Relationships

Establishing realistic expectations for your relationships is absolutely crucial to their long-term success. But here’s the thing, how do you know whether your expectations in relationships are realistic?

Let’s go through several key factors to help you understand and answer this question for yourself.

You Tend to Get What You Expect

Throughout our podcast and website, we’ve often referred to the findings of Dr. Donald Baucom (a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina)

In one of his research projects that lasted over a decade, Dr. Baucom was studying marital expectations among couples. Want to know what he found?

You tend to get what you expect in your relationships. 

Meaning, if you have low expectations for yourself and others, you’ll tend to attract people who will live up to those standards. They’ll treat you poorly and because it lives up to your expectations in relationships, you’ll stick around thinking that it’s normal.

On the other hand, if you have high (but realistic) expectations for yourself and others, you’re probably going to end up in relationships where you’re treated quite well. Because when someone doesn’t live up to your expectations in relationships, you’re going to have no problem bouncing!

This kind of falls into the common sense bucket, doesn’t it?

It’s why we say, “What you tell yourself matters.” Because whatever beliefs and expectations you have for yourself, that will become your reality. Your expectations in relationships are dictated by your self-perception and self-beliefs (whether they be positive or negative).

Still, it’s nice seeing common sense be supported by evidence-based research.

Maybe the next question should be, what should you expect?

What Should You Expect in Relationships if You’re Single?

If you’re currently single and you’ve found TWR, awesome!

We’d say to identify your Core Values and the type of relationship that you want to create (this is what we do within our Coaching Programs). Then from that place, expect your partner to bring what you bring to the table. Maybe not exactly the same things, but values, traits, and characteristics that complement the life you want to create.

What’s unrealistic is to expect that your future partner is going to be something that you are not.

It’s not realistic to expect your partner to be…

• Athletic and physically fit when you’re out of shape
• Wealthy, when you’re struggling to pay the bills
• Emotionally intelligent and vulnerable, when you’re closed off

Once you’ve identified your Core Values, it’s realistic to find a partner who shares similar values and beliefs. Expect that in the areas where you differ, you’ll work together to become more aligned and understanding of one another.

In other words, if you’re doing the work to better understand yourself, it’s reasonable to expect the same from your future partner.

But now let’s go to the other side of this coin. What if you’re coming to this article and platform already in a committed relationship?

What Should You Expect in Relationships if You’re Married?

For those of you that found 12 Week Relationships after you got married or found commitment, our advice is a little different.

Don’t worry, it’s not bad or scary, just different. (Oh and pssst, and welcome to TWR!)

For all of you married folk, we’re going to start with this.

Most of us lack the proper knowledge and tools to identify healthy relationships that are based on our Core Values. Instead, most of us (we’re talking 80% plus) are going to marry or commit to someone who complements our attachment wounds.

And guess what?

Most of those recurring issues and arguments in your relationship, they’re not communication issues, they’re attachment issues. 

Because of this, we need to tailor expectations and understand that some problems have simple fixes, while others are not. Recurring arguments and conflict generally fit into that second category.

If you’re in a committed relationship, it’s not realistic or reasonable to expect that you’re going to be fully aligned with your Core Values. Why? Because we didn’t know any better before we got married.

We did the same thing everyone else does, we mistake attachment wounds for “chemistry” and marry the person that subconsciously reminds us of our childhood attachment wounds.

What I’m getting at is that it’s OK to lower or reduce your expectations a bit. Don’t get us wrong. We’re not saying that you should be OK with any form of abuse (physical or emotional). Nor are we saying that you shouldn’t expect to have a fulfilling marriage.

What we’re saying is that you need to give your relationship and your partner time. It’s realistic to expect that both of you are in it to win it. You’re right to want your partner to work with you to improve your relationship. But you’re not right to expect that everything is going to happen RIGHT AWAY!

It’s not realistic to expect that you’re going to be what some might call a “power couple” by next month!

It’s going to take time. With the right knowledge and coaching, you can see significant improvement in weeks. In fact, we guarantee couples in Crystal Clarity (our online coaching program) that they will strengthen their marriage or partnership within 12 weeks.

But the process of growing together takes time. Set the appropriate expectations!

“Solvable vs Unsolvable” Problems

The Gottman Institute is a research organization that has done incredible work within the field of relationship science. It doesn’t necessarily mean we always agree with their findings or approach, but we most definitely respect them.

On the subject of expecting that “all problems should be able to be solved,” they said this.

“We should not expect to solve all our problems in the relationship, either. My Love Lab studies found that almost ⅔ of relationship conflict is perpetual.”

What they’re talking about is the fact that the majority of recurring arguments are due to childhood attachment wounds. This is again because, without the proper knowledge, most of us choose our relationships subconsciously based on these attachment wounds.

This is where we’d disagree, with a little asterisk.

We agree that no relationship will ever be perfect, there’s always going to be some problems on the table.

But from our clinical experience, we’ve found that most of these recurring conflicts are by-in-large repairable when three things are present:

1. The couple is committed in good faith to putting in the work
2. Each person takes ownership of their wounds/trauma as they work through them
3. The couple works to understand and align Core Values over time

We don’t agree with Gottman’s solution of “lowering expectations” or seeking a relationship that is simply “good enough.” Neither do we agree that the majority of these recurring arguments are things that can’t be resolved.

Conclusion

When you’re dating, you should expect potential partners to bring what you bring to the relationship table.

When you’re married, you should expect your spouse to treat you with love and kindness. You should also expect that they’re committed to making things work just like you are.

But you should tailor your expectation when it comes to your timetable. Strengthening and repairing a relationship takes time, but it’s most certainly doable.

We’d also say that it’s most definitely worth the effort.

We love the term “power couple.” I’m hoping you can feel my sarcasm through these words. Ha! Look the term power couple is one that we commonly throw around to describe two people who seem accomplished, influential, and successful. Both within their relationship as well as outside of it.

But in reality, many power couples are far from a good example of a healthy relationship. It’s just that we can’t quite see far enough under the well-disguised surface to recognize it.

In this article, we’re going to explore eight characteristics and traits that we feel make a couple truly a power couple.

Oh, and we’re going to use the term “power couple” quite a bit. So that I don’t vomit in the process of writing this article, let’s go ahead and create our own definition just to kick things off.

Power Couple – A healthy relationship between two people who have genuine respect and love for one another. Their relationship is made powerful through an alignment in Core Values that creates a synergistic effect. Made simple, the sum of their relationship creates more than its parts could do separately.

ONE. Power Couples are Aligned in their Core Values

In our eyes, the first marker of a true power couple comes in having an aligned set of Core Values.

Power couples have a shared vision for their relationship and their individual lives. They communicate openly about their dreams, aspirations, and goals, and actively support each other in achieving them. Their shared vision creates a sense of purpose and direction, driving them forward as a unified force.

Aligning Core Values can be challenging, which is why we spend so much time on this subject within our Crystal Clarity coaching program. But once aligned, having a shared set of beliefs and values makes a couple truly powerful in their vision.

TWO. Power Couples Have HIGH Regard

We define “Regard” as the respect, admiration, and trust that pulls or attracts us to a particular relationship. Having high Regard is KEY to maintaining Desire or our want for a relationship for one simple reason…

You’ll struggle to maintain the “want” or Desire for a relationship with a person that you don’t respect, admire, or trust. 

Power couples have HIGH Regard for one another. They’re also extremely diligent to protect and strengthen that Regard over time. 

This is why they employ healthy boundaries from any person or relationship that could threaten the relationship they have with their significant other. They know that once Regard has been lost (or even replaced with contempt), sometimes it can be impossible to repair.

THREE. Open Communication > Effective Communication

Power couples value open communication over effective communication. Because they are aligned in their Core Values, they can understand each other on a deeper level. They can relate to one another even when things aren’t communicated in the most ideal manner.

Rather than worrying about HOW they might communicate, they place far more emphasis on making sure they main a space to OPENLY communicate. 

They want one another to be completely open and transparent rather than worry about how they say something. They’re confident in their ability to relate to one another and read between the lines. They’re also confident in their ability to communicate and resolve issues should they arise.

FOUR. Power Couples Have High EQ

Within the relationship, power couples possess a high degree of emotional intelligence. They have a deep understanding of their own emotions and can empathize with their partner’s feelings.

This enables them to navigate challenges with compassion, provide emotional support, and foster a safe and nurturing environment for growth. This level of emotional intelligence is often less to do with deliberate training or coaching, bur rather to do with their aligned Core Values.

FIVE. They Value Individual Growth and Independence

Power couples cherish the time that they spend together. But they also recognize the importance of individual growth and independence within the relationship. They encourage each other to pursue personal passions, interests, and self-development. By supporting individual growth, they bring new experiences and perspectives into their partnership, enhancing the overall dynamic.

