As the Love Month is coming to an end, our attention is now to focus on carrying on with the love theme… As being kind, loving and romantic for one month out of the year just won’t cut it…
To create an amazing relationship, we must be amazing partners… It is common to get sidetracked with the business of life and to neglect, or lose focus on, our partner and our relationship. Let’s set ourselves up to change this as our relationship is the cornerstone of our life! Follow these 3 powerful steps to take your relationship to the next level.
Of course, I’m assuming you are interested in becoming your Best Self, in being the Best Partner, in creating your Best Relationship, and living your Best Life. If you are satisfied with everything as it is and don’t want to continue to evolve and see how awesome you can make things, then we are not your cup of tea- and that’s ok.
Our content and work are geared for partners and couples who are high achievers and performers and who want to take full advantage of what this life has to offer. They want to crack the codes and win at the game of life… They want to have a radiant and successful relationship…
If you are with us, take these 3 powerful steps to keep the love alive and keep enriching and nurturing your relationship. Let’s take your relationship to the next level…
The 3 Powerful Steps
We can only create the relationship and life we desire when we are intentional and proactive about it. An epic love affair with our partner, keeping the love and spark alive, and creating a meaningful life don’t happen by accident or by default…
The relationship and life we desire need to be designed and then created…
It’s funny to me when people ask, Should having a great relationship require work? The answer is a resounding, YES! But note that I don’t look at it as work though, you see… I look at anything relationship related as relationship enrichment, nurturing, tending, minding, creating and the like- and it’s lovely to do!
You wouldn’t go about building a house without designing it and having a blueprint first, would you? The following steps help with the design and the blueprint…
STEP 1 – The State of the Union…
In this step, the idea is to assess how your joint life and relationship are going. You’d first review the overall quality of your life and relationship, and then specific aspects of them.
You can assess the things that are important to you now. There are seasons in life and in our relationship. Different things are important to us at different times.
You might already have done a tremendous job improving, enriching, and enhancing the quality of your life and relationship so a higher-level assessment would be in order for you. You might already have a great relationship and life, but do you want to have an extraordinary one? How is your lifestyle, your legacy, your impact?
And, if you are struggling in your relationship and your life, you’ve come to the right place. You’d assess personal characteristics, mindset, skills, habits, self-management, resilience, and strategies both at the personal and relational level that affect how you go about creating your relationship and life…
You’d also assess your relationship mindset, communication and alignment, dynamics and patterns, connection and intimacy, collaboration and partnership…
What have you been working on and why?
STEP 2 – How Far You’ve Already Come…
It is common for us to lose sight of the Journey we’ve been on, how much we have already accomplished, how far we’ve already come personally and with our partner…
In this step the focus is on acknowledging all the hurdles, all the challenges, all the difficulties we’ve been through and how we’ve managed to survive them and possibly even thrive because of them…
Here we get to give ourselves and the partnership credit for everything we have already addressed, fixed, resolved, learned, implemented, improved, and everything else. We don’t live in a vacuum, and we don’t live static lives. You have been on a Journey, you are better for it, alone and together. Grab all the yummy stuff that’s already here…
If you are having a difficult time finding the progress, the achievements, the successes – focus on all the attempts, efforts, and things you’ve tried to help you improve your lot. You have done plenty, believe me. Just give yourself and your partner credit for what you’ve already done.
Your efforts might feel like they were in vain, but they were not. They are all a part of you and who you are Becoming… Nothing is a waste… Grab all the investment you’ve put into your relationship and your life already…
Celebrate that you’ve been living your Journey…
STEP 3 – On to What’s Next…
You might have really enjoyed Step1 and Step2 and are really looking forward to this final step. Or, the first 2 steps felt like a 2×2 upside the head. Either way, this step helps you take things to the next level…
Here we get dust off our relationship and life blueprint… If you have been with us for a while, you might have your Life Vision handy… This is your North Star, your guiding mechanism.
Your vision doesn’t have to be written in stone, it can be revised, updated, and even overhauled as you go. But at any given time, you need to be striving towards something… Otherwise you are creating by default- and we don’t want that!
