Tag: marriageadvice

  • Navigating relationships – 5 of 5

    Navigating relationships – 5 of 5

    As romantic as it seems, needing someone to complete you means that you’re not at peace with yourself.

    It’s not about whether it’s right or wrong. Instead, it’s about being aware of the demands that you’re placing on your partner, most likely without realising it.

    If both are equally invested in such an approach to the relationship, no problem.

    However, it also means that they need to experience emotional growth at the same rate, or else the one will outgrow the other, leaving their partner feeling abandoned or betrayed.

    Expectations from, or of your partner is a good thing.

    But, without mindfulness and understanding of what drives such expectations, and why they may or may not feel comfortable with such expectations being placed on them, relationships end up breaking down for all the wrong reasons.

    The most critical factor in making a relationship work is ensuring that you’re both similarly emotionally mature.

    When emotional maturity, and in turn self-worth from both sides, is in a healthy space, contentious and sensitive issues can be discussed and resolved with relative ease.

    That’s when you’ll move from completing each other, to complementing each other.

    The difference between the two is that you allow each other to be uniquely beautiful in the relationship without either one feeling threatened or smothered the moment there is a difference in the growth that either experiences.

    If you’re contemplating walking away from someone you once loved and dreamed of making a future with, pause to consider if the reasons you’re leaving are really the reasons that your relationship is not what it used to be.

  • Navigating relationships – 4 of 5

    Navigating relationships – 4 of 5

    The importance of having a healthy support structure cannot be over emphasised.

    Majority of relationships fail because support structures from one or both sides are focused on protecting their own from the assumed malicious intent of the other party, rather than trying to establish understanding between the couple, and supporting them towards building their relationship.

    This need to protect before seeking to understand is the very same culture that leads individuals to believe that what they need from the relationship is more important than what they need to contribute to the relationship.

    The old school wisdom that teaches us that we don’t only marry an individual, we marry their entire family, is true but very misunderstood.

    Not only do we need to understand that the extended family will have expectations of us, but also that the family culture will influence the expectations that our partners have of us.

    Believing that either our partner or we are capable of completely mitigating the impact of that extended family influence is naive.

    At some point, sometimes very early in the marriage, the loyalties are tested through guilt-trips or blatant demands where we feel pulled between our support structures and our partners.

    That’s when relationships go sour if the individuals involved are unprepared for that kind of emotional pressure.

    That’s when choosing an independent and informed advisor becomes critical towards breaking the patterns that are leading to the breakdown of the relationship.

    Choose carefully.

  • Navigating relationships – 3 of 5

    Navigating relationships – 3 of 5

    Understanding why you or your partner behave the way that you do is only the first critical step in creating harmony and establishing that bond that makes a relationship resilient.

    Once you have this understanding, you need to decide what to do with it.

    That’s when having mature, objective, and sound advisors become the next critical part in our efforts towards establishing healthy relationships, both with ourselves and with those around us.

    Loyalty often blinds friends and family towards protecting us, even when we’re not attacked nor being deliberately treated badly.

    Their need to protect us is more about their fears from their own experiences or their need to feel significant in our lives, than it is about guiding us towards the best outcomes.

    A sincere advisor is one who won’t protect you from the truth of your contribution towards the difficulties that you may be experiencing just because they’re afraid that you may be upset with them.

    This is true not only for friends and family, but especially for coaches and therapists.

    The golden rule when choosing an advisor is to confirm that they’re driven towards understanding your situation objectively, while offering insights into what is contributing towards it from both sides, before they insist on a course of action that you must follow.

    In fact, when an advisor insists that you take specific steps towards resolving something, they’re no longer advisors. They’re instructors.

    So be sure about whether you’re seeking instruction or advice on how to connect with your partner in a healthier and more meaningful way.

    Instructions are based on someone else’s value system, while advice is aimed at providing insight into your reality so that you can make an informed decision based on your value system. Not theirs.

    Choose carefully.

  • Navigating relationships – 2 of 5

    Navigating relationships – 2 of 5

    When we’re insecure about who we are, we’re more likely to assume that the behaviour of those around us is because of what they think of us.

    This places an unspoken burden on them that influences how they show up for us when we need them most.

    If you want to understand your behaviour towards your partner, or their behaviour towards you, you need to be aware of the dynamics in your relationship with your own family. Especially your parents.

    This is true for them as well.

    When we have dysfunctional or even abusive relationships with our family or parents, what we lack in those relationships inevitably feeds our insecurity in our own relationships, and it influences what we expect from our partners to make up for what was always lacking.

    Most often, this is a subconscious need or demand that we place on them, and that they place on us.

    The more aware we are of this, the greater our chances of being able to remedy it without it contaminating an otherwise good relationship.

    When we feel triggered by something that our partner does, it means that we’re still affected by a past experience that most likely occurred long before we met them.

    Our trigger is ours to own, because it is our fear about what the future holds relative to what the current moment reminds us about our past.

    Hence the fear and anxiety that prompts us to respond with intensity towards something seemingly innocent from others.

