A key ingredient in a satisfying relationship is Understanding. When we don’t feel understood we are out of sinc with one another and our needs can’t be met.
Understanding validates our existence, is respectful and mindful. It is amazing that most people do not have this necessary ingredient in their relationship. One reason for this is that people confuse understanding with agreeing. When we understand someone, our partner, we do not necessarily need to agree with them.
Understanding means you understand where the other person is coming from, what they are saying, how they see things, how they interpret things. It means you put yourself in their shoes. Putting yourself in your partner’s shoes does not mean you go there with your mindset. It means you go there and make believe you are them.
This is the best way to understand your partner. When you make believe you are them and look at the situation from their perspective. Look at the situation as if you had their history, their views, their context (gender, religion, ethnicity, etc.), their baggage, their ideals, their dreams – their mindset. When you truly put yourself in their shoes, you can really see how they look at things and how they are affected.
A lot of times, we have a hard time understanding our partner not only because we do not truly put ourselves in their shoes, but because our baggage gets in the way. We relate everything back to us and listen from a wounded stance. Add to this the fact that most people do not know how to really listen, and you end up with unhappy partners and a dissatisfying relationship.
Understanding our partner does not have to become a major production. Here are the basic ideas about understanding our partner:
Put your own agenda, notions, response, complaints and rebuttals on hold.
This is not about you even though it might feel that way specially if your partner sounds accusatory
Listen to your partner’s words without adding meaning to what they are saying; no mind reading and assumptions allowed
Don’t listen to agree or disagree, to problem solve, to look for loop-holes
There is no right or wrong – this is how your partner sees things
Listen to where they are coming from by putting yourself in their shoes, put their mindset in your head and listen from that perspective
Wait until your partner is finished expressing their point to show them you heard them
If they are long-winded you might want to stop them along the way to check-in and make sure you are following – see below
Repeat back to your partner what they said as closely as you can without passing judgment – just show them you heard what they said
Tell them how you understand what they are saying using their mindset information – remember you are just understanding not necessarily agreeing
When you use this technique you will understand your partner and you will show your partner that you understand them. From this loving and respectful place it is a lot easier to see eye-to-eye and get yourselves on the same page.
Being on the same page allows partners to ask for what they need and give what is asked. This helps partners meet each other’s needs and create a satisfying relationship.
Happy Understanding!!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Invite your partner to share about a dissatisfaction they might have and to try to relate it to you without placing blame on you, if applicable. Listen to them using the technique above even if they fail to not be accusatory.
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.
When we are babies we learn to get our needs met by alerting our parents of a poopie diaper, hungry belly, or an ouchie with our crying. As adults, we continue to try to get our needs met with our “crying”. Our crying has become more sophisticated over time and now takes the form of criticism, nagging, put downs, and jab!!
When we resort to this kind of behavior in our relationship, it simply means that our needs are not being met. This way of coping and approaching our partner in our attempt to get our needs met though only ensures our needs continue not being met as who wants to be loving, nice and caring to the perpetrator of an onslaught?
It behooves us, for our sake, our partner’s, and the relationship, to figure out a different way of communicating our needs. Our fancy “crying” is not going to do the trick…
MAKE AN APPOINTMENT – First ask your partner if they are available to have a talk. If they are not, ask them when would be a good time and get a specific commitment.
EXPRESS YOUR POSITION FROM AN “I” PLACE – Share your complaint with your partner stating how you feel (using feelings), succinctly describing the aggravating behavior, and the reason this bothers you. Note, you are not pointing fingers…
MIRRORING – Ask your partner to repeat back what they heard you say without analyzing, defending, explaining, bringing it back to themselves, or dismissing it.
VALIDATING – Ask your partner how your complaint makes sense given who you are and tell them they don’t have to agree but just see your point.
EMPATHIZING – Ask your partner how they could see how you are feeling.
GO DEEPER – Share with your partner how you are reminded of similar childhood feelings and ask them to show you how they get the connection.
GET YOUR NEED MET – Now think of three thorough, mutually exclusive and concrete ways in which your partner can address your complaint, meet your need, heal your childhood hurts. Ask your partner to repeat them and once he gets them to choose one to do.
