family and home - live happily ever after!
Live happily ever after!
"It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis."
Margaret Bonnano
For some strange reason, staying in love tends not to be quite as easy as falling in love in the first place! In that initial honeymoon period, we think nothing will ever take the edge off our joy at being together. But fast forward a few years and a couple of children, and our love lives may well be a bit less blissful! And, whilst we often imagine that it’ll be some catastrophic event such as an affair or addiction that will do terminal damage to our relationship, the truth is a different matter. According to Andrew G Marshall, author of ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you’, far more insidious and dangerous are the slow-burning resentments that build up over time.
Based on his own experience as a counsellor, he outlines 5 main reasons why couples reach a relationship ‘stalemate’ where it feels like no amount of resuscitation will work:
- They’ve lost interest in each other’s lives
- They argue all the time
- They’re best friends but no longer ‘in love’
- They’ve lost respect for their partner
- They’re attracted to other people
Luckily, it often takes just a small change to nudge a relationship out of habitual negative patterns and get it back on track. So here are our top ten suggestions for avoiding these potential issues in the first place and keeping your love alive:
- Share your dreams
- Get stuck into a joint project
- Learn to really listen
- Have a good argument
- Always say the right thing (yes, really!)
- Meet each other’s needs
- Avoid temptation
- Make adjustments
- Decide to be happy
Okay, so it’s not like the fairytales - real relationships take work! You can’t expect to live happily ever after with your partner if you don’t put the effort in. A relationship is a bit like a garden - if left untended, it will grow a mixture of weeds and wild flowers. You may get some startlingly beautiful wild flowers, similar to the startling moments of passion, love and tenderness that can occur out of the blue between you and your partner. But you’ll almost certainly get lots of weeds too ... and if you don’t get rid of them they’ll begin to choke out all the wonderful moments. It gets hard to see the flowers for the abundance of weeds. Staying in love is a lot like managing a prize winning garden - you have to keep your relationship well-tended.
How do you do that? Well, as any gardener will tell you, the best way to stay on top of things is to do a little every day. So make a point of pulling out any weeds as they spring up. Feed and water those flowers regularly. Protect them from pests. In short, make your relationship a garden to be proud of.
Relationships become stagnant when they need to develop and grow but one or both of you are scared of change. And, especially when you’ve got small children, life can just seem like one long round of chores with no time or energy left for thinking past bedtime! It’s vital that you sit down together every now and then and discuss your hopes and dreams for the future. Do you really know what your partner wants? Do they know what you want? When you talk about it, you may find you both want different things, and this can be scary. But keep talking and see if you can work out ways to compromise. Aim to have a shared vision and shared goals for your family life, whilst each of you also has individual goals of your own.
3. Get stuck into a joint project
This kills about three birds with one stone - you get to spend quality time together, you work towards a shared goal and you get a sense of achievement when you’ve finished! It might even prove to be an opportunity to practise tips 4, 5 and 6! Seriously, though, a joint project can be a great bonding experience. There’s all sorts of fun to be had doing a spot of DIY together, or researching your next holiday, or creating a fantastic photo album! And, once you’ve shared your dreams, you may even find that your next joint project is a big one - how about moving overseas or building your next home from scratch?! Whatever you do:
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play to your individual strengths and preferences when deciding on the division of labour (let’s face it, some of us are better with a roller than a half-inch brush!)
- use the time to talk, laugh and have fun together
- if you run into difficulties, try some joint problem-solving
- celebrate your successes - any excuse for champagne!
All too often, when we’ve been with someone for a long time, we can stop really seeing or hearing them. We think we know them so well that we make all kinds of assumptions. We interrupt them mid-flow because we think we know what they’re going to say next, or we tune out because we think we’ve heard it all before. We also throw into the mix all our history together - previous events, criticisms and disagreements. This often has the effect of making us defensive and, again, stopping us from listening.
When you’ve got something you need to discuss, the best thing to do is to take it in turns to talk, uninterrupted, for three minutes at a time. After you’ve spoken, your partner should summarise your feelings before you swap over. Try it - whilst it might feel a bit strange at first, you’ll probably be amazed at how much insight you gain into each other. You may also find that with insight comes empathy and compassion. You’re much less likely to be angry with your other half once you realise that their underlying motivations are positive.
There’s nothing worse than the kind of oppressive atmosphere that builds up between a couple when they don’t sort out their ‘issues’. If you’ve ever experienced it, you’ll know how detrimental it can be. Unfortunately, many women have been brought up to avoid conflict and to see anger as an emotion to be suppressed at all costs. And yet a good argument, well handled, can work wonders to clear the air. It can help you and your partner to reach a better understanding of each other and work out how to move forward. After all, you can’t solve a problem whilst avoiding it!