    When you’re caught up in a bad cycle with someone, focus on what you’re contributing towards that cycle and change that, rather than focusing on what you need them to change to break that cycle.

    It always starts with you.

  • Navigating relationships – 1 of 5

    Navigating relationships – 1 of 5

    When faced with a serious disagreement in their relationship, couples often turn to their own families or friends for advice or support.

    This can be helpful if the people providing such support or advice are mature and objective, rather than loyal above all else.

    Most often, family and friends will support us in our complaints against our partners, hoping to protect us from being taken for granted, or treated badly.

    This is especially true if we come from a family that has very traditional roles that focus on duty and obligation, rather than mutual contribution towards making a home.

    When we are troubled by something that our partner is doing, we must seek to understand why they’re doing that, rather than judging them and rallying support for our position against them.

    If you don’t have such maturity and wisdom in your relationships or your support structures, it’s best to identify up front in the relationship who will be your go-to in such situations.

    Even if it’s a counsellor, coach, or therapist, be sure to find someone that you both trust when times are good, because it’s very difficult to agree on something like this when times are bad.

    If you focus on understanding, being understood will be easier to achieve.

    That’s why we should develop a good understanding with our partner’s support structure so that we can trust them to be objective when we need to figure out such issues in the relationship, rather than slipping into victim mode and presenting ourselves as the neglected or abused one to our own support structures, which often contributes to the break down of the relationship, rather than making it stronger.

    Choose your advisors carefully.



  • A burdensome labour of love

    A burdensome labour of love

    Responsibility, when met with gratitude, feels like a labour of love.

    Remove gratitude, and it becomes a burdensome load.

    But only if gratitude is expected.

    That’s when expectations weigh down on us more than responsibility, because of the internal wait for others to reciprocate, or to notice.

    It’s not unreasonable to hold that expectation.

    In fact, we should expect those around us to show gratitude or to share the load, so that the relationship is not reduced to one of a mere exchange of duties.

    However, we must remember that they have the same expectation in return.

    More than this, if we’re not aware of this expectation that we have, because it’s usually a subconscious one, we feel disappointment or a growing bitterness towards those who we feel are taking us for granted.

    And again, the same is true in return from their side.

    To overcome this, not only must we be aware of this expectation, we must also understand if the other person is aware of it, and if they’re capable of meeting it.

    That opens a whole new can of worms. But that’s part of the fun of relationships, isn’t it?

    Having silly moments of realisation when you discover that what you were fretting about was only real in your head because the support or gratitude you were looking for was there all along.

    It just wasn’t in the form or expression that you were expecting.

  • The truth about compromise

    The truth about compromise

    That old adage about marriage being about compromise explains why so many marriages appear so burdensome to the ones involved.

    Before you start listing all the sacrifices that you make towards making your marriage work, consider that a willing compromise or sacrifice is a contribution towards something greater than who we are.

    The only time sacrifice becomes a compromise is when it is done begrudgingly.

    When we consider what we’re creating, we contribute towards its outcome.

    Contribution, by its very nature, demands that we give up something in exchange for something of value to us.

    And that’s the secret to marriage not being a compromise.

    Marriage is about creating something that brings us joy and fulfilment, and hopefully leaves a legacy that improves the state of this world.

    Yeah, we may technically give up an indulgence for ourselves because of the greater good that we’re pursuing, but as always, perspective is 110% of reality.

    Focus on what you’re giving up, and you’ll lose the joy of what you’re creating.

    Focus on what you’re losing, and you’ll lose sight of how much more you’ve gained.

    So focus on what you’re creating in your marriage, and sacrifice won’t feature. Only a willing, heartfelt contribution will drive your efforts.

    Life becomes hollow when you seek to only take what you need, or when you constantly focus on what you’re getting in exchange for what you’re giving.

    Give because you have something of value to share. Not because you need something in return.

    Own Your Life.

  • Prisons of our minds

    Prisons of our minds

    Without realising it, we create most of the boundaries and the dependencies that we have on others, often without them being aware of it.

    One of the reasons we do this is because that is our code of life that we’re honouring.

    It’s our way of respecting or protecting what we see as sacred in that relationship.

    However, it’s based on the assumption that our partner shares the same values, and values the same things.

    Healthy communication will make such misalignment of expectations easier to deal with, and resolve.

    But, the moment we tell someone what we need from them, we create an opportunity for doubt within ourselves about whether they’re doing something out of obligation, or sincerity.

    That doubt is the beginning of the prison walls that we erect around ourselves, which slowly isolates us from our partner because we’re expecting them to notice what we need.

    But expectations are important in a relationship.

    Without it, the relationship loses value and the trust fades.

    To avoid this, we need to develop a healthy emotional maturity in the relationship so that issues of trust, expectations, and duty can be discussed in ways that don’t threaten the self-worth of your partner.

    More than this, we also need to realise that if we focused on what we’re not getting, and also focused only on what we’re giving, chances are good that we are unaware of what they need from us beyond the assumptions that we’ve made.

    Thus, the prisons of our minds become the prisons of our lives.