Agreeing to Disagree

Even in the strongest of relationships, there will be times when small irritations can cause mountains to grow out of molehills, so it’s important to keep striving for better communication.

As the essence of relationships, communication has a great impact on every aspect of life. Yet the channels of communication can sometimes become blocked, even among people who care deeply for each other. It’s often difficult to put our feelings into words or concentrate fully when our partner speaks. Unhelpful silences or verbal attacks can arise and drive us further apart.

Common barriers to communication include: threatening or unpleasant behavior such as criticism and bossiness; only hearing what we want to hear; getting bored or distracted; and not expressing our point clearly. Fortunately, working on our communication skills helps us to break through this sort of impasse. So follow these tried and tested tips to stop you reaching for the expletives and reach an understanding instead.

No matter what else is going on, try to make time for your partner on a day-to-day basis. Good communication is about deepening your understanding of each other, not simply avoiding arguments. Easier said than done, of course, but making time to talk is worth the effort. All being well, these occasions will be enjoyable and bring great rewards, so make a dinner date, share a bath or go for a walk together and let the conversation flow.

Secondly, remember the importance of intimate, non-sexual contact. Hugs and kisses are the glue which holds a relationship together, and consider activities such as sport to reconnect non-verbally. Psychologists believe the vast majority of communication takes place without words through body language.

Do you believe you know everything there is to know about your partner? It may be worth checking this out by asking them questions to reveal more about themselves. To deepen the communication and understanding between you, try talking about the times when you feel happiest or your hopes and dreams for the future. Don’t assume that your partner feels the same way you do.

This could bring up relationship ‘hot spots’ - work, money, childcare - which can then be dealt with openly. Experts suggest setting up reciprocal arrangements in which you both agree to take on an equal number of tasks and chores.

If you find yourself slipping into an argument, there are many ways to keep the row healthy. Most importantly, own your emotions by using “I” statements. For example, rather than “You make me angry,” or “This is all your fault,” try saying, “I feel concerned/upset…”. This keeps things calmer and makes it easier to compromise, as your partner will not become so defensive. Then keep to the point rather than slipping into attack and counter-attack, or emotional withdrawal.

But talking this way is only possible if you are aware of your own feelings. For this, you must recognize them, be accepting of them, and able to express them. We each have our own way of dealing with conflicts - your style may be to avoid the issue, give in, or blame the other person. Being aware of your style and that of your partner will help you resolve the situation.

In the heat of the moment, try to stay calm and accentuate the positive. See the other’s point of view while showing respect, and then look for a compromise that you can both accept. Listen carefully, give empathy and positive responses, and overlook the insults. Respond to criticism as useful information, if at all possible! Remember, the objective is not to stop every argument but to stop the escalating bitterness.

If either partner gets beyond the point of being civil and rational, ask for a “time-out” to calm down. But be sure to agree on continuing the discussion when you have had time to think about it.

Bear in mind that one of the secrets of happy couples is learning to tolerate or accept the other person’s faults. So-called “perfect relationships” do not exist, therefore small faults need to be accepted. Couples counseling encourages reaching an acceptance of one another through compassion and empathy, so you both come to truly understand the other person and become able to share your own feelings in depth. Then you can see the underlying reasons for their criticism or silence, perhaps they are really feeling unloved, rejected or hurt.

Having awareness of these techniques and skills is only half the battle - you need to develop them through practice until they become second nature. It will be an effort to change long-standing habits, but improving communication in your relationship is worth doing, as poor communication is one of the top causes of unhappy relationships.

The Key to Successful Relationships

Relationships can be the most difficult and joyful part of your life. You cannot avoid them unless you never get out of bed in the morning and sometimes not even then. You will find yourself interfacing with others almost immediately each day. Due to the complex multiple roles you have in your life, this can be plentiful. On an average day, you could be talking to your husband or wife, co-workers, children, siblings, friends, parents, your children's teachers, your significant other, your boss, the grocery clerk and at the end of the day, it could be a telecommunications caller.

