Spouse Improvement: Influence Your Partner to Change in Just 7 Steps
Spouse Improvement: Influence Your Partner to Change in Just 7 Steps
Everyone has something they'd like to change in their partner. Here is a 7-step process to create a change in your partner. The key to the success of this process is that it makes your partner want to change - instead of feeling coerced.1. MAKE A LIST of the top three behaviors your partner does that annoy you. For example, leaves messes around house, pouts, doesn't do their share of household tasks. Then select the one problem that has the best chance of your partner responding to your discomfort. You'll increase your chances for success dramatically by focusing on one problem at a time. Let's go for a big one here and say the problem is that your partner is not involved in household chores.2. DESCRIBE THE PROBLEM in clear detail. This includes what your partner does and your reaction to the problem. For example: "Honey, there is a problem I need to discuss with you. When you come home from work and start reading the mail, change your clothes, or turn on the news without looking around and noticing the kids are cranky, squalling for dinner, and I'm really busy making dinner, I see you as a blind and insensitive clod."3. DESCRIBE YOUR REACTION to the problem. "When you act so oblivious, I think you care much more about responding to your own needs first and foremost, and you pitch in only when it is convenient for you. I feel angry, alone, and resentful. When I feel that way I end up being chilly to you and withdrawing any affection. I don't like how I react but that is what I have been doing."Here is the "formula" for describing the problem.
A) You have specified the behavior of "not being involved in household chores" by giving specific examples.
B) You have given your reaction to it by stating: "when you do (the behavior) I think_____ (you're inconsiderate...) and feel _____ (angry, alone, resentful), and then I do _____ (withhold affection). It is important to let your partner know what your complete response is to the behavior that is a problem. Especially let them know what you do when you think and feel the way you do. This really informs your partner of the consequence to them when they do the undesired behavior. Include in your reaction the meaning of the problem for you. For example, lack of involvement in household tasks represents not being loved, respected, or valued.4. BE EMPATHETIC. Tell your partner why you think it would be hard for them to change the undesired behavior. This lets them know you see the problem from both perspectives and that you have an appreciation for what you're asking them to change. For example, "Honey, I think pitching in when you get home would be difficult because you feel depleted and want some time to yourself in order to regenerate. I think pitching in at the level I want is a lot to ask of you."5. DESCRIBE HOW YOU WILL HELP. Because you're not just going to make a request and then hope for the best, the next step is to describe what you will do to help your partner make the change you want. For example, "Honey, your pitching in when you get home is so important to me that I will do _____________ ." (Fill in here what you think will be a high motivator for your partner to make the requested change.)6. ASK IF THEY ARE WILLING to make the change you're requesting. Are you willing to get involved in household chores? They may agree to all or part or none of your request. They might say "no" to you but would be more willing to consider the change if you offered a different motivator or inducement to change. Then you can decide if it is worth your efforts.7. FIND OUT WHY. Regardless of whether they are willing to change or not, ask why. Knowing why they are willing to change will help you understand what motivates them. You'll be able to encourage them more effectively along the way. If they don't want to change, finding out why not will help you determine how to move forward. In that case you still have two more options. One, you can ask if this is a temporary or more permanent position. If it seems there will be no change for now, let them know the consequences - how you think, feel and act - and then drop it for now. The second option is to go to the second problem on your list and repeat the sequence described above.Of course the biggest improvements in a couples' relationship come when both people change and grow. But there are often things you'd like your partner to change, and this format helps you do it in a way that supports both of you. If you'd like more help, consider attending "Coming from your Heart" at The Couples Institute. Here you will learn lots of practical, innovative strategies for relationship improvement.For more than 20 years, Peter Pearson, Ph.D. has specialized in helping couples transform their relationships. He and his wife, Dr. Ellyn Bader, are founders and directors of The Couples Institute in Menlo Park, CA. Authors, speakers, and therapists, they have been featured on over 50 radio and television programs including "The Today Show" and "CBS Early Morning News." For information on workshops, visit The Couples Institute.
Is Your Negative Thinking Scaring Off Your Soul Mates?
Is Your Negative Thinking Scaring Off Your Soul Mates?
