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What is a “Successful Relationship”? How Do You Make a Relationship Succeed?

Successful Relationship

What makes a relationship successful?

Fundamentally, a successful relationship is a relationship that feels mostly good, most of the time. That’s it. Simple right? So how do you make a relationship that feels mostly good, most of the time?

How do you make successful relationship?

1. Figure out how to feel mostly good, most of the time.

2. Bring that to the relationship.

Again, simple, yes? So what trips people up? Here’s where it gets interesting!

“I’m OK if you’re OK”

Many people look to their relationship (to their partner) as their source of feeling good. If this is you, then you have probably attracted a partner who also does the same, though perhaps in a different style from you.

This leaves you in a position of having to negotiate feeling good between you, i.e., “I’m OK if you’re OK”. If you’re accustomed to this style of relationship (many people are, it is modeled and promoted as “normal”) it can be hard to imagine an alternative, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that a wonderful alternative exists.

The key is to realize that your feelings can be generated from within you regardless of your circumstances or outer “reality”, including your partner.

Since I discovered the truth of this, I could no longer continue working with clients the way I had been.

A new kind of couples work

I’ve been a couples therapist and marriage counsellor for fifteen years. I love my work, and I love my clients.

I love my work and my clients so much that when I discover a better way to do relationships, I have to update my methods and professional approach. I won’t rest on my laurels and teach something that people want to hear but that is no longer resonant for me.

And so I have changed how I work. Not entirely; I had emphasized individual responsibility and emotional differentiation (what I now call “self-satisfaction”) rather than partner negotiation and emotional enmeshment for many years, but my discoveries of the past two years have taken this to a new level of clarity.

I no longer see relationships through the lens of meeting emotional needs, resolving issues, healing wounds, trauma, attachment styles or anything else that puts emotional power and responsibility into collective hands.

I increasingly view relationships through the lens of two individuals discovering themselves in front of each other, and exploring the ever-shifting resonance between them. This is so much more easeful, fun, and interesting!

The third factor: Source

Conventional couples therapy often includes a theoretical “third” element: The relationship itself. There are the two individuals, then there’s the relationship, and all three elements get equal consideration. I do not subscribe to this model, but I do include a special third factor –

Each of us, I now recognize, comes from eternal, non-physical, infinite source energy, and each of us maintains this connection to source energy throughout our lives. This connection to our source is, must be, our primary relationship if we are to reach our full emotional potential.

When the physical (“ego”) aspect of you is in harmony with the energy (“spiritual”) aspect of you, you experience this as positive emotion. When these two aspects are at odds, or misaligned, you experience this as negative emotion.

Our relationship with a partner or spouse is determined by our relationship to source energy, and our relationship with source energy feels only good.

Contemporary psychology replaces source energy with “mother” or caregiver, placing this at the centre of the human journey. I won’t offer any resistance to this point of view, but I will offer an alternative that I believe is infinitely more satisfying.

Setting off on a relationship journey that has you trying to heal a “mother wound” or an attachment need from childhood can provide much richness and some fascinating twists and turns, but unless it ultimately connects you to your true source, it’s actually quite limited. I’ve always been a seeker of the deeper truth, and it lies in the relationship between the temporal you and the eternal you. Get that lined up, and everything follows.

How’s that landing? Any resonance?

Now back to the original question…

Let’s circle back to the question I asked at the top of the page: What’s the secret to a successful relationship?

And the answer I offered: Figure out how to feel mostly good, most of the time.

Now let’s tie this all together –

The way you feel mostly good, most of the time, is to get yourself living in alignment with your source, to get the human “you” befriending and loving the infinite “you”, not as a concept but as a living truth; not once and for all, but now, and now, and now. When you connect with your deepest essence, you feel good, unconditionally, and your relationships become an easy reflection of this good-feeling connection.

So how do you do this? Hint: incrementally, through your understanding and skillful use of the three human operating systems: sensation (body), emotion (heart), and cognition (mind).

