Reading Corner

We blogged this week on the importance of continuing to appreciate your partner and not taking taking them for granted. Here are some posts on the same subject that we think you’ll enjoy.

4 Tips to Stay Awake in Your Relationship “Do you ever feel your life is like Ground Hogs Day? You do the same thing day after day – get up, make the bed (maybe), shower, make breakfast (and lunch for the kids), go to work, come home, cook dinner (or order fast food), take the kids to sports, supervise homework, fall into bed; and then – – before you know it – – the alarm goes off and you are doing it again?”

What To Do When Your Partner Starts Taking You For Granted A long article with 16 therapists addressing this question; long, but worth reading to the end.

12 Signs Your Boyfriend Is Taking You For Granted This post is oriented towards couples who are dating “The honeymoon stage is over…sometimes one person starts to take the other person for granted without even really realizing it.”

We recently blogged on How a Peaceful  Relationship is Like Riding a Bicycle. Here are some more articles on having a peaceful relationship.

How to Have a Peaceful Marriage in a Chaotic World “Ultimately, Inner Peace is not something we create – it is something we tune into. We don’t have to conjure it up or manufacture it.”

A Peaceful Relationship or Keeping the Peace? “After we used the ideas stated below for several years we began to see that they were part of our lives and we didn’t have to stop and think about them so often.”

5 Rules for Relationship Peace “…the fight itself almost always related to the deeper issues of whether the partners felt understood or valued.”

Here’s a mix of articles on intention.

The Nature of Intentions in Relationships How important is intention in the growth and development of healthy relationships? Does the good stuff just happen by itself? Can we make our goals, our dreams, our lives, our relationships happen out of sheer will?

Do You Want to Have a Good Relationship? Of course everybody says yes. But do you intend to have a good relationship? What does that even mean?

Do You Want this Relationship to Work? Intention Is a Key to Success An important element in accepting your partner and finding a loving connection is your intention. You have to have the intention to find peaceful harmonious ways of being together, and this has to be something that is a guiding principle and a true value to you.

Transform Your Relationship by Assuming the Best Intentions I used to think he was out to get me. The man of my dreams was continually plotting to undermine my happiness in countless ways, all for some mysterious reason I couldn’t comprehend.

This week, we blogged on How to Avoid Trouble in Your Relationship: Don’t Keep Score! Be sure to read it.

We also wrote a guest post at Digital Romance: How Making “Lists” Could Be HURTING Your Relationship “In relationships, people often silently add up their grievances on lists. These items can have a wide range of importance, from not getting a promised phone call to hurtful and angry words or actions. For many, the event gets swallowed but not forgotten. It goes on the little secret list in the back of the mind. ‘What’s the harm in that?’ you ask.”

Here are some other great articles on making lists and keeping score.

Why Keeping Score In Relationships Doesn’t Work “Keeping score is a ‘me-centered’ way of operating, by which you’re elevating your role in the relationship to a place of superiority. And if you’re ‘up,’ then your partner has only one place to land: down.”

The Problem With Keeping Score In A Relationship “Keeping score is a behavior that will quickly unravel a relationship. It begins innocently enough, but it ends with huge fights, lots of resentment and plenty of hostility.”

5 Relationship Lists You Must Make Lists of what is important to you can be a great help when forming a relationship. This article offers many important things to consider.

Here are some articles on knowing yourself.

The Importance of Self-Awareness, and How to Become More Self Aware “Self-awareness (sometimes also referred to as self-knowledge or introspection) is about understanding your own needs, desires, failings, habits, and everything else that makes you tick. The more you know about yourself, the better you are at adapting life changes that suit your needs.”

Getting to Know Yourself, What You Like, and What You Want in Life “In some ways, it may seem counterintuitive to have to learn to know yourself. Surely that should be a given, right? Not necessarily. While our experiences clearly helped shape us into the people we are today, this does not mean that we necessarily know who we really are—what we are passionate about and what we want from life.”

Know Thyself! “Coming to a knowledge of the self is no simple task and often goes underdeveloped because we tend to resist it. Our vision of our inner world does not come as naturally to us as our ability to perceive the outside world. It is nevertheless a learnable skill that with some direction, time and effort we can get better at.”