One of the most important skills you need in any and all of these relationships is the ability to listen. Better listening skills will allow you to create a more harmonious relationship where respect and cooperation are more likely to occur.

So ask yourself now: How well do I really listen to others? How well do I listen to myself? Can I be still and quiet enough to really listen? Or do I feel restless when there is silence? Do I start talking right away as a result?

Here are some tips to help you develop better listening skills.

1. Listen with concern and a desire to understand. Do not pretend to be listening or give only part of your attention if you are distracted. If you need to and it is possible to do so, ask the person to wait until you can be more attentive.
2. Let the other person talk without interrupting. Avoid quickly giving advice, interrupting, or making assumptions as to what you think the speaker is going to say. Pause and breathe, staying present and silent until he/she is finished.
3. Do not prepare your answer while the person is talking. Try to stay only in the listening mode. Once you have all the information, you will be more prepared to respond.
4. Do not engage in selective listening. Listen to the words, facts, and overall content of the person's story. Do not just pay attention to what you find interesting.
5. While you are listening, observe the person's facial expressions, gestures, eye movement, and body posture. This will give you information as to what he/she might be feeling about the conversation — more information to help you understand.

The second part of the skill is learning to reflect back what you heard the person say. Paraphrasing and repeating what you heard allows the person to know you have been listening. It keeps clarity in conversation and allows for overall better communication. This is also a skill that requires some practice. Here are a few tips.

• Try to briefly summarize what you heard the person say and repeat it back to him/her.
• Ask whether this is what he/she was trying to tell you. If not, try again to summarize or ask him/her to repeat part of what you did not understand.
• Do not immediately respond with your belief or opinion or try to advise before you have clarified his/her position. Only give advice if he/she is asking for it.
• Use empathy in your response instead of being judgmental. Be neutral and clarify what you understood his/her feelings, thoughts or opinions to be. Do not yell, argue or criticize. Ask more questions. Try asking why, when, where, or who questions. This gives you more information.
• Determine what the person needs from you. Would he/she like you just to listen and say nothing, give feedback, provide advice, help him/her resolve a situation or problem. Of course, if you are talking to young children, you may have to interrupt this yourself and offer what your intuition feels they need.

Whether you are in contact with your children, boss, husband or wife, or significant other, these tools are valuable. For the next week or so, try to exercise these new skills. Observe what happens when you listen and respond in an empathic manner instead of with advice, opinions, or judgments. Make a note of the new interaction and compare it with your old way of listening or not listening. Observe people's manner. Are they calmer and more appreciative? What do you notice?

I submit that if you practice, you will benefit in many ways. All your relationships will dramatically improve. You will find that you will gain a greater ability to listen to yourself, and you may find that others give you time and attention more readily. What we need from others, we must be willing to give. Be patient, praise yourself for your efforts (don't wait for others to praise you), and watch your skill grow.

