Do you remember the joke that people tell? —the one about the guy who goes into his doctor and says: ‘Doc, every time I do this, it hurts.” And the doctor says: “Well, stop doing that.”
Well, just stop having those fights’ is not the answer either. But how?
It’s all based on something you hear from many sources: ‘you can’t control what another person does, you only have control over yourself.’
That is good news.
Relationships are interconnected. When one person begins to change—how they communicate, what they tolerate, how they respond—the other person is affected by that change. Even if they haven't intentionally decided to change, they often begin responding differently -- because the old pattern no longer works in quite the same way.
We tend to think that changing a relationship requires getting the other person to change. But relationships don't work that way. Each person's behavior influences the other. Change what you do, and you change what the other person is experiencing—and that can change what they do in response.
Change one person, and you change the relationship. Change the relationship, and the other person has something different to respond to.
You would be amazed at how much personal power you have to create changes in your love relationship. Sometimes, it’s what you say, sometimes it’s what you feel and most often it’s something you do … differently.
If it seems like every fight ends up in the same place, that’s an indication that there’s something else in the way—a more important difference just keeps getting played out over and over because the ‘real’ problem hasn’t really changed.
And if you are not aware of that underlying problem, you can’t change it.
That’s part of the work we do together: find it and discover how to change it. I am able to help you do that in a way that fits you, based on so much experience and a keen understanding of the differences in now men and women react differently to communication and behavior change.
And the best part? The methods I will recommend to you are NOT based on anger and conflict. The changes are usually small and subtle with much bigger results, making life better for you.
