Relationship Advice for Couples
During early stages in relationship, love is keen. And it is throughout the lifespan of the relationship, but there comes a time where love is put to test. How much information you have and the effort you put in can save your relationship.
When you face difficulties in your relationship, start dating each other again. Rekindle romance, as you start a new relationship, be intimate, be adventurous, have fun, set healthy boundaries, deposit more positive energy in your love account that when troubles strike you will have some great memories to look back to which will fortify you to do anything in your power to save the relationship.
Setting and Respecting Emotional Boundary
Absence of emotional boundary is taking on another person’s problem as your own. Failure to resolve this causes stress, anxiety and depression, therefore creating unhealthy relationship.
Taking up your partner’s cross initially feels sexy and romantic. The need to balance his sheet, make sure his mood swing is under control.
Working yourself out whenever your partner is back home with toxic face to fix things that the relationship bounces back and atmosphere is forever energetic.
While you can do that forever, it suddenly starts to take a toll on you. To make matters worse, you keep things to yourself and try to be there emotionally whenever possible until the relationship begins to sink.
It is about time you let your partner clean his or her mess while you also allocate some time for yourself to ease stress.
Do as much to set emotional boundaries and make sure you stay true to them. Both parties must give importance to their emotional boundaries, respect them and also pay attention to their partner’s boundaries.
Relationship is not a power display area, but not setting emotional boundaries create space for manipulation either knowingly or unknowingly.
When you set boundaries, you define acceptable and unacceptable behavior from others. This prevents you from being ruled by other people’s goals, needs, feelings and thoughts.
Setting Emotional Boundaries
Identify what is weighing you down emotionally
Gently communicate them with your partner
Remind them whenever they cross the boundary
Make sure you respect your own boundary
If it is hard for you to set your emotional boundaries, consult a therapist or ask friends how they manage their emotions.
Benefits of setting emotional boundaries
- Your partner is aware of your limit
- You stop feeling the need to be a superman or superwoman all the time
- You can ask for help
- You lay off the guilt which chocks you whenever your partner is in a bad shape
- You are able to say no whenever you cannot take up a task
- You cease waiting on people’s approval
Risk of not setting emotional boundaries
- Bearing the risk of living to the expectation of others
- Allowing others to treat you badly all the time
- Facing the pressure to take care of others even if its too much for you to do
- Fixing everyone else except yourself
Selflove
Appreciating who you are and understanding the health benefits of paying reasonable amount of time on yourself is very important in a relationship.
Engaging in unhealthy competition with others being it physical appearance, financial stability or marital status has only one benefit: ripping you of your joy and happiness.
Understand that you cannot look like everybody. You can only be slim at a time, fat or short at a time. Either married or single. Whatever it is you are, that is you. Make a better version of yourself in that state.
Note that, people will always have their opinion about you. They will think of what should have worked for you, which outfit would have been of better match for the occasion etc. You cannot please everybody.
Face your fear and doubts. Stop dodging or running away from how you feel about yourself or situation. Accept who you are and if there’s any possible and reasonable adjustment required, do so and move on.
Be confident. When you are in a relationship and lack confidence, it is had for your partner to enjoy your presence.
When you find yourself in the hand of an abusive partner, then, you will be abused. Do not be timid because you feel you are not good looking, you earn less or have low educational background.
Sexual Denial
Allowing the cares of the world to cloud your judgment and stop you from enjoying your marital relationship is inappropriate. Sex is important, when you are married, do not find excuses to deny your partner the right to your body.
Such practice promotes infidelity. Make some space for sex in your relationship no matter the hardship. It can take care of some emotional stress if you get involved.
Learning to Respect Privacy in Relationship
To go down this line further, I want you to know I have my personal stuffs to deal with and I will be glad we both recognize each other’s individual space.
As your relationship grows, the opening sentence would be something you may both want to consider. Telling your partner, you want to continue with them but letting them understand how respecting your personal space would mean much to you.
Stop Interrupting or Cutting Your Spouse
Cultivating the habit of interrupting your partner whenever he or she is talking is disrespectful and unhealthy. This act will not foster good communication habit. Where there is no good communication, relationships become less effective.
A good way of growing your relationship is paying attention to each other. While you don’t want to be timid, you also want to become a good listener too.
