Dealing With Relationship Problems Before They Get Too Big

Dealing with most relationship problems when they're small (before they become relationship wreckers) is not a big deal and the skills you need are in no way complicated. Most of us don't need long term therapy; we just need strategies that lead to happiness.

This is where I believe that coaching really comes into it's own. It's my opinion that knowing how to fix your problems is a lot more useful than knowing why they occur.

The First 2 Steps To Dealing With Your Relationship Problems

The best place to start is with a commitment to telling the total truth about how you feel when your partner does something that bothers you. You're aiming to be able to do this in such a way that you get to discuss the issue rather than criticizing.

Try to be aware of the different levels of emotion. Most of us have an easy time being angry even if we can't express it. Beneath the anger is sadness, a sense that we've lost something or had something taken away. More often than not there is another layer beneath the sadness that is based on fear. So start to become aware of which of your fears is being triggered and causing you to get angry. Keep in mind that you're probably more hurt than angry and you won't go far wrong.

Realising You and Your Relationship Are Worth It

Lots of my clients have tried to maintain the status quo using the tired refrain “You just can't have everything” and “Oh well, it's really not that important”. Well at this point I think it's really important to ask yourself - who's the ‘ it' you are referring to? Because as far as I'm concerned both you and your relationship are worth far more than you think.

Having a big bag of things that you resent or repress can easily destroy what once may have been a fantastic relationship. It's easy to forget that. Hopefully by identifying the 3 stages of relationships you've begun to get clear on the fact that it isn't necessarily that you made the wrong choice of partner, rather that both of you have let your relationship slide.

The bad news is often the relationships we grew up with (parents, grandparents, friends parents, etc.) set our standards of the norm and maybe even lowered our expectations and therefore the best most of us ever reach is the stage of repression. That's how marriage used to be. It was mostly about survival of the family and back then divorce had a much greater stigma attached to it.

So, now you have a relationship where you're enduring each other; living as room mates rather than lovers. It's the norm. Lots of the people around you exist in it, so it's not surprising you feel a little guilty when you begin to want more.

As a key indicator of the quality of your potential relationship with your mate, it's useful to look back at the infatuation phase of your relationship. Go right back to the beginning where you both felt wildly excited about each other and you couldn't do enough to make each other happy. Nothing was too much trouble! This is the place where the temperature gauge got set.

Let's say that early on in the relationship you felt like he or she loved you in such a way that you could score it out of a hundred. If it used to score eighty or above and you're compatible then you really have a relationship worth fighting for. If it never really got above 40, even at your most infatuated, then you may want to evaluate how much passion you can invest in getting back to that point. This is why it is essential that you build a relationship with someone that measures up as your perfect partner. Not perfect, perfect - just perfect for you.

3 Months of Full Committment

If you're going to be slogging your way through learning the things I'm about to teach you, like how to complain without criticising, how to listen deeply, how to use a time out effectively or even rebuilding trust following an affair then it's really got to be worth it.

One of your biggest needs in a relationship is security and if it isn't present everything else begins to suffer. For a while now you've been hovering on the edge of leaving, which is why you are reading this book. Well that has to stop now. In order for you to make progress over the next few months you are going to have to remove the option of leaving. You and your partner need to commit to staying together for the next three months, no matter what! The things I'm going to teach you can get your relationship back on track but not if every disagreement you have could be the last. To take some of the energy out of the power struggle you need a space within which you can be honest with each other about what is really going.

Let me just remind you: It's not a big deal to work through this and the skills you need are in no way complicated. Most of you don't need therapy; you just need strategies that lead to happiness. Let me take you through some of the concepts and techniques that my clients have found to be most helpful.

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