Protect your relationship with friendship habits

The following ideas come from a workbook I use with many of my clients*.  Here I summarize the main points about the 4 friendship habits, which compliment the 6 disagreement-related habits to protect your relationship and help it flourish.

A relationship without a firm basis in friendship will falter once the chemistry fades or challenges arise. While recovering skillfully from disagreements is essential, successful couples do way more than fixing things that go wrong. They create a relationship that’s too compelling to leave. Successful couples build great relationships on these friendship habits.

- Showing curiosity about your partner’s world
- Noticing and acknowledging positives
- Pursuing shared meaning
- Making and responding to bids for connection 

Habit 7. Showing curiosity about your partner’s world

Relationships succeed or fail based on your understanding of each other. That doesn't mean you can recite or predict the other person’s behaviors. It does mean you actively demonstrate you are concerned with what they care about, worry about, and feel motivated about right now, not just when you first fell in love. 

If you remember the first time you visited your partner at work or met their best friend, you know the feeling of renewed interest you get from seeing someone you love in a new light. Your partner changes every day. Don’t miss the chance to keep learning about them as they evolve. People in really successful relationships maintain a sense of mystery, wonder, and awe. So to succeed, don’t assume you already know all there is to know. 

Studies show that when couples have children, those who do best stay well connected after the child arrives and their roles and experiences change. It’s not just about sharing responsibilities; it’s about learning what it feels like to be in the other person’s shoes while you're taking on different duties under the same roof.

Continually finding the answers to simple but not trivial, questions like these will build your friendship and vaccinate it against stress:
- What are they looking forward to this week?
- What’s the most challenging part of their weekly routine?
- What are they worried about lately?
- What are they disappointed by?
- What would they most like fix around your home?
- What has someone complimented them on lately?
- Who do they consider an ally? A rival?
- What would they jump at the chance to do, if they had time?

Habit 8.  Noticing and acknowledging positive things

People who succeed in their relationships are more attuned to good things. They also see positives more often. They express gratitude for small things their partners do, things other’s might not bring up. If you’ve ever gone to a film with someone who was in a bad mood, you know how bad it feels to hear negative things about a movie you enjoyed or to be with someone who can't seem to appreciate something you just shared.

People who succeed notice, remember, bring up positive things from the past. It makes them feel better about the relationship to remember this way.  In relationships that are about to end, people’ s memories are more bad than good, leading that perception to color how they feel about each other. 

Habit 9. Pursuing shared meaning

Roommates, colleagues, and friends can get along well, but couples who succeed feel they are creating something meaningful together. They are loyal and committed to the interests, viewpoints, dreams, and goals they share. A sense of shared purpose is one of the things that helps couples through tough times. Skillful couples create a culture that’s unique to them, with practices, mores, and rituals that only make sense to them, Without sacrificing their individuality, they let the other person rub off on them and create a shared identity.

Habit 10. Making and responding to bids for connection

People who succeed are more responsive to invitations to connect. They also make and respond to many more attempts to connect, in ways that less successful people miss. These bids for connection can be very small, such as mentioning you heard about a new restaurant to go to together, or that you read an article you think they would find interesting. 

Partners who succeed will pick up on those cues and respond in kind. Early in relationships, people are usually very attentive teach other, wanting to know everything about the other person, giving everything they learn significance. 

Yet when people start sharing their day-to-day lives, they miss opportunities to connect. In relationships that are destined to fail,  it feels like the other person doesn’t care about what you are doing or how you spend your time. So, when your partner says they need new shoes or have been thinking about calling an old friend, and you ask them more about it, you are solidifying your connection. 

If you’ve ever watched a couple talking animatedly about what seems like nothing, you’ve seen a couple that knows how to made and respond to bids for connection. People who are good at this do it seamlessly throughout the day. They send each other pictures, inside jokes, articles. They bring up things to do and share, pick up the other each’s favorite snack, (or laundry). They ask specific questions about friends, family or hobbies that show they were listening. 

Think about a parent who is skilled at keeping track of the minutiae of their children's lives, or a family member who was there for you when you were growing up. It’s likely you felt they got you from the way they kept track of what you were doing with friends or learning in school.

