Relationships Maintenance
Relationship Resolutions Basics:
If you are just like most couples today, chances are your previous year has been filled with both good and bad things, happiness and sorrow, triumphs and conflicts. With the start of another brand new year, why not take some time to finally say goodbye and let go of all those not-so-good things that happened in your relationships the previous year? For just a few minutes, sit down with your partner and discuss the best ways that will help make your current relationship way better than before.
Forgiveness is the Key
So that the two of you will be able to move forward for the brand new year with a positive mind frame, it is a must that forgive and forget what happened in the past. If you have long been nursing some hurt within you and you find it hard to forgive your partner before, this is the perfect time to let things go and embrace the concept of forgiving. Refusing to forgive can be similar to a poison slowly but surely seeping through your whole being, filling it with such bitterness and eventually setting a permanent wedge between the two of you. When you forgive, it does not necessarily mean that you will condone the things done by your partner. More importantly, forgiveness means that you have finally come to peace with it for you to finally move forward.
Problem Evaluation is a Must
Take time you evaluate the biggest problems in your relationship. For some, this might be a lack of communication. For others, this can be finances and a myriad of other issues. Discuss the problem and think of ways on how you can improve things. Listen to the ideas of one another for the two of you to have your equal share of the decision.
Change Good for the Better
Talk about the ways that can help in improving the already good things in your relationship. All couples have their strengths in their relationship. Discuss these things and turn these into a validation that signifies that the two of you are doing things right. Talk things out to make good things even better and make a vow that you will never take for granted the good aspects of your relationship.
Talk About Romance and Intimacy
When we speak of romance, this should encompass your sex life. There is no denying that this is an integral part of your relationship so make sure that you do not set this aside. Laugh together and be playful about this. Come up with ways on how you can make this part of your relationship better and happier.
Think of Things to Look Forward to This New Year
Do you plan to buy your own house this year or start a family? This New Year might be the best time for you to start making some plans. Probably the two of you would like to become fitter and healthier. You can do it together as this can be a fun way of achieving a goal that you have set for yourself. Plan and cook meals together. Go for a stroll together and hold hands. No matter what plans you might have, at the end of the day, having each other this New Year is the best gift that you can give to your partner.
Take Care of Yourself First
Self-care is the Key to a Better Relationship
Taking care of yourself when in a relationship is as important as tending to the relationship itself. It is a must that you take care of yourself before fixing your relationship. Here, you can apply the adage stating that you can never give away things that you do not have. Until you feel happy and peaceful, you will never have a happy and peaceful relationship.
If you choose to skip such steps and jump right away into your troubled relationship’s murky waters, chances are you will be going straight down under. This is the reason why you need to do everything in your power so that you can stabilize yourself before getting this over your head.
Before confronting the core issues of your relationship, first, you need to follow the following steps to increase your chance of being successful.
Commit to Staying Okay Whatever Happens Along the Way
Promise yourself that you will still take care of yourself and remain okay with whatever will happen in your relationship. Once your happiness completely depends on your partner being there by your side all the time, you will end up feeling powerless and fearful. This will then mean that it is more likely that you will be engaging in ineffective actions like pleading and begging. When this happens more often, the less will your partner want to stick to the relationship. Why is that?
A good reason for this is that your partner will see you as someone emotionally dependent and needy. The things that another person will do for your sake will still be not enough for you because you will always expect more from that person. It is something that will not escape your partner and will make him/her fearful of being consumed and eaten up by your unending demands for care and attention.
One more reason is that it can be a real burden for one person to feel complete.
responsible for another’s happiness. The majority of people feel the need to run away if this is the case. The partner who tries to be everything to another will then feel anger and resentment when placed in this kind of demanding position, thus snuffing out any sense of fun and playfulness that are vital to having an enduring relationship.
When you respect yourself and believe in your capacity to thrive whether you are in a relationship or single, you will surely come from a place full of strength and empowerment. These two attributes can attract other people and provoke respect, which will then make you a more desirable and lovable partner.
Commit to Staying Happy With Your Life Despite Feeling Miserable
There is no need for you to wait to plan some fun activities you can do on your own until you get your relationship perfect. If you want, you can join classes where you can learn interesting pastimes such as gourmet cooking, playing the guitar, or such. List down places in your area or others nearby that you plan to visit. Learn brand new skills, brand out, and broaden your world.
When you have fun and stay active, you will feel much happier and even contented with yourself. On top of that, this will make you more attractive to the eyes of your partner. When you lead your own life with gusto, have a sense of adventure, and take good care of yourself, no matter what state your relationship might be in, you will increase the likelihood of your partner wanting to spend more time with you.
