Reading Corner

Links related to the weekly posts.

 

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This week, we asked what kind of commitment each of you want in your relationship. We suggest that it’s good to talk about what your commitment is before discussing the specific decisions involved in making a life together. Here are some articles with different aspects of commitment.

10 Questions to Help You Tell If You’re Ready to Commit “How does anyone know what he or she will want 10 years from now, or whether a current commitment will morph into a lasting one? Of course, total security has always been an illusion, yet there must be some way to know when a potential relationship is worth the investment. Having spent over 100,000 intimate hours with clients over the last four decades, I believe there are still some solid criteria to help men and women decide between long-term partnering or short-term exploration.”

Here is what real commitment to your marriage means “What does being committed to your marriage really mean? UCLA psychologists answer this question in a new study based on their analysis of 172 married couples over the first 11 years of marriage.”

8 Real Ways to Keep a Committed Relationship Healthy “As you and your partner become more serious and transition from newly dating into a more long term committed relationship, your relationship will likely experience some changes. A more long term relationship comes with lots of benefits like becoming closer and more comfortable around each other, but it also comes with more difficulties as you navigate life as a couple. Keeping a committed relationship exciting and viable often involves work – but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Focusing on establishing healthy habits for yourself, encouraging these things in your partner and creating healthy standards for your relationship will keep your committed relationship going!”

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This week, we said that you have to believe in a peaceful relationship and intend to have one. Here are some other people on belief and intention, plus a post of our from some time ago with the same message in different words.

The 4 Qualities Of A Conscious Relationship, From A Marriage Therapist “Why do people struggle so hard to make relationships work? Part of the reason is because we’re entering into relationships for the wrong reasons. People find themselves unsatisfied in love because they lack a true purpose for being in it. The antidote? Moving toward what I like to call conscious relationships.”

How to Attract Peaceful & Nurturing Relationships “I remember being in one romantic relationship where the fighting seemed endless. It reflected everything I didn’t want in my life, but it also reflected my subconscious beliefs. Beliefs that relationships can’t ever feel easy, that they had to hurt, that they had to weaken us. Beliefs that I wasn’t good enough to expect something better. I knew it was those beliefs that brought that relationship into my life. Eventually, I just couldn’t take it anymore… I wanted peace. I wanted understanding. I wanted my relationships to feel calm, nurturing and, most of all, respectful.”

Why Are Intention and Belief Important in Relationships? This is a post of ours from 2015 “There are but two simple steps to having a wonderful relationship: believing such a relationship can exist, and intending to have one. It can’t be that simple, you say, or everyone would do it. Well, it is, yet they don’t. Let me explain in more detail.”

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In our blog this week, we wrote about why both comfort and novelty are important for all your relationships. This is a well researched area; here are some good takes on it.

Balancing Novelty And Comfort In Romantic Relationships “We expect a lot from our partners. On the one hand, we develop relationships based on love and romance. We yearn for attraction, excitement, a spark. On the other hand, when we’re forging lifelong partnerships, we also seek stability, reliability, and a predictable, comfortable status quo with a lot of emotional safety.”

Why Do We Seek Comfort in the Familiar? (also a podcast) “Okay, so now we’ll get to her question. She writes, “I’m squarely in my most productive years — I’m 39 — but I’ve noticed that whenever I feel particularly tired, I turn to the comfort of familiar things: the bands I love, the books and movies I’ve already read and seen, the poetry that I love, etc. I wonder if there is existing research that explains whether that is common and also whether the need to find comfort in the familiar increases with age, and conversely, whether the desire to try out new things requires both a positive outlook on life and the physical energy to do so.” So, let’s start there. Angie, what say you to that query?”

Seeking Novelty in Marriage? Don’t Forget Self-Expansion; 6 Things to Consider as You Shake Things Up “That lusty, unstoppable, boundless feeling of falling in love has a lot to do with novelty. It is no surprise that as we become familiar with one another novelty tapers off and perhaps some of that initial “effortless” love wanes as well. But what about self-expansion? Dr. Arthur Aron’s self-expansion model tells us two things; as humans we are forever motivated to expand and that we often achieve this expansion through our close relationships. Novelty in marriage (or any relationship) nourishes that desire for self-expansion. We feel better, confident, and more fulfilled in our relationships.”

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By Posted on Posted in Presence, Reading, Relationships, Successful Relating

This week, we wrote about why being present in your relationships is so powerful. We think we’ve taken a different approach from the way most people write about this. Here are some other authors on how to be present.

9 Ways To Feel More Present With Your Partner, According To Experts “If you’ve been with your partner for a while, or have simply become overwhelmed by the busyness that is life, you may start to notice a divide forming in your relationship. Maybe you spend a lot of time on your phone, or your partner is always checking their email. And as a result of all the distractions, neither of you ever feels fully present.”

Three Ways to Be More Present in Relationships “As human beings we all long to be seen and heard by another. Yet often, when we are with others, our minds are distracted. We might be half listening while we think about something we have to do, or something we want to say in the conversation; we might be partially caught in our own thought stream, or our own agenda.”

Are You Fully Present in Your Relationship or Marriage? “You know that feeling you get when you’re talking to your partner or spouse and they don’t seem to be “there there?” By that, I mean, a part of them is somewhere else, and it’s not with you. You might wonder where their mind is, or feel insulted or hurt that they’re not being fully present in your company.”

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This week, we wrote about how knowing yourself helps you find mutual solutions in relationships. Here are a variety of approaches to that topic.

Conflict Resolution – Creating a Mutual Understanding “There is an old story about two girls arguing over an orange. They both wanted this single orange to themselves. They argued for hours over who should get it and why. Finally, though, they realized that they could both win: one wanted the rind for a cake, while the other one wanted to make juice from the inside of the orange. This model of win-win situations and mutual gain is our preferred outcome for any conflict. In this module, we will explore how creating mutual understanding can lay the groundwork for a win-win solution.”

7 Simple Ways to Deal With a Disagreement Effectively “In every relationship, personal or professional, there will always be some disagreement. You will never find an environment where people always agree and that understand each other. That’s fantasy, not reality. As a leadership coach I spend a lot of time working with my clients helping them deal with breakdowns in communication–and truly, a lot of disagreements amount to a breakdown in communication. Here are seven very simple but effective ways I’ve learned over the years for dealing productively with disagreement.”

Why a better understanding of yourself will lead to better relationships “To understand yourself is to know the way your mind works. It is comprehending why you behave and react in certain ways. It is discerning what your strengths and flaws are, in character and in skill. It is recognising what your biggest dreams are, where your priorities lie, what you care most about. To understand yourself is to decipher the workings of your brain, and discover what special building blocks inside you make you, you. It’s a vital key to any healthy relationship…”

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