Our Struggles

Relationships

Managing expectations

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Your opinion matters
Web Wisdom

Relationships in dealing with life's challenges involve how we connect with others.

Managing expectations is about setting realistic hopes for how others should behave or support us.

Sometimes, we may expect too much, and it can lead to disappointment and conflict. Learning to communicate and understand each other's needs helps build healthier relationships.

Balancing expectations in relationships can ease life's struggles, provide valuable support, and improve overall mental and emotional well-being.

Your Toolbox 2

Handouts: Home Improvement: Men in Relationship Jan 2024

Gottman’s 7 principles of a successful relationship;

-Enhance your love maps

You know your partner's inner world, from life dreams to your favorite movie, as a best friend would.

-Nurture fondness and admiration

You have a positive view and a deep appreciation of your partner, and express it.

-Turn towards each other instead of away

State your needs, be aware of bids for connection, and turn towards them

-Let your partner influence you

You shouldn’t make important life decisions on your own as a single person would

-Solve your solvable problems

All couples have solvable and recurring problems., but long term couples solve those they can and understand there will always be recurring problems.

-Overcome gridlock

What often underlies recurring problems are unfulfilled dreams. Talk about those dreams with the goal of making peace with the problem.

-Create shared meaning

Develop the big and the small rituals that help build the bond with your partner.

Rituals range from hosting an annual party to having coffee together in the morning.

BigJake's Thoughts

Men-in-Crisis from broken families need to be heard.

We connect men to local programs and resources to manage this journey to emotional health.

Relationships

Managing expectation

What does that even mean?

It sounds more complicated but I think it means to do what you said or committed to do. If you said that you will take out the garbage, then take it out. It's the small stuff that builds.

Taking people or partners for granted. Not listening or giving them an opportunity to be heard.

Most relationships dont just fall apart, unless there was a huge hiccup. Things take time to fester and brew. Lots of poor decisions of disrespect.

Often it is the poor communication that is to blame, or the lack of solid conversation and sharing of ideas and thoughts.

We can learn to have healthy positive relationships. That does not mean we agree on everything that is being said, but it creates safe space in a relationship to share different points of view or doing things differently.

We are all very unique individuals each with our individuality and habits. Some habits are good and complementing, and other habits poor and destroying to even the best of intentions.

Author's Opinion

Book: Why has nobody told me this before? By Dr Julie Smith 2022 On Meaningful Life

35. Relationships - Relationships Topic

Our relationships are what makes us human.

When humans interact, we make each other feel things.

Turning towards each other is the foundation of building a deep and trusting connection.

How to build meaningful and long-lasting connection:

Self-awareness

Focusing on who you want to be in the relationship, how you want to behave and what you want to bring to the connection, as well as where your boundaries are and why.

Emotional responsivenes

Are you there for me? Do I matter enough for you to stay? When I need you most, what are you going to do?

When we sense that we have lost our connection, our brain sets a fight or flight alarm - bells ringing and we start doing everything to feel safe again.

For some that is aggression, for others it is backing off and hiding away, or bringing down the emotional shutters and not letting on that you care at all.

Respectful complaining

When we play the blame game nobody wins. Healthy relationships are not free of conflict.

They require work on carefully repairing ruptures in the connection.

The ability to self - reflect and work on change is the creation of a relationship in which there is acceptance, no-judgment and unconditional positive regard.

Repairs

Our priority is reconnection.

Reconnection demands the ingredients that created the connection in the first place: acceptance, compassion, love and gratitude for each other.

The key is persistence and the commitment to take a step back, re-evaluate and do our best to repair when things go wrong.

Turning towards gratitude

Making a conscious decision to focus on the things that e admire about them is a relative simple task that can shift not only your emotional state but how you then choose to behave towards them.

Shared meaning and values

Finding where our personal values fit together and overlap with our partner’s and having respect for where they might differ is the key to relationships that can withstand life’s challenges.

Relationship myths:

Love shouldn't be hard

Be together always

Happily ever after

Relationship success means staying together at all costs.

**How to build meaningful and long-lasting connection:

Summary:

When it comes to happy life, relationships beat money, fame, social class and all the things we are told to put our effort into.

Our relationships and how happy we feel about them are not separate from our overall health. They are at the core of the equation.

Working on the self helps your relationships. And working on your relationships helps working on the self.

Attachment styles early in life can often be reflected in our adult relationships.

36. When to seek help Go To: Authors Opinion - Alone Topic

Author's Opinion 3

Handouts: Home Improvement: Men in Relationship Jan 2024

What makes a healthy relationship?

Some qualities of a healthy relationship are:

-Mutual respect

Respect in a relationship means that each person values who the other person is and understands - and would never challenge - the other person's boundaries.

Does your partner listen when you say you’re not comfortable doing something and then back off right away?

Does your partner really appreciate you just the way you are, without you having to act like someone you are not?

-Trust

Trust in a relationship means opening ourselves to another, revealing ourselves to that person and relying on the other to come through for us. Trust needs to be reciprocal for the relationship to work.

Both persons in the relationship need to be trustworthy. Jealousy is a natural emotion, but how a person reacts when he or she feels jealous is what matters.

Accusations are never a part of a trusting relationship.

-Honesty

This goes hand in hand with trust because it’s hard to trust someone if you are not sure they are honest.

You need to completely believe in the honesty of a a person for the relationship to work.

-Support

Support is necessary for the good times as well as the bad times.

Some people are great when your world is falling apart, but can't be there when things are going well (or vice versa).

In a healthy relationship your partner is there for you when you need a shoulder to cry on and is there to celebrate with you your successes.

Fairness / equality

Fairness involves give-and -take in a relationship.

Taking turns; spending time with each other's friends; each having equal input in decision making and each person feeling heard.

Compromises are necessary, but they need to be done by both persons in the relationship.

-Separate identities

Before you were in the relationship you each had your own lives and that shouldn’t change.

It’s helpful to have separate interests and maintain your own identity.

And each should feel free to keep developing new talents, interests and friends.

-Good communication

This is one of the most important components.

It is so important to ask if we’re not sure what what our partners means and to speak honestly and openly so that miscommunication is avoided in the first place.

It is important not to keep feeling bottled up because of fear that it may not be what your partner wanted to hear.

Keep the communication open; however, if you need time to think something through before you’re ready to talk about it, say so, and the “right”person will give you some space to do that.

Humor is also part of good communication, but it should never be used to be hurtful or to make a point.

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Updated: November 2023

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