Yes, my friends, this is where fifty years of living and fifteen years of working with couples professionally has landed me. I know it’s going to be too far out for some of you, but I know it’s also going to be VERY resonant and timely for some of you too.

All My Best,

Justice Schanfarber

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Behaviour changes to improve your relationship – Three real-life examples from readers that totally hit the mark

Behaviour changes to improve your relationship

Self-awareness is great, but without changes in behaviour it doesn’t do much for a relationship. On my facebook page I recently asked “How have you changed your behaviour to improve your relationship?”

Here are three of the insightful real-life examples readers generously shared, with a few comments of my own:

“I let go of the notion that my partner must agree with me.”

“I have let go of the notion that my partner must agree with me on most issues. That has freed up a lot of energy that would otherwise have been wasted fighting over what are essentially meaningless points. I have found that my respect for her has grown, and I hope the reverse is also true.”

Finding ways to manage differences and “agree to disagree” in relationships really does free up a lot of energy, and the part about increased respect matches my observations: when couples are able to respect differences, the overall respect for each other grows.

“The sacred pause…”

“The biggest change I implemented in my behaviour is the ‘sacred pause’. This allowed me space to then look at his words/reactions with curiosity instead of reactivity.”

This is such a powerful change in behaviour, and I was curious about how it had affected interactions and outcomes in the relationship. Her answer below is a perfect example of growing out of emotional fusion and into emotional differentiation, a crucial developmental stage of relationships.

“It is still a new behaviour in a middle aged woman who spent her life in reactivity so I am not 100% with it yet, but when I am successful it means that I can either hear the actual words my husband says and/or notice that whatever energy or words that may have traditionally felt like an attack on my worthiness are either not about me at all or I can now respond thoughtfully to the interaction. My pattern was definitely to take any perceived slight or any negative energy and attack, even if the interaction had nothing to do with me. If there was negativity of any kind attached to my husband I did not feel safe and I attacked him verbally. It was very humbling for me the first few times I was successful at being able to separate myself from his energy.”

The third commenter had been working with the differences between self-regulation and co-regulation (such an important area of understanding and practice).

“I learned to shift into more self-regulation.”

“I found some awareness about myself in your article about self-regulation and co-regulation. I recognized that I used co-regulation as a tool to get out of my own discomfort and create enmeshment. I learned to shift into more self-regulation. I directly noticed a decline in the drama of our relationship.”

That got me wondering if they had experienced any loss in feelings of intimacy or closeness as a result of decreased drama (drama is often part of “the glue” in relationships, for better and for worse), so I asked.

“Some yes. When I became more solid in myself, the space between us became greater. The drama fed the tension, which fed the excitement. With less drama, the lack of a more solid connection showed. I did, and do, feel more intimate with my own self, a big win for me.”

Intimacy with one’s self is always a big win, and perhaps the best possible foundation for any relationship.

Changing behaviours in a relationship is always a matter of “catching yourself in the act” of unconscious, reflexive, habitual responses to stimuli and choosing something different in the moment. With practice and repetition new habits are formed.

How have you changed your behaviour to improve your relationship? Share your real-life examples in the comments or on my facebook page.

All My Best,
Justice

Struggling to change harmful behaviours in your relationship? Check out my book The Re-Connection Handbook for Couples (download a free sample chapter here).

Follow me on social media for sex and relationship tips, tools, and insights – Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

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You’ll love my book.
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Campbell River Marriage Counselling Justice Schanfarber

Trying to grow, fix, change, understand or save your marriage? I provide couples therapy, marriage counselling, coaching and mentoring to individuals and couples on the issues that make or break relationships – Sessions by telephone/skype worldwide. Email justice@justiceschanfarber.com to request a client info package. www.JusticeSchanfarber.com

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How to have an interdependent relationship

How to have an interdependent relationship

Interdependence in relationships – How do we get there from here?