If you don’t have a Vision, now is the time to dream yours up… Make it a stretch, make it fun, make it meaningful… Cover all life areas- what would your Best Life look and feel like? What do you want to create? What’s your Partner’s role, contribution, and impact? How do you Co-Create?
This is what you want to build… This is what you want to create with your partner- Relationship and Life…
Take note of where you’d like to be, and how you’d like to be… What specific things or areas need attention?
Now that you have where you’ve been, where you are, and where you want to go you are ready to take your relationship, and life, to the next level…
APPLICATION: Now that Love Month is over, is time to set up for more Loving throughout the year… Take your relationship to the next level with a plan for working out the kinks and continuing your nurturing…
Set time aside to explore the steps for yourself, process them in your Journal, make a list of specific things that stand out, highlight the things of note:
STEP 1 – The State of the Union…Review the status and state of your relationship and your life. The overall feel and the specific areas. Take note of these as well: Relationship mindset, communication and alignment, dynamics and patterns, connection and intimacy, collaboration and partnership… What is your current area of focus, and why?
STEP 2 – How Far You’ve Already Come…Review and capture all the ups and downs in your relationship and your life. Identify the patterns, the lessons learned and the things you accomplished, addressed, and resolved. Give yourself credit for all the effort invested. Give yourself, and your partner, compassion for the Journey you are on.
STEP 3 – On to What’s Next…Review your Life Vision, or create one…, to serve as your North Star for going forward. Filter everything in your relationship and life against this Vision as you go to help streamline, focus, stay in alignment, and on the right path…
IMPORTANT: Schedule time to meet with your partner to share and get on the same page. Give them a heads-up beforehand so they are not blindsided and so they can do this exercise themselves or at least have given it some thought.
Grab these for your takeaway: ~ Areas of focus to smooth out kinks in the relationship ~ Adding/continuing relationship nurturing activities ~ Corrective measures to your lifestyle and goals/projects to course correct and better align with your vision
When you are intentional about what you are creating, you’ll create what you desire…
Wishing you all the joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
PS: Masterclasses
If you missed this month’s Masterclass, or any previous ones, you can still get them through our Member Center with a Lifestyle Membership! Enroll HERE
This month’s Masterclass Relationship Enrichment Mini Retreat- Connect More Deeply, Rekindle Your Love Keeping the love alive is not easy. Relationship slumps are common, but they don’t have to do you in. Come learn how to recharge your relationship and rekindle your love. Includes Recording and gorgeous Workbook of transformational processes
Copyright (c) 2022 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
You know, it’s not enough to desire to have an amazing relationship. For us to have an amazing relationship, we have to want it and create it… This is where partners go wrong. They might just expect it to happen on its own.
They don’t necessarily know how to go about creating their extraordinary relationship. Or, they try but their attempts don’t pan out… Sometimes the relationship might feel like a dry sponge, it needs more than one drop of water for it to work well as a sponge… Embrace nurturing your relationship, use the 5 relationship boosting activities to get you going…
Note though, that any relationship strengthening, enrichment, and nurturing exercises and activities can’t happen in a vacuum. In and of themselves they won’t do much…
The key is to have a Relationship Enrichment Mindset™– to recognize the relationship as the cornerstone of our life, to decide to have a radiant and successful relationship, to choose to be the Best Partner, and to embrace relationship enrichment and nurturing as a lifestyle…
One such great addition to your lifestyle it to Date Your Partner… Aside from doing the Connection Habits, the Delighting Your Partner and other nurturing tactics, it is important to stay romantically engaged to keep the spark alive…
The 5 relationship boosting activities help bring the romance back…
Relationship Boosting Activities
You can add these to your repertoire of activities you integrate into your lifestyle to create your extraordinary relationship…
1 ~ Reminiscing – We have very short-term memories for the good stuff… We tend to forget all the good we’ve been through… During Couple Time, Date Night, special time set aside for this, or on the go, bring back memories of special moments, cute situations, fun experiences, anecdotes, pranks and anything else that sparks joy and connection and brings a smile to your faces.