GIVE THANKS – Thank your partner for being available and for agreeing to meet your need. GIVE THEM A TURN – Ask your partner if there is anything they need to “dialogue” about repeating the steps above with them starting.
I want you to be aware that usually what we need most in our relationship is what is the hardest for our partner to give (given the way they were brought up, were hurt in the past, and their personality).
Their chosen “behavior change” is a stretch for them and a challenge where patience, encouragement and support should be provided for our partner to be able to be there for us. Here is a chance to redefine your “crying” so that you do get your “ouchie kissed”!
Happy “Crying”!!!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Integrate dialoguing into your relating and routine:
Teach your partner the “dialogue”. Consistently ask for and concede dialoguing moments Schedule dialogue time
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.
Our relationship and life are a reflection of the choices we make… I find that we make poor choices at almost every turn and then wonder how come our relationship and life are not as we’d prefer them to be… I find that we do not own our Self and our life, that we do not know who we are and what we are meant to do… I find that we do not take the time to design our relationship and our life.
I find that we are not intentional about creating the relationship and life we desire. I find that we do not Live in the moment and create a fabulous relationship, and life, in every moment…
We have a choice every moment on what to think, how to feel, what to focus on, what to work on, how to respond to things, what to do, what to add or remove from our life, how to set things up, etc. We do not intentionally exercise the power of choice. We mechanically and by default go through life… What an awful and unsuccessful way to Live!
It is time to create an Awesome Relationship and Authentic Life! It is time to implement the habits of highly successful people. This means being intentional about EVERYTHING. This means exercising your power to choose. This means owning, honoring, your Self…
Embrace these basic habits of highly successful people (as it relates to life and relationships):
1) Visualize and decide what kind of life and relationship you desire…
2) Have your relationship and life reflect your values
3) Have a plan and work it!
4) Create balance in your life
5) Manage your Self
6) Be open to feedback and act on it!
7) Work through rough stuff, don’t avoid it
8) Be courageous. Feel your fear, but take action anyway!
9) Create win-win situations (compromise)
10) Take educated risks
11) Address problems quickly and effectively, to resolution…
12) Be adaptable and embrace change
13) Be proactive, not reactive…
14) Be generous, compassionate and kind
15) Strive to always improve your communication and other relational skills
16) Be brutal about removing complaining and blaming from your repertoire
17) Focus on positives and strengths, efforts, contributions, gifts
18) Look for the lesson and stretch in everything; be always learning, healing, growing
19) Use your mind as a tool, your body as your home, your feelings as your compass
20) Be your Spiritual Self
It is time to create your Awesome Relationship and Authentic Life – show up to it, own it, design it, create it, live it!
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Life… Share your thoughts and progress on our blog page!
Happy Living!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Make a commitment to being the creator of your Awesome Relationship and Authentic Life.
Assert that you will exercise intentionality. That you will consciously choose at every turn.
Pick a Success Habit and implement it this week!
Add this to your Tool Kit…
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.
It is not unusual for couples to flounder on showing their love for each other. They do their best with attention giving, gifts, nurturing acts, and other loving gestures, but they just don’t feel they have reached their partner. Their love is not visible to the other.
The other might even say things like: you don’t love me, you don’t find me attractive anymore, you don’t want me, or you hate my guts. Every person must ask their partner (in so many words), “how do you want to be loved?”
How does this happen? Here we are loving a person and doing our best to show them we love, cherish and want to be with them to fail miserably at conveying that message. This is even worse when compounded by difficulties and lack or relationship skills partners bring to the table.
But, it doesn’t have to be this difficult to show our love. It doesn’t have to be this difficult to let our partner in our love for them. I have recently come across a book to address just this issue (thanks Ellen for the recommendation!). It is called the Five Love Languages (refer to the resources section).
This book teaches us that there are five ways in which partners like to receive love: time spent together, receiving material gifts, receiving compliments and verbal acknowledgement, physical affection, and acts of service (taking care of business, i.e., walking the dog, food shopping, servicing the car, etc.).
How Do You Want to be Loved?
