are you spending more than 1 hour a week in personal, intimate, real and vulnerable sharing with your significant other? If not why not?
To view a list of reasons, click here: Relationship Advice
Are your reasons listed above? If so why not take some time and evaluate them inn ore detail. If you can’t do it with your significant other, then at least do it alone and come up with your own reasons or causes.
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One of the reasons above that people use to justify their lack of presence with those they love is to bear gifts, lots of stuff. In most case theses people would much rather have the gift of our presence than our presents.
Presents can never make up for the lack of presence. People who (and I have been guilty of this many times) believe that they can justify the lack of presence with presents fail to understand what the special people in our lives really want. They want more of us, or even some of us, or for some people even just a little of us.
You share yourself with others by “being” with them. You are not with them if when you are with them you are mentally somewhere else. I know this sentence may be a little confusing but those of you who need to do a better job of being present know who you are and I am confident you get my point.
Gifts are nice if they are given with no strings and no emotional expectations. We are only fooling ourselves when we think we can barter our gifts to satisfy our own emotional weaknesses.
Read the full article here: Relationship Advice
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In many relationships two strangers share the same bed. They know little about their significant other. There is dialog that is often superficial, self-centered, critical and judgmental. Few couples really know each other. What are some of the things you do or don’t know about your partner?
Why not spend some time tonight sharing some of these with your partner. If you can’t be honest then I will bet their may be trouble in paradise. True honesty without the fear of criticism or judgment is what I refer to as a safe relationship. Many people in relationships are more honest with friends and even strangers than the people they will spend a lifetime with.
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Relationships are either getting better or they are getting worse. They are dynamic entities and do not remain the same. Therefore, if your relationship is not getting better, it is more than likely getting worse in some way.
One of the critical issues that determines whether a relationship is getting better or worse is the focus of the people involved. Every relationship has some positive as well as negative stuff going on. You can choose to focus on the negatives or the positives. There are five ways in which we do this.
Self talk is your unedited ongoing internal dialog that you have with yourself every waking minute of your life. Whether this self talk continues during sleep is anybody’s guess. Each of us has a variety of mental filters that let some information into our consciousness while rejecting other information.
There are two concepts that have an impact on our self talk. They are: 1 There is a medical/psychological concept that says that all of the information .that finds its way into our unconscious must first pass through the Medulla, a small switching device in the brain. It is believed that over 70 percent of what we are exposed to never reaches our conscious mind and directed to our unconscious automatically. Therefore much of what we hear is registered in our mind for future recall. 2 The unconscious mind can’t differentiate between what is real and imagined.
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One of the biggest contributors to poor communication in relationships is repeated millions of times a day somewhere in this world. “I didn’t say that or I didn’t mean that.” I’ll bet you have said it or heard it in the past week.
What is the cause of misunderstandings in relationships? There are a number of reasons let me share just a few with you.
- Hidden agendas.
- Poor communication skills.
- Poor listening habits.
- Unspoken expectations.
- Suppressed emotions such as guilt, anger, blame or resentment.
- Ego centered communication.
- Psychological game playing.
- Emotional immaturity.
- Not correctly reading someone’s non-verbal signals.
- A history of disappointment in the relationship.
- A lack of trust and or respect in the relationship.
- Not willing to hear reality.
- Clouded perceptions.
- Old emotional baggage that gets in the way of the current dialogue
- Poor vocabulary.
- Incongruent verbal and non-verbal messages.
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Chemistry. Attraction. Feeling comfortable with someone you have just met. Believing someone is your soul mate. Or, saying to another person you have only been with a short time, “it seems as if we have been together for years.” What is going on here? Why are some people attracted to others instantaneously while they are repelled or rejected by others? There are a number of reasons and clues to this unique behavior.
The concept of resonance. Each of us sends out non-verbal signals that are a reflection of our inner desires, attitudes, feelings and consciousness. When we meet someone who has similar internal feelings, attitudes etc. we are attracted to them. For example positive people like to be around other positive people. They don’t like to be around whiners. They don’t resonate. Just look at the people who you like to be around. I’ll bet you have similar beliefs, goals, philosophy, background; something, but the list of potential issues is too long for this short overview.
Each of us has an unconscious picture of our ideal mate. That picture can originate from our early childhood and the messages sent to us by our caregivers, later maturity and the result of life experience or just downright fantasies that we conjure up as we move through life.
And finally our unconscious desire to find someone who will help us heal from our childhood wounds. We are attracted to someone who reminds us of one of our parents both their weaknesses and strengths. Take a serious look at a person you are in a relationship with now.
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The people in poor relationships tend to focus on what is wrong, missing, the other person needs to change and or all the negatives. In healthy relationships although there are many of these same negative issues, the parties focus on – what they have, what is working, or in general the positives.
What are some of the issues that people tend to focus on and see as either positive or negative, and by the way they are neither positive or negative. Life is a perceptual experience. If you were with another person they most likely would not have exactly the same problems with some of your behaviors that your current partner does, but they would have problems with other behaviors. I guarantee it. And vice versa.
Why do people have so much of a problem accepting the behavior of others? Is it because they think their behavior is right, better than the other persons, or even the only way? Isn’t that a hoot.
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As relationships mature, grow and develop people can sometimes forget the little things that can have a positive impact on the quality of the relationship. I put these in three categories: Simple courtesies, simple pleasures, and simple words.
Let’s look at each of these in a little more depth:
Simple courtesies. These are the common courtesies that many people fail to do after a relationship has reached –the taking you for granted stage. Such as saying thank you and please. Opening doors (this is for the ladies too) I have never subscribed to the theory that women are so weak that they need men to open doors for them. Men do it because they have manners. As a man I feel the same way, there is nothing wrong with a woman opening a door or holding it as I pass through rather than let it slam in my face. Remembering special dates, events, needs, wants, desires and dreams. Doing what you say you are going to do whether it is a telephone call or being on time, for anything. Late says what I was doing is more important than you are. One of my pet peeves is people who are late. What an insult. I know, I know - there is traffic, last minute something’s, but let these be the exceptions and not the rule.
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People can spend years together in a close physical relationship and never really know their partner. Oh yes, there is dialogue about superficial stuff like: How was your day? What’s for dinner? How was work? How are the kids? What shall we do this weekend? Tonight? How about a movie? That’s a great way to spend time together if you really want to get to know someone. You don’t have to talk. Just sit and be entertained.
Few people in intimate relationships really know their partner. Few have emotional level conversations about a variety of issues that are important to the other person. Why not try the following little test to see how well you know your significant other or spouse. If you can answer more than half about your partner, I will be surprised.
For the full article and the list of questions, click here: Relationship Advice
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One of the best ways to keep relationships positive, regardless of whether with friends, relatives or business associates or customers is to shoe appreciation. Going out of your way often to tell people how much you appreciate what they have done, regardless of how unimportant or little it might have been, puts you in the minority of the human race. (unfortunately)
Here is a quick example:
Each year I give away between 1000 and 2000 books to relatives, friends, clients and strangers. In the last ten years that’s over 10,000 free books I have given away valued at between $15. And $20. These people have received a gift. Unsolicited yes, but a gift nonetheless. How many people do you think have said thank you in the past ten years? (either calls or notes) Less than 25.
I guarantee someone in your life has done something for you that they feel deserves a simple thank you or some small appreciation. For a few tips about appreciation click here Relationship Advice
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