Marriage Help - Healing Your Relationship

Marriage help is not hard to come by...everybody has "the solution" ...right? The truth is that every relationship is different. But there are some fundamental aspects to healing an ailing marriage.

Marriage Help - First Stop the Bleeding!

In order to initiate the healing of an injury you must first stop the bleeding. In order to do this you must...

• Explore the Twenty Signs of Marriage Problems to identify specific problem areas in your marriage.

• STOP treating your partner like an enemy

• STOP reacting in ways that hurt
  • Bradshaw's Four Horseman of the Marriage Apocalypse

  • Stop acting out cycles of abandonment, shame, and contempt

  • Stop the endless cycle of Punishment & Forgiveness

• ASK your partner for a truce or cease fire

• DECIDE as a couple if you want to turn things around

• UNDERSTAND this will take commitment and a conscious effort every day to develop a new way of effectively relating to each other.

• Be WILLING to settle for "progress - not perfection"

Marriage Help - Diagnose Your Condition

In order to treat a problem you must first know what the symptoms are and where exactly the damage is. In order to do this you must...

• Learn the traits of a healthy relationship so you can identify what areas upon which you need to focus.

• Learn the normal stages of a healthy relationship so you can identify where you are in the process.

• Review the information in Relationship Help to identify general problem areas in your marriage.

• Learn about the psychological mind games you play as a couple and how to stop them.

• Know when to get professional help if the wounds are too deep to address by yourself...especially if alcohol abuse, Codependency, or other compulsive behaviors are a problem.

Marriage Help - Apply First-Aid

Treating your condition also requires learning and using new relationship skills. Remember that the term relationship is a nominalization of the action word meaning to "relate". Healthy relating includes:

• Healthy Communication Skills
  • If you have trouble identifying your feelings use this Seven-Step Feelings Process to increase self-awareness.
  • Download the Speaker-Listener Technique
  • Download Empathic Listening Skills

• The Five Basic Elements of a Clear Message:
  • "I feel/felt _______________________" - Your Feelings
  • "When I see/hear ___________________" - Sensory Data
  • "Because ________________________" - Your Interpretation
  • "I want or need ___________________" - Your Preferences
  • "If you do/don't ___________________" - Your Boundary

• Using Fair Fighting Rules
  • Download Fair Fighting Rules
  • Download Unfair Fighting Rules

• Learn how your relationship with yourself affects your relationships with others.

• Learn about and use the Perceptual Positions
  • First Position - Identifying & Expressing Your Wants and Needs
  • Second Position - Building Rapport & Developing Empathy Skills
  • Third Position - Developing Objectivity and Emotional Regulation Skills

Marriage Help - Develop an Action Plan

Upon considering the Stages of Change we can see that everything up to this point has been for the Contemplation and Preparation Stages of Change.

Now we need to develop and implement a long term Action Plan.

If the Action Plan is a good one we will enter the Maintenance Stage...then as long as we keep "doing what we're doing, we will keep getting what we're getting."

If the plan is not suitable then we will have to Recycle through the stages again, coming up with a new plan...

Or accept that things will never change and it will always be this way... or end the relationship.

The NLP Logical Levels of Change provide a great foundation for building an Action Plan.

It would be good for each individual to go through the levels of change for themselves...then come together and go through the levels as a couple to make a long-term plan for your relationship.

Below are the Logical Levels of Change & some questions to get you started:

• Spirituality - How do I want to affect my partner in this relationship?

• Identity - What kind of person(people) do I(we) want to be in this relationship?

• Values - What do I(we) deem most important in this relationship?

• Beliefs - What do I(we) feel certain about or want to feel certain about in this relationship?

• Capabilities & Skills - What am I(we) able to do, or what would I(we) like to be able to do in this relationship? What skills & resources do I(we) already have that would help me(us) be able do that? What skills & resources to I(we) need to do to acquire? How will I(we) acquire or develop them?

• Behaviors - What actions, or reactions would I(we) like to keep or change in this relationship?

• Environment - What playmates, play places, playthings, and situations do I(we) need to keep/change in this relationship?

Marriage Help - Implement, Evaluate, & Update Your Plan

When we get good at something it means that the neural network for that behavior has expanded...the human brain is compelled to continue to grow... so, we get better at everything we practice regularly.

Learning useful new skills and making accomplishments "tickles" the reward pathway in the brain. When "new" becomes second nature we must develop the skill to the next level to continue getting the "tickle" or "feel good".

It's like a snowball... at some point it starts rolling downhill all on its own.