How to Become a Low Stress Partner. (part I)
In this three part series I will suggest four things that can be done to lower the stress and negativity in your relationship. When I am working with couples whose relationship is in trouble, I like focusing on simple almost obvious things that they can do to restore the love and caring in the relationship. The simpler the “fix” the more likely the couple is to follow the suggestion, simple is good.
The first thing to do move to lowering the negativity in your relationship is to focus on finding a solution rather than being angry when something goes wrong. Of course, all of us will get angry and I recognize that as a human normal response, the idea is to realize that for things to get better we have to get past anger, accusations and blame.
So if your partner does something that is frustrating or insensitive think about how you let them know what angers or upsets you and what you would like from them, rather than telling them why they wrong or stupid or using more colorful terms. Let them know what you would like and how you would like to see things handled in the future.
The second thing to do to lower stress in a relationship is look for things that your partner is doing right. It’s easy to ignore the good things and respond strongly to the ones that are troublesome. Don’t take your partner’s doing something positive for granted, even if they usually do that for you. We all like to be appreciated and even if some people say: “you don’t have to thank me” it does register with them that you notice that they are taking the time and energy to do something for them.
In my second blog on lowering stress I will share two more easy things that can be done that really make a difference.