12 Ingredients for STAYING TOGETHER

By Daniel W. Trathen, D. Min. Ph. D.

1. Areas your relationship is working well: Make a list of those areas where you believe your relationship is working well. Next, make another list of the areas where your relationship could use some work. If you and your partner are doing these exercises together, exchange and thoroughly discuss your lists after you have completed them individually.
   
2. What needs to be different? How does the climate of your relationship need to change in order to serve each of you better? Include some of the areas from your first list of things which are working well, but which you would like to see increase or get even better. Make a new list and/or add to the list you have already started and have a discussion about it with your partner, if possible.
   
3. What specific changes need to be made? Consider what specifically would need to change in order for each of the things you have identified on your lists to become a reality. For this next list, think in terms of what changes you - not your partner - can make. Then, reflect on what specific changes you would like to see your partner make. What behavior would you like to request that he/she change? All things considered, just what exactly is it you would like to be different with respect to your partner at this stage of your relationship?
   
4. Attitudes about communication: Identify some of the existing attitudes that are making the climate of communication with your partner less than it could be. See if you can recognize how your very own attitudes about communication might need some work. First, become aware of your individual thoughts about this. Identify and propose some new alternatives to your old attitudes about communication. Write down these new alternative attitudes and refer to them often as they apply to the issues that you discuss.
   
5. How we avoid communicating: Identify how you and your partner typically avoid communicating. What do you do – each and together- to sabotage yourselves and your relationship in this crucial area? Once you have identified the ways you avoid communicating, discuss with your partner how you can change these patterns of avoidance right now. Use this opportunity to communicate about how you communicate. Talk about having some signal that says "time out" when a discussion turns nasty and your communication stops. Share with each other how things such as your partner's tone of voice or non-verbal gestures may put you off - even if they are not intentional.
   
6. Listening Exercise: Set aside fifteen to twenty minutes with your partner to do this exercise. Ask your partner to talk for the first five minutes about something you would like to know or understand. During this period, limit your own responses, if any, to clarify what your partner is saying. If you make any other comments, do so only at times when a response is clearly requested. After five minutes of listening, take a few minutes to share with your partner what you heard, then switch roles. Now, you become the speaker. You will be in control of the conversation for the next five-minute segment. During the time that remains, after you are finished speaking, it is your partners’ turn to say what he or she has heard. Then, talk about the experience - especially some of what you recognized in each of your individual listening styles. While doing this exercise, avoid discussing emotionally charged topics or any areas likely to trigger anger. Remember, this is just an exercise. Once you have mastered these skills, you will be able to talk about virtually anything. Also, feel free to vary the time you allot for your segments.
   
7. Communicating about your most difficult areas: Return to the list of areas where your relationship can use some work. Now, identify and add to them and other issues or problems you have become aware of that may not be on your list. Select an issue or problematic area. Remember to be specific about what you want from each other as well as what you would like to see changed, accepted, or understood. When working anything out together, remember that the goal should be to discover a win/win solution. Getting this to work optimally in your relationship only takes practice and the determination of both of you.
   
8. Ideal Support: think about how you would like to be treated during those times when what you want most of all is your partner’s support. Identify what this means for you. Then communicate your needs in this area to your partner. Take turns discussing how you can both become more supportive of each other.
   
9. Setting goals for your relationship: Talk to each other about what you would like to see your relationship become with respect to specific periods of time. Where would you like to see yourselves a month from now? Six months from now? In a year? Five years? Ten Years? Ultimately? As you talk, pay special attention to those things that might be standing in the way of the goals you have identified for yourselves.
   
10. Empathy exercise: Switch roles with your partner in order to see each other's perspective. Take an issue you are dealing with together. Assume the role of your partner and let you partner take on your role. Now discuss the issue. When you do this exercise, remember that this is how you see each other in that situation with which you are having difficulty. Use this exercise as a source of information so that you can understand you partner's point of view when he or she reacts to you in a way that you find to be difficult.
    
11. Brainstorming Exercise: When you are unable to resolve a problem, try brainstorming together. Come up with as many ideas as possible, allowing that some of them may even be absurd. This is a way to tap into your collective creativity. Then, select a potential solution and analyze it freely. Next, talk it through in order to determine whether the solution will work in your situation. If that solution does not work, go for another one, brainstorm some more, and then discuss another potential solution. Most importantly, see yourselves on the same team, not as opponents.
    
12. Visualization Exercise: Visualize what you would imagine your ideal relationship to be like. Be as specific as possible in your vision of what you want. Then compare your own relationship to the one you have now visualized. Identify specific things that separate where you are now from what you have envisioned as ideal. This can be an individual vision, a shared vision, or both.