2 ~ Complimenting – We are great at complaining and pointing out what we don’t like and what’s been done wrong… How about we flip that on its head and focus instead on acknowledging, appreciating, and pointing out all the good things. And, how about making it a point of praising and complimenting our partner daily going forward…
3 ~ Wishing – We are usually too focused on the daily grind to pick up our heads and think and plan for the future. Specially for the fun things… Couples get in a rut as this happens and it becomes harder to think of fun things to do, to plan them and to actually have fun doing them… Invite your partner to create a joint Fun Wish List and/or Bucket List of things to experience together. Enjoy the brainstorm and building the anticipation.
4 ~ Experiencing – It is not enough to live in the same home, raise our children, and go on vacation a couple of times a year. Relationships need meaningful, touching, and fun moments to become memorable and feel special. Partners need to feel each other, enjoy each other, and enjoy life together. Play with your bucket and wish lists to have great experiences and have great fun together, create amazing memories to cherish for a lifetime.
5 ~ Touching – Make it your business to touch your partner… This includes all kinds of touching- putting your hand on their shoulder, arm, or lower back, holding hands, kissing good morning and good night, cuddling, hugging, kissing, caressing, touching more intimately, making out and go from there…
Our relationship is what we make of it… Our relationship is what we make it…
Watch the video on the 5 Relationship Boosting Activities… Enjoy!
APPLICATION: Choose a Relationship Boosting Activity to play with and integrate into your life this coming week:
1 ~ Reminiscing – Set time aside to remember the good times 2 ~ Complimenting – Praise and compliment your partner on something daily 3 ~ Wishing – Create a Fun Wish List or Bucket List together 4 ~ Experiencing – Map out and schedule your fun experiences 5 ~ Touching – Experiment with different ways of touching your partner…
Creating an extraordinary relationship doesn’t have to be challenging. All that is required is the will and being intentional about it… You CAN create the relationship you desire… Keep the spark alive!
Wishing you all the joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
PS: Masterclasses
❤️This month’s Masterclass Relationship Enrichment Mini Retreat- Connect More Deeply, Rekindle Your Love Keeping the love alive is not easy. Relationship slumps are common, but they don’t have to do you in. Come learn how to recharge your relationship and rekindle your love. Includes Recording and gorgeous Workbook of transformational processes Register HERE
❤️If you missed the embracing a Self-Love Practice Masterclass, you can still get it through our Member Center with a Lifestyle Membership! A Self-Love Strategy for Creating Your Best Life- Stop Self-Sabotage, Increase Resilience, and Generate More Joy Includes Recording and gorgeous Workbook of transformational processes Enroll HERE
Copyright (c) 2022 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
How much do you love Valentine’s Day? That’s a tricky question, posed as an invitation for you to think about Relationship Nurturing… Regardless of how you feel about the holiday, and regardless of the status of your relationship…, I encourage you to use it to earmark a moment to step it up in the love department in your relationship…
For you see any excuse to be nicer, more generous, more nurturing, more wooing should be an automatic, Yes. This is how you uplevel your relationship by delighting your partner…
I obviously agree that this should not just be left for Valentine’s Day… Let me offer my yearly disclaimer and then we can get to delighting your partner. 😉
Part of what makes good relationships great, is the extra mile the partners go to for their partner… This is beyond the business of life… They are willing to put in the time, to give the attention, to create the fun and funny memories, to create traditions, to do special gestures outside of the routine, to create special moments that highlight what is important.
Celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day and the rest of the holidays by adding something special for your partner shows your partner they are your person… Your partner should not be treated like everybody else and obviously not worse, which unfortunately happens too often…
So- Valentine’s Day is just another opportunity to do something special for your partner. Ok? Ok.
And hey, I get that figuring out what to do for fun, what to do for Date Night, and how to woo your partner for Valentine’s Day and otherwise can leave most partners at a loss. Delighting your partner can be such a pleasure for them and for you…
Let me show you how to be Delighting…
Delighting Your Partner
Delighting your partner has to do with doing gestures that touch their heart. Plain and simple. We can go completely out of our way to do something for our partner but if they don’t want it, like it or appreciate it, we are just wasting our time.