SIX. Power Couples Collaborate

Power couples understand the power of collaboration and teamwork. They view their relationship as a partnership where both individuals actively contribute their strengths, skills, and resources. Together, they tackle challenges, make joint decisions, and celebrate shared achievements.

Again, it’s their aligned Core Values that strengthen their ability to collaborate. In our opinion, this is best seen in moments of conflict.

Within moments of conflict, a healthy couple with a strong connection will ALWAYS prioritize the relationship over their individual ego. Resolving conflict is not about discovering WHO was wrong, but rather HOW they’re going to move forward together.

SEVEN. They Have a Growth Mindset

Power couples have a growth mindset, constantly seeking opportunities to learn and grow both individually and as a couple. They invest in self-improvement, attend workshops or therapy, and engage in activities that foster personal and relational growth.

This commitment to growth ensures that their relationship remains dynamic and resilient. It also provides each other with opportunities to learn and grow together within one another’s experiences.

EIGHT. Power Couples Coregulate

Not to be confused with “codependence,” coregulation refers to the mutual process by which individuals in a relationship regulate their emotions and achieve a state of emotional balance together. In the context of a power couple, coregulation plays a crucial role in maintaining a healthy and harmonious relationship dynamic.

It’s through coregulation that the couple can help each other…

• Be more emotionally aware
• Practice active listening
• Be vulnerable and supportive
• Offer stress relief and calm one another
• Seek better approaches to conflict resolution

In short, both people know their areas of individual accountability. But because they place ego behind their relationship and shared Core Values, they can each offer support in areas where the other is weak.

Conclusion

I feel like I could go on, but we’ll stop here for now.

Meantime, I’ll simply say this.

Just because other people or the media say they’re a “power couple” doesn’t mean that they are.

Instead of looking outward to identify true power couples, work on creating this type of relationship for yourself.

You’ve been married or together for years, maybe even decades. It’s natural to be asking the question, “How do we rekindle the love and passion we once had?”

As my dad would say, let’s not beat around the bush.

Let’s get straight into this one with 10 ways to rekindle love and passion within your marriage or partnership.

ONE. It’s Not Just About More Effort!

When things aren’t as exciting as they used to be, the most common advice you’re going to hear goes along the lines of “Try harder.”

To rekindle your love and passion you just need to…

“Do the things you used to do!”

“Put more effort into the relationship.”

“Go back to dating again.”

Sure, some of this advice might contain half-truths. But even the half-truths are oversimplified and unactionable. But depending on your situation, sometimes this type of advice is just plain WRONG.

When your relationship is by-in-large healthy, you can skip straight to putting in effort and trying new things which we’ll list out in Tips 3-10.

But when you’re relationship is not in a healthy or stable place, putting in more effort or even spending more time together can end up destroying the relationship that much quicker.

In trying to rekindle love, you’re going to end up destroying it.

For this reason, Tip #02 is to do a Regard check first!

TWO. Repair Regard First!

Within our caching program Crystal Clarity Online we ask clients to first check in on their sense of Regard for one another.

Regard is the KEY component of Desire.

Meaning your want or Desire for a relationship is dependent on having a high sense of Regard for your partner.

So, what is Regard?

Regard encompasses the trust, respect, and admiration that attracts you toward a relationship.

It’s as critical to the feeling of romantic attraction, as it is to the basic want for any friendship or relationship.

Because the truth is this…

It’s virtually impossible to want a relationship with someone you don’t trust, respect, or admire. 

In marriage, what often happens is that our Regard for one another is slowly eroded over the years. We lose our sense of trust and respect for one another. Then one day we wake up and think to ourselves…

“I know that I should work on my marriage, but why is it that I don’t WANT to work on my marriage? Why is it that I have no desire for this relationship?”

Such a feeling might even make you feel guilty for thinking it, but that doesn’t stop it from being a true and accurate representation of what you’re feeling.

This feeling comes from the loss of Regard, and it’s further exaggerated when your Regard has been replaced with contempt.

In these moments, before we can look to rekindle love or passion, we have to repair our sense of Regard.

Repairing Regard goes far beyond the scope of an article. For this, we’d recommend joining our Crystal Clarity Online or our One-on-One coaching programs.

But understand this simple truth.

When Regard is lost, putting more effort and time into a relationship will only speed up its demise. 

It’s like running a broken engine even harder, thinking that by doing so it will naturally fix itself.

THREE. Rekindle Love by Nurturing Emotional Intimacy

The next few tips are going to be about sexual intimacy. You know, the fun stuff!

But intimacy isn’t just about physical connection; it encompasses emotional closeness too.

When it comes to rekindling love and passion, we’d argue that emotional intimacy is the precursor to a good sexual connection. 

Dedicate quality time to talk and truly listen to one another. Share your thoughts, fears, and dreams. Emotional intimacy acts as the foundation for a passionate and fulfilling relationship.

Both of you should be able to truly relate to one another by understanding and aligning Core Values. Again, this is something we spend quite a bit of time helping couples to do within our coaching programs.

Because when you’re emotionally connected, creating a space to explore sexual desires becomes far more simple and organic.

FOUR. Communicate Your DEEPEST Desires!

Goodness, this one sounds terrifying, doesn’t it?

Start by having an open and honest conversation with your partner about your desires and fantasies. Encourage them to do the same. Understanding each other’s needs and wants can create an intimate space where you can explore new adventures together.

And think of it this way.

If you can’t create a safe space for such a conversation, then aren’t there bigger relationship issues to fry?

FIVE. Explore Your Sexual Desires

Once you’ve communicated your sexual desires, it’s time to do something even more terrifying…

Start exploring them! Haha!

As long as it’s safe, legal, and consensual you can’t really go wrong. Maybe it’s new positions, maybe it’s sex in a different place. Try it once and if you don’t like it, don’t do it again.

SIX. Foreplay Starts Long Before Sex!

I want you to think back to when the relationship was new. Before sex, weren’t you often flirting and talking about sex?

Yes!

You were leaving little love notes around for one another. You were maybe sexting and sending randy little text messages back and forth. Before each time you had sex, you were playing and flirting with one another.

You don’t need to do the same things you used to do, but we do want you to start flirting and engaging throughout the day.

SEVEN. Allow for Sexual Tension

This one might sound a bit strange.

You’re going to allow for sexual tension to build by not engaging in sex or sexual activities. 

This includes pornography! Meaning if one partner is engaged with pornography, it becomes difficult if not impossible to allow sexual tension to build.

Rather than engaging in sex every single time one person feels like it, start creating a little anticipation. Take your time engaging in flirting and foreplay, then once the anticipation has built have at it!

Allowing for sexual tension is a simple yet powerful way of enhancing passion through the anticipation of the event.

EIGHT. Rekindle Love via Risk!

One of the components of our relationship framework is Risk. Risk defines the possibility of an unwanted outcome and while that sounds scary, it’s what makes something feel adventurous and exciting.

While we’re OK with unknowns in a new relationship, we struggle with it over time. It’s why over time we tend to fill our relationships with routine because there’s comfort in what’s known.

But what’s routine, by definition, can’t be exciting and adventurous.

So what does this mean?

Well, we’d say ditch advice like “go back and do the things you used to do” or “make sure you’re doing date night every Friday.” Regular date nights are a wonderful thing. But there’s something more important than doing date night every week at the same time.

Date nights should consist of things you’ve never done before!

Rather than go back to the things you used to do, you should be exploring new experiences you’ve never shared with each other. And don’t worry, even when things go wrong, you’ll be left with an incredible experience and story to share with each other.

NINE. Touch Doesn’t Have to be Sex

Focus on being affectionate and touching each other without engaging in sex. Being intimate is not just about sexual intimacy.

Give your partner a massage. Hold each other in a tight embrace. Even the simple act of holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes for an extended period of time is shown to improve connection.

Even if you’re not a “touchy feely” person, bring back touch outside of the bedroom.

TEN. Prioritize Quality Time

We define quality time as “meaningfully engaging activities.”

This means that quality time is less about the specific activity, and more about what you find meaningfully engaging as a couple.

Make time for each other on a regular basis. 

This one sounds incredibly simple, and yet those with children and busy work schedules can attest to just how difficult it is.

Regardless, make time for each other. When you do, don’t allow that time to pass sitting silently watching a movie, or having yet another quiet dinner at the same restaurant eating the same food.

Spend time together doing things that allow you both to be present and meaningfully engaged.

It’s been months, maybe even years. You’re in a new relationship… and yet… You keep thinking about your ex! WHY?

Well, there are a number of reasons for this and it doesn’t necessarily mean your new relationship is doomed.

Let’s talk about some of the common reasons why you’re still hung up thinking about an ex.

