How do successful couples get it right?
Will your relationship succeed?
Great couples know that a relationship is a journey, not a sprint.
Great couples think about and work towards building an enduring relationship. They invest in the future while being aware of the need to build their relationship for today .
"Goals are aligned but not neccesarily the same"
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A relationship is much more than two people just living together and raising children. It is also a partnership for accomplishing, individual, couple, family goals as well as societal purposes.
The value that a marriage creates should be measured not just in terms of the children that are produced, but also in terms of how a marital relationship sustains the conditions that allow each person to flourish in their respective careers and purpose in life.
In great partnerships, each person’s outlook on life is aligned with the others, rather than one being subordinate to the other. These alignments are not the same. Rather, they are complementary, acting in a way that is supportive and encouraging in the each other achieving their goals in life whilst realizing one’s own goals.
"Ask yourself these top five (5) all-important questions"
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An important skill that all great couples develop is "metacognition" - this is the mind’s capacity to think about one’s own thinking, it is a method of self-examination.
Here, one reflects and observes how to solve a problem, which includes thinking about one’s emotions and behaviour.
How can you improve yourself so that your relationship is great?
Ask yourself the following important questions to follow the path to success through self examination
Top 5 all-important questions....
1. How am I doing in this marriage?
2. How could I do things better?
3. Am I living a meaningful and purposeful life?
4. Does each member of my family feel loved?
5. Does my partner feels that they matter to me?
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Why are these questions so important?
Lets take a look at what successful couples do...
- Great couples fall in together and work inter-connectedly, while remaining somewhat independent.
- They are flexible and allow for openness and freedom of choice whilst maintaining responsibility.
- Great couples become adaptable and resilient to life’s challenges.
- They persist at developing the skills needed to sustain a life long relationship.
Three relationship sustaining abilities that great couples learn.
- Flexibility,
- Adaptability
- Resilience
These qualities are needed to revise plans that don’t work, to recover from making mistakes, they are necessary for effective problem solving and considering the possibility of a range of solutions. They are also needed when new information is presented or conditions change.
"Flexibility, adaptability and resilience are three relationship sustaining abilities"
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These skills are both a thinking and a doing ability. The skillful effort that these couples bring to their marriage make it possible for each to engage in a meaningful life whereby they gain physical, mental and emotional balance and therefore flourish as individuals and as a couple.
Marriage is an intrinsic part of society, and like government and religion, marriage has been one of society’s pillars as far back as history takes us.
The traditional view of marriage however no longer captures the way great couples live together or how they think, talk and act their way to a successful partnership in life today.
It’s time that beliefs and theories about marriage and relationships catch up with the way great couples operate and how they see themselves, both individually and together, in the world today. With the right attitude and focused effort, you too will have relationship success.
Copyright Humaneed 2013