Looking for some good news?
You can have a better relationship starting today.
While there are no quick-fix solutions, the effort you put into improving your relationship will pay off.
Maybe your relationship just needs a tune-up. Maybe it’s time for a major overhaul. Either way, change occurs in small steps, taken and sustained over time.
With that in mind, here are 52 practical to-dos—one for each week of the year—to get you started. Continue reading
It’s what we all want, isn’t it?
A loving and caring relationship. A lasting partnership. A bond that gets better and stronger over time.
If we only knew how.
While having a better relationship requires effort, it isn’t rocket science. There are actions that build loving relationships and actions that all but guarantee unhappiness.
The good news: it’s easy to tell the difference.
More good news: there’s no shortage of healthy moves you can make.
Here are 25 of my current favorites:
1. You know that thing you do that drives your spouse nuts — the wet towel on the floor, the way you sneak a peek at your phone? Why not make a commitment to stop doing that and see what happens?
2. It’s easy to be committed to your marriage when things are going well. True commitment means keeping two feet in when the going gets rough.
3. We all have those chores that no one wants to do. Put one of them at the top of your to-do list, rather than waiting for your spouse to do it. (Yes, even the dreaded call to the cable company.)
4. Say please and thank you. (Your mother was right.)
5. While you’re at it, I’m sorry also goes a long way.
6. Pay less attention to your partner’s role in your difficulties and more attention to your own — it’s the only thing you can control anyway.
7. Generosity may well be the key to happiness. Be loving and generous whenever possible.
8. Know when to shut up (such as, when you’re about to say something critical or mean, or you’re hell-bent on having the last word.)
9. Know when to speak up. Forget about suffering in silence about issues that need to be placed on the table. Never mind settling or making do with conditions you can’t stand. No one is a better advocate for you than you.
10. Practice the three Cs: Compassion. Courage. Curiosity.
11. Accept the fact that truth comes in versions. (As in: It was Tuesday…No it was Wednesday…What do you mean I was angry?) Spoiler alert: you’re likely to fight a lot less.
12. There may be times that one of you is more optimistic about your relationship than the other. Be grateful to your spouse for being optimistic when you aren’t. Sometimes the only thing that gets couples through hard times is that they never wanted to get a divorce on the same day.
13. As the saying goes, we can either be right or free. As far as I’m concerned, being right is overrated.
14. Turn. Off. Your. Phone.
15. One of the advanced skills of marriage is learning to tolerate being disappointed in your partner and learning to tolerate when your partner is disappointed in you. The sooner you accept this, the happier you’ll be.
16. Date nights are great, but not always easy to arrange. Try “speed dating” — as in taking ten minutes to sit down together and give each other your undivided attention. Tea, wine, candle light optional.
17. Long hard day? Too tired to talk? Why not just sit together on the porch and look at the stars?
18. Give up the notion that marriage is a fifty-fifty proposition. Sometimes it’s sixty-forty. Sometimes it’s ninety-ten. Why not put in your best effort no matter what your partner does?
19. When there’s a winner and loser, both partners lose.
20. Feel free to ask for what you want as long as you’re clear that you’re not entitled to get it just because you asked.
21. Be willing to take risks. If we want to grow we have to step out of our comfort zone. Without growth and change everything stays the same whether we like it that way or not.
22. Find as many ways as possible to say I love you — with words and without.
23. Sex doesn’t stay hot and exciting all on its own. Use your imagination. Change things up.
24. Set a high standard for yourself as a partner and then strive to attain it.
25. Relationships are hard. When things are difficult, lean in to the challenge rather than give up or feel defeated. When things are going well, open your heart and appreciate all that you have.
_______________________________
My book, IT TAKES ONE TO TANGO, is now on sale! I’ll be giving away one more autographed copy. To be eligible, tell me, in the comments section, which one point on this list you’re going to start doing.
Have a friend who might be helped by this post or my book? Please share!
For info regarding my talks and appearances, as well as news and inspiring cool stuff about relationships, follow me on twitter: @winifredmreilly and Facebook: WinifredMReilly or check out my book website: onetotango.com
A few years ago a client gave me a refrigerator magnet that reads:
Yep. I agree.
Especially when one of the chores involves the word garage. That’s how our garage ended up looking like a scene from the reality show where they bring in five guys in hazmat suits while a team of kind social workers comforts the hoarder. Continue reading
January 1st. The day of fresh starts and new beginnings. The day we vow to eat more green vegetables, actually use our gym membership, and try, once again, to lose those hard to lose pounds.
As we look to the new year, we often focus on ways to be “better” — resolving to do more of what’s good for us and less of what’s not. To (at least most of the time) come from our best.
For a good many of us, finding ways to have a more satisfying marriage is high on our list.
But in our rush for improvement, we overlook this key fact: Continue reading
There are a hundred paths through the
world that are easier than loving…
But who needs easier?
— Mary Oliver
Raise your hand if you’ve heard this before:
Marriage is not a noun, it’s a verb.
It’s hard to dispute, isn’t it?
Anyone who’s been married longer than, say, a week, knows that marriage requires effort. Not back-breaking-drudgery kind of effort, but make-it-count, put-your-heart-into-it effort.
We build a marriage the way we build a house: day by day, brick by brick, from the ground up. Continue reading
Want to guess?
Hint: I’m not talking about the laundry or housework or some wild, exotic move in the bedroom.
And no, this has nothing to do with being able to bake a souffle, or adhere to a budget, or be cheerful about putting your cranky toddler to bed.
The main thing that no spouse can be expected to do is… Continue reading
So much in life is about the little things, isn’t it? The smell of fresh coffee. A cardinal on the bird feeder. The first crocus in spring.
Even so, most of us assume that our greatest happiness comes from life’s big events, like landing our dream job, getting married, or giving birth to a child. While these extraordinary moments create a brief spike in happiness, current research confirms that sustained happiness is derived from life’s ordinary, everyday stuff. Continue reading
None of us gets married thinking that five, ten, even twenty years down the line we’d be so frustrated or miserable that we’d be considering divorce. Most of us step into marriage with hope and enthusiasm, determined to have ours be a marriage that lasts.
But marriage is difficult in ways few of us are prepared for. And rarely do we have all the tools we need for success. Nor do we have a guidebook or a road map to make the journey easier. Continue reading
Valentine’s Day. The day that happy couples exchange kisses and chocolate and go out for a candle-lit dinner. And unhappy couples feel worse about their marriage than on any other day of the year.
With all the pressure to be romantic and passionate, to feel like starry-eyed lovers, to somehow resurrect the mystery and allure you felt in the early days of courtship — after a long day of work and a race home to pick up the kids, after picking up their pizza and your dry cleaning and double-checking with the babysitter — even reasonably happy couples may wonder are we happy enough?
And struggling couples? All the hype and heart-studded hoopla can push them over the edge.
Valentine’s Day generates record-breaking flower sales and the exchange of over a billion boxes of chocolate. It also triggers a dramatic increase in the number of calls made to divorce attorneys. Continue reading
Like most newlyweds, my husband and I stepped into marriage bright-eyed, optimistic and flat-out unprepared. We’d had terrible family role models and possessed virtually no tools, yet — let’s hear it for young love — we assumed that our marriage would be a rousing success. Continue reading
Whether you’re a big holiday shopper or a minimalist, here’s one holiday gift your spouse is guaranteed to enjoy.
There’s no need to wrap it and plenty of opportunity to use it.
This year, give your partner a break. Continue reading
Speaking of Marriage 