Marriage Tips Are About As Useful As Stock Market Tips - Part 1
By Steven Stosny
You may have noticed that there are a lot of "marriage tips" out there. Most are common sense. Some are faith-based. A few are even based on research about what makes marriages succeed and fail.
And just about all are as useful as tips about the stock market and horse racing.
That's because it's almost always just one party reading the "tips," usually the one who most wants change in the relationship.
If the one reading the tips enacts them unilaterally, no matter how sound the tips might be, he or she is likely to seem manipulative to the other partner. It could hardly seem otherwise, since people are less likely to seek tips on being better partners than on getting their partners to change for the better.
That's unfortunate, because the only reliable way to get a better partner is to become one.
People tend to seek partners who are temperamentally different. If you are the sort of person who reads marriage tips, you are probably married to someone who wouldn't be caught dead in even a dentist's waiting room reading one.
So the following "tips" are designed to help YOU be a better partner and, incidentally, have a much better chance of your partner reacting positively to your efforts.
Tip #3: Don't worry about "communication" problems.
Couples in conflict - or in cold stand-offs - do not actually have communication problems. They have value problems, having made their dispute more important than their connection and love for each other.
No matter what communication tools they employ, they are really saying: "I cannot love you unless you agree with me or do what I want."
Attempting to "communicate" without getting in touch with deeper values of what is most important to and about you will be worse than useless; it will likely damage your relationship.
Tip #4: Talk less, connect more.
Problems in intimate relationships are not resolved by talking. They're resolved by connecting. Talking without a desire to connect will make things worse.
Connecting makes both talking and problem-solving much easier. If you think of serious problems you've overcome in your relationships, you will realize that you did not overcome them until you valued your connection and showed a desire to connect.
It wasn't what you said or how you said it that brought improvement; it was your motivation to say it, i.e., to connect to the most important adult in your life.
(See yesterday's Marriage Tip for the first 2 of Dr. Stosny's "tips".)
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