There are specific ways we like to receive love, but what we usually tend to do is give love the way we like to receive love. The way we like to receive love might be very different from the way our partner likes to receive love. This is a sure way of not reaching our partner! Let’s say for example that Partner A likes to receive love in the form of elaborate gifts, and that Partner B likes to receive love in the form of praise.
Now, imagine this couple giving each other what they like to receive themselves: Partner A will get a bunch of words that could be experienced as lip service and no follow through; Partner B will get an expensive gift that could be experienced as shallow and detached.
Therefore it is important to determine how our partner likes to receive love and for us to gift them the way they like to be gifted. We might just be handing them a world of love!
Happy Loving!!
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PS2 – As always, we are here for you! If you need more support to creating your successful and meaningful life, we are here to help. I’d be honored to speak with you about how we can help you. Schedule a Get Acquainted Call to connect, and discuss how we can help you and how to get started. Look forward to Connecting with you!
Copyright (c) 2020 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.
Honor your Self. What does that mean? In my book, it means getting in touch with our Core, True, Authentic Self, our Soul, and operating from it in all we do.
This means being in connection with our Self, knowing our Self. Most of the time we are in a fog and cacophony of daily minutiae, mired in our ego approach to our relating and our life. We are shut down and completely disconnected from our Self.
Who are you? What is the point of you? Why are you here? What is the purpose of your life? I know these are huge questions, and one has to be ready to tackle them… If this feels too esoteric or out there right now, let it be and instead ponder its more basic form:
How do you want to live your life? How do you want your daily routine to look like? How do you want your surroundings to look like? Who do you want in your life? How do you want your relationships to look like? How do you want to spend your time? How do you want to be of service or give back to the world?
Honoring our Self means owning our Self. We usually have a hard time responsibly, responsively, mindfully and lovingly sharing our position on things and preferences. We instead manipulate, control, coerce, reject, dismiss or underhandedly try to get our way and make others do our bidding.
Operating from our Authentic Self means being open, honest, forthcoming, transparent, accountable, honorable, trustworthy, loyal, Clean. It means sharing our Self, being vulnerable and available.
Honoring our Self means setting up our life for Success. Most people run a haphazard life without intention. They come and go without a plan. They live day-by-day barely managing daily responsibilities and running themselves into the ground without enjoying or actually living their life.
They live putting out fires, having others own their time and resources, and never fully using their Gifts or creating much with their Life. Here our job is to set up proper boundaries, routines, systems, support, beautiful spaces, ways to meet our needs, a guiding vision, and to stay focused on our goals.
Honoring our Self means embracing our Humanity. We overly identify with our mind, ego, achievements, physicality, and possessions. We get stuck in our human experience as opposed to embracing our Humanity… We get stuck by our human limitations and do our life as if we are in a fish tank… We see, think, and operate small. We allow our human body to dictate our abilities, focus, and possibilities.
When in truth we can transcend this by operating from our Soul. Our body and mind are tools to help us carry out our Soul’s Will… We embrace Humanity through understanding, compassion, love, and giving; and by living an intentional and meaningful life.
Honoring our Self means being grateful, abundant, and a beacon of Light. We question why things happen to us. We struggle. We repeat patterns. The pain in your life is a spotlight on a code that you need to crack. This is your lesson. This is your opportunity to learn and grow for in so doing your Gift, that is to be shared with others, manifests.
Be grateful for the opportunities in your life, see the Good in them, as this is where your life’s purpose originates. Figure out what is the lesson you are to be learning, and learn it. Then share this with others. Be a beacon of Light.
Our relationship is fertile ground for Life Lessons… Our partner is our Life Partner. Together we learn, crack codes, grow, decipher and manifest our Gifts. Open your eyes. Place things in perspective. How are you to grow. What are you to learn. Get to it already. Before you know it you’ve created an Awesome Relationship – a MetroRelationship™, an Authentic Relationship, and an Authentic Life…
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Life… Share your thoughts and progress on our blog page!
Happy Honoring!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Pick a way in that you need to start Honoring your Self more.
Explore what this means to you and how it impacts the current status of your relationship and your life.
Identify two actions you would like to implement to start Honoring your Self, and implement them.
Add this to your Tool Kit…
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.
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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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