Learn How To Have The Benefit Of The Doubt Mentality
Give Your Partner the Benefit of the Doubt
Have you ever done some stupid, dumb, or hurtful things that greatly affected your partner? Chances are almost all persons in this world have unintentionally or intentionally hurt someone they love. Research shows that a lot of people will do anything hurtful to their partner in all long-term relationships.
All relationships are bound to experience their share of conflicts. Whether it is confusion, misunderstandings, or disagreements, if you known and have been someone pretty long enough, eventually, something will take place that will result in tension.
People will make you feel frustrated, angry, disappointed, hurt, or upset. Your partner is human, just like you, so there is no way to get around this. Once such situations happen, will you respond with anger or will you give your partner the benefit of the doubt?
When you give another person the benefit of the doubt, it only means that when you still lack all the needed information, even in times of conflict, you will still be willing to assume the best, set aside the negative judgment, and respond favorably. Love itself can give the benefit of the doubt. It will not fill the mind with negative assumptions. It will seek to work its way around difficult situations even after being proven wrong or getting disappointed.
As stated in the Bible, love is something that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Love is not naïve instead, it gives the benefit of the doubt. Love chooses to see the best in other people. You do not just give this kind of benefit simply because you want to. More importantly, you give your partner the benefit of the doubt because you choose to and because you love. This act is selfless. So, how will you successfully give your partner the benefit of the doubt?
Love
Knowing how to love someone is the key here. You simply cannot expect one person to completely accept you for who you are and then expect perfection from them. This love is not unconditional. Conditional loving is based in selfishness, something that will not let you give a person the benefit of the doubt.
Patience
Patience is needed when looking for the truth and trying to resolve conflict. Jumping to conclusions is not part of giving the benefit of the doubt.
Understanding
It is important to try putting yourself in the shoes of the other person. For all you know, they are probably afraid of being themselves to due rejection, abandonment or any other issues. Just assume that your partner has tried to be truthful and grow with you before working with them towards it.
Forgiveness
The last but not the least thing that you need is to learn to forgive and forget. Never let yourself dwell in bitterness. When you finally let your initial anger go, let it stay in the past, and do not let it cloud your mind over again.
Change Your “Blame Them” Mentality
Get Rid of the Blames in Your Relationship
As far as placing blame in a relationship is concerned, it is sometimes much easier to see your partner’s faults than those of your own. One of the biggest issues with couples that point fingers at one another is that most of the time, the two parties are right or both are just wrong. All persons have their flaws and some ways that they try to defend themselves, pushing away other people from them. These defenses for protecting yourself become much stronger once you get close to another person, with old feelings triggering ways in you that you do not expect or are not even aware of.
If you want to improve your relationship and make it thrive and last longer, the key lies in knowing and challenging these defenses that you have. Instead of adopting the blame-them mentality and choosing to focus your attention on the flaws of your partner, why not look at your limitations first?
Avoid Building a Case
Once a conflict arises, fueling the fire is easy by using all types of proof of the character flaws of your partner. A single morning of accidentally overcooking the egg can already lead to a full-blown case of your partner not attempting to learn how to cook where you catalog all incidences when a similar situation happened. Case building is one of the biggest issues in all relationships. Try to avoid doing this if you do not want your relationship to be always crowded with different cases day in and day out.
Drop It
When the blame is already going back and forth, with things getting out of control, it will no longer be possible to resolve who is really at fault. During such arguments, there is no winner. The battle could have been won, but the war was lost. Just try to keep your perspective on the important things. If you aim to get close all over again, it will not hurt to just drop the past, put your guard down, and be nice to one another.
Unilateral disarmament might be the initial step to get back the loving and easy flow of feelings between the two of you.
Calm Down
Relationships can trigger ways in you that you rarely expect. A lot of things can set you off, particularly when your defenses are in full gear. Once you feel triggered, try to focus and relax before you react. Fighting with the fire will not do you any good. Managing the temper of your partner will be easier when you calm yourself first before you approach him/her.
Communicate Your Feelings
After you have calmed down and given your partner a chance to express their perception, that is the time for you to explain how you felt with no need to feel victimized or place the blame. Stay away from using generalized statements or victimized language if you do not want things to go from worse to worse.
Once you change your blamed them mentality, you give your relationship the best chance of staying passionate, equal, and fulfilling.
Learn More About The Projecting Mindset
A Right Set of Mind Leads to a Relationship That Will Make You Feel Right
Having an incorrectly projected mindset can negatively affect your relationship and yourself. If you always think that there is no reason for you to be loved by anyone or that others will leave you when they get to know you, you will end up being a taker and a needy partner. Before you know it, you are already proving yourself right, with your partner no longer wanting to stay by your side. Of course, this is not what you want to happen but once you continue depriving yourself of the good things, you will never be able to share and give because you feel empty within. Healthy relationships are those that share and give and if you will keep thinking negatively, there is no chance for your relationship to be healthy.
