Reading Corner

Links related to the weekly posts.

 

By Posted on Posted in Core Values, Love, Peace, Reading, Relationships, Successful Relating No Comments

In this week’s blog we wrote about the heart of the matter – having a peaceful relationship. These articles look at the difference between partnership and competitive behavior.

Are You Competing in Your Relationship? “One of the cardinal rules of marriage is to recognize that you and your spouse are on the same team; at least you should be. Yes, we live in a world that is rife with competition…. In a relationship where we feel celebrated and supported, we are motivated to rise above our daily challenges. This in fact empowers us to be our best self and redounds to the benefit of the relationship.”

The ‘I’m Right, You’re Wrong’ Argument in Couples Therapy “….Being right gives you a rush of dopamine—the brain chemical associated with winning and victory. You may feel strong—even invincible. The problem with needing to be right is that if we hold it too tightly, it becomes a necessary component for feeling good in the relationship…. Effectively, this game creates division. We all want to be on the right side of the wall—not the wrong side. But that means your partner has to be on the wrong side. The more this dynamic is strengthened, the thicker that wall becomes, creating more division.”

Power struggles: Why being right can make everything wrong “To discontinue engaging in a power struggle, you need to move away from the adversarial energy of competition and control (me vs. you, I’m the boss and you’re not, I’m better/smarter than you are) to one of cooperation and camaraderie (We are a team. We can work this out. I cherish you.). Reconnection and the return to love can literally be just a heartbeat away. It involves taking a pause, becoming present and open to attune and commune in the spirit of curiosity, compassion and clemency. It’s about treating your partner as your best friend”

 

By Posted on Posted in compromise, Core Values, Reading, Relationships, Successful Relating No Comments Tagged with , ,

In this week’s blog we wrote about how to reach mutual solutions in your relationship. These articles address various aspects of finding solutions and doing so without compromising.

Want a great marriage? Don’t compromise. “I define compromise as each party going away equally unhappy. The reason is simple. Most people give in to others as a way to manage their own anxiety and their discomfort with conflict. Or, they give in hoping it will make their spouse happy. The problem is that they’ve just done damage to themselves and the relationship. Any time either partner walks away from a compromise even a little bit unhappy, they’ve done damage to the relationship.”

How Compromise Is Actually Hurting Your Relationship (And What To Do Instead) “Compromise implies that both people have to give up something they want in order to come up with a solution that is tolerable for both. While this all sounds noble and selfless, I think compromise as a solution may do more harm than good. Viewing compromise as your ideal solution requires that we enter a mindset of need rather than empowerment. We assume all we can get is the bare minimum rather than asking for what we really want. We settle rather than flourish.”

Happiness With Others: Practice Win–Win “The win–win process is fairly simple and straightforward, yet it is often not easy to pull off. This is so because it requires a much different mindset than most of us bring to our disagreements. Moreover, it requires some patience and self-control, as you will see below. But, by bothering to follow the process, you will be pleasantly surprised by the solutions you find and gratified by the increased happiness you derive from your relationships.”

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In this week’s blog we wrote about how you fix a needy relationship. These articles cover various aspects of that, including from the partner’s point of view.

How to Become Whole in a Relationship “A solid relationship is two whole (or at least, fairly whole) people coming together because they love each other’s company. They’re not coming together because they need someone to love them all the time, because they need someone’s company all the time, because they need to be shown that they’re loved. If one person is whole but the other person is needy, dependent, insecure … the whole person will do the best that he or she can to help the other, but over the long run will feel weary of all the neediness and insecurity, and will feel resentment.”

How to Overcome Neediness “As ill-defined as the experience of neediness seems to be, psychologists have made great strides in unpacking this complex state of mind. One line of research, which emerged from an attempt to better understand depression, sheds a good deal of light on what makes neediness so incredibly painful. Defining neediness, rather inelegantly, as “a generalized, undifferentiated dependence on others and feelings of helplessness and fears of desertion and abandonment, “ the investigators discovered that it has an important relationship to depression.”

How Neediness and Emotional Insecurity Destroy Relationships “Feeling insecure in a relationship is horrible for the one who is feeling the insecurity. The burden – of fear and obsessive thoughts, of feeling powerless, of awful awareness that all this insecurity may actually itself be destroying what you treasure most – can feel pretty unbearable. But it’s also tough for the person on the receiving end of all that insecurity. The truth is that being involved with a really insecure person can be hell.”

How To Stop Being Needy In 2 Easy Steps “Have you been told in the past or recently that you are needy? Have past relationships specifically ended because he said you were too needy? If so, keep on reading because I will try to give you some tips on how to stop being needy. I have actually been told I am needy in the past and can honestly say that I wasn’t aware of it until the guy I was dating at the time mentioned it. I didn’t want to be that person and so I quickly got to work on stopping this unattractive trait.”

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In this week’s blog we stated that no matter what you think, not all couples fight! It’s a radical view, but here are a few relationship experts who agree.

How Not to Fight “In my counseling practice, couples are often surprised to learn they can communicate and solve problems effectively without fighting; but sometimes you may find it’s not so easy to give up your struggles. You may have trouble letting go of the fighting habit because of two factors: social expectations (expectations the people around you have about marriage) and myths (common beliefs not based on fact.)There are many myths and expectations about fighting in marriage. Couples come into my office frequently believing that fighting is a necessary part of being a couple; that all married couples fight; and it’s a normal part of marriage. But the fact is that fighting accomplishes nothing, and it isn’t necessary for couples to argue, to yell, or to have heated discussions to get problems solved. Hanging on to these ideas makes it difficult to let go of fighting.”

The 7 Best Tips for Handling Anger and Resentment in Relationships “Empathy, it turns out, is the antidote to anger in relationships. As such, feelings of empathy also fuel natural anxiety reduction. Not only will you hopefully come to an understanding with your life partner, you will both feel calmer. Empathy, it turns out, is the antidote to anger in relationships. As such, feelings of empathy also fuel natural anxiety reduction. Not only will you hopefully come to an understanding with your life partner, you will both feel calmer. Making empathy a regular part of your relationship will have an impact not only on getting along better, but ultimately feeling more connected and less stressed, because it facilitates you getting out of your own head, and into your partner’s.”

We Can’t Talk Without Arguing: How to Stop Fighting All the Time “When people get defensive, anger grows even more intense. This makes it hard for you and your partner to work together. You want to join forces to solve a problem. Instead you’re fighting in a way that seems unavoidable and beyond anyone’s control.”

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By Posted on Posted in Reading, Relationship differences, Relationships, Successful Relating No Comments

 

In this week’s blog we wrote about choosing how you want your relationship to be. Here are a variety of articles that talk about this, often in the context of writing about the different kinds of relationships that people have.

Creating A Unique Relationship Template “I finally realized that becoming a viable partner would always elude me until I did the requisite emotional homework. I’d grown weary of short-term relationships and was eager to experience the real deal.”

Patterns of Relationships (The type in this article is very small; use Ctrl-Plus to enlarge it.) “Most of us have some kind of idea in our minds about how a “good” or “correct” relationship is supposed to be. We can cause ourselves needless distress by comparing our own relationships with such an idea of what a relationship “should be like” and then concluding that our own is defective by comparison. Psychologists may imply something of that sort when they formulate criteria for a “healthy relationship” which few real couples ever meet.”

Do You Create Your Own Relationship “Rules”? “…every relationship has its own personality, made up of two unique individuals, and the things that work for one may not work for another. Just like each person is able to give to the relationship in his own way. We can’t change them. And is that such a bad thing?”