The Three Levels of Soul Mates

From my own personal experience of being involved in certain relationships, I have come to realize there are three different levels of Soul Mates. We discussed Soul Mates in a previous article of mine, 'Soul Mates - Do they really exists" now we should keep our eyes open and pay closer attention to our relationships, in order that we might recognize those soul mates. Soul mates have different tasks to fulfill in your life, and likewise theirs. It is not always the case that these relationships will exist on a level where 'physical' interaction is involved and this should not be confused with their initial task toward you. Some Soul Mates are here only to serve as being a link between two other Soul Mates of theirs in the first place. This alone is a very important and significant task, as without that link the reunion of the other souls might not ever happen. We will identify with the different characteristics of those Soul Mates together and you should, therefore, be able to detect some of them who are present in your life at this time.
As you can see, there is no limit to what a true Soul Mate might do in order to provide their support and, on many occasions, it is not fully understood why they do so. You might question my statement and wonder why a Soul Mate will give up his or her own Soul Mate to provide a link for someone else to move on in! I mean is this not the dream we are searching for all of our lives? Well, that's beauty of Soul Mate, that is, unconditional love! Soul Mates are a universal flow of untapped energy that we can relate to as love and many of us do not understand the meaning of this. It is the same thing we keep avoiding all our life when we don't invest ourselves fully in our relationships anyway! On an unconscious level, Soul Mates tap into that energy of unconditional love. Regardless of the level of your Soul Mate, it does not mean in any way or form that Soul Mates have to be involved in a physical relationship in order for them to be together. In any of those levels, it is very easy to fall into the trap of taking things for granted. This should be avoided at all costs. Both Soul Mates have to be ready to embark into their journey together, and this is very important for the relationship to succeed. Here are the three levels of Soul Mates I have come to realize and understand through experiences of my own: Level One: Your mirrored image – These are a rare example. However, it is possible that they do exist in each of our lives at one point or another. We might have one or two in a lifetime from this category, if we are lucky! What makes them special? Soul Mates of this sort come into our life in a fast, weird and unexpected way. The situations and events in our lives begin to change of their own accord, in order to accommodate the arrival and the reunion of both Souls. In such a case such as this, it is can almost be said that it is 'written in the stars!' Both Souls have to be ready for each other, as I did explain before it is not enough to sustain the relationship at its full potential, only by existing as Soul Mates. This level is the strongest and most powerful type of Soul Mates. They do have many similar interests and share an almost equal interest in their life direction. They will think alike, and in many cases will be able to continue speaking a sentence where the other one has left off. They are a mirror of each other, although they do not have to be exactly the same. However, each one compliments the other with their individual strengths and weaknesses and they will understand each other by being on same 'wavelength'. Level Two: Your Supporter – Soul Mates of this sort are everywhere around you. Try to take deeper look at the people who surround you. Just look around when you are in dire need of help or guidance in a 'life or death' situation or at a time when you have a heavy burden on your shoulders. Who is around you and ready to listen to you when you really need their assistance? Think of the people who bring you comfort and peace when you need it, or who answer your call when you need some help. These types of Soul Mates do have unconditional love towards each other which can sometimes be difficult to comprehend. Is there someone in your life, of whom, you can relate to being there in that fashion? Level Three: Your Provider – We encounter these types of Soul Mates in situations that might feel 'weird' or perhaps in some un-expected places. We like to refer to them, sometimes, as being our angels. If they occur, they usually will not stay in our lives for a great length of time. You might come across a Soul Mate of this kind when you are just wondering along the street, thinking away to yourself and from nowhere someone will provide with you a small message that will open up a possible answer to those 'thoughts' you have upon a certain circumstance in your life. These Soul Mates are placed on your path 'out of the blue' and we might never see their face again! We then carry on, feeling blessed at having had them in our life at that necessary moment. Their role is to provide us with an answer or a push toward making a small decision in order to keep us moving in our lives and struggles at that time. Can you relate to such an occurrence in your life? I asked my guides the question, "will I ever meet my Soul Mates?" They replied, "You keep searching throughout your life for the perfect partner for you, but, have you ever questioned if you are a good example of a Soul Mate for someone else?" In reality, the importance is not in hunting to find the right Soul Mate or partner for you. The importance is in whether you yourself are willing to be the 'right' Soul Mate or partner for someone else! Life is a two way street, but, are you ready to be the right one for someone else? In the end, we all can be the 'right' Soul Mate for anyone we choose in our life, but only when we are ready to treat our partner as a human being, as a soul and to cherish every moment spent with them. Also it is crucial that we learn to let go of the fact that we do have differences between us and any 'ego' that exists in any relationship. How ready are we? That's the bottom line! The search has to start from within ourselves first". From my account of how Soul Mates exist in our lives, we can see that they are everywhere around us and we have been blessed since the day we were born! How much real attention do we pay to the people around us? I believe that most of the time we do take these people for granted! Why? One main reason is because we become too self-centered, leading to us disregarding those people around us who provide us with help, who listen to us and generally do sympathize with us in our time of need. After all, it is not only about providing someone with sympathy, but about acknowledging people for who they really are. I would also like to mention here that any relationship that brings the union of 'Old Souls' is above all and the best time and example of soul mates being together, the reason being, for what they will bring to each other in terms of growth, understanding and appreciation. As a result of their union their wisdom, compassion, value of each other and evolution of consciousness will flourish in a way that would be almost impossible for them to achieve if they were united with another soul that is less highly evolved than what they are themselves. In such a case the older soul will always feel a huge gap or that there is something missing in the relationship in terms of their overall understanding and awareness of each other and it is only because the souls exist on two completely different levels of consciousness. I will not go into too much detail here on the subject of 'Old Souls' as I will have an article next month which focuses primarily on this topic. At the end Soul Mate is about unconditional love. If you have that and you can provide that to anyone around and especially towards your partner, I believe you find your Soul Mate after all! Wishing you all to be with your Soul Mates! www.freespiritcentre.info At the age of eight Joseph discovered his clairvoyance. Joseph is natural medium presently teaching meditation, numerology and healing. Joseph started the ‘Free Spirit Centre’ website. A community web based centre dedicated to personal growth, soul growth, eating disorders, relationships, healing and human issues. More by Joseph Ghabi

