The other day, I was on facebook when something caught my eye in my stream. Ok so yeah, that happens about a million times a day to be honest… but this one made me think.
It seems that everywhere you look, you can find advice on how to keep a relationship or find a relationship or how to be in a relationship. Sometimes the advice is good… sometimes it’s way off the mark.
This one came from a page called Positive Inspirational Quotes and it hit home for me…
Until I saw a comment from a friend that made me think a bit deeper on it…
And THEN – another friend wrote a post about how we hear and understand things based on our experiences and suddenly I felt the urge to talk about this in more detail… and because Brevity isn’t my strong suit, I do believe this post will be a 2 parter… deal with it.
(1) Love each other
(2) Don’t Lie
(3) Keep Communication Open
These three go directly to my belief that honesty is always the best policy… always. But along with that comes the policy of not asking questions you don’t REALLY want the answer to… and the belief that you can not be angry with a person because they tell you something you don’t necessarily want to hear. You will never catch me asking someone if my ass looks fat in a pair of pants. That’s what mirrors are for people…
(4) Stay with.
To me, this doesn’t mean you stay with someone who doesn’t honor and respect you. Things like cheating, abuse, lies, etc. do NOT honor or respect you. TO ME – this simply means stay present – Don’t drag past hurts into the present moment. Stay WITH your partner instead of allowing your focus to drift off to work or social media or other distractions. Y’all know that I’m addicted to my phone. I’ve mentioned it a time or two thousand. But when I’m with someone – I’m with them. They have my focus. They have my attention. If I can’t give it at the moment, I make a point to tell them. This is true for my boys as well – I’ve often told them “I really want to hear you, but right now I’m distracted. Can you give me 5 minutes?” Or sometimes, when I catch myself distracted, I’ll even own it and say something like “I’m sorry – I got distracted and you deserve my attention. Can you start again? I’m listening”
(5) When you get hurt, forgive and forget
When things hurt, you have only a handful of options. I think that your partner, friend, family member, whatever deserves to know how you feel, but once you honor yourself by stating your truth, you have to “forgive and forget” meaning – don’t hold a grudge… it’s not fair to bring up this past hurt six months down the road because you are irritated by something unrelated. Furthermore, if your partner continues the hurtful behavior, they are not respecting you and you have to decide if the relationship is more important than your hurt.
Some things, I personally will not ever forget. Those are the deal breakers and include cheating to name one. I can’t forget, so the relationship has to end. Any other outcome means that I am not honoring or respecting myself. and if I can’t, how can I expect a partner to?
(6) Never talk about Break Ups
You could read this one of 2 ways I think. The first would be to never talk about “leaving the relationship” whether its an agreement that divorce is not an option or a break up isn’t. The second would be to not talk about past breakups. In either case, it goes back to being impeccable with your word. If you constantly bring up the “easy out” in an argument, not only will your partner assume you want the relationship to end, you will continue to focus on that.
Words are powerful.
Say what you mean and mean what you say.
Next week, I’ll tackle the others on the list but for now, what do you think of these? Do you agree or disagree?
I know my track record with making relationships work isn’t all that grand, so let me hear from those of you who HAVE had success…
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