You Never Got “Closure”

When a relationship ends, there are often unresolved issues, conflicts, or unfinished business still left on the table. In these moments, we’ll often think or say things like…

“You know, we just never got closure.” or “There was so much left unsaid.”

Yes, we need closure. But our critical error in this process is thinking that “closure” has anything to do with the other person.

In reality, the only person you need for closure is YOU. 

Let’s discuss how by talking about the two things that we’re typically seeking when we’re looking for closure.

ONE. We’re often stuck in our frustration of not expressing all the things that we wanted to say. 

We want an opportunity to say, no to scream, “Dude! This ended because of you! Because of all of the insane things that you did that I just sat there and took!”

But here’s the thing.

Yelling at them does nothing for you. You’re still going to be left with all of your leftover anger and resentment. On top of that, if they’re as big of a jerk as you remember them to be, nothing you say will matter to them anyway. In fact, they’ll likely just brush off or deny everything you say, thus making you that much more angry.

TWO. We’re often stuck because we want to hear what we did wrong. We want an explanation, “Why did it end?”

When it comes to “why did it end.” What could they possibly say that would make you feel better?

Let’s say they list out every single thing you did wrong in the relationship, is that going to truly help you grow, or just make you feel like shit? What if they say, “it wasn’t you, it was me?” Wouldn’t that just end up driving you even more crazy?

Your closure lies within yourself.

Even if they were a jerk, we must accept that we chose that relationship for a reason. Your closure comes in figuring out WHY.

And when it comes to “why did it end?” You can provide closure for yourself here with the right knowledge and understanding.

Both of these questions are things that we help clients to understand and resolve within our coaching program Crystal Clarity Online.

Next, let’s talk about grief and loss.

Mourning the Relationship

Sometimes you might keep thinking about your ex because you never gave yourself time to mourn the loss of the relationship.

The end of a relationship can result in feelings of grief and loss that are similar to the process of losing a loved one.  We might think about our exes as a way of processing emotions and adjusting to our life without them.

This is completely natural. Necessary even.

When we move from one relationship to the next without giving ourselves time to process the loss of a relationship, we kick our can of grieving down the road.

This is not only unfair to the person in our next relationship, it’s not fair to ourselves either. Because it’s difficult to give your next relationship the attention it deserves when your mind is still stuck processing and grieving over the past.

Along these same lines, there’s the emotional attachment.

Emotional Attachment to Your Ex

Another reason you keep thinking about your ex is because of your emotional attachment to them. Right after your relationship ends, your body is still flooded with chemicals. All of the pain and feel-good chemicals of love are still in your mind and body.

One of the biggest mistakes that we make is entering another relationship without giving ourselves time for our bodies to get back to a state of chemical balance.

At a minimum, this is 30 days. But depending on the relationship, it can take longer. Again, moving on to date another person too quickly means that we’re going to pull our prior emotional attachment into the next relationship.

Just like grieving the loss of our relationship, we also need to give our mind and body time to reset from the emotional attachment of our prior relationship.

Attachment Bonds with Your Ex

Ok, this is a big one.

You’ll often think back to the “euphoric” highs of your relationship with your ex because it triggered your attachment wounds. In fact, if you’re currently in a healthy relationship, you might feel as though your current relationship is boring or lacks excitement.

In our coaching program Crystal Clarity Online, one of our major focuses is to help clients understand the nature of healthy versus unhealthy relationship dynamics. We want our clients to choose relationships based on their values rather than based on their past pains.

Want to know why?

Because somewhere around 80% of the romantic relationships we create are based on our attachment wounds. 

Meaning that feeling of excitement and euphoria, it’s not “chemistry.” It’s actually your old attachment wounds that are coming to the surface and giving you a sense of “familiarity” within a new relationship. Put another way, this person standing in front of you is subconsciously reminding you of your childhood experiences. Only you’re not interpreting it this way.

When new relationships complement our attachment wounds it feels like fate or that it was “meant to be.” We feel like this other person completes us or fills our gaps.

As we step into the relationship, we jump into an unhealthy dynamic filled with incredible highs followed by equally as incredible lows. The emotional rollercoaster ride is creating a chemical cocktail that’s influencing you just like a drug addiction.

This means that when you finally end the relationship, you’ll not only go through a period of withdrawal, but you’ll also crave or even miss that past relationship. You might even compare it to your current relationship and think that this new relationship just, “lacks passion and excitement.”

But your new relationship isn’t boring. It doesn’t lack chemistry. It’s simply healthy.

When you miss your ex because of the excitement and highs of the relationship, you must remind yourself that those highs were the result of a toxic relationship dynamic.

There’s nothing healthy to be had there.

Nostalgia and Reminiscing

There’s also the possibility that you’re thinking about an ex because it was genuinely a good relationship filled with positive memories.

This is completely natural.

But here’s the thing with the past. For some reason, our past is always more interesting, positive, and memorable than our present. This makes the past a terrible comparison to your current relationship.

The reason I say this is that there are two common experiences that will often trigger our nostalgia.

ONE. You do something in your current relationship that reminds you of a positive memory with your ex.

TWO. You’re struggling in your current relationship and that’s making you think of the past, or even compare your relationship with your ex.

In both cases, we need to allow our memories to remain in our past and here’s why…

For some reason, we tend to look back to nostalgic moments with more fondness than we have for present-day experiences. The pain of the past fades, and what’s left are memories that always tend to be more fun, interesting, and memorable.

This makes your past relationships a terrible comparison point for your current relationship. Your current relationship should be evaluated on its own merit, not compared to a partial view of an ex.

If your current relationship is by-in-large healthy, then the solution to remaining about an ex is creating new memories with your partner today. You can’t compare a relationship with an ex that has a deep history to one that lacks a similar depth of experience. Stay present and work on creating those experiences and watering your current relationship.

If your current relationship is by-in-large unhealthy, you don’t need to be reminiscing about positive memories with an ex. You need to be figuring out of the relationship can be repaired or not. In either case, your time and energy need to be in the present rather than thinking about an ex.

Conclusion

It’s normal to think about an ex.

But it’s also worth studying WHY you might be thinking about that past relationship.

In some cases, your nostalgia will be benign.

But in others, it might just point you to areas of personal healing that are worth a bit of exploration.

It was back in college when I read “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” where author Stephen R. Covey introduced the concept of the “emotional bank account.”

It was a brilliant metaphor.

Imagine your relationship is like a bank account where deposits and withdrawals shape its balance. Just as we strive to accumulate wealth, it’s essential to nurture an emotionally wealthy bank account between spouses.

For the purpose of keeping this article simple and relatable, we’re going to speak from the perspective of a romantic couple. But we’d say that the concept of an emotional bank account extends far beyond romance and marriage. This concept applies to every long-term relationship that we create.

Let’s dive in…

Defining Your Emotional Bank Account

Think of your emotional bank account as a reflection of the respect, trust, and goodwill within your relationship.

Within the Super-Simple Relationship Method, the framework we developed for relationship coaching, we have a component that represents your emotional bank account.

We call it Regard.

Regard defines the trust, admiration, and respect that pulls you toward a relationship. Made simple, if you don’t trust or respect someone, you’re unlikely to have the Desire to maintain a relationship with them. 

It would be fair to say that Regard represents your emotional bank account. We’ll come back to the concept of Regard in a bit, for now let’s continue defining the emotional bank account.

Just like a financial bank account, a healthy bank balance requires more deposits than withdrawals.

Within our emotional bank account, deposits come in the way of positive interactions, acts of kindness, and actions that demonstrate an alignment in Core Values. Withdrawals come in the way of negative interactions, self-serving behavior, and actions that demonstrate a misalignment in Core Values.

Let’s look at some examples of these.

Deposits to Your Emotional Bank Account

In a marriage, deposits to your emotional bank account include ALL of your positive everyday interactions. For example…

• Offering emotional support after a hard day
• Invitations to spend time together
• Heartfelt compliments or praise
• Surprise activities or date nights
• Simple acts of kindness

But you can see how this concept extends outside of marriage and romance right?

I want you to think of a close friend or family member. Not a relationship that you feel “obligated” to maintain, but rather someone who you genuinely enjoy spending time with.

Arent you both looking for ways to serve the relationship? You invite each other out. You call each other to catch up. You’re there to support one another.

These are all deposits that boost the positive balance of your emotional bank account.

Now let’s go to the other side, let’s talk about withdrawals.

Withdrawals from Your Emotional Bank Account

Withdrawals from your emotional bank account include ALL of your negative everyday interactions. For example…

• Disagreements and significant conflict
• Moments of frustration and anger
• Not making time for your significant other
• Minimizing the experiences of your spouse
• Failing to listen and empathize
• Apologies that lack sincerity

In short, anytime we’re acting against the best interest of the relationship, we’re taking a withdrawal from our emotional bank account.

Once again, this happens in all of our close relationships, doesn’t it?