It is very easy for us to think of what is best for our partner and to think we know what they need, according to us. But most of the time when we are coming from this place, we are just in their circle (owning them, crossing boundaries, codependently caretaking) and not really being delighting…
The key to Delighting our partner has to do with giving them what they would like because they’ve told us or from what we know about them (not from a caretaking place). If getting the nuance here is challenging, refer toother boundary setting and ownership work.
Even after that distinction it might still be challenging to think of how, and to keep things fresh and interesting.
Some ways to help you come up with ideas is to use your partner’s:
• Practical Needs • Emotional Needs • Love Language • Interests • Idiosyncrasies • Desires • Dreams
You can generate a list of gifts, gestures, activities, and more for each item listed to prime yourself and get the creative juices going. Don’t limit yourself to what you come up with, let this serve as an inspiration and a tickler to generate additional ideas…
Be always on the lookout for what might tickle your partner’s heart.
You don’t have to torture yourself to be super creative and think outside the box for the most special gift ever and the most romantical outing ever. LOL
The key to Delighting your partner is to know your partner and do the things that pleases them…
Other Categories
You can come up with as many other categories as you’d like, and then flesh them out for specific Delighting gestures… For example:
Routine & Sustenance Related – On a recurring basis as a ritual or spontaneously as a treat, do anything from this list or your version of them for your partner
• Breakfast in bed • Morning coffee • Workout shake • Green smoothie or juice • Cut up or baked vegetables for snacking • Salad or other healthy lunch • Healthy midafternoon snack or treat • Flavored tea • Favorite dinner • Decadent dessert
Romancing & Wooing Related – On an ongoing basis, for special occasions, or just because, use these romantical and wooing gestures and activities or your version of them towards your partner (We have a few vendors we like, check them out Here!)
• Fresh flowers bouquets, wreaths, plants • Perfumes, candles, essential oils • Handcrafted chocolates or other delicacies, novelty, or decadent treats • Tickets to events or activities • Gags and pranks • Couple classes (i.e., flower arrangements, cooking, chocolate making, dancing) • Other experiences (i.e., massage and body ritual, food and wine tasting, driving experience) • Being in nature (i.e., hiking, camping, stargazing, fruit picking) • Relationship scrapbooking or music playlisting • Sexy toys, clothing, activities
Delighting your partner doesn’t have to stump you. Just take a moment to don your generous, nurturing and playful vibes and give it a think.
Watch the video for inspiration on embracing Delighting Your Partner… Enjoy!
APPLICATION: Decide to embrace a Relationship Nurturing Practice that includes Delighting Your Partner…
1. Select or identify a Delighting Category you’ll play with this month 2. Flesh out what kind of gestures, activities, and gifting it might include 3. Map out your delivery of this deliciousness throughout the month
Have fun Delighting your partner!
Now think what would happen to your relationship if you did this every month… How is that for a challenge, will you accept it?
Remember, that to have an amazing relationship means, we have to create an amazing relationship… Here is to yours!
Wishing you all the joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
PS: Masterclasses
🌟 This month’s Masterclass
Relationship Enrichment Mini Retreat- Connect More Deeply, Rekindle Your Love Keeping the love alive is not easy. Relationship slumps are common, but they don’t have to do you in.
Come learn how to recharge your relationship and rekindle your love. Includes Recording and gorgeous Workbook of transformational processes Register HERE
🌟 If you missed the embracing a Self-Love Practice Masterclass, you can still get it through our Member Center with a Lifestyle Membership!
A Self-Love Strategy for Creating Your Best Life- Stop Self-Sabotage, Increase Resilience, and Generate More Joy
Includes Recording and gorgeous Workbook of transformational processes Enroll HERE
Copyright (c) 2022 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
Happy Love Month! This is when things can begin to look up. It is up to us to grab the possible new vibe… It is up to us to create a new vibe… Will you continue to feel exhausted, burnt out, unmotivated and blah?