Love Isn't Everything

One of the most famous songs by the band The Eagles was titled “Love Will Keep Us Alive.” A lot of married couples would disagree with that, saying that love won't be able to pay the bills, nor will it feed hungry mouths. But in terms of relationships, love is always in the center. However, love is not the only thing that keeps couples together. How does one keep a relationship healthy and flourishing?

How does one keep a relationship healthy?
Both partners should strive on maintaining these following qualities:

· Keep trusting each other. This means having faith in your partner's loyalty even if you know he's surrounded by a lot of temptations. This is knowing that your boyfriend loves you enough not to cheat on you. It is normal to feel jealous; however, it is how a person reacts to that emotion that will count. Acting on impulse because of jealousy will only bring you down and will not be healthy for your relationship.

· A sense of respect for each other. Your significant other should be able to give you the same respect he expects from you. This is respect for your individuality, for your unique personality – your sense of humor or the weird way you laugh. Also this entails a sense of respect for your decisions. Accepting your decisions and understanding it. Simply put, mutual respect in a relationship means that you value each other’s differences and understand, not try to change the other person’s personality.

· Maintain a sense of fairness. Relationships are never one-way street. It should always be give and take. This may be something as simple as choosing a location, or a movie to watch. This means establishing mutual consent on whatever the couple wants to do, instead of making the deicision making process a battle for the power to make the deicision.

· Keep the lines of communication open. This means having the freedom to express how you feel openly and honestly to your partner without fear of being ridiculed or misinterpreted. Having the initiative to speak what’s on your mind shows your partner that you are comfortable enough to open up to him. This is, of course, provided you’ve given it enough thought to know that what you say will be taken in a good, constructive way.

· A sense of honesty. This goes together with trust as trust is based on how honest and faithful your partner is to you. The problem lies in how a person can trust his partner if that partner can’t be honest with him?

· Supportiveness. This doesn't only mean offering your support to your partner when they're down or problematic. They also need your support during times of happiness and triumph. It's nice to know that someone's with you when you're in the mud, but it's also nice to have someone to share your sweet success with.

· Separate Identities. This means compromising in situations where there is a difference in interest. This doesn’t have to end up with one losing his identity just to give way to the other person. Both partners should still be able to maintain time for their own interest like when they started with the relationship.

What compromises a strong relationship?
A relationship starts to falter once it becomes unhealthy. An unhealthy relationship is one that is described to be mean, disrespectful, hurtful, controlling, and overall, full of emotional abuse. Most people who've grown up exposed to hurtful parents and domestic violence have a tendency to carry it over when it is their turn to get into a relationship. Someone brought up with that kind of emotional abuse will most likely develop a thinking that the violence he saw growing up is normal in a relationship.

Relationships don't work out on its own, it needs work. What may have started as a love-filled relationship is not guaranteed to end up love-filled like before. Falling inlove is easy, it is staying in love that's hard. Understanding you and your partner’s differences, embracing those little difference and working around those will make your relationship easier to handle. Keeping it healthy, will make you both flourish and grow not just as individuals, but as a couple as well.