It’s easy to be an advocate for the virtue of interdependence in relationships. You give some, you take some, you can count on each other… what’s not to love.

The word itself has a distinctly modern ring (it peaked in popularity around 1980 and is still going strong), implying a kind of balance that many of us today crave, and reflecting the non-hierarchical ideal so popular in these times.

Interdependence is indeed an apt descriptor for relationships that are resilient, balanced, and mutually enjoyable and supportive for the people in them, and interdependence is a worthy vision and a worthy goal. But how to get there? Do you just decide “From now on I’m going to have an interdependent relationship!”?

Likely not. If interdependence is to thrive in a relationship, first the stages of both dependence and independence will probably have to be sufficiently navigated.

Interdependence comes after dependence and independence

Interdependence in relationships isn’t really a choice, it’s a developmental milestone, a marker of maturity. You don’t just one day choose to be interdependent in relationship (though your choices in general will factor), you grow into being interdependent in relationship.

To grow into a state of relationship interdependence there are, for most of us, prerequisites. One of these prerequisites is experiencing a sufficient amount of dependence in relationships. The other prerequisite is experiencing sufficient independence in a relationship. Now, if you’re a born relationship genius, a Mozart of the interpersonal realm, maybe you can skip these steps, but the rest of us are more or less bound to a certain developmental path.

Interdependence isn’t some mid-ground between being dependent and being independent; it’s a whole different level, one that is potentially reached after accomplishing the tasks at the prior (lower) levels of dependence and independence.

Dependence and independence are both negative and positive

All of us begin our life journey completely dependent on our mother (or a sufficient surrogate). In this sense dependence comes naturally. At some point we grow toward independence; we begin to recognize ourselves as separate from mother. Depending on how we come to understand our experiences, dependence and independence have negative, positive or ambivalent connotations in our life, and we bring these into our intimate adult relationships.

It is in our adult relationships that we work through our issues (most of us have them) around dependence and independence. Hopefully we learn healthy modes of both: how to lean on our partner, have them lean on us, and also how to stand on our own two feet, and allow our partner to do the same. There are healthy and necessary aspects to both modes of being in relationship.

Independence, dependence, or both?

It’s not uncommon to have strong negative associations with dependence or independence or both. Both have a dark side and a light side. Dependency can include generosity, support, and understanding. It can also include manipulation, smothering, and powerlessness. Independence can include self confidence, emotional differentiation, and freedom. It can also include isolation, disconnection, and arrogance.

Put another way, most of us have a complicated relationship with either (or both) dependence or independence. We have to reconcile ourselves with both before we can proceed to the next level.

Some of the positive qualities we can learn through dependence include –

Some of the positive qualities we can learn through independence include –

  • Personal responsibility
  • Boundaries
  • Accountability
  • Appreciation for solitude
  • Self-regulation

The level of interdependence we can achieve in our relationship hinges upon how well we have integrated the best of both dependence AND independence, and how we have reconciled ourselves with our negative experiences of both. If you want to move toward greater interdependence, take an inventory of your skills in the areas of dependence and independence. Identify the gaps, work on them, and you will be working toward interdependence.

To learn more about interdependence in relationships check out my book The Re-Connection Handbook for Couples (download a free sample chapter here).

Do you have something to say about this topic? Leave a comment below.

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Campbell River Marriage Counselling Justice Schanfarber

Trying to grow, fix, change, understand or save your marriage? I provide couples therapy, marriage counselling, coaching and mentoring to individuals and couples on the issues that make or break relationships – Sessions by telephone/skype worldwide. Email justice@justiceschanfarber.com to request a client info package. www.JusticeSchanfarber.com

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It’s not a fact, it’s a feeling. (So it can’t be wrong)

It's not a fact, it's a feeling. (So it can't be wrong)

When your partner feels sad, angry, disappointed or otherwise “upset”, do you try to talk them out of the feeling? Do you give them lots of reasons why they shouldn’t feel this way? Are you afraid of them being upset at you? If this is you, you are fighting a losing battle. Here’s why –

