BETTER RELATIONSHIPS
By Bill Cottringer


John and Mary have been married for 10 years. They are very compatible in their interests and both are very successful in their professional careers. They have a good life, a great 8-year old daughter and look like the perfect couple to their neighbors. But John isn’t as happy as he would like to be. He wants more stimulation, fun and passion in his life. He is headed towards an affair that will soon have the couple appearing in divorce court. Across the county, Bob and Sally have been married for nearly 20 years. They are as different as sunshine and rain—having different friends, going to different churches, being of different educational levels and having different opinions about money matters. But, they are enjoying a good relationship that will only continue getting better. What makes the difference in these two relationships?

Many years of experience and training in relationships have helped me to see the two mistakes we can all make, which tend to lead to worse relationships. These two mistakes are: (a) striving towards finding and having a romantically ideal relationship instead of doing what we can do to gradually improve the one we are in one step at a time (this is probably due to our impatience for immediate need gratification), and (b) focusing too much on finding compatibility and eliminating annoying differences and not enough on how we communicate to resolve these inevitable differences and the eventual conflicts the differences cause.

Here are some thoughts to consider in your attempt to overcome these two common mistakes:

1. Trying to repair realities you don’t like (another person’s annoying attitudes and behaviors) can be very frustrating, especially when you know you are right, make your best effort and don’t succeed. But the one reality that needs accepting is that human beings have a human nature that is what it is and not always as we would like it to be. Often getting what you want in a relationship is a matter of expanding your own tolerance in being more accepting of the other person’s human nature, especially their differences from you. That acceptance leads to better understanding and these two qualities always help other people feel more secure and willing to make improvements in areas that do need improving. We are all more inclined to make needed changes when we want to, doing it on our own time frame and not feeling controlled into doing it just to stop someone else’s nagging or trying to please him or her.

2. The main way we interact which determines the quality of our relationships is through communication. Positive communication results in better relationships and negative communication shapes worse ones. The object is to engage in more positive communication than negative. Easier said than done? Actually it is easier done than said. All you have to be is become more aware of what you are saying and how you are saying it, that work together to have a negative impact on the other person. It is the negative feelings that are aroused that contaminate responses which only serve to make communication and relationships worse. Here are some points to consider which can lead to more positive communication.

• Long ago communication researchers such as Jack Gibb, distinguished between what they called defensive vs. supportive communication. Simply put, defensive communication insinuates negative things that worsen communication and relationships, such as conveying superiority, over-certainty, over-control, insensitivity, manipulation and judgment. On the other hand, supportive communication improves communication and relationships, by conveying things like equality, tentativeness, freedom, empathy, spontaneity and acceptance.
• Research by Van Sloan on what he calls a person’s social quotient and my own research on likeability reveal several other things that can be used to flavor what is said and how it is said to produce positive emotionality, which improves relationships. The keys to being more likeable, improving your social quotient, and having better in better relationships are focusing on expressing more positive emotionality, listening better, tuning into you empathy for the other person, practicing politeness, being ‘real,’ controlling negative habits, enjoying a sense of humor, and becoming more agreeable.
• It is probably non-verbal communication that results in the majority of negative feelings that worsen communication and relationships. The negative impact from this negative communication occurs from mistakes such as inaccurate or incomplete perceptions, misunderstanding because of confusing or unclear words, over-interpretations of what is said or what isn’t being said, and assumptions about other people’s motivations (which are often unconscious and not knowable!).
• For all practical purposes we really just have two basic emotions—positive and negative. We like to have as many positive feelings as we can and avoid as many negative ones as possible. It is helpful to understand the basic purpose of these two fundamental emotions. Positive feelings affirm we are headed in the right direction with our behavior and communication, while negative ones are trying to tell us to slow down and re-think what we are saying or doing that maybe contributing to the negative feelings.

Focus more on improving your positive communication, in what you say and how you say it, to resolve the inevitable conflicts caused by the human nature differences that can be too resistive themselves to change. Then enjoy being part of a better relationship that will just keep improving faster than the Energizer Bunny.


William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security in Bellevue, WA. He is author of several books including You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, The Bow-Wow Secrets, and Do What Matters Most. Bell can be reached with comments or questions at (425) 454-5011 or bcottringer.pssp.net