Your friend betrays you and never takes ownership of their action. Your family member continuously steps over your boundaries whenever they need something. These are all significant withdrawals to a relationship’s emotional bank account.

The next question is what happens when the withdrawals exceed your deposits?

Maintaining a Negative Balance

If your bank account held a consistently negative account balance, the bank would simply close out your account.

Thinking of our relationships, it’s normal to go through periods where we have more withdrawals than deposits. During these so-called “relationship storms” our emotional bank account might even be in the red for a time.

But this is NOT sustainable long term!

Just like the bank, it’s impossible to maintain a relationship that consistently withdraws more than it deposits in return.

Correction. It is possible to maintain a one-sided relationship where withdrawals consistently exceed deposits. But it’s going to come at the cost of your own physical, mental, and emotional health.

Now let’s bring this back home to the concept of Regard.

Regard, Your Emotional Bank Account

Earlier, I mentioned that your Regard for someone is a great representation of your emotional bank account.

Let me explain why.

Within the context of our coaching program Crystal Clarity, we help clients understand and implement the SSRM (Super-Simple Relationship Method). You can think of it as a framework that answers the question, “What does a healthy relationship look like.”

Inside of the SSRM is the concept of Desire (hence why I’ve capitalized Desire throughout this article). Desire is your want for a relationship, ANY relationship.

The KEY to maintaining Desire is healthy Regard. 

Meaning, you’re going to struggle to maintain your Desire for a relationship with someone that you don’t hold in high Regard. After all, how do you want a relationship with someone that you don’t trust, respect, or admire?

We tie Regard closely to the idea of “attraction” because it’s hard to be attracted to someone that you don’t respect, even when they’re physically attractive. And by the same token, it’s hard to want ANY relationship with a person that you don’t hold in high Regard.

I say all of this because I want to bring it back home to the concept of the emotional bank account.

Every time your spouse (or someone close to you) acts against your best interests and values, YOU LOSE REGARD. Withdrawals erode the Regard you have for someone. With enough withdrawals, your sense of Regard can be damaged beyond repair, or even worse, replaced with contempt.

In that place, your emotional bank account is so far in the negative that you’ll simply want nothing more to do with this person.

Without Regard, you’ll have no Desire to maintain a particular relationship. Knowing that withdrawals are affecting your Regard, it’s critical we focus on making deposits. But how many deposits do we need to be making to keep a relationship healthy?

What’s a Healthy Ratio?

Knowing the importance now of maintaining a healthy emotional bank account you might be wondering, “What’s the appropriate ratio of deposits to withdrawals?”

The Gottman Institute conducted research on this saying that a couple needs at least 5:1 positive to negative interactions. Five deposits for every withdrawal. They went on further to say that the best relationships had a ratio closer to 20:1.

That said, we think that specific numbers might detract a bit from the overall purpose. There are two things here that are important to understand, the first is simple.

ONE. You need far more deposits than withdrawals.

In order for a relationship to remain healthy, it needs far more positive interactions than negative interactions. Trying to put a number on these interactions is a bit of a moot point since each interaction is different in its weight or magnitude. Instead, just think of it this way. In order for a relationship to remain healthy, it needs to provide a synergistic benefit to both people. Maintaining the relationship is providing both people with far more emotional benefits than it is cost.

SECOND. Negative interactions are far more memorable than positive ones.

We have to recognize that our brains are hardwired to place far more weight on a negative interaction than a positive one. Because it’s so easy to focus on negative interactions, we need positive interactions to far outweigh them.

In short, put your focus on MAKING DEPOSITS!

Conclusion

If you want to maintain a healthy long-term relationship, both people in the relationship should focus their efforts on making frequent daily deposits into their emotional bank account.

This is how two people can strengthen the Regard they have for one another, which in turn increases their Desire to maintain the relationship!

What is the purpose of marriage?

Is it to find your “soul mate” or your “other half?”

Is it to find fulfillment or to “make you happy?”

We all have different ideas when it comes to the purpose of marriage, in this article we wanted to share some of our thoughts with you.

First, why don’t we look at the topic from a historical perspective…

The Purpose of Marriage Historically

Marriage from a historical perspective looks nothing like its modern-day variant. Historically, marriage was by in large a vehicle for strengthening one’s social and economic standing.

Marriage provided a stable environment for raising children, maintaining a household, and improving survivability. It was also a means of creating social and community cohesion. Marriage served as a mechanism to bring families and communities together through shared celebrations, rituals, and traditions. From a religious or spiritual standpoint, for many cultures marriage also represented a sacred union that was blessed by deities or higher powers.

The purpose of marriage from a business or economic standpoint could be argued as being even more significant.

Economically, marriage was a means to preserve wealth and build alliances. The purpose of marriage was to improve one’s social status and family lineage. Marriage was often used as a tool to create alliances between countries, partnerships between businesses, and friends of once enemies.

Our point is this…

Historically, couples never expected their marriage to be “fulfilling” or a source of “happiness” until reason years. In fact, love and companionship have only become an important aspect of marriage within the past few hundred years or so.

So what does the purpose of marriage look like today?

The Purpose of Marriage Today

In contrast to our historical view of marriage, today we expect our partners to make us feel complete, and we expect marriage to be our place for happiness and fulfillment.

Emotional connection and companionship are paramount…

Marriage is not only support to be the place to create a family, it’s supposed to be the structure that provides us with everything we seem to be missing.

Within marriage, we expect to have…

• A best friend in our partner
• Passion, emotional, and physical intimacy
• A partner in our family/business obligations
• Collaboration and emotional support
• Legal and financial benefits
• Personal growth and self-actualization

Historically, we relied on a number of relationships to support our emotional and developmental needs. Today, many of us expect all of this to come from our marriage or partnership.

If you don’t mind, we’d like to share our perspective.

The Five Purposes of Marriage

Ultimately, you’re going to have to decide the purpose and meaning of marriage for yourself.

That said, as relationship coaches (with 40 years of combined experience) we do believe that marriage or long-term relationships have five universal purposes.

Meaning that in addition to the purpose you assign to marriage, our long-term relationships help all of us enhance our human experience in FIVE primary ways. Oh, and just so we can keep this semantically simple when we say “marriage” you can insert any long-term romantic relationship in its place.

The purpose of marriage is to…

1. Provide us with a vehicle for personal growth and healing
2. Help us find the deepest form of connection/intimacy
3. Create a life with unique meaning and purpose
4. Enhance a life that you have already come to love
5. Add to your spiritual/religious experience and journey

Within our coaching programs like Crystal Clarity Online, these are exactly what we help our clients to understand and achieve.

Let’s discuss each of these concepts.

One. Marriage is a Vehicle for Growth and Healing

In and of itself, marriage will not heal you or “make you whole.”

Quite the contrary actually.

Marriage creates a level of intimacy that tends to reveal all of our wounds and flaws. The problem is that you and I tend to push or project these problems onto the relationship when in reality they’re problems to be resolved at an individual level.

Sure, we should serve one another in marriage. But it’s our responsibility to keep ourselves happy.

Yes, we can be sensitive to one another’s wounds and triggers. But it’s our individual responsibility to heal those underlying pains. This is a concept that we’ve specifically discussed in this article, “How Do I Stop Being Triggered?”

Marriage, or more accurately the level of intimacy experienced within marriage, acts as a giant road sign that’s continually pointing us toward opportunities for growth and healing.

But we have to recognize these road signs for what they are…

Opportunities to look within, rather than try to criticize or seek solutions outside of ourselves.

In this way, marriage is a vehicle that can provide us with opportunities to heal and grow in ways that no other relationship can.

Two. Help us Find the Deepest Form of Connection/Intimacy

The level of connection and intimacy that can be experienced within marriage is like no other.

Obviously, physical intimacy is a big contributor to this. But beyond intimacy, the proximity and time spent with a spouse is unlike any other relationship we’ll experience.

This means that marriage provides us with the unique opportunity of experiencing connection and intimacy in a way that no other relationship in our lives can provide. But enjoying that benefit and opportunity will require us to deal with our individual attachment wounds and traumas that often have us fearing such intimacy.

Again, this brings us back to Purpose #01.

When our underlying wounds prevent us from opening up and being vulnerable, we’re pointed back to an area where healing is required.

Three. Create a Life of Meaning and Purpose

Once again, marriage is a vehicle to create a life of meaning and purpose that you define for yourself. This is going to look different from one person to the next.

You might find meaning and joy in creating a family and raising children.

Whereas I might find meaning and joy in traveling and running a business together with my spouse.

Like anything that’s meaningful in life, marriage is going to be difficult and challenging. At times it might even be painful (although this is not a requirement). But in general, “difficult” is a requirement of meaning and purpose.

Things that are meaningful and worth celebrating in life are by definition difficult.

It’s why we celebrate graduating from University.