Most of the times, thinking you know what someone is about saying only creates conflict and generates unnecessary argument.
Changing Emotional Habits
Steven Stosny, Ph.D. of psychology today addresses changing emotional habits by providing a process he called TIP. Where T – think, I – Imagine, P – Practice. This process is said to develop new habits.
In this approach, Steven edges people for example with resentment towards their partners to think of something positive about themselves whenever they feel resentment towards their loved ones. Then, imagine doing things that will bring those feelings to reality and finally practice the thought.
He believes repeating the action several times a day for about six weeks develops a conditioned response, in that, when you feel angry, instead of acting on it, you rather think of the positive action you associated with resentment and act in that manner.
If you have a bad habit which is killing your relationship, you should adopt this strategy to save your relationship.
If you are quick at shifting blames, try to replace that by thinking of something that would rather foster good atmosphere between you and your partner then practice it severally.
Remember, this is no easy task to accomplish. It takes effort and willingness. Anything capable of saving your relationship is worth trying.
Asking Questions Before Marriage
In the early stage of the relationship, before you say I do, make sure you know your partner beyond the assumptions you created based on your personal judgments.
If you are already married, it is not too late to ask questions. Know about their saving attitude, their endurance in hard times, how they will be handling family issues when children set in and other valuable matters that are likely to rise the next day and in the future.
Dr. Cassandra Bolar speaking in an interview on I do podcast advise that, when you are in a long-term relationship, you find out if you both have the same share values. For example, is your partner aspiring to get married?
Here are about 100 plus questions I have gathered from different sources that you can ask before you get married. These questions cover lifestyle, sex, finance, etc.
Dating and Romance
“The strength of your marriage depends on the choices you make to improve it.” Cindy Wright. Cindy in 175 romantic things you could easily do mentioned how couples after marriage lost the spark they shared before marriage.
Cindy noted that, dating and romancing can change the humdrum routine which replaced the spark in the early days in your marriage. But this does not come easily but through hard work.
Bringing back dating and romance creates lots of fun and makes couples look fresh and new all year long as newly wedded couples.
“I’m convinced that the lack of dating and romance in marriage is one of the major causes of broken relationships.” Doug Fields.
Understanding
No matter how you willing to communicate, in all the marriages I witnessed, there must be that willingness to sacrifice.
Understanding that marriage is for better or for worse. And starting a new relationship is expensive in terms of commitment, emotion and financial resources.
Getting that made our mothers stay long in marriage and our fathers keep coming back home no matter what. Sometimes, you just make the decision to stay even if it doesn’t look fine.
No Marriage is Perfect
Stop acting like a German spy on people’s marriage. Spies don’t always have full stories, they look for clue. Most marriages are in pain more than presented on the outside.
And while you spy on your friend, you only have the chance meeting their marital life in public places where they give you the celebrity version.
Knowing What to Keep Private
You will surely discuss your marriage with a family or friend. Be sure you are not giving damaging information about your partner which may wreck your relationship.
You must both agree on how much of your life you are willing to share with other people especially where it involves the other partner giving away information about their partner.
Visit a Counselor or Relationship Expert
For example, when you have problem managing your emotions, seeking professional assistance for quality information will be a helpful decision to make.
Do not only depend on things you read on the internet to make judgment about the future of your marriage. Find reliable source and tools developed by experts that can help shape your relationship.
Dateguide
Conflicts are natural part of relationships. Avoiding them only makes things hard. Confront your conflicts and solve them amicably.
Asking open-ended questions in relationship help us get our partner’s true mind on the subject instead of yes or no questions. Such questions will also help make informed decisions to grow our relationship.
Chemistry is important at early days but they don’t have to exist for a relationship to work. Besides, the chemistry dissolves over time leaving the real person in your bedroom each night.
There is alarm when you start feeling your partner’s problems are meddling with your happiness. Setting emotional boundaries will help in a long term.
It is also important to know about the common things to expect in a relationship. This will guide you detect and fix problems earlier in your marriage before things go out of hand.
For example, understanding the importance of compassion, empathy, affection, intimacy and how to apply them.
Also becoming aware of the challenging problems like cheating, family interference, relationship boundary, birth control and others will prepare you in advance.