Article Source: http://marriagearticles.net

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Forgiveness and Letting Go in Your Marriage

Being able to forgive and to let go of past hurts is a critical tool for a marriage relationship. Additionally, being able to forgive is a way to keep yourself healthy both emotionally and physically.

Health Aspects of Forgiving

If you hold on to old hurts, disappointments, petty annoyances, betrayals, insensitivity, and anger, you are wasting both your time and your energy. Nursing a perceived hurt can eventually make it in to something more - hate and extreme bitterness.

Lack of forgiveness can wear you down. Additionally, being unforgiving is not good for either your physical and mental well being.

How to Forgive

• Be open.
• Make a decision to forgive your spouse.
• When images of the betrayal or hurt flash in your mind, think of a calming place or do something to distract yourself from dwelling on those thoughts.
• Don't throw an error or mistake back in your spouse's face at a later date. Don't use it as ammunition in an argument.
• Don't seek revenge or retribution. It will only extend the pain.
• Accept that you may never know the reason for the transgression.
• Remember that forgiveness doesn't mean you condone the hurtful behavior.
• Be patient with yourself. Being able to forgive your spouse takes time. Don't try to hurry the process.
• If you continue to be unable to forgive, or you find yourself dwelling on the betrayal or hurt, please seek professional counseling to help you let go and forgive.

How to Ask for Forgiveness

• Show true contrition and remorse for the pain that you've caused.
• Be willing to make a commitment to not hurt your spouse again by repeating the hurtful behavior.
• Accept the consequences of the action that created the hurt.
• Be open to making amends.
• Be patient with your spouse. Being able to forgive you often takes time. Don't dismiss your spouse's feelings of betrayal by telling your spouse to "get over it."

Marriage Relationships Need Forgiveness

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has grumpy days. Many people say things they do not mean now and then. Everyone needs to forgive and to be forgiven.

No relationship, especially a marriage relationship, can be sustained over a long period of time without forgiveness. Even though you may find it find it difficult to forgive, being able to forgive is crucial in marriage.

Knowing When Enough is Enough

If your spouse abuses you, continues to betray you, continues to lie to you, etc., then it may be time to say enough is enough and to end your marriage. In these situations, forgiveness for the past hurts may take longer and that is okay.

Intervening When Sin is Destroying a Marriage

Every marriage can be saved. No matter how bad it is, what has happened, or what is happening, every marriage is salvageable. Not just salvageable. It can be made wonderful and loving.

How can we make such a grandiose statement?

Experience.

Our nonprofit ministry, Family Dynamics Institute, meekly began in late 1994. We worked with a few hundred families in 1995, a couple of thousand in 1996, and by the end of 1998 we reached the 30,000 mark. Thirty thousand people isn’t an overwhelming number, especially when you consider how many marriages exist, but we believe it’s a large enough number to give us credibility. We know from experience that even those marriages that appear to be the most hopeless really aren’t hopeless at all. God can do anything, including changing a relationship between two people who no longer even want the change.

God still works powerfully in the lives of people and can salvage and make wonderful the most hopeless marriage in your church. We’ve seen it again and again. We’ve seen it so often that we actually have to consciously keep ourselves from taking it for granted when it happens. To remember to praise God for His mighty power rather than thinking, "Yeah, we expected that."

We would like to share with you some of what we’ve learned. In this document we focus specifically on one essential action church leaders must understand and be willing to do if they wish to help hurting couples; we focus on how you can successfully step in to stop a sin destroying a marriage. (We have information about other essential tools to strengthen marriages, if you want it.)

Before we start our focused study, we need to point out two things. The first is that any couple in crisis needs calming before they can work on the marriage. The second is that if the marriage is being destroyed by a specific sinful behavior, calming cannot occur until that behavior stops.

When a couple is at each other’s throat, or when one or both are involved in behaviors destroying the marriage, the couple must be calmed; they must be moved back from the precipice before any constructive work can be done to salvage the marriage. No amount of explaining, lecturing, teaching, pleading, or anything else gets through to a person when he or she cannot think logically.

The only way to reach the mind is to calm the heart.

