Grace Chatting

 

The concept of Love Languages was popularised by writer Gary Chapman in his book, The 5 Love Languages. Geared to promoting relationship harmony and a happy marriage, he talks about the fact that there are 5 main ways that people receive love, and these are;

• Words of affirmation
• Touch
• Gifts
• Acts of service
• Time

As a rule what happens with most couples is that they show love to their partners in the way that they like to be loved, which may not be the way their partner receives love. For example a wife might feel loved if her husband helps her with household chores, and he might feel loved by being touched and caressed. It is likely that he will express his love with kisses and cuddles when she might really wish he would help with a bit of work around the house. She might cook lovely meals for him to show she loves him, but he wants to be touched. Both finish up feeling unloved and unappreciated.

How do you like to be loved? How does your spouse like to be loved? Why not check this out with each other. You may get a surprise

Watch out for more Relationship Mastery Tips!

Grace

 

written by Grace \\ tags: Dating;Grace Chatting;Relationship Coaching, The 5 Love Languages;Gary Chapman;Relationships;Marriage

By Grace Chatting

“If you keep doing what you have always done you will keep getting what you have always got. Do something different.” Henry Ford

Many of you reading this will have had long standing problems in your relationship or  marriage. You have probably gone over the issues numerous times without success, and now you have given up hope that matters will ever improve. You are beginning to think that you neither can, nor want to carry on as things are. You are in a “Too good to leave, too bad to stay” dilemma and now you want to make a decision, one way or the other. The difficulty is you keep swinging between staying and going.

Effects of too much focus on problems

When you both keep going over and over your particular problems without solutions, you both become tired and weary with it all. Warmth and affection are withdrawn, and you both sleep on your own side of the bed. Some of you may even have moved to separate bedrooms. You find yourselves communicating at the level of house mates – without the fun.

Every once in a while, one of you says, “we need to talk”, but somehow, going over the problems again just leads to more arguments, further entrenchment and despair.

Feelings of anger, frustration and resentment mount with the passing of time and can lead to escalating degrees of hostility, and sometimes even violence.

Running a Marathon

Consider the following scenario.

If you were in training to run a marathon and badly sprained your ankle, what would you do? Clearly, you could not carry on training without considerable pain and further damage. In fact in making the damage worse, you would probably have to drop out of the race.

A more sensible approach is to have a period of rest and recuperation, to give the ankle time to heal properly. During this time, you might see a physiotherapist for treatment and therapeutic exercise which you would practice until you had recovered sufficiently to get back into the race.

What do you think is likely to happen if you gave way to the temptation to get back into the race before the ankle was totally recovered? You’ve got it, the pain and damage would flare up again and you would be back to square one.

It is the same thing with trying to resolve longstanding marital problems; you need a period of rest and recuperation. You need to park the problems for a while, before one of you throws the towel in, and ends the marriage.

Taking a break away from trying old ways of addressing problems, that you know do not work, is what you both need right now. This does not mean that you are pretending that the problems don’t exist, or that you are simply sweeping them under the carpet, far from it. It is recognising that your unsuccessful attempts to resolve matters have possibly become the worst problem, and is having a seriously detrimental affect on your marriage.

Most people when they reach this stage assume that the only way through it is to end the marriage. Not so. It just means that, like the marathon runner, you need to take a break during which time you seek professional advice and exercises which if carried out properly will allow you to carry on with your marriage, and hopefully, you will be a winner.

“Marriage is the hardest thing you will ever do. The secret is removing divorce as an option. Anybody who gives themselves that option will get a divorce.” Will Smith

So, I am recommending that you take Step 1 and agree to park your problems for 90 days. During this time you will learn how to reconnect with each other.

When the love and affection and good will have returned, and you have both learned the new skills which this book will teach you, then, and only then, do you return to addressing your problems, if they still exist.

You may find like many couples, that by the time you have been applying the 10 Steps in Breakthrough to Love, most of your problems have, either disappeared, become less significant or are at least more manageable.

It is helpful to make the agreement to park your problems explicit

In A Nutshell

Going over and over problem areas in your marriage without resolution becomes a problem in itself and is detrimental to a marriage. In order to move ahead it is necessary for you both to agree to refrain from trying to resolve the problems for at least 90 days. This allows you both to reconnect with each other and get your marriage back on track.

