One characteristic satisfied and successful couples have in common is that they are part of each other’s lives.Duh-ah! I’m sure this does not come as a surprise. The trick though is how the partners are part of each other’s lives.
Partners have difficulties negotiating what this means to them and integrating a healthy approach to togetherness and couplehood. Their relating ranges from partners leading parallel lives where each barely knows what the other is up to and is minimally involved in the other’s activities, pursuits and processes to being completely enmeshed in each other’s world where there is little space for uniqueness, originality, and authentic selfhood.
The extent the relationship is characterized by these interactions impacts the resiliency of the partnership. This relating poses a danger to the couple as it extinguishes the sparks between the partners rendering them passionless.
Couples with no passion express dissatisfaction, lack of intimacy and connection and tend to feel dead in their relationship [Disengaged relational style], have a very conflictual relationship (misguided passion!) [Conflictual relational style], and/or become great friends (friendship is nice but not enough…) [Enmeshed relational style].
In any case, they are at risk. These couples usually do not fare well. The space between them is too great to bare, the conflict is too painful, and/or their interactions are too tedious and boring!
Continuing with such dynamics leads to inertia in the relationship, while it lasts…, and in the partners’ lives. This is how people get stuck and are generally unhappy.
The opposite is also true. When partners find a balance between togetherness and separateness, of being a couple while holding on to their individuality, when they create a true partnership where they get to explore, integrate and express their whole self, they are then able to engender passion and tap into the synergy intrinsic to couples.
Thus the couple is able to have a satisfying and successful relationship, create and contribute to our universe, live their life and be truly alive. The goal of our humanness…
Happy Balancing!!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™Assignment
Identify what is your style [or combination of styles] of relating: Disengaged, Conflictual or Enmeshed. Discuss with your partner the impact your style is having on your relationship and your lives.
Examine the contribution of your behaviors, activities and commitment to your style and their overall value in your life. Brainstorm and explore ideas of what to add to your repertoire that addresses your level of togetherness and individuality. Pick two ideas to integrate into your lives and do it now!
Copyright (c) 2016 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
You might not have a chance if you keep this up: A tendency to look for weaknesses, gaps, holes, things to improve, deficiencies and the like, and miss the boat on capitalizing on strengths in your relationship. We bring this tendency to how we view our partner and how we relate with them. We look for their shortcomings, what they forget to do, what they could do better, and what else they can do for us. We use a lack and negative expectations lens. We filter our experience to prove our negative expectations. We expect our partner to fail before they even try.
It is imperative that we stop using this destructive lens and reprogram our thinking. When partners struggle in their relationship, they usually have a proclivity for assuming the worst about their partner’s motives and how they feel. They sell themselves short believing their partner does not like them or care about them, then go about relating from this perspective…
Can you imagine how differently you’d relate if you believed you are cherished as opposed to hated? You’d be a lot more open and giving, and a lot less defensive and mean.
It is imperative that we give our partner the benefit of the doubt, the opportunity to show us their greatness, and take a risk letting them show us their love and care. I know it is challenging to do this, especially when our partner has been operating with defense mechanisms, which are usually hurtful to us. But they can’t give us something different if we don’t give them the chance.
I encourage partners to do Appreciations to start reprogramming this undermining habit. This forces them to focus on the positives in their partner, interactions and relationship. They get to search, find and acknowledge their partner’s good qualities, efforts and investments. This shift in focus assists in rewiring the brain, creating a different brain circuitry, which allows a different experience to emerge…
Learning to focus on the positive and things we is an essential skill. It engages the gratitude center of the brain, which cannot be in a state of gratitude and a state of fear at the same time. We usually operate from a fear state that is driven by egotistical thoughts… It is time to make a concerted effort at operating from a gratitude state. This means operating from an appreciation and abundant position that is driven by Loving and accepting thoughts…
We are not our mind… We do have control over our thoughts… We get into trouble when we overly identify with our mind. We don’t realize that our mind is just a tool for Self expression, that we don’t use well at that. We create incessant noise with our negative thinking, ugly pictures and low or unrealistic expectations. We end up creating an unsatisfying self-fulfilling prophecy and prevent our self from Being! It is time to properly engage your mind.
Take charge of what you think, what scripts you run, how you interpret things, what meaning you assign, and what pictures you conjure.
Remember that what we focus on perseveres, what we imagine we create, and what we expect we get. Create the most outrageous vision of your most fabulous relationship, and then carry on as if it already is… The more adept you get at engaging your mind the more wonderful your life and relationship are.
Happy Conjuring!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™Assignment
Let’s do better with focusing on the good and new…
Pay attention to the things you like throughout the day
Focus on the qualities you are attracted to in your partner
Identify your partner’s strengths and how they make your life better
Notice anything new your partner is trying to implement, any efforts put forth and any nurturing gestures (focus ONLY on what is, NOT what is not!)
Observe how you allow the good to come to you and how you are able to receive the good that is given…
Copyright (c) 2016 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
One would think that connecting with our partner is an easy feat. After all they are the one person we are supposed to be the most intimate with. This is most often not the case and we are actually not that intimate. I find that couples have a very difficult time connecting, feeling connected and staying connected, and their efforts at connecting sometimes create even more distance between them. It doesn’t have to be this way.
First, we need to become aware of some of the ways we sabotage our attempts to connect and set ourselves up to be disconnected:
1. Being too busy
2. Placing our partner down on the priority list
3. Allowing other people and things to eat up our time and energy
4. Dismissing our partner’s attempt at closeness
5. Giving our partner negative attention and criticism
6. Setting up interactions and situations that typically annoy or hurt our partner
7. Withdrawing attention and affection
8. Demanding closeness, attention and caring
9. Being right all the time and seeing only our perspective
10. Playing the victim card
Then, we can start doing things differently. We can change how we set up interactions, respond to our partner, approach our partner and generally organize ourselves so we create space to connect.