Calming a couple doesn’t solve their marriage problems: It only brings each person into a state of mind where problems can be solved. Let’s repeat that for emphasis: Calming the couple never heals a hurting marriage although it serves as an essential prerequisite that must be accomplished to help a couple in crisis. Try to help a couple in crises without completing this step and you likely will fail. But if you were to get them from the edge of the precipice and then leave them to work out their problems on their own, your failure will be even worse. Without the immediate implementation of a valid pathway to marital healing, the couple would move rapidly to disaster.

Calming can be accomplished by any knowledgeable person working with the couple, even a person with whom they’ve had no previous relationship. But that isn’t true if all or part of the crisis exists because of an addictive sin practiced by either spouse. That calls for intervention by people who do have a relationship with the couple—such as church leaders.

What do we mean by addiction? We define it as repeated involvement with a person, chemical, or anything else that destroys the relationship between the married couple. The key isn’t just that the behavior is repeated but that the repetition makes the marriage unworkable.

When this kind of addiction—to a person (adultery), to a chemical (alcohol or any other drug), or to anything else (such as gambling, spousal abuse, etc.)—exists, someone close to the addict must intervene to stop the destructive behavior. Nothing else will work until that occurs. The only marriages that cannot turn around and become what God wants them to be are those where one or both mates refuse to quit the sin destroying the marriage. When the sin stops, the right things can happen to create love and intimacy and commitment. Until it stops, nothing can save them.

That’s where you come in. Ministries like Family Dynamics can help you with calming and all the successive steps to make a marriage wonderful. We can provide you powerful tools and materials and techniques to change marriages. But only you can intervene in the lives of your members and rescue them from their sins.

We wrote this document to offer you a plan of action to show you how to intervene in troubled marriages where the sin of one or both partners is destroying the marriage. We guide you through what to do and how to do it. We can’t promise 100% positive results because in the end each person makes his or her own decisions about the future, but we confidently offer a methodology that will work if anything works!

Marriage Counseling for a Healthy Relationship

How do you know when it's time for marriage counseling? Easy. Are you in a relationship, even a good one? Then it is time.

Years ago my wife and I participated in an organization called "Marriage Encounter," which emphasized communication techniques. I've always liked its motto: "Making Good Marriages Even Better!"

That's what I hope to emphasize for you today. It's time to make your good relationship even better!

And how do I suggest you do that? If you have a relationship that is doing pretty good and doesn't really need any help, then I want you to go to Marriage Counseling!

You may think that counseling is only for problems, but that's not so. People without all those nasty problems can use the process to create far better lives than they ever imagined.

I so love it when a couple comes to me just to grow. I'll admit that this is usually not the case. It usually takes pain to get people through my office door. But, occasionally, couples come to me just to make their good relationship even better. What fun that is!

So, what does a couple do in therapy if they have no problems to work on? There are SO many things we can do:

-Develop even more sophisticated communication abilities
-Use psychological instruments (tests) to determin differences, simularities, and how to complement each other's personality gifts
-Seek spiritual growth together
-Take time out from the busy-ness of life and become clear on what your common goals are and how you want to get there
-Strategize how you will handle holiday get-togethers with in-laws and other relatives that are not that pleasant to be with

And this is just the beginning. There is so much we can do to improve these marvelous relationships we've been given.

Is it worth the cost? I think of it in terms of the old question at the end of life: Will you wish you had spent more time at work, or more time on your family and marriage?

For most of us, the answer is clear. There is nothing in the end more important than our relationships to the people we treasure.

The cost of taking yourselves to a counselor and working on life together is really nothing compared to the lifetime of joy and wonder that is possible with your partner.

The grocery bill, the car payments, the mortgage, the clothes for the kids and the thousands of other things we feel we must spend our money on will all argue against this couple counseling opportunity.

However, I suggest that it is not an issue of whether you can afford it, but whether you can afford to not do it. Is your relationship really good enough for you, or do you wonder if there is more?

Go for it! Grab all the love and togetherness you can get! And use a counselor to help you see what you may be missing.

Article Source: http://marriagearticles.net