Assess the quality of your relationship and do what you can to make it better.
GREAT, GOOD AND GHASTLY RELATIONSHIPS
by
Bill Cottringer
Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh!" he whispered. "Yes, Piglet?" "Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you." ~A.A. Milne
Relationships put us all to the test of being successful in trying to get what we want from them and being our best selves doing so. Relationships can be great, good or ghastly. Being in a great relationship is what we all dream about and few actually achieve; most of us can enjoy good relationships much of the time, and none of us need to be in ghastly ones. Here is a reality check to see where you are on this continuum of relationships:
GREAT RELATIONSHIPS
These are the unusual relationships where two people become a successful team without sacrificing their individual selves, and each feels more whole with their other half as a soul mate and true love. Such relationships are based on a superabundance of unconditional love, acceptance, tolerance, maturity, creativity, and kind support and encouragement to grow naturally.
Great relationships involve comfortable compatibility in important beliefs and values, tremendous romance and passion, joy, mutual respect, full self-actualization, and great communication. The highs of great relationships are incomparable and the lows are easily forgettable.
GOOD RELATIONSHIPS
Good relationships are what many of us are in and many more could be in. These relationships involve people who are generally healthy inside their own skin, are willing to work and grow together, and can love and tolerate noisy differences that get in the way at times. An initial solid liking gradually grows into a rewarding love in such relationships.
Good relationships involve a partnership—the struggle and commitment to communicate honestly, to resolve conflicts effectively, and to get as much as each wants and all that they both need from each other. Good relationships have their bad moments, but the good moments are what get remembered most.
GHASTLY RELATIONSHIPS
These relationships involve irreconcilable conflicts in basic personality and character development in regards to fundamental beliefs, critical values and personal habits. Such relationships are often characterized by any or all of the following: Physical, mental or emotional abuse; love-hate feelings; over-control; violent arguments; poor communication; and general unhealthiness and irresponsible immaturity. These conditions have to power to bring the best of on our knees.
Ghastly relationships are usually a result of a poor selection process that misses all the red flags—total mismatches or one or both partners being very unhealthy and able to hide their dark sides for awhile. Also, ghastly relating can happen in good relationships that are burdened with undue stress. Ghastly relationships should be avoided because they are relatively hopeless and only serve the purpose of showing everyone else how not to be.
HOW TO GET TO GOOD OR GO TO GREAT
Fortunately positive progress along this continuum is possible, at least beyond ghastly relationships (and you can at least learn from those failures). Here are ten practical tips for making progress upward and onward.
- Focus mainly on yourself and your strengths, and not on the other person’s faults. Strive to understand who you really are and to manage that person well.
- Be sensitive to how your fundamental belief about the quality of relationship you deserve and have the ability to get affects how things actually are.
- Become the best, most likable and lovable person you can be yourself and let your own actions show what you want and need from the other person.
- Realize how important words are and how difficult good communication is, at least without serious effort to listen better and clarify potential misunderstanding.
- Allow yourself to feel the raw emotions that are natural in serious conflicts, but do not act them out irresponsibly. And when you are hurt and scared, don’t mistakenly strike out with anger and hate.
- Watch out for those expectations. Things are rarely fair at 50-50. Be prepared to go 100-0 now and then in order to deserve a 0-100 in return. Give to get.
- Focus on avoiding getting too out of balance in any important area such as working too much and not playing enough, doing all the talking and not any of the listening, or feeling too much without thinking about it.
- Keep family and friends out of it. Too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil a good meal.
- Maintain proper perspective—life has its ups and downs, but there are more ups in the long run. Don’t allow yourself to feel too lousy when things aren’t going that well, as they are never quite as bad as they seem at the moment. Time is the greatest teacher of all.
- Laugh as much as you can. Good humor is the only known anecdote to negative emotionality and negative thinking, which are the lion’s share of most relationship problems.
Half the battle in solving relationship problems is to realize you are already where you need to be to get to where you think you want to be; the other half is in standing tall during the adversity tests. Any one of the above ten tips will help you with both sides of this equation in closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be in a relationship.
William Cottringer. Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security, in Bellevue, WA and author of You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too and The Bow-Wow Secret: Seeing & Being Your Signature Self. He can be reached at (425) 454-5011 or ckuretdoc.comcast.net
|
