President Obama and Hillary Clinton –
The Best of Friends?
Being a Marriage and Family Counselor I deal with the issue of friendships all the time. People fall out of “like” with their partner and right around that time they fall out of love as well. I found the relationship between Hillary Clinton and President Obama very interesting.
When President Obama was in the Congress Hillary Clinton was a mentor to him and then when he ran for president they became if not enemies, at least adversaries. During the election negative comments were tossed back an forth and now in 2013 it appears, if you believe their joint interview on sixty minutes on television that they have become good friends. I was thinking about how marriages go through a similar cycle, so I wanted to talk about what happened between these two powerful figures that changed them from friends to advisories to close friends.
How President Obama and Hillary Clinton got past their issues with each other makes me think of how couples can get past their issues with one another.
Here are some guidelines that might help you in your relationship.
- Allow yourself to get angry with out getting righteous that is how my partner dare have the nerve to …. (fill in the blank)
- Whenever possible try and not make a big deal of the things that are troubling you.
- Think about what you like, respect and appreciate about your partner.
- Calm yourself down, before you react to your partner. Words spoken in anger do not help a relationship.
- Work at seeing the other person’s point of view.
You may not agree with them, but at least work at understanding where they are coming from.
Though it is difficult to get past resentments and anger to have good friendships it is important to learn how to get past the bad times in a positive way. The above things are a good starting point for getting past resentments, the president and the secretary of state were able to it, why can’t you?