Relationship problems are so complex, and with so many moving parts in the dynamic between two people of how on earth can anyone make sense of what is going on in a way that makes them successful.
Just because the problems are complex does it really mean the solutions should be complex too?
How I see it is if you have a flat tyre you are either blowing it up or you are not.
Why make it more complicated than that for couples who already have busy lives
So what if learning how to become successful with each other is as simple as learning, here is what works, and here is what doesn’t.
Now the choice of how you show up is up to you.
As long as you don’t lose your personal integrity and you don’t have to change who you are, who wouldn’t want that solution?
My clients are smart growth-orientated people who are after clarity.
They want something simple to remember, easy to implement, and yet powerful enough to influence positive change.
In some cases, they’ll have clarity that change in their situation isn’t possible the way they want it and this frees them from being stuck.
In essence, they just want to know what to do that will take them to a happier life after all you only get one!
They are in a marriage that isn’t working, either emotionally, or sexually, their connection at best is transactional and some are wondering if they might be incompatible.
They might be of course, but by not finding out what they are truly capable of they could be making a horrible mistake especially with children involved.
Many clients do have obvious childhood challenges they bring into adult life, but they really don’t want to open that box they want a simple approach.
This lady was abused as a child and it caused havoc in her relationships she wanted a simple solution
One switched on lady needed an effective solution to a problem she knew came from her childhood abuse.
She controlled everything in her relationship because letting go of that control meant dangerous vulnerability.
Being the child of an abusive mother and a sexually abusing uncle, there is no way she was going to let that pain happen to her again!
The result is the men she chose had very little they could do for her, she wouldn’t let them help her because she knew she didn’t need them.
She could only trust herself.
Not needing him protected her.
If she did allow him to take action, she controlled what he did, so he lost his freedom in his quest to comply with her pattern of protection.
The result: She killed his masculine energy but then she complained he was lazy and hopeless.
Her control of him made her feel like she was his mother and now sexual attraction was challenged/non-existent.
So do we go back and take her through all that pain from her past to solve this, of course not.
I decided to give her the tools to help the man in her life become successful with her, she was to teach him what she needed to help her feel like a girl, but in a way that helped him feel like a man.
She was in control and vulnerable, but this time in an empowering way for their dynamic.
Now she can know what it feels like not just to be loved and looked after, but what it’s like to be loved as a woman/girl for the first time.
Her success was in knowing what to do! – Simple solutions not complex and not painful journey into a painful history.
Simple is good because simple can be remembered and when it works it will feel good and when it’s easy to do it can become a new pattern.
Notice what you see isn’t working and take steps to learn something new
- How many people know their argument isn’t going to make them more loving, connected and happier, but they do it anyway?
- How many people can see the pressure they are putting on their partner for sex is making their partner want it less?
- How many people have an affair and then wonder why years later that mistake is still in their relationship?
In their droves, couples are repeating patterns that clearly don’t work and because they can’t find a better behavior they keep the one that’s clearly destroying a marriage they will fight for in the end.
Didn’t someone famous say, repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result was a sign of madness?!!
Keep it simple and find out the simple new behaviors that will add value to you both, if you don’t know what to do find out.
To be clear don’t kick yourself if you don’t know what these new behaviors should be, you’re not supposed to know.
The answers are there for those hungry to learn…