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Your Relationship Creates a Life of Support or a Life of Struggle
Most partners in relationships believe themselves to be generally a supportive partner. They have an idea of what being supportive means, and believe they are living up to that idea.
Also, most partners believe they are more supportive of their partner in their relationship than their partner is of them. Or that they provide more support than their partner does. Which leaves most partners feeling fairly unsupported in their relationship.
Our relationship is the cornerstone of our human experience. Making support a super important attribute to cultivate in our relationship for it to feel and be best it can be.
The problem is that most partners think they are being supportive, but their partners are not feeling supported. Leaving us with the conclusion that they might not really know how to best be supportive…
In this episode, I talk about how partners believe they are supportive in their relationship but how in actuality they are not. Their words, actions or how they show up is not one of a supportive partner. I offer how to address this from an empowering position so both partners win.
I share 10 specific ways in how partners are not supportive in their relationship that create a life of struggle instead of a life of blissful success, and how to change that. The 10 ways line up with the new edition of the Successful Relationship Strategy™, providing a full spectrum upgrade to uplevel your relationship.
In today’s episode, I:
Share how partners believe they are supportive but how they might not be
Offer 10 ways in which partners are not supportive and how to change that
Show you how to empower yourself and get more support from your partner
Debut the new edition of our Successful Relationship Strategy™
Outline how to advocate for and create a successful and radiant relationship
Announce the celebration of our Practice 25th and our Podcast 2nd Anniversaries with special gifts and offers for you!
10 Ways Partners Are Not Being Supportive (and How to Shift Them)
Commitment & Mindset
Unsupportive: Undermine
Shift: Update Perspective
Supportive: Stay dedicated to figuring out what works for both of you
Failing to support overall success and wellbeing
Doubting, being absent, neglecting goals, not backing dreams
Shift: Reframe expectations and beliefs; hold a success-oriented mindset for each other
Not allowing partner to be authentic
Forcing them to fit roles, not letting them be themselves
Shift: Accept and support authenticity; embrace differences instead of controlling
Communication & Alignment
Unsupportive: Oppose
Shift: Seek Understanding
Supportive: Be mindful to honor both sides of the experience
Gaslighting, dismissing, or invalidating
Making partner feel invalidated, crazy, or “too much”
Shift: Use communication skills and tools; validate each other’s experience
Shift: Listen, notice, and respond with attunement; show care in real time
Connection & Intimacy
Unsupportive: Withhold
Shift: Expand Nourishing
Supportive: Establish nourishing rhythms for connection and fun
Not showing up for what matters
Missing important events, not backing priorities
Shift: Actively check what matters; prioritize presence and follow-through
Not being available for fun, joy, or shared experiences
Always “too busy” or emotionally checked out
Shift: Build rhythms that include joy, play, and connection; delight them
Collaboration & Partnership
Unsupportive: Block
Shift: Help
Supportive: Set up systems to help collaborate and create shared life
Evading real support
Offering words without action, not backing up with practical help
Shift: Offer both emotional and tangible support; back up words with consistent action
Making things harder instead of smoother
Adding stress, making chaos, creating unnecessary obstacles
Shift: Implement supportive structures and systems that make life smoother
The way to support our partner isn’t what we think it is and what we’re giving. We might actually be making things worse in our relationship and our life completely unaware.
The key is being a truly supportive partner is in how our mindset, communication, patterns, rhythms, and systems support our partner and life together.
Shifting these 10 unsupportive ways creates a life of connection and success instead of struggle.
Listen to the episode to learn how get more support from your partner as well. Enjoy!
Just For You
We are honored to serve you and thrilled to share meaningful milestones and growth with you today. We are celebrating our Practice 25th and our Podcast 2nd Anniversaries, along with the debut of the new edition of the Successful Relationship Strategy™.
Celebrate with us by accessing this special anniversary gift designed to help you uplevel your relationship and create lasting love.
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Curated Podcast Power Series Video Gallery – binge-worthy episodes hand-picked to inspire lasting change
What Struggling Couples Can Learn From Successful Couples (Ep.32)
How to Be Partners in Love (Ep.33)
How to Be Partners in Life (Ep.34)
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Uplevel Your Relationship, Uplevel Your Reality
20 Brutal Truths About Marriage
10 Golden Truths About Marriage
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~~ Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
We can help with our select memberships: Radiance Membership– Transformational content and experiences subscription (Only $29 per month!) Success Membership – Private sessions and Radiance Membership access! (Start with an Initial Session)
~~ Interested in being our Guest? Interested in having Emma be a Guest in your Podcast?