Or will you replenish yourself with a rich Self-Love Practice and set the right tune for the year? Will you generate lovely notes to fill your heart and share it with others? Will you be open to giving and receiving more love in your relationship? Connection Habits help enhance or rekindle love…
Partners operate as if once they have a commitment from each other that the relationship box can be checked off.
Because we finally found our Soulmate (our best possible match for us now with all the potential in the universe), it doesn’t mean that we can now move on to other projects or life endeavors…
This is the furthest thing from what we should be doing (yes, I’m using the word should– that’s how important this is!). If we don’t make a commitment to be fully invested in our relationship from now till we choose otherwise, we won’t have a choice about it eventually… If we don’t invest in our relationship, if we don’t nurture it, it could get so bad we’d be running for the hills, or living a very unhappy life…
Our relationship is like a garden, if we don’t water it, it withers and dies…
Most partners have no clue how to Nurture their relationship, especially if they are struggling or going through a slump. Nurturing our relationship doesn’t have to be this illusive concept and challenging effort…
The easiest way to strengthen your bond, deepen your connection, and enhance or rekindle your love is through Connection Habits.
Connection Habits
When partners think about how to improve or uplevel their relationship, they often find themselves at a loss.
There are many factors at play in our relationship that make it challenging for us to figure out where to start to make things better… A lot of times our efforts are Band-Aids on dirty wounds. Even the best of intentions are taken the wrong way and do more harm than good. But this is not as hopeless as it seems. The key is to first plant a flag to stop spinning, and then go from there.
What is this flag? This has to do with having a Relationship Enrichment Mindset™… If our mindset is messed up about our relationship (or relationships in general!) and about our partner, we are starting off on the wrong foot. Therefore, the best thing to do is to address our mindset…
With an upgraded relationship mindset, the universe is the limit!
Your Bond is the Essence of your relationship. This is what makes you feel like you are in a relationship, that you belong, that you are not alone, that somebody has your back, that you are a Partnership.
Connection Habits in this area have to do things like staying in touch, checking-in, sharing, debriefing, doing caring or caretaking activities.
II. Connection Habits for Deepening Your Connection
After a while relationships tend to go south or flat if the partners have not intentionally addressed concerns and patterns and if they haven’t nurtured each other and the relationship. It is very easy to feel disconnected from our partner. We might go through the basic motions of being in a relationship, but if the interactions remain superficial based on the mundane we start to feel less connected…
Connection Habits in this area have to do with having deeper and more meaningful interactions like processing triggers, discussing life, sharing desires, wishes, dreams, developing traditions, having planning sessions
III. Connection Habits for Enhancing or Rekindling Your Love
If we neglect the relationship and our partner, the love does fade away (sorry, don’t shoot the messenger!)… Love is a verb, it is not a noun… When we are not loving we can’t feel love… For us to feel the love for our partner, we have to cultivate it. The more we cultivate the more we harvest… This is also true for if you are not feeling romantic love for your partner or if you believe you “fell out of love”…
Connection Habits in this area have to do with doing the loving, wooing, and charming gestures that are fun or romantic, spark joy, create memories, have a ritualistic aspect, touches the other’s heart, makes the other feel special and cherished…
We can easily stay on a path to creating a successful relationship and epic love with our partner by intentionally and systematically being nurturing with Connection Habits…
Watch the video for inspiration on establishing Connection Habits… Enjoy!
APPLICATION: This Month of Love step up your game nurturing your relationship and your partner.
💗Depending on the current state or feel of your relationship, decide where your relationship could use an infusion of Connection Habits:
• Strengthening Your Bond • Deepening Your Connection • Enhancing or Rekindling your Love
You can add one habit per category for a balanced approach, or focus on one of the categories with more habits to really upgrade that area.
💗Decide what kind of feelings you’d like to feel and what kind of feel you’d like the relationship to have, and design your habit/s with the intention of generating those feelings.
💗Integrate the habit/s into your daily, weekly, monthly routines to automate nurturing your relationship…
Have fun design and integrating habits that tickle your hearts!