It’s why becoming a Doctor or Lawyer holds significance.

And it’s also why creating a successful marriage and family life is something to be cherished from the inside, and admired from the outside.

Four. Enhance a Life You Already Love

A lot of us look at marriage as a destination.

We think of marriage as that final act that will help “complete” our lives and create fulfillment in and of itself.

In reality, marriage will do nothing other than enhance the life you’ve already created.

Sure, you finding a partner might temporarily make you feel complete or “happy.” But after the honeymoon phase of the relationship has come and gone, you’re life will still be your life.

This means that if you’re not in love with the life you have before marriage, you most certainly won’t appreciate the life you’ve created after marriage. Contrary to popular belief, marriage doesn’t solve anything in and of itself. In fact, in cases of an unhealthy marriage, it will actually add to your problem set in life.

On the flip side, if you enjoy your life and what you do before marriage, you’ll find that having a partner and a healthy marriage will make everything you do that much more meaningful.

With your partner, you’ll…

• Celebrate your wins as well as mourn your losses.
• Share ideas and relate to one another’s unique perspectives.
• Enhance each of your experiences with a companion who understands you at your core.

But marriage in and of itself is not going to be the destination, nor will it be the fix for a life we feel is “missing something.”

Five. Add to Your Spiritual/Religious Journey

For many, marriage is the final piece (or a significant step) in one’s spiritual or religious journey.

Within many religions, it’s believed that it’s through marriage that one attains the ultimate levels of enlightenment.

Regardless of what your beliefs on this subject might be, marriage can be an incredible experience for couples that share similar underlying beliefs. But to enjoy this benefit, a couple needs to ensure that they both share the same underlying Core Value driving their belief system.

For example, let’s say that you’re Mormon.

In order for you to enjoy the benefit of sharing in your religious/spiritual journey, you’d both need to be Mormon for the same underlying reasons. These “underlying reasons” are your actual Core Values and it’s what enables you to see eye-to-eye.

For example…

Let’s say you’re Mormon because you genuinely believe it’s a path for you to get closer to God.

On the other hand, your spouse is Mormon because their family was Mormon and that’s where their friends and social network are as well.

Despite belonging to the same religion, you don’t share the same underlying Core Values. This means that the experience each of you shares within day-to-day activities is not going to be something that you both can relate to.

Within this situation, you’re likely to get frustrated at your spouse for not paying attention at church, or not taking their religious studies seriously. On the other hand, they’re likely to be frustrated at you for being too serious about what they simply view as “tradition.”

Despite the fact that both of you are Mormon, you will not see eye-to-eye on spiritual experiences and religious matters.

So again, to yield this benefit of marriage, couples need to ensure that their spiritual/religious beliefs are driven by the same underlying Core Values. Assuming they are, marriage can be a beautiful way of enhancing a couple’s spiritual journey.

Our Conclusion

Our conclusion is simple.

We believe that the purpose of marriage goes far beyond “completing us” or “making us happy.”

And that’s a wonderful thing!

Because the purpose of marriage MUST go BEYOND these temporary feelings and emotional states.

If we don’t feel a strong sense of purpose and meaning behind marriage, then when things get difficult, we’ll lose sight of what we’re trying to create.

And make no mistake, things will get difficult.

In those moments, we must be able to remind ourselves that what’s meaningful will be difficult. We must be able to find the purpose for our marriage that extends BEYOND what we might be feeling at any one particular moment.

If you’ve been in couples therapy for any extended period of time, you’ve no doubt asked yourself the question, “Does couples therapy ACTUALLY WORK!?”

You know the feeling right?

You’re in session. You share your concerns and frustrations about the relationship. Your partner shares their concerns and frustrations about the relationship. Then the both of you look to the therapist for the solution…

They respond with something typically cliche like, “You both need to communicate better with each other.” And as unsatisfying as this answer is, both of you push through because you want to make the relationship work.

With time, you both learn how to communicate your anger more effectively. Several years pass by, one session after another. Sure, you’ve both learned new tools and insights that have helped with day-to-day interactions. But when it comes down to the things that truly matter in your relationship, nothing has really changed for the better.

It’s in such moments that we rightfully ask, “Does couples therapy work?”

Because you’re right to be frustrated, and you’re absolutely right to question the process.

In this article, we’re going to talk about the effectiveness of couples therapy. I’m going to present you with a reality that’s most certainly going to shock you.

Couples Therapy Fails 85% of its Clients

I know that section heading is frustrating to read, but it’s true.

I feel your frustration because I felt the same damn thing.

Once we get off the hamster wheel and assess how much therapy has worked for us, most of us will conclude that “it has simply failed.”

Yes, there were some insights and there was a place to release concerns, but ultimately, it never reached the core issues of our relationship problems. And if this is the destination that you arrived at, you most certainly are not alone. Not by a long shot.

Research from Roesler (2020) shows that couples therapy fails 85% of the people that it serves.

Yes, friends. You read that correctly.

Conservatively speaking, traditional therapy and couples counseling will fail FOUR out of the FIVE clients that it serves in creating lasting change. 

The question then becomes “Why?”

Why Does Counseling and Couples Therapy Fail?

Just like you, we wanted to know why this was happening.

Through the TWR Institute, we gathered a research team and ended up compiling 75 peer-reviewed research articles. Within the piles of research and data, we arrived at two primary factors that answer the question, “Why does couples therapy tend to fail?”

1. Treatment barriers on behalf of the therapist
2. Treatment barriers on behalf of the client

More simply put, couples therapy tends to fail because of the lack of expertise on behalf of the therapist, or problems that the clients have in implementing the solutions.

Let’s get into each factor and break it down even more. We’ll start with data pointing out issues in terms of the therapist and the treatment they provide.

Treatment Barriers on Behalf of the Therapist

From all of the articles we gathered, we found five primary barriers or problems on behalf of the therapist that affects positive client outcomes.

We’ll discuss each of these below.

1. Couples therapists are underqualified.

Research from Pentel and Baucom (2021) found that 95% of the therapists who graduated from an accredited graduate counseling program, did not feel properly trained to provide treatment to couples.

Meaning, while they graduated and had the appropriate credentials and hours, these therapists still felt as though they didn’t have enough tools in the clinical environment. Responding therapists even went on to say that they would often rely on “self-guided” techniques that they believed would work. In other words, they’d often default to giving their clients advice from their own personal experiences.

2. Couples therapists do not follow a guided framework.

A study by Carrol et al (2021) found that each couple’s treatment would often include short-term solutions like improving communication, rather than focusing on the long-term problems. But in order for treatment to be effective, therapists must focus on the concept of Long-Term Conditions or LTCs.

Meaning rather than focusing on providing solutions to short-term symptoms, therapists need to be focusing on long-term change which requires deep-rooted emotional work.

Unfortunately, clients are often never getting to this place in their treatment because therapists fail to follow a consistent guided framework. Instead of following a proven and consistent framework for treatment, the therapist is going “off script” to treat problems that they feel are the most significant.

What the therapist tends to deem “significant” are simply the symptoms or problems that are most visible. But these surface-level symptoms are rarely ever the root problem, but rather just a manifestation of that problem.

3. The power of the therapist is too high.

Findings from Janusz et al (2021) discuss how the therapist will often take on a judge’s role during a couple’s session. This eventually leads to the therapist taking a side rather than having the ability to mediate and solve problems.

The term for this is known as a “split alliance”, meaning that once one partner gets the therapist to side with them, it leads to dysfunction within the session, and eventually, the couple will end up dropping out of treatment.

4. There is no set definition of intimacy or how to approach it.

Rober et al (2015) discussed the complexity of couples therapy and the many variables/challenges that need to be implemented for healing to take place. Their research cites the need for being able to emotionally hold space, set boundaries, and distinguish between individual and couple’s issues, All of this must happen while being able to push the session forward.

The problem is there is no clear and set direction of how or where the direction of intimacy is.

5. Therapists often overvalue the progress of the couple.

The work of Owen et al (2019) found therapists often focus on reducing negative communication with couples. When they did, it would be treated as a huge success. Their research went on to show that the reduction of negative communication with couples actually leads to greater emotional disconnection because the root of their problems was not properly addressed.

This again goes back to the problem of therapists tending to focus on the most visible symptoms, rather than on the source of those symptoms. Because the therapist sees the couple communicate more effectively and argue less, they’d think it their treatment was working. But in reality, the couple’s issues were still right there under the surface, they had simply become more adept at hiding it.

Now let’s talk about client-side issues that prevent treatment from being effective.

Treatment Barriers on Behalf of the Client

1. Couple’s treatment does not address Attachment issues.

Siegel (2020) discussed the concept of predictive processing, which basically means that your attachments or baseline behaviors as a child determines your construct of love when you become an adult. According to Mcnelis and Segrin (2019), their research found a 92% correlation between divorce and the insecure attachments that come out during a marriage.