DISCLAIMER: This content is meant to support your Journey and not as a replacement for professional assistance. Additionally, the ideas and resources provides by our guests are their ideas and recommendations alone and not necessarily a reflection of mine
Copyright (c) 2025 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Summer gives us a natural opening for reflection and recalibration. There’s more space, more sun, and more energy to shift the patterns that aren’t working. In our relationships, that means we can use this season as a reset point, to choose something different, more intentional, and more connected.
In this episode, I walk you through the 5 elements of our Successful Relationship Strategy™ and show you how to use each one to up-level your relationship. We look at what’s common in struggling and “just fine” relationships… and what becomes possible when you start doing things differently.
Whether things feel okay or you’re longing for more, this episode will help you identify how to reset your rhythms and invest differently so you can create the love you really want.
In today’s episode, I cover:
The 5 core elements of a thriving relationship
How average habits quietly cap your connection
What an extraordinary relationship actually looks like
Tangible ways to elevate each element this summer
How these elements at the heart of lasting love
At the end of the episode, I also guide you on how to use summer energy to amplify your relationship reset, from playful rituals to meaningful conversations.
You’ll walk away with a clear framework to assess where you’re at, what might need attention, and how to take aligned action to elevate your relationship from ordinary to extraordinary.
The Framework for Your Reset
1. Mindset & Meaning
The way we think about our relationship shapes how we experience it. Our beliefs, assumptions, expectations, and internal narratives can either create connection, or keep us locked in disempowering patterns.
In a Struggling Relationship – There’s blame, criticism, mind-reading, and unrealistic expectations. Partners often operate from old scripts, inherited beliefs, or rigid roles without examining what actually works.
In an Ordinary Relationship – People avoid big issues, tolerate disconnect, and operate from habit. There’s no intentional reframing, just a general “this is how it is.”
In an Extraordinary Relationship – Each partner takes ownership of their perspective, challenges limiting beliefs, and chooses a mindset that empowers them both. They define their own meaning around love, marriage, commitment, partnership, teamwork, roles, and expectations. And do so with clarity and mutual respect.
Reset – Reflect on what beliefs, expectations, or inherited definitions you’re bringing into your relationship. Where are you making assumptions? Where might those need to be updated?t life, be honest:
2. Communication & Alignment
Communication is more than talking, it’s how we connect, understand, and co-create.
In a Struggling Relationship – There’s defensiveness, withdrawal, constant miscommunication, or escalated fights. Repairs don’t happen or happen poorly.
In an Ordinary Relationship – Partners talk mostly about logistics. Emotional depth is rare. They’re not fully attuned or on the same page.
In an Extraordinary Relationship – Communication is intentional and kind. Partners stay curious, validate each other’s experiences, and repair quickly when needed. They speak from a grounded place and know how to collaborate under pressure.
Try this – Notice your communication patterns. Are you interrupting, shutting down, staying surface-level? What small shifts would make your conversations feel safer and more connective?
3. Clarity & Dynamics
Every couple has patterns but without awareness, those patterns run the show.
In a Struggling Relationship – Partners are reactive, constantly triggering each other and looping through unresolved issues. It’s chaotic and painful.
In an Ordinary Relationship – They brush issues aside or address them only at the surface. The same fights or emotional injuries repeat, and nothing truly changes.
In an Extraordinary Relationship – There’s deep personal work. Partners recognize patterns, take responsibility for their part, and stretch to meet each other with compassion. They use conflict as an opportunity for growth.
Try this – Track one pattern that keeps repeating. Is it a specific argument? A trigger point? A shutdown or explosion? Explore what it connects to and how you can tend to it more intentionally in yourself and together.
4. Connection & Intimacy
Real intimacy requires attention and it’s more than just physical. It’s about emotional presence, shared rituals, and co-created joy.
In a Struggling Relationship – There’s disconnection, minimal affection, poor or no sex life, and unresolved emotional distance.