It doesn’t have to take work to nurture your relationship and show your partner love. Implementing a Connection Habits Tactic takes all the effort out of creating a loving and joyous relationship!
Here is to much connection and love this month and the rest of the year!
Wishing you all the joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
PS: If you missed the Self-Love Masterclass, you can still get it through our Member Center with a Lifestyle Membership!
A Self-Love Strategy for Creating Your Best Life Stop Self-Sabotage, Increase Resilience, and Generate More Joy Includes Recording and gorgeous Workbook of transformational processes Enroll HERE
Copyright (c) 2022 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
It feels terrible when we have the same arguments over the same disagreements, over and over again… Doesn’t it? It’s so frustrating to feel like we are living in the twilight zone, or that we are having a Groundhog Day experience… It’s tough to know that we’ll have the same conversation without resolution, yet again. Feeling like beating your head against the wall? Having repeating arguments, how you’re your relationship dynamics?
Having the same fight, or conflict, over and over might have to do with communication skills, but most importantly it has to do with your relationship dynamics… For you see something happens before a fight ensues, before a conflict is identified or sometimes even before verbal communication is started. And that is being triggered…
Being triggered means our sensitivities get perturbed. Or that core or old wounds or trauma get poked. The poking engenders strong emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety, sadness, numbness, or feeling out of control.
When these feelings come on strong, they are accompanied by higher activation of neurotransmitters in our brain and hormonal release. The cocktail floods us and monopolizes our brain activity, becoming less engaged with our higher executive functioning. This is where the amounts of skills or tools you have don’t matter as they become inaccessible…
Our getting thrown off might result in our isolating, shutting down emotionally, becoming argumentative, or becoming physically aggressive. At this juncture the partners resemble toddlers in their ability to manage themselves.
This is why it’s so important to do our personal development work. For healing and growing ourselves up, so we don’t walk around with gaping wounds and sensitivities that are easily triggered. And that drive our approach to life and our relationship, and our relationship dynamics…
In interactions with our partner, we have the opportunity for healing and growing ourselves up. This is the bonus benefit of being in relationship with our Partner and their perfect imperfections that perfectly complement our own…
It behooves partners to not lose sight of this gift, and to transcend the recurring dissatisfying patterns by addressing their triggers through the Relationship Enrichment Lifestyle™.
When getting triggered in our relationship, there is a built-in opportunity to now get what we didn’t get growing up (to heal)… And, for learning how to stretch ourselves to meet our partner’s opposing needs (to grow up, become whole)…
Once we integrate this into our relating, we are able to tap into our inherent relationship synergy… This is when the waters part, and life is our oyster… LOL
Learning what drives the dynamics (our and our partner’s triggers) and how to work with them for our evolution and more meaningful Journey, is a marvelous lens and mindset to embrace in our relationship. This is when we stop the power struggle and becomes allies. This is when we become a true Partnership…
This is then our conscious and intentional relationship. Being aware of our triggers and being mindful and intentional about addressing them, is the way to change the relationship dynamics and to create the relationship we want. This is the key to our transformation…
Changing the Dynamics
It’s very easy to feel stuck, frustrated and hopeless when it seems that we just go around and around in our conversations, if we even have them, without getting anywhere. The same issue/s keep creeping up and no matter what we do we can’t seem to crack the code. But with a little mindfulness and intentionality we have the keys to the kingdom.
The Reactivity
The key is to pay attention to the reactivity. Start noticing when you get prickly, what gets on your nerves or annoys you, what are you sensitive about, what touches your sensitivities, and such. Now do this by observing what happens to you, what comes up for you. Don’t do this by focusing on what your partner is doing or not doing, and taking yourself on a ride about them…
Then notice how you respond in the interaction or situation. What do you do outwardly and inwardly? What are your “emotional behaviors”? Shut down, withdraw, distance, dismiss, minimize, and the like? Or pounce, attack, pursue, nag, control, maximize, and the like?