To help you out, here are some tips that will help you have the right projecting mindset that will take your relationship in a better direction.
Never Assume
Assuming can take you to places and sadly, those places are not happy ones. Assuming is like a poison that can consume your mind and it is not something good. For instance, your previous partner tends to send secret emails to others when you are not looking which leads to a breakup. You then find a new one and when you see your present partner checking the email, you instantly assume that he/she is just the same as your previous partner. You jump in and start accusing when the truth is the email is only work-related and nothing else. It is important that not all persons are the same and the flaw of a previous partner might not necessarily be the same fault of your present one.
Jumping to conclusions right away will push your partner away from you before you even know it.
Live and Stay in the Now
Trying to relive the past is not good, same with excessively focusing on the future. Some got so stuck with their past that their existence is almost mandatory.
Meanwhile, some live only for the future, with their lives already planned out. It is good that you take some important lessons from your past and use them for your present, or plan for a trip that you have long been waiting for. But, never let the past take full control of your present in the same way that you should not plan for every single detail of your future. Living and staying in the now will let things fall into the right places as they are supposed to, with your decisions being based on your present and not on your past or what you want to be in your future.
Be Grateful
One of the secrets to projecting the right mindset is by being grateful for what you have in life and where you are at present. Thanking the blessings that your relationship has at the moment will help you project more positivity in your life and save you from being drowned in the adversities that might come your way.
Projecting the right mindset is easy so long as you and your partner help one another in the direction that you want your relationship to take.
Build Compassion
A Relationship with Compassion is a Relationship with Happiness
Compassionate people are happier people. Couples who feel compassion for one another have more understanding and joy in their relationships. Compassion, the combination of consideration, kindness, concern, and empathy, is considered the cornerstone for people who want to have a fulfilling love life.
When you feel down and sad, the simplest gesture of compassion from your partner can already bring so much difference to your mood. Encouraging words and warm hugs can already vanish any discomfort that you might feel. Having someone to hold your hand, giving you the emotional support you need through staying by your side, can easily ease away any pain, whatever it might be about.
Relationships that lack compassion tend to be harsh. Once this happens, interactions will be less caring, leading to the building up of resentments that can make you feel as if you are the only one who is in that relationship.
Development and expression of compassion can establish a safe zone for your love as well as other feelings and issues that might come your way. Nothing can replace your partner’s sympathy or soft touch. This is something that can heal the two of you, something that creates that emotional security that you have never even thought you needed in the first place.
Building compassion is very easy, with desire being the first element. Here, it is important to ask your partner about the needs that he or she might have and then explain your very own needs. Through such discussion, it will be easier to show compassion to one another because both of you know where your energy should be focused.
The second thing that might be a bit challenging is to commit yourself to always keep compassion intact in any dialogue. A compassionate relationship is devoid of harshness and once this occurs, the two of you need to pinpoint and shut this down right away so that you will be able to return to relating using the right manner.
A simple but effective exercise for enhancing compassion is looking into one another’s eyes. While movies might have extremely romanticized this action, this seldom happens in modern relationships. Instead of looking intently at the television, stop and look deeply into your partner’s eyes and sense the emotions that he or she has to create more compassion and depth.
It is good to show compassion but it is better to be compassionate. If your mate shares a problem with you and you show concern, you make your partner aware that you will not
only be there but at the same time, you also care about what your partner is going through. It is something that your partner will feel and will also return this kind of gesture in the same way that you did.
Make sure that you build and practice compassion as an essential part of your day-to-day love. Nothing is more palpable than knowing that your partner cares for you in the same way that you do.
Change Your Mindset Thinking Before You Speak:
Choose Your Words and Choose Them Wisely
Even the simplest words can inspire loyalty, uplift hearts, and change people’s lives. They can give life to dead things or they can also mutilate what used to be whole hearts.
Words can also be an assassin to a character, estrange a soul, and show undue kindness and cruelty.
In any relationship, thinking before you speak is a must due to the words’ awesome and sometimes destructive power. All relationships have their share of emotional garbage and unresolved issues which can negatively affect them. For the preservation of a relationship and make this thrive, thinking about the things you will say is essential as well as considering whether the words you will speak are coming from a loving and kind heart or a heart that flows with bitterness, rage, anger, and other unproductive emotions.
Once unkind phrases and words escape your mouth, you can never take them back. Even if you try hard to say something different or something better, or fix the damage caused by the words you said in the heat of an argument, there is no means of retracting them, even if you try hard. The damage is done. However, there is still hope and that is by thinking before you even speak.
One important thing to remember is to consider first the effect that your words can have on the other person. Will it make them feel bad? Will it lessen their confidence in themselves? Such things should be taken into consideration to avoid hurting feelings.