So how do you have a ‘good’ argument? Here are a few pointers to bear in mind:
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use the listening technique described in tip 4
- when it’s your turn to speak, follow the DESC script:
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describe what seems to you to be happening, in factual terms
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express how you feel about it
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specify what you want to happen
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say what the consequences will be if what you want does / doesn’t happen
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be assertive and employ “I” messages - in other words, instead of pointing the finger of blame and saying “you always / never ...”, take responsibility for yourself and say how you feel and what you want
- rather than criticising your partner’s character, which really cuts to the quick, instead talk about the specific actions / behaviours that upset you - these are much easier for the other person to change
And remember, it’s really important to express your feelings and your needs. Once we start suppressing negative feelings, we’re on a slippery slope ... and pretty soon it’s not just anger we stop expressing but positive emotions too.
6. Always say the right thing (yes, really!)
To borrow a little ditty we discovered on the web at www.shakethatbrain.com/church-fairytales-vertical/tips.html:
When your partner is having trouble coping,
- either with the world or with you,
don't shout, don't pout, don't run away.
Just turn to your mate and lovingly say ...
WHAT DO YOU NEED FROM ME RIGHT NOW?
It’s simple. Instead of trying to second-guess your partner and potentially getting it wrong, there’s one sure-fire way to say the right thing every time. Just remember those eight amazingly powerful words ... and perhaps throw in an endearment or two for good measure!
Don’t be a mind-reader, just ask!
We all need different things in order to feel secure and happy in our relationships. Making a very broad generalisation, it’s sometimes argued that women’s deepest need is love whilst men’s deepest need is respect. In other words, a woman needs to feel loved whilst a man needs to feel respected. Without love she reacts (often by nagging and criticising), and without respect he reacts (often by getting angry or withdrawing). And so you get sucked into a vicious circle of ‘no respect - no love’ that can only lead to unhappiness. Give both love and respect, and break the cycle.
There are five main ways in which we show our love for another person:
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spending quality time together
- showing physical affection
- doing things for the other person (acts of service)
- offering praise and encouragement
- giving gifts
Ideally, we’d do plenty of all of them, all the time, in our relationships. In reality, most people have a preference for one or two of them ... and quite often you can find a mismatch between your own and your partner’s preferences. So, for example, you might need time and compliments in order to feel loved and might therefore concentrate on giving these to your other half. They, in contrast, might need physical affection and acts of service in order to feel loved, and might focus on giving these to you. You may both love each other a great deal, but neither of you is really getting what you need to feel it. The solution is simply to talk. Once again, don’t be a mind-reader - just ask!
These days, divorce is rife and many people argue that it’s just too easy to give up on and get out of a marriage. It’s also easier to be unfaithful than it might have been a couple of generations ago. It’s acceptable to have friends of the opposite sex, we work long hours, often away from home, and then of course there’s the internet and all the opportunities that it offers. When life with your lover seems mundane, it’s tempting to look for some excitement or appreciation further afield. And yet, as we all know, this is usually a recipe for disaster.
The first thing to do is to avoid putting yourself in the way of temptation if you possibly can. It’s much easier to stick to your diet if you don’t go into the cake shop! But bear in mind that being attracted to another person is often an early warning sign that something else is wrong with your relationship. It’s symptomatic of a deeper problem. If you find yourself in this situation, stop - don’t act on your attraction - and do some serious thinking instead. You have a choice.
Of course, it’s better not to get into this position in the first place. That means both of you committing wholeheartedly to the relationship and to making it work. Look after your love - spend time together, appreciate each other and generally follow the tips in ‘How to be a happy couple’.
Whether we like it or not, we’re all faced with changes from time to time. Children, change of jobs, redundancy, moving house, illness, bereavement - as we journey through life there are always adjustments to be made. Our roles in the partnership may shift over time, or even swap completely. Some things may just shake us up a little, others can rock the foundations of our world … and test our relationships to the limit. But there is always hope if we’re prepared to be honest with ourselves and make changes.
The key to surviving what happens in life and staying together lies in being unselfish. When change occurs, it’s important to think not just about how it affects you, but also about how it affects your partner. What do they need, and what can you do to help meet their needs? Love is about being prepared to make adjustments yourself (whether they be practical or behavioural) for the other person’s sake … whilst still staying true to you. In a good relationship, your partner will do the same and you’ll both work together to handle whatever’s happening.
It may sound a bit too simplistic, but there’s a lot to be said for just deciding to be happy. You can’t always control what goes on in the world around you and yet you can control how you respond to it. Have you ever noticed how some people seem to be cheerful and positive despite having really tough times, whereas others are miserable for no apparent reason?! Scientists now believe that, whilst an element of happiness is genetic or influenced by your earliest years, there’s still a great deal you can do to increase your levels of happiness. Simple things, like focusing on what you do have rather than what you don’t, and being grateful for it. So concentrate on all the good bits about your partner and your life together. If you zoom in on those, the other bits will fade into the background and you’ll feel far happier. And you may even get your happily ever after ...