The set of reactions you identified are your go-to Defense Mechanisms…
You can be on a spectrum from Distancer to Pursuer… The higher the conflict in the relationship, the more the polarization…
What are you feeling behind your defense mechanisms? Controlled, smothered, suffocated, cornered, unappreciated, inadequate? Or, abandoned, rejected, unwanted, unworthy, unsupported, alone?
These feelings are your Wounds…
The Distancer feels – Controlled, smothered, suffocated, cornered, unappreciated, inadequate
The Pursuer feels – Abandoned, rejected, unwanted, unworthy, unsupported, alone
Share the instructions with your partner and have identify their Defense Mechanisms and Wounds… I’m sure that by just doing your side, you can probably identify your partner’s as well. But it’s best for them to identify and own their own experience…
Regardless of how you arrive at identifying your partner’s side, I’m sure you’ll notice that you are opposites… A little or a whole lot.
Now, don’t let this scare you as Opposites Attract… And, once you start doing your work, you’ll become less polarized and learn to work with your differences to the satisfaction of you both.
Your Reciprocity Loop
Your dynamics is a reciprocity loop, a recurring repeating pattern. Actually, it’s a beautiful dance between the oppositeness…
You want closeness, they want space.
You want to discuss things to process, they need time on their own to think to process.
You want to be flexible, they want to run on schedule.
You want to do things together, they want to do things on their own.
And, so on…
Partners might get triggered in the face of the different preferences… Specially if there is already some disconnection and unappreciation going on at the moment…
The Looping: Something happens. Partner A gets Triggered and responds with their Defense Mechanism. Which Triggers Partner B, who responds with their own Defense Mechanism. Resulting in Partner A having their Wounds/Feelings additionally triggered, to which they respond with more of their Defense Mechanism. Additionally, triggering Partner B’s Wounds/Feelings. And on it goes…
Let’s say:
Partner B announces they’ll be away for the next three days.
This makes Partner A feel unwanted, rejected and abandoned.
They react by demanding why the partner is going away, asking a million questions about the trip, requesting a gazillion things get done before they go away, asking them to come back early, and such.
Partner B now feels controlled, nagged, and trapped.
They in turn don’t want to provide details on the trip, are evasive about the possibility of coming back early, forget to do some of the tasks requested, and such.
This makes Partner A feel more unwanted, alone, dismissed, unsupported. So, they become more controlling, demanding and such.
Now Partner B feels more controlled, unappreciated, and suffocated.
And it can really escalate…
Does this sound familiar? I know, you are not alone!
The Transformation
Without spelling out therapy sessions here, the first and most basic thing to do is keep your understanding of your dynamics top of mind.
So, when your partner does something that triggers you, you can put it in the right context for yourself and address what comes up differently…
And so, equally as important, is to be mindful to not operate or react in a way that triggers your partner…
Giving each other a different experience, especially a different outcome in the face of a trigger is what’s healing… These are reparative experiences.
Another way to be healing is to ongoingly and proactively do behaviors that are antidotes to the Wounds. So, what’s needed is provided without having triggers making noise to get needs met.
For example, build-in couple/connection/togetherness and individual/alone/separateness times into your routines…
The additional beauty here, is that in stretching to give our partner their preference, we grow… So, it’s a win-win.
And that’s how you do it. Hang on to this golden ticket my friend, play with this concept to transform your relationship. You’ll be amazed at what’s possible once you crack this code! Enjoy!
ASSIGNMENT: Make a concerted effort at becoming a conscious and intentional couple… Keep your dynamics and working them top of mind!
Identify your Defense Mechanisms and Wounds
Identify your Loop
Identify behavior and attitude changes to avoid Triggering each other
Identify and implement ongoing Habits to tend to the Needs related to the Wounds
As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
Copyright (c) 2021 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT has been in the mental health profession in varying capacities for the past 20+ years. She is the Founder and Director of metrorelationship.com a psychotherapy and coaching practice specializing in working with busy professional and entrepreneurial couples who are struggling getting on the same page and feeling connected. The work helps couples create a radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life by becoming a strong partnership and increasing their connection, intimacy, and fun. Emma is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Relationship Strategy™.
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