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Guest Post by Eddie Zacapa from Harmony of the Heart

Nurturing Love and Respect

Relationships can bring happiness into our lives and they can also bring pain and sorrow. The key is knowing what to specifically do to cultivate more of the happiness into your relationship instead of the heartache.

Having been married for eight years I have experienced both. As I have tried to cultivate more of the love and happiness into our relationship (through trial and error) I have found that there are some things that I can specifically do to that end. Here are some tips on cultivating a healthy relationship straight from my journal.

1. Your partner may tend to exagerate and make things sound worse than they are to be heard. They are in pain. They are communicating out of pain. Don’t take it personally. They have something very valid to share and we should listen to their feelings and needs but not their evaluations of us or the marriage. If we listen to their evaluations we will get depressed or angry.

2. When your partner or spouse judges, blames and uses power-over strategies it is important to remember we cannot change them or control their behavior. It is out of our control. So, let go of trying to control them and don’t take what they say or do personally. Immediately mourn the behavior and give yourself some time and space to do this and connect with your feelings and needs. By connecting with your feelings and needs you are validating them and giving yourself empathy. Then when both of you are calm you can communicate them by using ‘I” messages (example: When I hear voices raised I feel frustrated because I want peace and respect for our family). Don’t say the word “you” when sharing “I” messages. If your partner is still in pain you will want to help them communicate their feelings and needs first and then share yours. Once this is done you can brainstorm to come to a reasonable solution that meets both of your needs.

3. Focus on changing yourself and not on changing your partner or their character faults. You can’t change your partner so trying to change them is wasted energy. Focus on what you can change – yourself. When your partner does something that stimulates pain in you it is your responsibility to keep it together and respond with love and respect. Work on your responses and behavior. Good questions to ask yourself are … “What can I do to feel better? What can I do to bring more peace to the relationship? What can I do to manage my anger better? What can I do to respond better when I am criticized?”

4. Don’t compare yourself or your partner with others. This will only make you miserable. Accept that you did not marry the other person and did marry your spouse (if you are married). Accept your partner for who he or she is and make a commitment to love them regardless. Even if your relationship or marriage is 10 times harder than other marriages, if you stick it out and do the work needed you will be 10 times better for it. You will grow immensely as a result and you be will able to help others as a result. (If you are in an abusive relationship or their is infidelity going on you may want to consider getting professional help or separation).

5. Never imply wrongness or blame each other. This is hard to do but a key to a grace-based relationship. Make an agreement to never blame or imply wrongness of the other and if you do that you will quickly accept responsibility for it. If you make a statement that implies wrongness you can be accountable by saying this: “I am deeply saddened that I said something that implied wrongness because this is not what I want to do. I really want to express my feelings and needs and not judgements and blame.”

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