An email I received recently went something like this: “Sometimes I put in my best and yet it seems I must be trying too hard to make the relationship work because whatever I do it still doesn’t seem to be going the way I want it to. Why?” I hear this so often and yet […]
Listening is such an important part of relationships, one often overlooked in our consideration of what makes a relationship great. The skill of listening really isn’t a difficult one and you can improve your listening skills in just a few simple steps. Perhaps the most important tip for being a better listener is to give […]
The best laid plans of mice and men… One of my blogs raised such a response that I feel I should say something more about the topic. The topic of that blog was: Five Questions to Ask Yourself When You Love Them Both Equally. And the comments that followed this blog raised further questions like: What […]
Most relationships are very exciting in the beginning but if you have been in your current relationship for a while already you may have noticed that the initial excitement you experienced is starting to waiver and you and your partner may be settling into a dull routine. As a relationship progresses one or both partners […]
How Do I Change Him/Her In all aspects of relationship there can be a conflict between short-term gratification and the long-term goal of creating a satisfying and enduring relationship. The reality is that in relationships, effort and patience are required on the part of each of you to make a sustained long-term improvement. And here’s […]
Relationship Stage Five The Ultimate goal for every relationship is ‘Happily Ever After’. When you are at the definitive stage of relationships you just know in your very heart that that is exactly where you are. This stage is about being independent of and inter-dependent with your partner all at the same time. It is […]
Relationship Stage 4: Reconnection Stage four of your relationship is about ‘Reconnection’, where the patterns of intimacy swing backwards and forwards as you strengthen your personal identity and learn to maintain your own point of view without hostility. You think more productively about your differences and disagreements instead of having automatic negative reactions. This stage […]
Stage 3: Moving from “We” Back To “Me” The third stage of relationships is called ‘Exploration’, as you move from the all encompassing “We” back to an individual “I”. When you are able to resist the pressure to return to a symbiotic state you begin to re-establish your own identity and self-esteem that, for a […]
Relationship Stage 1: When all I can see is the good bits of you The first phase of a ‘real’ relationship is called ‘Symbiosis or Exclusive Bonding’. You arrive at a dance, your eyes lock in on someone across the other side of the room and you know that this is the person with whom […]
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Shakespeare Following on from my previous blog entries introducing the idea of scripts and the games people play it seems appropriate to now address the ‘acts’ or stages that your script takes you through and of the games we play as we […]