Are you ready for literally some of the best relationship advice you’ll ever get?! Great! Because I cannot wait to share with you things that have saved Tyler and my relationship and made it 100x better!
If you hadn’t read my first blog post about our pre-marital counseling class, I suggest you do so – great stuff to be absorbed. This past Saturday, we wrapped up our 6-week couples counseling course. Again, the course was designed for not only newly engaged couples, but couples of all statuses, even married. There is always room for improvement, even if your relationship or marriage is already great.
Tyler and I, just like every other couple, had our own relationship struggles. It was nothing significant – just small hiccups. However, we knew that upon entering a new chapter in our life come next month, we wanted to make sure we were beginning our journey well and fully equipped. We had learned a great deal in this course and wanted to share with you our greatest take aways that have improved our relationship by a mile. It’s like not only having the restaurant replace your overcooked steak with a new one, but also taking it off your bill as well!
One of the main talking points, and probably most prevalent issue for most couples, was communication and HOWtocommunicate. Without realizing, we, as regular humans, actually have horrible habits of communicating with one another whether it be our significant other, our friends, parents, siblings, the list goes on.
Here’s a list of what NOT to do followed by what TO do:
- What we do wrong: Don’t directly accuse. “You only care about your work. You don’t care about me.
- What to do instead: Start with how the action hurts/affects you. “I feel hurt and abandoned when you stay at work late without telling me ahead of time”. By stating how you are affected, it let’s the other person sympathize with you instead of feeling immediately attacked.
- What we do wrong: Don’t use “always” or “never”. There is seldom cases in which someone NEVER or ALWAYS does something. They may have reoccurring tendencies, however, using always/never discredits the few times they do or don’t do that action which will offend them because they will, in return, name all the times they have or haven’t performed that action. “You are always late for dinner. You are never on time.”
- What to do instead: Instead, use the phrase “more times than I care to experience”. “More times than I care to experience, I feel neglected and unappreciated when you come late for dinner”. Do you see how much that changes the direction of which the conversation will head?
- What we do wrong: We don’t affirm the other person before expressing an annoyance or pet peeve. “You’re a workaholic. You would rather stay at work than come home for dinner.”
- What to do instead: It takes FIVE affirmations/positives to cancel out/ease ONE complaint/negative. “(1) I know you work very hard and I admire you for your work ethic. (2) You’re always the last one out of the office which shows that you want to get the job done well. (3) Your projects are always presented perfectly. (4) Your boss appreciates you and I know you are one of his top employees. (5) Your hard work also does not go unseen by me and I am so proud of you. However, I feel hurt and neglected when you don’t come home on time for dinner. I too also work hard to prepare a nice meal for you because I know how hungry you are from a long, hard day at work.”
A lot of stress and failure within couples is caused by not only lack of communication, but lack of proper communication. Many of us don’t even realize that how we word things to each other can be very detrimental.
Another GREAT tactic we have implemented daily, yes daily, is doing The 5 A’s.
Take turns leading every other day. Partner A will share their affirmation first, then will Partner B. Once both finish the first A, move onto the second. DO NOT let Partner A do all 5 A’s at once and then Partner B do all 5 after. Both must do each A together.
1. Affirmation – Share 1 (or 2!) thing(s) that you admire about them. Did they make you proud? Did they help you out? Were they thoughtful toward you? I.E. Tyler always tells me how pretty I am or thanks me for doing something nice without him asking
2. Affection – Kiss! Muah, muah, muah.
3. Apology – We often hurt those we love without realizing it! This is a great way to practice one of the communication rules I mentioned above. Simply ask, “Is there any way I hurt you today?” You respond by sharing ONE incident…and then release your forgiveness as quickly as they apologize! No “buts” or defending. Just apologize and forgive. “I’m sorry, will you forgive me?” What I love about 5 A’s is that it let’s us release any uncared for feelings on the DAILY. This helps prevent those negative feelings that can build up over time.
4. Ask – Ask each other if there’s anything they can do for you today or tomorrow. Sometimes we have a hard time asking others to do things for us. We don’t want to seem weak or incompetent. This allows us to be able to ask for favors or anything really without making us sound or feel needy!
5. Amen – Ask each other how you can pray for them. Once each of you have expressed your prayer request, say a pray for each other together.
Save this photo so you can easily refer back to it when doing your 5 A’s!Doing our 5 A’s everyday has helped us a lot. I naturally have issues with giving positive affirmations and showing affection. I grew up in a tough household with tough love – there really was no verbal or physical love shown/given at all in my family. Tyler on the other hand grew up polar opposite, thus I was not fulfilling those affirmations that he needed (Affirmations are also his top love language). This helps me, without feeling awkward or forced, to feed him his love language and pour into his cup daily.
I hope you find this insightful and consider trying some of these tactics. They have helped pull us out from our muddy, gray areas and we’ve never been better!