First aid for the relationship > The good relationship > 7 tips for the relationship
- How do we prevent problems in the relationship and divorce?
- How do we develop and strengthen the relationship effectively?
- How do we maintain and future-proof the relationship?
- How are practical tools integrated into couple therapy?
Free toolbox for the relationship in couples therapy
Below you will find the seven golden rules that can save, secure and develop the relationship as well as strengthen interaction, coexistence, cohesion and emotional life.
The seven tools can be used both preventively and therapeutically in relation to your couples therapy at Parterapi-parterapeut.dk as well as your own process at home.
This toolbox is also the second chapter in the eBook, which you get for free on the journey at Parterapi-parterapeut.dk’s Concept in couple therapy or by purchasing a Couple Check.
Seven things you must strengthen in your relationship
First aid for the relationship is about stopping the accident – you can read more about that in the previous article. Next, it is about life-saving first aid in the form of prevention and development – you can read more about that below. At any time and as soon as you are ready, it is about calling for help in the form of couples therapy – the third point in the basic first aid steps. During the process, it is good to be inspired by the tools that already exist. However, there are no universal quick-fix tools. My goal as a couples therapist is therefore first and foremost to help you to develop your own tools and strategies, based on your personal insights from couples therapy. It typically creates the best results and lasting change. However, some of the tools I often include in couple therapy are e.g. Dr. Gottman’s Tools for Making Marriage Work. He calls them the Seven Golden Rules for Two Living Together:
- Strengthen your love card
- Strengthen the loving feelings, the nurturing love and the mutual respect
- Search for each other and participate in each other’s life events
- Accept influence and make decisions together
- Solve the solvable problems together and strengthen problem-solving skills
- Get out of the stuck conflicts and stubborn knots
- Create common meaning with and basic views on the relationship
This article is about my experience from couples therapy as a couples therapist. The article is thus my interpretation, experience and passing on of the underlying theory as well as my personal methods, tools and exercises that I, for example, use or suggest in connection with the individual points.
Strengthen your love card
A love map (Love Map) is the part of the brain where we store all the relevant information about our partner and his life. In short, our inner representation of the partner and the one we love – with skin and hair. It is important to know, know and remember when storms rage in the relationship or when negativity (NSO / Negative Sentiment Override) arises.
The couples who succeed in couples therapy are the ones who use their love cards to:
1) Daily remember themselves on the positive sides, qualities, character traits, memories, feelings and admiration for each other.
2) Daily expressing their curiosity, understanding, recognition, gratitude, tenderness, admiration and pride for each other.
The successful couples are those who manage to keep the positive in focus, so that the negative is never allowed to overshadow daily life and the relationship. In couples therapy, we thus train mindfulness, curiosity, openness and interest as well as recognition of both parties, their differences and a map of reality. If you are interested in getting to know yourself and each other better, there is also the option of a free MBTI or DISC personality test.
A simple exercise can be to meditate a little on your partner every day, when you have a break in the car or on the train anyway. Or if you involuntarily end up sitting and waiting for your partner – instead of letting your partner annoy you. Think about what you love about your partner, think about what fascinates you about your partner and think about the positive aspects of your partner’s behavior, character traits, appearance, voice and smell. Reinforce and maintain these internal positive representations.
Strengthen the loving feelings, the nurturing love and the mutual respect
Happy couples and married couples strengthen and cultivate their loving feelings and mutual respect. Many of the couples who seek me out as a couples therapist for couple therapy and sexological talk therapy have just lost their dignity and respect for each other and themselves. In couple therapy, communication is therefore one of the places where we focus first and foremost. It is about re-establishing dignity and respect in the dialogue.
A practical exercise in couple therapy and at home can be, for example, trying to treat and talk to each other, as on first dates or as if you were statesmen. Likewise, it has an enormously positive effect if you start using each other’s first names. Most people appreciate hearing their name. It also typically creates awareness, responsiveness and connectedness. At the same time, it strengthens love and connectedness if you elevate communication to a dialogue, where you share your feelings and how you influence each other – dialogue and resonance. It is something that very few distressed couples can practice alone, but when we get it trained through couples therapy, it often makes deep sense.
It is important to do something active together, so that you also have something to remember and talk about. You can, for example, make a mental or physical scrapbook with memories from, for example, dates, trips, holidays and special events. Many parents find it difficult to date due to challenges around time, money and childcare. An alternative option is home dating. On my Facebook page you get 10 creative tips for home dating for free. You can also like and follow the page www.facebook.com/parterapi.parterapeut, so you get daily tips and input for the relationship.
Search for each other and participate in each other’s life events
To seek one another means to connect with one’s partner; that you are there for each other during the big and small events in life; that you get involved so that you witness each other and have shared experiences. In short, it means that you get involved in each other and each other’s lives and that you include each other.
Most couples in crisis who seek couples therapy are already mentally and/or emotionally divorced. Couple therapy is therefore largely about getting out of isolation and re-establishing contact, even if you are different and have conflicts. When you participate in each other’s life events, you also strengthen the sense of community and cohesion.
Practice inviting each other and practice asking to join each other’s activities, events and life events. Try to participate as actively and involved as possible. If you do not have the opportunity to participate physically, practice participating in other ways. For example, by asking questions, sharing and talking about the events before and after. Or by participating per sms, photos and videos as well as per telephone or skype.
Accept influence and make decisions together
Making decisions together means involving each other in your thoughts, feelings, values, desires and intentions; that you strengthen your dialogue; that you must invite for exchange; that you must negotiate, share power and allow influence; that you must involve each other in your decision-making process. You therefore primarily accept influence through the dialogue and decision-making process. Next, by practicing greater flexibility, so that you make room for and accept the impact your partner’s decisions and actions have.