Translation, your past dictates a lot of what you do in your current relationships, and they need to be addressed. Most often times, the individual will blame their partner for not meeting their emotional needs, when in truth that perceived emotional need is a wound that their partner cannot solve. It is a childhood wound that they are asking their adult partner to solve for them! Let that sink in. This is why individuals will often cycle through relationships over and over because they are incorrectly labeling their childhood wound as an adult emotional relationship void.

2. Couple’s treatment does not address trauma issues that each partner has.

Hubbard and Harris (2020) found that many in relationships suffer from trauma or severe mental health issues, and the likelihood of having it addressed properly within a couple’s relationship is often not done. This means that in treatment, the couples’ issues and the individual partner’s issues are all treated separately, when in truth, all of it is connected to one another.

For example, if someone is suffering from PTSD, the usual intervention is to make sure that this partner is getting the individual treatment that they need, and from a couple’s standpoint, only couple’s issues are only addressed. This sounds good in theory but the truth is, if your partner is suffering from a mental illness or trauma, that is directly going to affect the relationship and that needs to be discussed and addressed. To treat it as if the problem is separate is providing an emotional disservice to the partner who is providing support, and an overall dishonesty to what needs to be addressed relationally.

3. Treatment does not address the crisis of the couple.

The research of Fraenkel (2019) found that couples often come in for treatment when divorce or the relationship is at its breaking point, and the truth is, many couples’ therapists do not have the skills nor the ability to effectively handle the crisis. And instead of dealing with it head-on, the therapist will often treat the couple as if there is no crisis. This level of denial eventually causes the couple to terminate treatment and most likely end the relationship.

I can speak on this firsthand. The majority of couples that seek our services are coming because they are on the verge of divorce, or if not married, they are deciding whether to stay or leave the relationship. It is in these moments that each partner’s hurts, frustrations and resentment all come out. As any crisis negotiator will tell you, when addressing a crisis, it is not about solving all of their problems, but it is about getting them back to their previous level of functioning before the crisis occurred. To do that, it requires being able to navigate all of the emotions that each partner is feeling, holding emotional space, and at the same time providing a structure so that a healthier level of coping can take place. Bottom line, if your therapist cannot address your crisis when it is required to do so, they are not equipped to help you.

4. Couple’s treatment does not match the evolution of the couple.

The work of Carr (2019) found that couples’ therapy requires the use of multiple forms of treatment and being able to use them at the appropriate times. Some of the modalities required include brief-oriented models, family therapy models, attachment work and understanding of the medical model.

What this means is that treating a couple involves many stages. It involves each partner being accountable for what they bring into the relationship, it requires addressing the actual couple’s issues that need to be addressed and it involves being able to see their current life circumstances and being able to integrate all of it for them. This requires as a therapist, being able to navigate the many emotional stages they will go through, and help them to progress and move towards having a healthy relationship. Carr’s work points to the fact that most couples’ treatment will reach an emotional end point of progress, because in truth the therapists capacity to improve it is limited.

5. You do not know who you are going to get!

Banham and Schweitzer (2016) in their findings reported that not all therapists are equal. The truth is there are some really good ones and a lot of bad ones out there. Also, their work pointed to the fact that couples therapy in general has no real fluidity or standardization in terms of treatment and approaches.

This is why it so important to be mindful and proactive when it comes to finding the right therapist. The truth is, if your marriage is on the brink, a bad therapist over a few sessions can ruin your relationship and send you to divorce immediately. Even if the relationship can be saved, the wrong therapist can do irrevocable damage. This work highlights the danger of working with a bad therapist.

Conclusion

So, to sum up, if you are having or have had issues with couples’ therapy, it is our hope that this provides you with a form of validation and understanding. When we began this project, the goal of our research was never about bashing or pointing the finger at this industry, but it was truly about just wanting to find answers.

We feel that we have done so and we are very proud of what we created with 12-Week Relationships!

You’re in a relationship, and yet you’re jealous of other couples. Why is that?

Why do we get stuck sometimes thinking that the grass is greener on the other side?

In truth, as Neil Barringham said “The grass is greener where you water it” and on that subject, we already wrote an article titled 7 Ways to Water Your Relationship Grass.

Here, I want to do something a little different.

In this article, I want to break down WHY we often get jealous of other couples or relationships outside of our own.

Let’s break it down into FIVE key issues.

Reason One. Our Issues Feel Insurmountable

It’s easy to be jealous of other relationships when we feel as though our own relationship issues are insurmountable. In fact, we might even begin to question whether it’s even possible to create the kind of relationship we’re looking for.

When we feel insecure within our own relationship and doubt our ability to repair it, it’s easy to look outward. In these moments, we might catch ourselves imagining a new relationship where we have the opportunity to start over “knowing what we know now.”

In some cases, this feeling of overwhelm and doubt is justified. Sometimes we create relationships that are so fundamentally unhealthy that there’s honestly nothing we can do to repair them.

But in many cases, what feels insurmountable is completely repairable.

From our clinical and coaching experience, we often find that a relationship might be 90% intact, but the missing 10% is perceived as “everything.” These numbers aren’t literal of course. We’re simply saying that when our relationship is missing something that we value, it can feel far more unhealthy than it actually is.

Honestly, the best way to know whether a relationship can be repaired is by answering two simple questions.

1. Did the relationship start as something that was relatively healthy to begin with?
2. Are both people willing to put in the effort in-good-faith to make it work?

If the relationship started with a relatively decent foundation (not perfect), and both people have the in-it-to-win-it mindset, then repair is HIGHLY LIKELY. Especially when you pair it with targetted knowledge and effort as you would find in our Crystal Clarity Online coaching program.

But let’s talk about that proverbial missing 10%.

Reason Two. The Missing 10% Feels Like EVERYTHING

Sex is a common and significant relationship issue, so we’ll use that as an example.

When your relationship is healthy and the sex is decent, it feels like 10% of your overall relationship equation. But when your relationship is unhealthy and sex is missing, it feels like 90% of your overall relationship is out of step.

And truthfully… whether it’s sex, connection, conversation, or something else…

When your relationship is missing something you value, it will feel like EVERYTHING is out of whack.

For the person whose relationship is lacking sex and intimacy, all they tend to see is the fact that there’s no sex or intimacy. In this mindset, they tend to disregard where the relationship is actually healthy. Instead, they become fixated on what’s missing.

From our experience, what’s missing is often FAR LESS than what’s intact and working. Not always, but often.

This brings us to reason three.

Reason Three. The Other Side Has the Missing 10%

When all you’re seeing is what’s missing in your relationship, you become hyper-sensitive to what other relationships might offer you. Particularly when it comes to your missing 10%.

Made simple, if you’re missing sex, passion, and intimacy; you’re going to be drawn to people who are offering just that.

Sometimes we leave our current relationship to start a new one. Sometimes we go down the route of cheating/affairs. Sometimes we do nothing other than remain jealous of other couples and “how good they must have it.”

Regardless, when we’re in this place where we’ve felt emotionally starved for a long period of time, we’re not seeing other people or relationships clearly.

When we’re considering a new relationship, we’re focused on how that person can help us fill this emotional void that we’ve dealt with for so long. At that moment, we’re so focused on this person providing us with our missing 10% that we ignore the other 90% of what they’re bringing to the relationship table.

Reason Four. You Can’t See the 90% From the Outside!

It’s funny (but not really) how we think other couples and relationships “have it all.”

This is the problem with standing on your porch and admiring your neighbor’s yard or garden, isn’t it? Not only are you seeing it from a distance. You have no idea what it looks like behind the scenes when it comes to maintaining it.

It’s the same thing in our relationships.

It’s all-to-easy to be jealous of other couples. To look to another relationship and admire what’s visible. We even make up stories in our heads as to “how good their relationship must be.” In reality, we’re clueless about the work that’s gone into the relationship.

We’re also clueless to the fact that we might be admiring something that looks healthy on the outside while it’s festering on the inside! 

While we can clearly see our own relationship issues, we idealize other people’s relationships. We also idealize how much better a new relationship might be compared to our existing one.

All of it is again fueled by the missing 10%. It’s fueled by the resentment in our relationship that has us ignoring all the good or the 90% of our relationship that’s healthy and intact.

It’s only when we explore that ideal do we realize that it was anything but. 

Maybe we leave our current relationship for a new one. Maybe we have an affair and think we’re “truly in love” with our affair partner.

But with a little time, we begin seeing the new relationship from the inside. We start to notice things that we couldn’t have seen from the outside.

It’s then that we often discover our new relationship might have our missing 10%, but it’s lacking the other 90% we wanted from a partner. 

Unfortunately, we couldn’t see that from the other side of the street. We often get jealous of other couples or relationships without ever even knowing if there’s something there to be jealous of!

