KissMeGoodnight
eLearning Series:
How To Tell A Great Relationship
From A Totally Unhealthy One
Lowdown
on Long Lasting Love
Now it’s time
to take a look at the lowdown on how to handle long lasting
love. Here are some pointers on how to deal with some of
the top issues that when mishandled, can separate the men
from the boys, as they say, or rather the successful couples
from the less-successful ones.
Conflict
Management - The key here is to realize that most
couples do not solve every issue. In fact, reports show
that couples don’t solve most of their problems. So if
you think your girlfriends or buddies are winning more
frequent battles than you, forget about it. It’s not happening.
Next realize that
statistics still reflect about a 50 percent survival rate
for married couples long-term. (I.E. the other half divorce).
And for those who do make it, it’s not so much about whether
or not they “love” each other more than the divorced people
did. It’s generally more about that fact that they developed
better communication skills and learned to understand each
other better. And developed and learning - -these are action
verbs.
As you develop
and learn your own job skills for advancement, so can you
and should you do the same for relationship advancement.
There is no shame in reaching out and improving in this area. Tips
for developing better communication skills and learning to
understand your mate better; i.e. improve conflict
management, are as follows:
1. Take
turns speaking and listening to each other. As a speaker,
speak only for yourself and keep your comments brief. The
stop and invite the listener to sum up what you said (to
make sure he or she understood).
2. Then
allow the other person to take over and follow the same format.
3. Share
back and forth in this same manner, jotting down conflict
management notes as needed for following up later and establishing
new boundaries in your relationship.
Some tips
for handling conflict resolutions are:
A. Start
with the person presenting his or her complaint in a general
format, without blame. For example, instead of saying, “You
keep leaving dirty dishes out on the counter all night,”
say “I don’t like it when dirty dishes are left out on the
counter. During my college days, that attracted cockroaches.”
B. Encourage
each other to come to an agreement in a calm, friendly manner.
Negotiate. Give and take. Maybe the dishes from late night
snacks don’t have to be washed with soap and hot water, but
can simply be rinsed off instead and stacked in the sink’s
dishpan or strainer, for instance.
C. If
negativity starts, stop it ASAP. In the above example, maybe
the mate wants all sinks clear and free for emptying coffee
cups and other snack and breakfast dishes. So this person
starts swearing, calling the other person a lazy idiot or
something…STOP.
D. Calm
things back down. Use hand signals like coaches do in sports,
if necessary. Men can often relate to this. Do a “time out”
mode. And take a breather or break for a few minutes.
E. Then
go back to where things were fine, just before step “C.”
Inject some humor and try to resolve the conflict again.
Maybe joke about how you pay much more for your residence
now and don’t have cockroach problems. And that OK, one sink
can be left clear, the other will hold a strainer of rinsed-off
items. Any dirty ones can be placed / stacked on one side
of the strainer; rinsed items on the other. Done deal!
 
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