When you remember to ask your partner about something they mentioned they would be doing that day, you are building a connection. In these and many other small but meaningful ways, skillful couples share each other’s worlds. They feel like they are together throughout the day, whether they are physically together or not.  

How friendship and disagreement related habits work together

When people have a solid base of connectedness, they perceive that most of the time, that the other person gets them and is on their side. That makes them more willing and able to resolve conflicts that come up. They've built up enough goodwill to create what’s called a "positive sentiment override", which t means that when someone you feel happy with upsets you, you're more likely to them slack. If you enter a conflict with resentment, you're less likely to see as a resolvable and will be less willing to try. 

just like drops of water will eventually wear down a rock, small doses of positivity create lasting positive feelings that vaccinate against upsets the way a dozen roses after a big fight never will.

*  Brent Atkinson's Developing Habits for Relationship Success

Disarm Your Disagreement-Related Habits

The following ideas come from a workbook I use with many of my clients*.  I have summarized the main points below:

While there are serious offenses that fracture relationships, such as lying, stealing, cheating, acting unilaterally, and of course physical violence, researchers* have discovered that the following disagreement-related offenses can seriously erode your relationship. They are surprisingly destructive when they go unaddressed.

These disagreement-related offenses are:
 - concluding your partner is wrong when they aren't
- jumping to negative conclusions about your partner, or failing to give them the benefit of the doubt
- dismissiveness
- defensiveness
- refusing to compromise
- putting them down or acting condescending or "better than" them
- blaming your partner instead of taking responsibility for standing up for yourself.

If you are honest with yourself, you are likely to see that you do some of these things, and when you do, you are ineffective at getting your partner to cooperate or treat you well.

You can start to disarm these relationship killers using the following six disagreement related habits :
- stop erroneous fault-finding
- find the understandable part (of their argument)
- identify the underlying values, needs or what's at stake for each of you
- offer reassurance
- offer and ask for equal regard
- stand up for yourself without making a big deal about having to. 

Here's how:

1. Avoid erroneous fault finding

Even very compatible partners will have different preferences that influence what they each want in a given situation. Realize that your partner having a different viewpoint doesn't make them wrong. It can be hard to do this when you are on different sides of an argument, but it's when you most need practice this habit. 

Trying to get someone on your side when you haven't understood theirs is a losing strategy. Your partner can sense when you are judging them. They will get defensive and become less able to be flexible and cooperative. You can and should be able to disagree with someone without communicating they are wrong to feel that way. 

2. Find the understandable part

In disagreements, most people think their position is the more reasonable one. Until you can genuinely convey to your partner that you can see at least some part of their argument, you will not be able to gain their cooperation. Sometimes people mistakenly think if they back down, they will lose the whole debate. In reality, both people have legitimate points of view about things that matter to them. The only way to achieve a compromise is to acknowledge them both.

3. Identify the underlying needs, values, and concerns

When someone gets stuck in a position they can't abandon, it's because they think that strategy is the only or best to solve their problem. When you or your partner can identify what's bothering you, you can see more than one way to achieve your goal.  More importantly, you can avoid getting sidetracked in arguments about strategies that may or may not work anyway. 

4. Offer assurance

Assure your partner that want to repair any damage done by an argument between you, that you are not judging them, that you are willing to be flexible.

Sometimes your partner will feel misunderstood or hurt by you, whether or not you meant it. Face it; there are arguments between most couples where mean things get said. Being able to assure your partner you didn't intend to, and are sorry you did something to hurt them is crucial.  It's even more vital to offer them your assurance you will work to make sure it doesn't keep happening. Letting your partner know you are willing to work with them frees your partner to be more open and flexible with you. Repairing damage done in past arguments is a great way to head off future ones. 

Noticing when your partner seems upset and defensive, asking why and letting them know you are not judging them are peacekeeping habits all couples need. You may not always understand your partner, but your willingness to learn how they feel and what's important to them will make it easier.

5. Offer and ask for equal regard

One person, one vote. It works in democracies and relationships. There will be times when one or both of you want something the other doesn't.  Neither of you should have to justify feeling or wanting something. You still have to take the other person into account. Successful couples are equal partners who treat their partner's interests like their own. That contract is part of what makes it safe, and desirable to be part of a couple. 

