Chapter 21: Fate of Relationships – A Place to Share and Care
The third day
* Your target:
Dramatically increase the quality of your personal relationships
and deepen your emotional relationships with
those you love most by reviewing the six fundamentals of relationship success.
Our success is meaningless without someone to share it with.
Indeed, the human emotion we most desire is
to be attached to other souls.
Throughout this book,
we’ve talked about the influence relationships have on shaping our personalities,
values, beliefs, and quality of life.
In particular, today’s exercise has the simple purpose
of reminding you of six basic points
that are valid for any relationship.
Let’s summarize those six points today:
1. If you do not know the values and rules of the people with
whom you share your relationship,
you will surely suffer.
People can love each other,
but if for some reason they constantly break the rules of the person they love,
there will be sadness and torment in the relationship.
Remember, any frustration you have with others
is due to a violation of the rules
and when people are closely related,
it is impossible to clash between each other’s rules. avoid.
If you know a person’s rules well,
you can prevent such encounters.
2. A major problem in relationships is due to the fact
that most people get in a relationship to get something:
They want to find someone who can make them happy.
In fact, one way to make sure your relationship lasts is
to treat your relationship as a place for you to give,
not a place for you to take.
3. Like everything else in life,
in order to nurture a relationship,
there are a few things to look for
and to keep an eye on.
There is a warning sign in a relationship
that reminds you to deal with a problem quickly
before it gets out of hand.
In How To Always Love,
Dr. Barbara DeAngelis outlines four damaging stages that can kill a relationship.
If you identify them, you can intervene in time
and eliminate problems
before they become harmful habits
that threaten the relationship itself.
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STAGE 1: RESPONSIBILITIES
The first stage of relationship testing is
when you feel resistance.
Almost anyone in a relationship has had times
when they felt resistance to what the other person said or did.
Resistance occurs when you feel uncomfortable
or a little distant from the other person.
Maybe at a party the other person made a joke that made you uncomfortable
and you thought they shouldn’t have said it.
The trouble is that most of us don’t confess
to each other our hostile feelings
and so it just keeps growing until it becomes…
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STAGE 2: CELEBRATION
If opposition is not dealt with,
it becomes suspicious.
Now you are not only upset,
you are angry with the other person.
You start to distance yourself from the other person
and build a wall of emotions.
Suspicion destroys intimacy
and this is a damaging relationship
and if left unchecked,
it will grow very quickly to become…
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STAGE 3: DISCLAIMER
This is the point where you feel so much suspicion building up
that you feel like you’ve gone out of your way to blame the other person,
verbally or non-verbally lashing out at the other person.
During this stage,
you begin to feel that everything the other person does is annoy you,
It’s not just physical distancing here anymore.
If rejection continues and to alleviate suffering, we turn to…
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STAGE 4: COMPRESSION
When we’re tired of dealing with anger at the rejection stage,
we try to alleviate our pain by numbing our emotions.
This avoids the feeling of suffering,
but at the same time,
it also loses the feeling of happiness and satisfaction.
This is the most dangerous stage of the relationship
because this is the point where lovers have become
“face-to-face without contentment”.
No one saw any problems with these two,
as they never argued or fought,
but no longer had a relationship.
What is the main method to prevent these 4 signs?
The simple answer:
let’s be straight.
Let others know your principles.
To avoid making a fuss,
use appropriate language.
Let’s talk about the positive side, for example,
instead of saying “I can’t stand that action of yours”,
say, “I’d rather you do this”.
Learn to break old habits to avoid arguments
when you don’t even remember what it is,
but only know that you need to win at all costs.
4. Make your relationship the highest priority in your life;
Otherwise, it will have to give way to other more pressing things happening during the day.
Gradually, the deep feelings and passion will fade away.
5. One of the most important habits
that help preserve our relationships in the long run is
to focus every day on making it better.
Instead of focusing on what could happen if termites