Saying things involves timing and you have to remember that timing is everything. Avoid saying negative things during emotional or hectic times. Never start any heavily emotional conversation if there is no adequate time to talk things out.
Consider your motives for speaking. If you just want to say something for the sake of speaking, then, think again. Will the words sound unkind? Should you just leave them as they are, unsaid to avoid any negative emotions? It is important to have true and good motives for speaking.
Thinking before you speak is vital for any relationship as there is no way to take the words back. Once a heart is broken, it will be broken no matter how much you try to put the pieces back.
Maintain Your Boundaries:
Boundaries are a Must for Successful Relationships
Boundaries refer to the set of personal limits reinforcing your sense of autonomy and identity. These can be emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual. Setting them is your choice for protecting yourself and demanding respect. Boundaries can vary from one relationship to another and can also change after some time.
Determine Your Boundaries
Consider the things that you like and dislike. Know the attitudes, experiences, and behaviors that make you feel uncomfortable. Clearly understanding your boundaries can help you in firmly setting them and recognizing if they are already being violated.
Be Assertive in Communicating Your Boundaries
When you set boundaries, do this directly and clearly. Determine the boundary issues and with the use of “I” statements, you have to own your feelings as far as these are concerned.
Create a Response to Violations of Your Boundaries
Come up with a possible response in case your boundaries are violated. You can reiterate your boundaries and acknowledge the failure to respect your limits. Make your partner aware of the consequences of disregarding your boundaries.
Follow Through Your Boundaries
Be firm and make sure that you follow through with your boundaries and stick to the consequences that you have planned. Failing to follow through with your boundaries will make your partner think that it is okay for you if he or she crosses your boundaries again. If your partner fails to respect the boundaries you have or does not take them seriously, it will make you feel that your needs, desires, and feelings are unimportant, meaningless, and insignificant. This is not healthy for any relationship so make sure that the two of you discuss one another’s boundaries to make your relationship better.
Use Affirmations to Stay On The Course:
Positive Affirmations for a Positive Relationship
To build a healthy relationship, things will start first and most essentially with you. This is just great as it means that you have all the power to build a loving and positive energy and carry out your part so that you can nurture all the characteristics that a healthy relationship must have.
Several affirmations will help you stay on the right course and make your relationship as healthy as you want it to be!
I am completely in love with my partner.
I constantly strive to nourish and grow the love that I and my partner have for one another.
I am starting to fall more and more in love with my partner.
I am happy with my partner and I will do everything to maintain it that way. I have deep respect for my partner.
I can be completely myself whenever I am with my partner. I can communicate my needs and wants.
I can draw my boundaries if needed.
I always consider my partner’s perspective.
I will strive to create a healthy relationship with my partner. I am going to be a wonderful spouse in the future.
I will act with care and respect for my partner.
I feel much closer to my partner as each day passes. I deserve to have a healthy relationship.
I consider it important to listen to what my partner has to say. One of my strengths is honest communication.
To build a healthy and happy relationship is worth any of the effort for me.
The Benefits Of Your Relationship Resolution:
Perks of Your Relationship Resolution
As the New Year starts, millions of people from different parts of the world make their resolutions, from saving money, spending less, losing weight, and the like.
Unfortunately, there is a single resolution that is not heard that much – “Let’s work on our relationship.”
However, even though this might not be spoken, most couples that are going through some rough waters in their relationship always wish for the best when another year comes their way. There are plenty of benefits that you will surely enjoy for the rest of the year when you create and follow through with your relationship resolution for the next 12 months and many other years to come.
A Healthier Relationship is Bound to Come Your Way
Relationship resolutions pave the way for maintaining a healthy relationship. A healthy relationship is when two individuals show mutual respect and remain true to themselves while still respecting the entirety of their partner down to their very core. True, this will require respect, patience, and compromise but this will still be worth all the effort because being human beings, everyone is meant to connect on a deeper level with another person that they love and know that they are secure in their most crucial relationship.
You Can Reestablish the Feelings and Connections That Got Lost Along the Way
It is very common for long time relationships to lose some feelings and connections as years pass by and they seem to grow too accustomed to the presence of one another. Through a relationship resolution, you can get the perfect chance to find everything lost and put it back again or better yet, take things to a higher level and change the whole face of your relationship. It helps you rekindle the fire and bring back the old flames that time seemed to have extinguished without you knowing it.
You and Your Partner Become Better Persons Not Just for Your Relationship But Also For Yourselves
Relationship resolution is made not only for the sake of salvaging the relationship itself but more importantly, its purpose is to allow the two people involved in that relationship to find their self-worth to make them better for their partner and the rest of the people around them. If you feel like you have lost yourself during the relationship, this resolution will help you find your way and bounce back, this time better than ever.
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