Francine Bonnecelli* swore off relationships the day her husband of nine years left her for a twenty-something barmaid in San Francisco. Even though this was her third marriage, she felt three was the charm and, after all, he showed all the qualities in a soul mate and a marriage partner that no one had ever shown her. After this traumatic experience, she closed off her heart to future relationships, giving up on the theory that you can find THE ONE who meets all your goals and expectations.Jennifer Quigley*, fresh out of college, had enough of her share of "flings" and was ready for that someone special to enter her life. However, after every date ended up in the bedroom, she vowed that she was going to give up dating altogether. "It's just not worth it," she said. "There just are no more good guys left. I'd rather stay home with my cat or go out with friends."Joseph Freemont* married his childhood sweetheart fresh out of high school. After graduation, they married and one and a half years later, became the proud parents of a strapping baby boy they named Michael. Two years later, another child joined their family and then a year later, the third child was born. Joseph was a good father as well as a good husband, delighting his wife with anything her heart desired. He laughed at his good luck and never took advantage of the situation by treating every day with his family as if it were the first. Twenty years to the day they married, Joseph lost his wife to terminal cancer. He grieved to the point where he could not come to grips with her passing and decided from that day forward he would never look at another woman again.What do these three people have in common?They have all given up on looking for their soul mates altogether and have closed off that path of their journey which is necessary for total self-growth and finding their higher selves.While they have entered a comfort zone inside themselves to ward off the pain, they have closed it to whatever soul mates who might enter their lives in the future. When they put up this shield, they have also cut off a very necessary part of their life's journey.And why is this bad?The reason is that, unknowingly, they have severed an important and vital part of their well-being. They have retreated within themselves to the point where finding love has no meaning anymore. And, in so doing, they have opened themselves to the prospects of getting stress-related diseases and losing what zest they have left in their lives.In the case of Joseph, grieving is a natural process and one that should be completed before he even thinks about carrying on another relationship. If he were to jump right into a relationship, without going through the entire healing process, only disastrous results would occur.However, in time, Joseph will heal and he will start to feel those old feelings of having someone to share his life with. Whether he acts on these impulses, it all depends on whether he is comfortable within himself to do so. This will take a lot of time for Joseph to come to this point, but he has to realize that shielding himself from his other soul mates is not going to help him heal.By allowing these soul mates to enter his life, he will realize for what reason his deceased wife came into his life and left so abruptly. It's all a learning process and one in which Joseph needs to enter in order for him to release the negativity he is bestowing on himself in the name of grief.Francine and Jennifer are merely products of bad relationships. Both figure what's the point? Until they release this negative thinking, they will bring this baggage into whatever future relationships that may be in stow for them and it will be a pattern they will continue until they realize that this negative thinking is what is preventing them from finding their true soul mates and finding the happiness they are looking for.Baggage from past relationships shouldn't hinder you from giving up on finding your soul mate. Once you understand that they all served purposes towards your self-growth ? even the bad ones ? and you can work through the karma associated with it, you're that much closer to finding your higher self. It's your higher self where you find the life, the creativity and the love you deserve.*names have been changedAbout Dorothy ThompsonAuthor and soul mate expert Dorothy Thompson is one of the nation's leading authority on soul mates. Her book "Romancing the Soul" and ebook "How to Find and Keep Your Soul Mate" are one of the most comprehensive guides to explaining what soul mates are really all about. Dorothy's relationship columns have appeared in publications in the U.S. and abroad and has been quoted in such books as "Mean Girls Grown Up: Adulte Women Who Are Still Queen Bees, Middle Bees, and Afraid-to-Bees" by Cheryl Dellasega. She is a popular radio media guest, appearing on such shows and Lifetime Radio, Around2It, and Cuzin Eddie Show with Penny Sansevieri and will appear on Single Talk (World Talk Radio) and 850 KOA-AM (Clear Channel Radio with listeners in 38 states, Canada and Mexico)in September 2005.To learn more about books and upcoming interviews from Dorothy Thompson and to receive a FREE newsletter on how to find and keep your soul mate, please go to http://www.dorothythompson.net
A Look at Interracial Relationships
A Look at Interracial Relationships
There's something about America, our history, our values or maybe the very contradictions of our society that can still make interracial relationships a lot more difficult than others. Most relationships deal with mostly internal pressures with perhaps a little added tension from family or friends. Interracial relationships deal with all of the usual difficulties plus negative input from society at large, which means that people you don't even know and have never met will have an opinion about your relationship, often negative, simply because two people from different groups have fallen in love.Historically, in America, the interracial relationships that have been met with the most widespread and violent responses exist between blacks and whites. Strictly due to America's history of importing blacks as slaves which created a huge divide between blacks and whites, interracial relationships made headlines, sparked riots and even led to the creation of laws both forbidding them and protecting them, depending on the different states involved. It's a sad story when a country as a whole casts a shadow over love between any two consenting adults.When Sydney Poitier "Came to Dinner", when Sammy Davis Jr. married Mai Britt, when a black man first kissed a white woman on TV, people got upset, sparks flew, fires burned and people died. It seems silly now, in retrospect, that a black man and a white woman should have any more problems maintaining a relationship than anybody else. But, in some places, they still do. And even though that situation has quieted down some, it hasn't gone away and any odd set of circumstances could conceivably fan those flames once again.Even worse, due to the history of the past 25 years in America, with more and more people coming here from different parts of the world, the problem has actually expanded. Instead of blacks, Muslims have come under pressure in America and interracial relationships between whites and Muslims are the new sore spot in interracial relationships. Hopefully, we can evolve someday to a place where relationships between any two people can be treated without the distraction of skin color, religious background or any other irrelevant factors.Relationships Info provides detailed information about online relationships, long distance relationships, relationship advice, relationship problems, relationship quizzes, interracial relationships, and more. Relationships Info is the sister site of Troubled Teens Web.