Feelings aren’t facts

Feelings aren’t facts, which means they’re unarguable. Some feelings might be more desirable than others, but no feeling can be right or wrong. The source of a feeling might be debatable, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves (and upon close examination the source of feelings tends to shift elusively). First things first: we have to accept that our partner feels what they feel. Why do we have to accept this? Because feelings aren’t arguable. We can never win at that game, and there’s a very good reason that we shouldn’t bother trying –

Two operating systems: Feeling and thinking

When we argue against our partner’s feelings, which part of ourselves do we employ? Usually we employ our thinking; we use reason to argue why our partner should not feel how they feel. We pit our reason against our partner’s emotions, our thinking against their feeling. This is an important point because reason and emotion are like two different operating systems, and they are not very compatible. In fact, emotion and reason are each associated with different parts of the brain, and these parts of the brain have different functions and different architectures.

(Note – I am using the words feeling and emotion interchangeably here for convenience, but they are technically distinct from one another. It’s easy to find information on this online.)

Feelings aren’t rational

Feelings, by definition, are not rational. This does not mean they are not legitimate. We don’t actually choose our feelings, so trying to assess their legitimacy is a futile approach. If you find yourself de-legitimizing your partner’s feelings (or your own) you’re just avoiding some necessary work and prolonging your disconnection and suffering. Once you drop the hopeless exercise of deeming feelings legitimate or not, you might be able to take on the more relevant task of developing more tolerance for them.

Feelings aren’t behaviours

While feelings do not conform to judgements about legitimacy or right and wrong, behaviours do. A feeling is not a behaviour, but feelings often lead to behaviours. In fact, the association between certain feelings and behaviours can be very strong. This is another reason why it is important to meet feelings on their own terms first, and then assess the behaviours or impulses that go with the feeling.

For example, anger needs to be accepted as it is, but yelling may be judged as unacceptable.

Feeling craves feeling

Feeling does not respond well to the language of reason. Someone having strong feelings might say they wish to be understood, but as long as “understood” activates the operating system of reason you remain in a losing game. What feeling actually wants is more feeling. Feeling wishes to be met with feeling. When feeling is met only with reason, feeling tends to turn up the volume… “Can you hear me now?!”.

Do you feel something too?

A person who is having strong feelings does not want your analysis of their feelings. They want to see that their feelings make you feel something too. That’s what they really mean when they say they want to be understood; they want to be felt. They want their emotions to have a visible emotional impact on you. Why? Following the analogy, operating systems need to interact with similar operating systems or else incompatibility issues arise.

Departing from the OS analogy, physiologically it probably has something to do with nervous system regulation. What we know in our head, intellectually, consciously, does not necessarily translate into the body, where your nervous system and emotion resides. A person who is having a strong uncomfortable emotional experience and wants your understanding is seeking your help in co-regulating their nervous system. Things are getting overwhelming inside, and if they sense that you “get” them, it helps them calm down. It’s about soothing.

Psychologically speaking they perhaps seek a deeper connection, a desire to be seen and known, to be acknowledged in their multitudinous shades, moods, and incarnations. Chances are, even if they are upset with you, the feelings run deeper than that, and they want, even unconsciously, to touch into the source of their emotion, and they want you as a witness and ally, someone to hold the space for them to feel what they feel, so that they might perhaps reconcile something from their past, shine a light on the mystery of their feeling, or find meaning in their suffering. This is a form of intimacy.

Why would they need or want you for this? Because you are a meaningful figure in their life, perhaps the most meaningful. They have given their heart to you. They want to see if you are capable of holding it. They hope you are, but they’ll test you until you prove it. At some level this dynamic is present in many relationships, rarely named, but present and actively running the show.

Don’t pretend your feelings are rational

A person having a strong emotional experience doesn’t help their cause when they insist that they are coming from a rational place. We live in a culture that tends to value rational thought over feeling, so many people reflexively try to justify their feelings by presenting them as rational. Ultimately this is counterproductive and only adds confusion to the situation.