The minimum criterion for couple therapy is that you involve and include each other in the dialogue around your decisions. The middle criterion for couple therapy is insight, creativity, problem solving and negotiation. And the ideal is that you also find solutions that you are both happy with and can live with. Along the way, couple therapy is about creating openness, tolerance and flexibility, so that there is also room for each of your agendas. In couple therapy and via my eBook, we typically collaborate to find the exercises and tools that suit you best and adapt them to your needs.
As previously regarding dialogue, there are also very few couples in crisis who find it easy to negotiate. But when we get it trained through couple therapy, it often makes deep sense. This is because this is a psychological negotiation, which is loving, relationship- and interest-based. Not a business negotiation or a negotiation that is about winning, but rather win-win. Negotiation is at the same time the step towards avoiding compromises in the relationship. Compromise rarely makes anyone happy – compromise is the kiss of death in a relationship.
Solve the solvable problems and strengthen the problem solving skills
The relationship is a long road of joys as well as challenges that must be solved as part of life and cohabitation. Some couples are too flexible and some too rigid. Some couples are too confrontational, while others tend to shy away from conflict and sweep problems under the rug. But solving problems together creates self-esteem and strengthens contact, the relationship, creativity and learning – especially if the couple remembers to evaluate their solution initiatives.
Problem solving also strengthens the couple’s model of conflict resolution, which involves the couple seeking a soft start; that one learns to make repair attempts; that you calm yourself and your partner; that one is receptive to creative solutions and negotiation; that one is tolerant of each other’s faults. Couples therapy is thus largely about evoking what once worked and finding new and better ways together.
There are countless tools and exercises around problem solving. It would be too extensive to review here. Therefore, just practice and as a start on problem formulation. The solution is usually given when the problem is first understood ~ Einstein. In addition, you can train your creativity. Most couples in crisis give up after one to three proposed solutions – most of which are already known and rejected. Therefore, push yourself and your creativity via brainstorming. Finally, the decision-making process itself is often a big challenge for couples in trouble, so this is typically also something we practice in couple therapy.
If you are sufficiently stable and manage to keep calm, then there is a simple exercise you can throw yourself into. But it only works if these prerequisites are in place at the same time that each of you is sufficiently sharp in problem formulation and manages to be creative and solution-oriented. The model simply means that you set aside 15 minutes. Five minutes for each of you, where you take turns telling what the problem is. You set aside the last five minutes for dialogue, problem solving and decision making. The good thing about this model is that it rarely goes too far. Many can’t do more than 20 minutes anyway, so with 15 minutes most people will be able to do it. If you do not find a decision within 15 minutes, you must stop. Then you can always take another round later, when the storm has subsided.
Get out of deadlocked conflicts and deadlocks
Conflicts get stuck (Gridlock) and situations lock up when one or both parties feel rejected / unrecognized. They typically do this when they don’t feel seen, heard and taken seriously – that in itself is a good reason to seek couples therapy. However, they often continue to argue, without any progress. At the same time, they entrench themselves in their positions. As a result, they often end up feeling even more frustrated and hurt, while the discussion about the problem is stripped of effortlessness, recognition, affection and humor. Humor is not just a great lubricant. Humor can sometimes completely resolve the situation without any real change having taken place.
Over time, negativity increases the distance as well as the risk of accusations, bitterness, grudges and slander. The obfuscation creates further disgust, hatred and polarization (tunnel vision, black/white thinking and if/if not…then talk) and rejections, as well as reduces the willingness to be flexible and solution oriented. In the end, distance and coldness arise, as well as an absence of any desire to engage with each other. For most, it also goes beyond intimacy and sex life. Sometimes it can also lead to infidelity. Respect and propriety must be immediately re-established during couple therapy as at home, but the two most important factors to get out of the knot are motivation and a willingness to explore the hidden problems and causes (Route Cause Analysis – RSA) which create the knot itself.
So your primary exercise here consists of listening and appreciative dialogue, as you know for example from imago therapy. Some of the tools are in simplicity: “What I hear you say… is it correctly understood?”. And the process in simplicity: Mirroring, validation and empathy. In principle simple at this first level of the method (there are many more), but it often requires guidance and training via couples therapy.
Create common meaning with and basic views on the relationship
The relationship and marriage must make sense for both parties. If it doesn’t make sense, then we won’t be able to do what is necessary and go through the hard times together. We typically find meaning by answering two questions about the relationship: 1) Why (are we together) and 2) How (are we together). By finding the same meaning and individually as individuals in the community, and by finding practical ways to realize them, you strengthen the relationship. When the relationship has a common meaning, the conflicts are also experienced as less intense and important, at the same time the common problems of the relationship have less of a tendency to come to a head.
One of the immediate exercises is thus to reflect and talk about your Why and How. The next exercise you can do at home, as in couples therapy, is to work with definitions. Definitions for words such as: friendship, respect, sex, relationship, marriage, etc. In continuation of this, you can, supported by couples therapy, work with timelines, visions, value clarifications, norms, rules of the game, roles, responsibilities, tasks, etc.
There are also other ways to find meaning in the relationship. Finding common meaning in the relationship can also have a soulful, spiritual or spiritual dimension. It connects the parties and helps them understand what it means for each of them to be part of the family they have become. An understanding and interest in the different and the common origin as well as being part of something bigger and coming home – the curiosity for love, as a spiritual instrument to transcend oneself (to transcend) and to be something more and to be something more for love, family and others. For those couples who are further interested in treading this path, I often offer couple therapy of a more existential nature or couple therapy of a more dynamic nature – eg imago therapy.
By Parterapi-parterapeut.dk
In every crisis there is an opportunity and a learning.
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