Along these lines, this is why less than 2% of affair relationships end up becoming healthy long-term marriages.

Because in order to have an affair, it takes two people who are emotionally unhealthy and looking outside of their relationship to heal. Neither person is emotionally equipped to be able to see the other person clearly.

This brings me to our final point… Our expectations on love, marriage, and partnership.

Reason Five. Unrealistic Expectations

Society has taught us that your marriage/partnership should “make you happy.” It’s taught us that your partner should be your lover, your best friend, and your confidante. It’s taught us that our spouse is the one who’s responsible for our happiness and fulfillment. 

WRONG.

Doctor Glen and I want to address each of these. But maybe we’ll do this in a new article.

For right now, we’ll say this.

Marriage and partnership are vehicles for growth and creating a life of meaning. Its purpose goes far beyond simply “being happy.”

EVERY meaningful pursuit in life is filled with ups and downs. In fact, name a meaningful pursuit that isn’t difficult and I’ll give you a cookie… well, a metaphorical cookie.

You can’t can you?

What’s meaningful is challenging, because if it weren’t, then it would cease to be meaningful wouldn’t it? 

We’re often jealous or idealizing other people’s relationships because our marriage isn’t doing what we mistakingly think it should be doing. 

When our marriage or partnership fails to make us happy, we look outward rather than look inward to the actual problems.

It’s our unrealistic expectations of long-term relationships that have us feeling jealous of other couples, or maybe thinking that a new relationship would be better than what we have.

When we’re looking at a fundamentally unhealthy or abusive relationship, this is true.

In these moments you’d be right to be jealous of other couples who seemingly have it together. You’d also be right to think that a healthy relationship would be better than your unhealthy/abusive one. Because it will be!

But in every other instance, moments where we’re just expecting too much of our partner/relationship, we’re being led astray.

In these moments, we need to remind ourselves to do two things…

First, we need to learn how to repair our own pains and wounds that have us looking for external solutions to internal problems.

Second, we need to learn how to repair our existing relationship by understanding the nature of healthy relationship dynamics.

Relationships are a lot like gardens – they require consistent care and attention in order to thrive. In the same way, we admire a beautiful garden just like we admire beautiful relationships, often while being ignorant or oblivious to the work that it took to create it. Just like that beautiful garden, it’s easy to see the beauty in someone else’s relationship and to want that thing for ourselves. This is where we might fall into the notion of the “grass being greener on the other side.” But the truth follows something more like what Neil Barringham said, “the grass is greener where you water it.”

Whether you’re newly dating or have been together for years, there are steps you can take to cultivate a strong and healthy partnership.

In this article, we’ll provide tips for how to keep your relationship grass wonderfully green. It’s worth noting that we’re going to focus on marriage/partnerships, but most of these tips are going to be applicable to ALL of your long-term relationships.

DISCLAIMER: While these tips are effective within relatively healthy relationship environments, they’re not necessarily going to work within unhealthy relationship dynamics. In these instances, we’d recommend working with a qualified coach or therapist. 

Tip 1: Align Core Values

The most effective thing we can do for a relationship is work to align our Core Values. Think of Core Values as the underlying foundation for a relationship to be built upon. When our beliefs and values align, we have a solid foundation that can support the structure built over it. In contrast, when our beliefs and values are misaligned, our foundation tends to shift and erode under everyday stresses.

In order to align our Core Values we need to do two things.

First, on an individual level, each person needs to put in the time and effort to understand their own Core Values.

From our research and clinical experience, we find that most of us don’t have a clear picture of what we might believe and value for ourselves. We have an idea of our values or what we call “expressions” but we lack a complete understanding. Naturally, the first step in aligning beliefs and values is for both people to understand their individual Core Values. Without that, it’s virtually impossible to create a roadmap for the relationship they’re working to create.

Next, once both people understand their individual Core Values the next step is to communicate and work toward alignment. 

In communicating one another’s beliefs and values, we find that couples will immediately gain clarity on what motivates the other person’s behavior. This not only improves their ability to understand and relate to one another, but it also helps them better appreciate the other person’s perspective. From there, they can work toward further aligning their values over time.

The process of understanding and aligning Core Values takes weeks to begin, and months to complete. We cover this process in-depth within our Crystal Clarity Coaching Program. However, if you’d like to get a glimpse and start working toward this process, you can start by downloading our FREE Core Value Guide & Workbook.

Tip 2: Open Communication

Most therapists and coaches would make “effective communication” their leading tip. But research and clinical experiences tell us that while communication is a critical relationship tool, it’s not the KEY to relationship success.

In fact, within an unhealthy relationship dynamic, talking more about the relationship is more likely to make things worse.

So we’re not going to say that the key is “effective communication.” But we will say that OPEN communication is critical.

But why “open” versus “effective”?

Because simply put, most of us are not effective communicators. PERIOD. Meaning, being an objectively “good” communicator is a standard we all fall short on because we’re not professionally trained.

That said, when two people have an alignment of Core Values they can easily communicate and even resolve conflict. But what’s happening isn’t necessarily good communication. It’s the fact that because they share similar Core Values, they can better relate to one another. This allows them to communicate openly and read between the lines when it comes to things that aren’t communicated in an ideal manner.

Within these relationships, couples will often open with a “hard start” or even jump to criticize the other person. Made simple, they start the conversation using anything but “effective” or “good” communication techniques. Their approach is quite awful. Yet, because they’re aligned in their Core Values, the other person can understand the meaning and diffuse the tension with relative ease.

This is why we prioritize aligning Core Values because in terms of “the grass is greener where you water it,” nothing will keep your relationship grass better hydrated than aligned values and beliefs.

In a healthy relationship, it’s critical that you and your partner are able to share your thoughts, feelings, and concerns with one another openly and honestly.

Outside of aligning Core Values, here are some additional tips for improving your communication skills:

Practice Active Listening. When your partner is speaking, give them your full attention. Put down your phone or any distractions. Avoid interrupting or thinking about your response while they’re talking.

Avoid Defensive Language. When discussing a difficult topic, it’s important to avoid language that could be interpreted as accusatory or critical. Instead, focus on expressing your own feelings and perspectives.

Hold Space for Empathy and Authenticity. We’ll discuss this next on it’s own.

Tip 3: Hold Space for Empathy and Authenticity

As you stop worrying about defending yourself and instead focus on active listening, you’ll notice that you’re able to hold space in the conversation for empathy.

As your partner shares something important to them, rather than think about a response, focus on empathizing with what was just said. Allow your partner to be their authentic selves without judgment and without making what they’re saying about you.

Along these lines, we have a little suggestion…

Remove your expectation of HOW your partner communicates, and instead allow them to openly communicate in a manner that’s authentic to who they are. 

This of course doesn’t mean that you allow one another to belittle and demean each other for the sake of “authentically expressing how you feel.” No, that’s not being authentic. It’s just being a jerk.

What we’re saying is stop worrying about how YOU would have communicated, and start allowing your partner to communicate authentically.

When you hold space for empathy and authenticity, you’re communicating to your partner that the message or content is more important than expressing it in a perfect manner.

Tip 4: Quality Time Together

Quality Time is an essential part of cultivating a strong and healthy partnership (or any relationship). You need to make time for each other, duh!

But this can be especially challenging if you have busy schedules, but it’s important to make time for one another. Here are some ways to spend quality time together:

Create a Date Night. Set aside one night a week (or month) to do something special together.

Think “Meaningfully Engaging.” On date night, don’t stress about the specific activity. What matters most is that your quality time is what we call, “meaningfully engaging.” Meaning that regardless of what you’re doing, you’re meaningfully present and engaged with one another throughout the activity.

Look to Something New. Rather than the typical advice of, “doing what you used to do when you first started dating.” We tell clients, “do things you’ve never done before.” Date nights quickly lose their meaning and the opportunity to meaningfully engage when you are doing the same thing week after week.

Share a New Hobby. Find an activity you both enjoy and make it a regular part of your Quality Time. This could be hiking, cooking, or playing a sport together. Not only do Common Interests create opportunities for Quality Time, but they also help us improve Relatability within our relationships.

Tip 5: Show Appreciation

Expressing gratitude and appreciation is an important way to nurture your relationship. It’s important to let your partner know that you appreciate them and the things they do for you. Here are some ways to show appreciation:

Small Gestures. Do something kind for your partner, like making them breakfast in bed or leaving a note in their lunchbox. Look to serve your partner in support and appreciation of everything they do.

Verbal Affirmations. Tell your partner how much you appreciate them and the things they do for you. This could be as simple as saying “Thank you” or “I love you.”

The grass is greener where you water it, and these tips for showing appreciation will help your relationship garden grow.

Tip 6: Celebrate and Support

This one’s simple.

Celebrate your partner in their wins.