You don’t have to rationalize your feelings. Remember, feelings are unarguable and by definition non-rational. But they are fundamentally legitimate. Don’t start digging up a bunch of evidence to justify what you feel. And don’t automatically turn feelings into demands, criticisms, judgements or regrettable behaviours. It isn’t necessary, and it just creates more operating system incompatibility within yourself and between the two of you.

Instead, see if you can parse out the feeling part of yourself, feel it fully, communicate it effectively, and then move into whatever requests or complaints you might have for your partner rather than bundling the whole thing into one package and dumping it their feet. Hint – You can be sure you’ve tangled up emotion and reason when you find yourself saying things like “You always…” and “You never…”.

Communicating feelings

A benefit of certain communication methods and practices (ie – talking stick, active listening, non-violent communication) is that they legitimize feelings without having to rationalize them; also they can help you differentiate between feelings/emotions and thoughts/judgements/requests/criticisms etc.

It’s common for people to mistakenly conflate feelings with thoughts and to present a thought as though it was a feeling. If you’re not sure of the difference between feelings and thoughts, here are some examples –

I feel sad (feeling)
I feel like you’re being unfair (not actually a feeling)
I feel angry (feeling)
I feel like you’d rather be somewhere else right now (not actually a feeling)

Here’s a tip on recognizing the difference – Feelings are usually one single word, and though there are hundreds of different feelings, most can be traced back to a small set of primary emotions like joy, sadness, anger, fear. (Experts don’t always agree on the particular details of what constitutes the primary emotions, but there’s a general pattern of consensus overall.)

See the Junto Institute’s emotion wheel (click here) for an interesting visual showing the relationships between many common emotions or feelings, and their root in the primary emotions.

To learn more about differentiating between thoughts and feelings, and communicating feelings effectively, read my book The Re-Connection Handbook for Couples.

Follow me on social media for sex and relationship tips, tools, and insights – Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

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Campbell River Marriage Counselling Justice Schanfarber

Trying to grow, fix, change, understand or save your marriage? I provide couples therapy, marriage counselling, coaching and mentoring to individuals and couples on the issues that make or break relationships – Sessions by telephone/skype worldwide. Email justice@justiceschanfarber.com to request a client info package. www.JusticeSchanfarber.com

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Have you tried this kind of listening in your relationship?

Have you tried this kind of listening?

There’s a kind of listening that is completely unconcerned with formulating a rebuttal or response.

There’s a kind of listening that mercifully sidesteps the critical mind.

There’s a kind of listening done entirely from the heart.

There’s a kind of listening rooted in open-minded curiosity.

There’s a kind of listening that doesn’t require you to fix or solve a problem.

There’s a kind of listening that requires nothing more, or less, than your full presence.

There’s a kind of listening that frees you from taking what you hear personally.

There’s a kind of listening that is courageous enough to hear anything and everything.

There’s a kind of listening that encourages more and more depth.

There’s a kind of listening that rests easy in knowing that there is room for the entire experience of both people present.

There’s a kind of listening where you gain nothing from making someone wrong and you lose nothing by recognizing the legitimacy of their experience.

There’s a kind of listening that has very little to do with analyzing the content of what is being said and has much to do with connecting with the feeling underneath what is being said.

If the kind of listening you’re doing isn’t working for you, try another kind of listening.

Follow me on social media for sex and relationship tips, tools, and insights – Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Like what you’re reading here?
You’ll love my book.
Read the first 10 pages free.

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Campbell River Marriage Counselling Justice Schanfarber

Trying to grow, fix, change, understand or save your marriage? I provide couples therapy, marriage counselling, coaching and mentoring to individuals and couples on the issues that make or break relationships – Sessions by telephone/skype worldwide. Email justice@justiceschanfarber.com to request a client info package. www.JusticeSchanfarber.com

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