Note that as you attempt to implement changes to your non-connecting-habits, you will find yourself and your partner resisting and undermining the changes – even if you both want to really connect! Don’t trick yourself into thinking only you want to connect – your partner does too even if you can’t see it!
Connecting is scary – we are not used to being in real connection. We crave it and at the same time we fear it. Don’t let this stop you. Practice makes perfect. Ease yourselves into it. Eventually you become experts making sure you safe guard your connection, nurturing it and enjoying it!
From this connected place we feel gotten, understood, accepted, valued, respected, admired, wanted, and cherished. We mutually build ourselves up. We become whole. We grow up. We heal. Our self-esteem soars. We no longer just complement each other.
We are now two wholes ready to collaborate. We are full of potential and might. We enhance and bring out the best in each other. We synergize and are ready to take on any old project we so choose to take on!!
Happy Connecting and Creating!!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™Assignment
Pick two non-connecting-habits you have and make immediate moves to rectify them. Invite your partner to be open to your attempts at approaching them and to receive you.
Copyright (c) 2016 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
How badly do you want to have an awesome relationship with your partner? How committed are you to making the relationship work? Is failure an option? Do you have one foot out the door? I hear partners complain about how they want things to be different, but they don’t take any risks to change things. It makes sense that striving to create the relationship we want is scary, as this would entail Being in the relationship in very specific ways:
Being fully present and available.
Making our partner a priority.
Stretching to meet our partner’s needs.
Being patient, understanding, and compassionate.
Embracing our partner and their world.
Being vulnerable and showing up.
Bringing this way of being with our partner into our relationship takes a huge emotional risk and investment. For what if we are not accepted, wanted, embraced? What if what we give is not good enough? What if we are judged and rejected? What if we are left? What if in giving we lose ourselves? This is scary.
So instead we hide, protect ourselves, and beat on our partner in an effort to make them the partner we want. We make a full commitment to making our partner our ideal partner… We become obsessed with changing them, even if just in the running script in our minds…
The problem is that the obsession holds us back. I’m sure you know by now that you can’t change your partner. When the focus is misplaced this way we force our partner to operate in self-preservation mode, which is usually not pretty… We actually invite the worst of our partner. We end up shooting ourselves in the foot.
We choose this over the risk of operating from the more vulnerable, generous, and altruistic place. An unfortunate choice, as that is actually the gateway to our awesome relationship… Take note for how you invite the worst of your partner, for how you co-create the status quo of your relationship.
Now, don’t misunderstand this. I’m not implying you become a doormat or a punching bag. I’m simply suggesting you put aside the power struggle. You don’t have to have your way just to make a point. You don’t have to punish your partner. You don’t have to parent your partner or teach them a lesson. You don’t have to win or get your way.
You don’t have to be right. Relationships are not about all that. If this is your focus and want to stick with it, I promise you will not be happy nor create the relationship you want. Stop all this silly nonsense. Your digging in your heals in reaction to their reaction is making things worse. Know that you create a non-ending reciprocal pattern when you do this. It’s time to start somewhere and change this. It’s OK to give in, risk, and invest.
Embrace the concept that operating from an altruistic place does not mean or lead to your being cancelled, muted, non-existent, nullified, eliminated… Creating space for your partner to exist and thrive does not take away from who you are, or make you an idiot. It’s OK to be humble, to go with the flow, to Zen-wise detach.
Detach with love and investment. Make positive contributions in your interactions, repair, healing, enrichment, and growth of your relationship: Set appropriate boundaries (watch your delivery). Make responsible requests. Moderate your feelings. Make timely amends. Mindfully share your thoughts. Give generously. Do a lot of Self care.
When you take risks and invest you are empowering your Self and allowing your partner to exist. When your partner’s existence is not threatened, they can bring their best Self to the relationship. And, isn’t that what you wanted in the first place?
Become the ideal partner. Support your partner’s existence. Create safety for your partner to receive you. Invite your partner to be your ideal partner. Take matters into your own hands. Woo your partner in their love language. Go all out. No more hesitation, ambivalence, or holding back. Make a huge investment for a huge return. Go for your awesome relationship today!
Happy Investing!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™Assignment
Figure out how your partner makes you feel the negative feels you had growing up. You might have to go deep to figure out these feelings and the connection. Go easy on yourself, this is difficult stuff. Then share this new found insight with your partner from a non-blaming position asking them to just hear you out.
Finally, give your partner two specific behavior changes they can choose one from to do providing you with a different outcome than the usual and thus healing you. Make sure the choices you give meet your needs.
Copyright (c) 2016 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
STAY CONNECTED WITH US, SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
And, Get a FREE Relationship Enrichment Mini Course!
You CAN create the relationship you desire!
You have Successfully Subscribed!
With this Mini Course learn how to immediately Break your Impasse, Improve your Communication, Increase your Intimacy, Connection and Fun, & Create a Strong Partnership...
And with Emma’s weekly Love rich with Personal Development & Relationship Enrichment know-how, announcements, resources and more straight into your inbox.
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™.
Pin It on Pinterest
We track visits and User's visit information to analyze our performance and trends in order to create targeted messaging and programs to best serve you. We use cookies to provide a personalized and smoother browsing experience. Refer to our Privacy Policy for additional details.
You consent to our tracking and cookies when using our Websites.OK