In an Ordinary Relationship – Couples coexist. There may be affection and sex, but it feels routine. Emotional intimacy and closeness fades over time.
In an Extraordinary Relationship – There’s regular affection, meaningful connection, playfulness, flirtation, and physical intimacy that feels safe, satisfying and soul nourishing. Partners prioritize fun and nurturing.
Try this – Have a check-in about how connected you feel. Talk about what feels good, what’s missing, and what you’d each love more of, without blame.
5. Collaboration & Partnership
Love isn’t enough. A shared life needs a shared vision and goals, and a structure and systems for collaboration and co-creation.
In a Struggling Relationship – One person does it all, or everything is a mess. There’s resentment, imbalance, and lack of vision and support.
In an Ordinary Relationship – Roles are assumed but not clear. There’s minimal long-term planning and just enough structure to stay afloat.
In an Extraordinary Relationship – Partners co-create their life with intention. They set shared goals, divide responsibilities consciously, and have systems that reflect their values and strengths. There’s vision, direction, and smooth collaboration.
Try this – Have a “state of the union” talk. Review division of labor, shared visions, goals, routines, and where you each feel supported or not. What would help you feel more like a team?
A relationship reset isn’t about shooting for perfection, it’s about choosing better for a more aligned, joyful, and happy life. Where the partners find better ways of showing up for themselves and each other.
Summer gives us the perfect backdrop for change. We can ride the momentum of this energy into what we long to experience and create.
Let this season be the moment you pause, reflect, and recommit to your relationship. so that you can move into the rest of the year more aligned, connected, and on purpose…
You get to decide what kind of love you want.
Now’s the time to build it.
Listen to the episode for weaving in a summer theme into your reset. Enjoy!
Hope this information serves you and helps you get on the path to your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life.
A Self-love Practice and Setting Effective Boundaries to Change Codependence – We get stuck in pain, disappointment, or stagnation because we operate from patterns and habits. From defenses, scripts, and narratives. In the grind of life, we don’t even notice… We hold ourselves and our relationship back by operating form this small version of ourselves. We create from this limited self… This gives the flavor to our life. But we don’t have to operate from this smaller and stuck version… We can learn to operate from our higher self, more and more… An upleveled self-love practice and embracing setting more effective boundaries, shifts you, empowers you, recharges and nourishes you. Then you are able to create the relationship and life you love.
Become a Strong Partnership, Create a Smooth Shared Life
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What’s Next
~~ Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
We can help with our select memberships: Radiance Membership– Transformational content and experiences subscription (Only $29 per month!) Success Membership – Private sessions and Radiance Membership access! (Start with an Initial Session)
~~ Interested in being our Guest? Interested in having Emma be a Guest in your Podcast?
DISCLAIMER: This content is meant to support your Journey and not as a replacement for professional assistance. Additionally, the ideas and resources provides by our guests are their ideas and recommendations alone and not necessarily a reflection of mine
Copyright (c) 2025 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Who says being in a committed relationship is hard? Though relationships can be challenging they don’t have to be if we are intentional about how we go about creating our successful relationship.
There are some key ingredients that we need to bring to our relationship for it to be gratifying and successful.
Research shows that successful couples demonstrate some key ingredients that we’d be remiss not to emulate. And, according to John Gottman, renowned relationship researcher, the opposite is also true. There are key characteristics that when found in a relationship are strong predictors of break-up or divorce.
Committed relationships, marriage, are special, delicate, and very important to our overall wellbeing. They are the pillar of our society as they stabilize the family unit, and are the strongest influence on our children.
Embracing a Relationship Enrichment Lifestyle is an easy way to invest in our relationship without being put out or getting stressed out about it. Showing our partner love and care shouldn’t feel like a chore. When we go about it the right way, it is actually a pleasure…
In this episode I interview a longtime friend and colleague, Carole Cullen who is also a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Together we geek out about a few secret ingredients that make for a successful relationship.
We talk about 4 key ingredients: 1~ Emotional Intimacy 2~ Communication 3~ Quality Time 4~ Shared Goals & Values
I love the conversation with Carole about the ingredients for a Successful Relationship. For more on them check out the Elements of our Successful Relationship Strategy™. I’m so pleased with having had her as our first guest.
PSS: Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
Copyright (c) 2023 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.
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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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