Watch out for the next Step,

Grace

written by Grace \\ tags: Breakthrough To Love;Grace Chatting;Communication;relationships;divorce

 

 

                                                        The Five Secrets of Growing A Vital Conscious Relationship

 

 

 

I want to introduce you to Gay and Katie Hendricks, authors of many books about relationships, in particular, Conscious Loving and Lasting Love. I have been a great fan of their work for many years and had the great pleasure of doing some intensive Relationship Coaching Training with Katie in Germany a few years ago.

 

I shall have the even greater pleasure of sponsoring her visit to the UK in September 2009, but more about that later.

 

Lasting Love grew out of their 10 year study of over 2,000 committed couples. They found that most of the conflicts in relationships can be traced to 5 root causes.

 

 

 

1. An imbalance between the creative energy each couple contributes to the relationship
2. A lack of emotional honesty
3. An unwillingness to accept responsibility for everyday issues
4. Deep seated commitment problems
5. A deficiency of daily appreciations

The insights which they gathered in relation to these problems led them to devise the following antidotes;

 

1. A new commitment. Committing seriously to appreciating yourself, your partner and your relationship
2. A new way of being with emotions which means you tell the truth, even if it is uncomfortable.
3. The No-Blame relationship. Shifting out of a cycle of criticism to a cycle of sincere appreciation on a daily basis. They boast no criticisms for 20+ years!
4. A new kind of creativity. Each partner supports the other in reaching their full creative expression.
5. Tandem Acts of Kindness. Appreciation is the fastest way of opening a flow of connection.

Over the next few months I shall say more about these concepts which I use to facilitate couples becoming more conscious of themselves, their relationship and their life, and how they can be allies for each other.

 

Warmest

Grace

gracechatting@hotmail.com

 

 

 

 

written by Grace \\ tags: Conscious Lovng, Gay Hendricks, Kathlyn hendricks, lasting love, relationship, Relationships

One of the world’s foremost Relationship experts, John Gottman, PhD., has revolutionised the study of marriage by using rigorous scientific procedures to observe the habits of married couples in unprecedented detail over many years. His work has culminated in Seven Principles that guide married couples on the path towards a harmonious and long-lasting fulfilled relationship. The Principles are as follows;

1. Enhance your Love Maps
2. Nurture your fondness and admiration
3. Turn towards each other instead of away
4. Let your partner influence
5. Solve your solvable problems
6. Overcome Gridlock
7. Create shared meaning

Nurture your fondness and admiration

Remember all the things you found really attractive and appealing when you first met? Talk to each other about it. Get in touch with those old loving feelings. Tell each other all the things you think are admirable. Everyday give each other some expression of appreciation.

Turn towards each other, not away

It helps couples to remain connected if they do things together. This doesn’t mean they have to be joined at the hip, but rather that they are in the habit of and enjoy being around each other involved in joint activities.

Let your partner influence you

If he is good at DIY and practical things and she is good with how things look, happily married couples notice and take on board their partners ideas and perspective.

Solve  your solvable problems

Gottman found that most marital problems fell into two categories, Solvable and Perpetual. The secret with successful couples were that they knew how to use damage control. Solvable problems are around, stress, in-laws, money, sex and children. Perpetual problems are around one party wanting to have children and the other not.

Overcome Gridlock

Couples often become grid-locked trying to solve perpetual problems. The goal in ending gridlock is not to solve the problem, but rather to move from grid-lock to dialogue. Gridlock means that you have dreams for your life that are not being addressed or respected by the other. Happy couples realise that helping each other achieve their Dreams is one of the main goals of marriage.

Create shared meaning

Marriage isn’t just about splitting chores, raising kids and making love. Happy couples find a way of honouring each others dreams even if they don’t share them. Together they create an atmosphere where they both can talk about their convictions without censoring them.

Incorporating these seven principles can change the course of your marriage… the… you have to build on them!

Best wishes

Grace

www.plymouth-counselling.co.uk

www.anamcaracentre.com

written by Grace \\ tags: conflict, couple, Divorce, Happiness, John Gottman, love, marriage, relationship