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February 9 - February 15, 2022
Happily ever after simply means that both partners are known, valued, accepted for who they are and who they are becoming.
workman.com/eightdates
There are many ways people break trust in a relationship, but here are ten of the most common: Not showing up on time Not making their partner a priority Not being there when their partner is hurting or sick Not contributing to the well-being of the family (me rather than we) Not keeping promises Keeping secrets Lying Humiliating or putting down partner in public or private Commiting an act of emotional or physical infidelity Being physically violent
Even when we disagree, we’re still on the same team, trying to find a way to understand each other and work it out.”
Mutual understanding: This is the healthiest and most productive goal of all conflict.
In creating compromise we have to understand each other’s core needs on the issue we’re discussing, as well as each other’s areas of flexibility. However, the goal is not to become identical, it’s to understand each other.
A big source of trouble is the misconception that our problems are all solvable. Our research has shown that 69 percent of the time, when couples talk about that one thing that they always argue about, it’s what we call a perpetual problem. It’s not going to be resolved. Relationships work to the extent that you have a set of perpetual problems that you can learn to live with.
You can’t “solve” your personality or preferred lifestyle differences, nor should you try. Recognizing a perpetual problem for what it is leads to accepting and valuing how each of you is different.
Even people’s fond memories of the 1950s are flawed, as Stephanie Coontz pointed out in her book The Way We Never Were. Back then, married women were often depressed and anxious, feeling unfulfilled without feeling entitled to their own dreams, without financial freedom, dominated by their husbands, and taking medications to control their sadness and anger. Women and men who were unmarried, gay or lesbian, or in alternative relationships were often left out of the cultural story altogether.
Your work is to understand each other, not to define each other or to have the same values.
Money issues aren’t about dollars and cents; they are about what money means to each partner in a relationship.
Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, says that play is “an absorbing, apparently purposeless activity that provides enjoyment and a suspension of self-consciousness and sense of time.” Brown believes that “nothing lights up the brain like play” and that “we are designed to play throughout our whole lives, not just as children.”
Your happiness individually and as a couple doesn’t consist of not having bad experiences, it’s about constantly generating good experiences. Remember the all-important ratio of positive to negative experiences during nonconflict interaction: 20 positive experiences for every negative one. Play is also how we do that.
You can look up hidden locations near you at AtlasObscura.com and explore one of them with your partner as you talk through the questions. You can also explore Geocaches near you—a kind of adult treasure hunt game—by logging into geocache.com and finding hidden treasure boxes near you through GPS coordinates.
When we got married, we had a friend perform the ceremony, and we promised to always embrace the other person exactly as they were.
How do you see your work changing in the future? What do you find exciting about life right now? What are your biggest worries about the future? How do you think we could have more fun in our life? What things are you missing in your life?
Dreaming together is one of the most profound acts you can do in a relationship with each other. And honoring your partner’s dreams is a potent way to express your care for someone, because it shows a profound love. Yes, you’re loyal to each other, but can you also be loyal to what is most sacred and important to the other person? When each partner honors and supports the other’s dreams, everything else in the relationship gets easier, because each person feels supported in being and becoming who they need and want to be.
Doug and Rachel have always felt that their number one job in their marriage, even more than getting their own needs met, was supporting the other one to give their gifts to the world and contribute in whatever way they were called to contribute. In short, they took turns, and they sacrificed, and they supported each other to fulfill their own personal dreams and the collective dreams they felt drawn to contribute to.