Winning at your parter's expense is one of the surest, most short-sighted ways to lose them.  If you want you partner to care about what's important to you, you must offer them the same care and concern. People fail at relationships when they fail to treat their partners as equals. When you can demonstrate to your partner you will act in good faith and ask the same of them you are on the way to a successful long-term relationship. 

6. Stand up for yourself without making a big deal about having to

While the first five habits are important, #6 is essential. Giving up on something that's important to you, or worse, blaming your partner for being difficult will erode your relationship. Learning to stand up for yourself gracefully will vaccinate it, and you. Skillful people will stand for what they believe in without making their partner wrong. 

When someone's needs go unmet, both parties contribute. Skillful partners take responsibility for themselves. They go back and resolve conflicts that are still bothering them, using the first five skills. They give their partner the benefit of the doubt, let them see what's at stake, ask them to work together. 

Only if their partner won't listen, work with, or take them seriously do they refuse to continue to do business as usual. Then inform their partner they need to distance from them temporarily. Taking distance is not done in anger. It is not a threat. It firmly and quietly refusing to stay in a situation where you don't think they are treating you as an equal. It is showing you are willing to be open and flexible with your partner when they are willing to do the same with you. It is letting them know you don't want distance yourself from them, but you must take care of yourself if they are not willing to work with you.

Refusing to back down while refusing to accept aggression shows that you are sincere about giving and receiving respect. This habit helps keep both people stay calm. It saves them from wasting time and effort trying to persuade, cajole or override each other. It provides their partner time to consider their point of view without feeling pressured. It works because it preserves your dignity and theirs.

In the next post, I will describe the friendship habits, which solidify and protect relationships.

*  Brent Atkinson, (author Developing Habits for Relationship Success) 

What Successful Couples do, You Can Too

I remember the sinking feeling I’d get early in my career when a couple I thought was improving, broke out into a fight that seemed to come from nowhere. It would even happen just before the end of what looked like a good session. Though my success rate with couples is better than I ever imagined, the memory of that sinking feeling keeps me motivated to grow and learn.

Frustrated as I might have been with the situation I just described, I knew I couldn’t blame my clients. They were looking to me to help them learn what they couldn’t yet do other own. I knew it was up to me to find more ways to help them when they didn’t do what the textbooks said they should.

In grad school, studying family and couples therapy, I read everything I could about family dynamics and couples counseling. Most of the books at that time had a theory about what works with couples, but it seemed to me that entire books started out stating their idea, without ever proving it, then spent hundreds of pages justifying something that might or might not work. Naturally skeptical anyway, I felt frustrated. I wasn’t interested in a theory that didn’t have proof behind it, one I couldn’t explain clearly to another person no matter how carefully I studied it and tried to make the logic work for myself. I wanted to know what worked. 

The best of those books challenged unproven assumptions about what couples need to succeed. Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (originally published in 1999) is to this day one of the best books on what makes for a successful couple. I read that book in grad school, and many times after that. 

What’s great about Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is that it’s based a long term study by author John Gottman, his colleagues, and grad students, who set out to find out what successful couples do so that they could use it in their couples therapy work. They took a long time to discover the principles, over fifteen years. The prerequisites for succeeding in a long term relationship were not what What Gottman and colleagues expected to find.

Gottman’s work stood in stark contrast to the other ideas out there: what passes for common sense, observations from one person’s private practice or small clinic, anecdotal notions about what should work.  I knew my clients deserved better; I badly wanted that one book to be a cornerstone for effective work with couples. In some ways, it can. 

While the book is easy to read and makes sense to most people, that was not enough for my clients. They got it, got excited, but wouldn't go on to do the exercises in it. I got frustrated trying to implement the lessons in Seven Principles. Having spent years as a corporate trainer and adult ed instructor, I knew that people learn by making sense of things for them selves, having new experiences they learn from directly. Having a new experience is what motivates people to change how they act. That’s the essential part. I wanted my clients to succeed by having these new experiences with their partners.