Whether it’s a promotion or new client at work, or finally getting a child potty trained at home, your lives are filled with small wins. Take the time to recognize and celebrate these wins.

In the same way, support your partner in their losses.

Life hits hard and often all at once. Be emotional support to one another through difficult moments (even if YOU personally don’t feel like it’s that big of a deal).

Tip 7: Practice Forgiveness

Finally, it’s important to practice forgiveness in ALL of our long-term relationships. No one is perfect, and mistakes will happen.

Here are some two-sided tips for practicing forgiveness:

Acknowledge the Hurt Caused. If you’ve hurt your partner, it’s important to acknowledge the pain they’re feeling. Even if you feel that you’ve done nothing wrong, you can acknowledge and be sorry for the pain you’ve caused.

Give the Benefit of the Doubt. If your partner hurts you, don’t immediately assume it was intentional. Give them the benefit of the doubt and an opportunity to explain what happened.

Express Empathy. Try to see things from your partner’s perspective and express empathy for their actions. Even if you don’t like what they did, try to understand WHY they might have behaved in a particular way. (Important note here, there’s no need to understand or empathize with narcissistic or abusive behavior.) 

Own Your Mistakes. There’s no point in an apology when we’re not willing to change our behavior. Forgiveness is not possible when our mistakes are repeated and when we fail to take ownership.

Make a Commitment to Move Forward. Let’s say the problem has been communicated, acknowledged, and ownership has been taken. It’s time for move forward. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that we forget, but it does mean that we’re committing to moving forward. We’re committing to leave the event in our history.

Conclusion

In conclusion, yes, the grass is greener where you water it, so try implementing these tips in your own relationship and see the difference they will make.

Keeping your relationship grass green requires intentional effort and care. But that effort is exactly what will help you create something of meaning and worth. It’s where you will cultivate a strong and healthy partnership with your loved one.

For more information, we recommend reading more about Neil Barringham here.

What is Stonewalling? Stonewalling is a type of communication breakdown that can leave you feeling ignored, unimportant, or even dismissed altogether. Per research by the Gottman Institute, it’s also one of the leading predictors of relationship failure and divorce. While it’s a common relationship problem, it’s essential for you to be aware of its impact in order to address it immediately.

To help give you a concrete idea of stonewalling, let’s walk through an example:

Partner A: “I know we have had some challenges in our relationship and I have felt really disconnected lately. Do you mind if we just talk with no distractions?.”

Partner B: Puts down their phone and answers in a frustrated tone, “There is nothing to talk about. Everything is fine.”

Partner A: “I don’t feel that way and I would really like to have a conversation with you about our relationship.”

Partner B: (stares silently away from their partner)

Partner A: “This is really important to me. “

Partner B: (continues staring silently)

This is stonewalling. 

It’s a complete breakdown of the two-way nature of a relationship. One person shuts down or “stonewalls” by refusing to engage in conversation or address an issue at hand.

So let’s dive deeper. Let’s discuss the factors leading to stonewalling and explore how to stop it before it destroys your relationships.

Side note, while the information in this article is based on our research for couples’ relationship coaching, the concepts we’re about to discuss apply to ALL types of relationships.

Types of Stonewalling

The example above illustrates one type of stonewalling. But stonewalling can take on many forms…

Stonewalling is a…

• A parent who attempts to manipulate a child by giving them the “silent treatment.”
• A spouse who walks away from an argument and leaves the house without saying a word.
• A coworker who refuses to speak after their bad behavior is brought to attention.

There are quite a few signs of stonewalling both behavioral and emotional. All of them are easy to detect so long as you know all the variations of stonewalling.

Here’s a simple list of signs:

• Refusing to communicate
• Ignoring a question or topic
• Quickly changing the subject
• Withdrawing from a conversation
• Silent treatment
• Leaving the home without explanation
• Disengaging emotionally
• Defensiveness to all critique

Communication within healthy relationships can be described as a two-way street. When one person puts up a roadblock and shuts down one lane of relationship communication, this is stonewalling.

How someone might stonewall is of little consequence, it’s still going to immediately damage the relationship dynamic.

That said, it is worth understanding that there is a difference between “active” versus “passive stonewalling.

Why Do People Stonewall?

First, people stonewall due to personal trauma. It’s a survival mechanism that one learns (usually at a young age) that helps them cope with or even control stressful environments. In short, a person stonewalls because it’s their way of avoiding pain (albeit a highly ineffective tool for doing so).

While there are many different types of stonewalling, there are two primary intentions behind the action

Let’s begin with the concept of “passive” stonewalling.

Passive Stonewalling

Passive stonewalling is when someone shuts down due to a state of feeling overwhelmed. In these moments, the person will refuse to engage in a conversation, ignore their partner’s attempts to communicate, and give minimally unhelpful responses. But this isn’t out of an intentional desire to manipulate, it’s usually because they’re in a state commonly referred to as “flooded.”

Being flooded means that from a psychological perspective, they’re experiencing extreme feelings of anxiety or fear. When we’re triggered, our nervous system takes over and we respond to the situation instinctually. We either fight, flee, or freeze.

In the case of stonewalling, it’s the freeze response.

While the stonewalling behavior is still distressing for the relationship, it’s not being done intentionally. The person that’s stonewalling simply lacks the emotional development and tools to process the situation.

Then there’s “active” stonewalling…

Active Stonewalling

Active stonewalling is when someone shuts down due to an intent to manipulate the relationship dynamic.

In these moments, the stonewalling behavior looks identical but the underlying motivation differs. They deliberately avoid the conversation, change the subject, or leave the room entirely. Maybe they stay physically present, but they give you the silent treatment.

Active stonewalling is employed to exert emotional control over the other person. Generally out of anger, a person stonewalls as a tool to manipulate the other person’s behavior or perception of the situation. More specifically according to Lazarus (1991), anger is a response to an offense against “me or mine” and is thought to arise when one person has the experience of being slighted or hurt by the intentional acts of another person.

While active stonewalling is most certainly more sinister, they both carry the same negative effect on the relationship.

Effects of Stonewalling on Relationships:

As we’ve stated, stonewalling is devastating to healthy relationship dynamics. But let’s specifically get into the WHY.

Let’s assume that you’re the victim. Upon bringing up an issue with someone close to you, they shut you out and stonewall you.

First, their stonewalling behavior creates an immediate lack of communication which leads to a breakdown of trust, intimacy, and connection. It signals to you what they’re willing versus unwilling to discuss. Naturally this will often lead you to feeling frustrated, angry, and resentful.

Second, whether intentional or not,  their stonewalling behavior makes you afraid to express certain thoughts or feelings. When you know they’re going shut down, you simply don’t bring up issues that are bothering you. You begin feeling like you need to walk on eggshells in everything you say or do.

This creates a dynamic where you begin to compartmentalize what can and can’t be discussed. In order to keep the peace, you hide their true feelings. Another way to think of it is that you are essentially creating an inauthentic version of yourself just to avoid triggering the other person.

But this can only go on for so long because the question is…

How long can you bury your true thoughts and feelings?

How long until your resentment reaches an inevitable breaking point?

In short, when stonewalling continues, it puts the relationship on a one-way road that can only lead to critical failure.

The only question is how long you’ll be driving on that road until you arrive at said destination.

How to Stop Stonewalling:

So how do you stop stonewalling?

Well, it requires both people to change their communication patterns.

The problem is that changing these communication patterns is one part communication, and two parts trauma and underlying pain.

Change not only requires that BOTH people are willing to commit, it also requires BOTH people to address the underlying emotional pain and trauma that’s leading to the behavior in the first place.

When this is not possible, change is not possible. You can’t stop someone from stonewalling if they can’t see or aren’t willing to change their behavior.

Going into the underlying pain and trauma is beyond the scope of this article. But from a communication standpoint, once you’re both on the same page, here are some steps that can help:

1. Take a break: Sometimes, taking a break and coming back to the conversation when emotions have settled can be helpful (especially in cases where one person is flooded).
2. Set boundaries: Discuss what is acceptable behavior in communication and establish boundaries with your partner, then enforce those boundaries.
3. Practice active listening: Active listening is when you focus on what your partner is saying and try to understand their perspective. Don’t interrupt, even if they need time to communicate their thoughts.
4. Communicate your needs: Clearly communicate your needs, thoughts, and feelings to your partner. Be kind in this process, but don’t hold back or hide your true thoughts and feelings.
5. Seek professional help: If stonewalling is causing significant problems in your relationship, consider seeking help from a qualified coach or therapist.

Conclusion:

Stonewalling is not to be brushed under the rug. It’s a serious communication issue that can have dire consequences on relationships. By understanding the signs, reasons, and effects of stonewalling, couples can take steps to address it before it destroys their connection.

Related Media

For more insights, see some of the related media below.

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