Relationship Fulfillment Factor

How to Harvest the Goodness in Your Relationship
Even When It Feels Bad

When your man says something to you that hurts your feelings or triggers feelings of anger, sadness, guilt, that “makes you wrong or bad” or that blames you, it is time to respond with curiosity rather than react with defensiveness. 

Your response can either start an argument, or create understanding and connection.

Right in the moment that you want to defend yourself, you can chose to take another path.

Yes, right in the midst of your upset, you can learn to respond so that you are building your relationship up, rather than tearing it down.

When you feel yourself flushed with anger, welling up with tears, riled with frustration, burning with resentment, or humiliated with embarrassment, it is time to stop yourself from reacting.

This creates a “pattern interrupt.” It slows down the conversation so that you can really communicate, rather than talk at each other.

How do you do this?  With absolute commitment and lots of practice!

1. You must commit yourself to creating a better relationship (thus a better life) with your mate.
2. You must dedicate yourself to learning new skills and a new mindset to create a connection with your mate that you may never have thought was possible.
3. You must practice these skills as diligently as a toddler learning to walk, making hundreds of attempts before getting comfortable and reliably good at them.
4. You must be easy on yourself while you are learning, giving yourself a break when you revert to old habits. It takes time to re-train yourself.

Turning Upset into Understanding

The KEY is to stop yourself from reacting in your usual way. This is hard. You have been reacting in the same way for years. As my friend Sam Horn, the author of Tongue Fu, says “Tongue Glue” is often the best response. (Glue your tongue to the roof of your mouth!)

Once you have stopped yourself from reacting, you will have created space for you to respond differently. Now you can ask a question! That’s it. Only ask this question!

What did you mean by that?

That question needs to be asked with real curiosity, not delivered as a sarcastic remark. You need to ask it with a mild tone of voice. If you are high-pitched, loud, or emotional, it won’t work.  

Why ask what he meant? After all, isn’t it perfectly clear what he meant? NO! What you think he means and what he is talking about could be worlds apart.

Your job here is just to listen and understand what he is saying.

The only way to create real communication (and connection) is to ASK and LISTEN!

If he doesn’t get what you are asking say, “I just heard you say,
_______________ (say back to him what you heard), and it hurt (or it felt bad) and I was wondering if that is what you meant?

Then shut up and let him talk.

• Don’t put words in his mouth
• Don’t assume that you know what he’s thinking
• Don’t tell him what he’s thinking (men hate that)
• Don’t twist his words to take them in the worst possible way he could have meant them.
• Don’t defend yourself or give your point of view

Listen with one purpose:
To understand what he meant to say, 
NOT to make a case for what you heard.

When you are listening to his words, stop thinking about what you are going to say next, just listen. After he talks, you will have time to think about what he just said.

Then you can respond with another inquiry, “Help me understand that” or repeat back what you think he just said to you and say, “Did I hear you right?” Again, listen, wait to respond, then ask another question.

When you really understand what he actually meant, thank him for helping you to see his point of view, even if you don’t agree.

At this point, you can share your point of view with him if it will help create more understanding between you and strengthen your relationship. If it won’t, just skip it.  

This is called real communication. It does absolute wonders for relationships. It creates a deeper understanding, tender intimacy, sweet connection, concerned caring, warm kindness and devoted love.

 If you have a question or comment, please leave it below.

How to leave a comment:

• From the blog, click on the blue ‘No Comments’ link at the bottom of this post or there may be a number in front of ‘Comments’ indicating how many comments have been left.
• From your email, scroll up and click on the title which will take you to the blog and at the bottom of the post you will find the comment box already open ready for your comment.

Also, I welcome your feedback, requests for topics that you’d like for me to cover, and questions.

If you don’t want to miss a post you can subscribe in the box near the top on the right (titled ‘Subscribe Here’) to have future articles delivered to your email inbox as they become available. Of course, you can unsubscribe at any time.

You can also subscribe to the RSS Feed by clicking on the RSS chicklet.

And you can email me your relationship questions at eva@relationshipfulfillmentfactor.com

Stop Hiding in the Fog of Your Good Intentions

Now that you have seen how you set up your relationship (mostly by being unconscious of what you were doing), it is time to repair the damage.

Realize this is going to take some time - Your relationship didn’t get in this shape overnight and it’s not going to change overnight.

Start asking for what you want - For all of the times that you gave up your desires (and disappeared from the relationship), with the idea that you were doing the ‘right’ thing, you now need to show up. Asking for what you want is easier than you think.

How You Ask Makes All the Difference!

Be happy that you know what you want - Most women are clueless about what they want, so when you know, instead of being ashamed (old programming) or afraid that you aren’t going to get it, be happy.

Trust that you are going to get it - Just by asking, you increase your chances of getting what you desire by 100%. If you don’t let someone know what you want, the secret will die with you and your life will be poorer for it. When you put your desires out to the Universe, the Universe has a way of delivering! Sometimes it’s through your man. : )

Be happy when you ask - Have fun describing your dreams and sharing your desires. (If you’re feeling crabby, keep ’em to yourself.)

Set your man up to succeed - When you let your man in on the secrets of what you want, it gives him a way to hit a home run with you. It sets him up for success. He now knows what will make you happy and the thing he wants most is to put a smile on your face.

Give him the what not the how - Let your guy have the fun of coming up with how to deliver your desires. Just let him know what you want. Paint the picture of the end result. If you want a new TV for your bedroom, let him know if you want a flat screen, what size, and how it will improve your life. (It will be so much more pleasing to your eyes!) Then let him figure out which one is the best and how to make it happen. If you get involved, it takes away his feeling of being THE MAN.

If he grumbles - Know that he is already thinking about how to deliver your request. He’s thinking about what he doesn’t have, which is why he is grumbling. He’s afraid he’ll disappoint you. If you snap back at him when he grumbles, you will kill his energy for delivering your request. Just smile and say, “Honey, I trust that you will do the right thing.” Then shut up about it and leave him alone to figure it out.

Give your man a win - Let him know how much you appreciate him for what he does for you. The more acknowledgements you give him, the more he will want to do for you. Be genuine and specific. (See my blog from April 9^th for the step-by-step.)  

Don’t start with what you DON’T want - Give your guy something he can do! Not something NOT to do. Say, “Honey, I’d love it if you’d put your briefcase on the desk when you come in the door. It looks so much better there than on the dining room table.” You could tell him a thousand times “Don’t put your briefcase on the dining room table” and he would still put his briefcase on the dining room table. He doesn’t hear the “Don’t.” Tell him what you want!

Watch for Part 3 of Are You Frustrated with Your Man? to discover more ways to repair the dynamics of your relationship so you can be true to yourself, get your needs met, and enjoy your man again.

If you have a question or comment about this post, please leave it below.

How to leave a comment:

• From the blog, click on the blue ‘No Comments’ link at the bottom of this post or there may be a number in front of ‘Comments’ indicating how many comments have been left.
• From your email, scroll up and click on the title which will take you to the blog and at the bottom of the post you will find the comment box already open ready for your comment.

Also, I welcome your feedback, requests for topics that you’d like for me to cover, and questions.

If you don’t want to miss a post you can subscribe in the box near the top on the right (titled ‘Subscribe Here’) to have future articles delivered to your email inbox as they become available. Of course, you can unsubscribe at any time.

You can also subscribe to the RSS Feed by clicking on the RSS chicklet.

And you can email me your relationship questions at eva@relationshipfulfillmentfactor.com