Thinking one book couldn’t do all I needed for my couples counseling clients; I started obsessively testing it. While the ideas made sense to me intellectually, my real life observation was that people needed to be relaxed enough to practice the suggestions, and too often they weren’t. I turned to my study of Zen, mindfulness meditation, yoga and exercise for answers to how to stay calm and connected to others, especially under stress. I knew from experience these practices allowed me and others to do just that. 

I eventually found and studied with a mentor who'd answered my questions before I’d asked them. That mentor, Brent Atkinson, developed a way of working called Developing Habits for Relationship Success, which is based on Gottman’s research but adds the self-self regulation skills people need to be able to perform the good relationship habits that seem so hard at first. 

Atkinson keeps developing his method, and I keep studying it, along with other ideas in stress reduction, positive psychology, and optimal human functioning. In this and future posts, I want to explain in plain language what Gottman, Atkinson, and other colleagues working in various areas of psychology have discovered. What’s so great is that these are not static ideas, but the subjects of living, ongoing research that I am excited to share. 

I’ve spent so much time with people who struggle desperately to persuade their partners to change. Doing that is a recipe not just for disappointment, but for ever increasing strife.

The good news is that much what of what you need to succeed in a long term relationship is under your conscious control: physically, mentally and emotionally. The habits you need are individual ones that don’t rely on your partner changing. And paradoxically, when you stop trying to get them to change they are much more likely to change on their own. More about that later. 

The habits I will describe in future posts are ones that, when practiced well and consistently will give your partner the space to decide to change on their own. You are then free to enjoy a more functional relationship or, conclude the relationship (even at its best), is not what the one you want. Either way, you win. You’re not wasting your time on the same stupid fight.

Research shows these two things you might not expect:
- people tend to believe their partners are in the wrong about a variety of couples' communication problems when they aren’t
- bad reactions about this lead to more, and even an escalation of the behavior you don’t want.

Thinking your partner needs to change because they are behaving in ways you don’t like might seem logical, but it just won’t work. If it’s has been going on between you for more than a few months, your relationship is most likely at risk. That means it’s time take it seriously and fix what you can. Couples counseling can help, by showing you what to do differently. You will have to do the work. 

Many people object to the idea that they have to change when their partner isn’t, but learning some of the habits I will describe in later posts. There are ten specific habits you can develop, 6 to use when you feel frustrated with your partner, 4 for when you’re not. 

The best thing to do with your partner is to respond effectively to them when you feel provoked. Some people just seem to have these skills naturally, but it’s possible, and necessary, to cultivate them. If you practice good relationship skills, over the long run, your partner is much more likely to become responsive to you. How people react when their partner does things they find frustrating is directly related to how flexible, and considerate their partners learn to become with them.

If you’re like most of us, you will need to lay a firm foundation and give your partner enough time to notice the changes you’ve made. Most of us pay much more attention to what’s wrong more than what’s right. The fact that our nervous systems evolved to scan our environments for signs danger makes it hard for us to notice improvements. 

Under stress, our human nervous systems can respond to our partners as if they were predatory animals or lightning bolts about to strike us. Being on such high alert is dangerous to your health and your relationship. That means it’s important for you to cultivate skills to rapidly soothe and calm yourself down on your own, along with patience and the ability to notice small changes that you consider improvements. 

Any habit you learn can be unlearned and replaced with another. You really can train your brain and nervous system to calm down. Think about how you know just without thinking how to drive your car to a familiar location or take the subway to work. Any action you often do is readily available to you. If you fight regularly, that’s available to you. If you take time to calm yourself, that’s available to you. Developing a relaxation reflex will help you shift from focusing on what you can't change to managing your reactions and taking good care of yourself. When you learn to do that reliably, you become more flexible, connected and responsive, more competent dealing with your partner. 

You can a use combination of simple daily mindfulness, breathing, and cardiovascular exercises to develop a reliable relaxation response in your nervous system. So, however it works best for you, learn to calm yourself on a regular basis. 

Learn to trust your own experience when you are relaxed, flexible and connected. Once you’ve created response often enough, you will notice yourself acting more effectively with your partner.  You will also see them becoming more responsive to you.  Then, a whole new world will open up to you.

I will be writing more about the habits of effective couples in future posts in this COUPLES COUNSELING blog, and more about stress reduction in my STRESS REDUCTION blog.