Making good relationships great | Self

Wednesday 23 May 2012

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Making good relationships great

A good relationship may develop through shared experiences  but a great relationship requires  that something extra.

BY Cynthia Hickman | Oct 13, 2009

I was waiting for the phone call  that would see me drop everything immediately to catch an interstate flight. My friend, Thea, would  be giving birth to her first child  at any moment now and she wanted my support during what would be a long  but intervention-free home waterbirth.

Fortunately I did get there in time. They were two beautiful days that culminated in seeing a new little being rise up from the water into her mother’s arms.

I had the honour of being there when Thea gave birth. Thea was there for me when I got married and we were there  for each other when we stepped out into the world into our chosen vocations.  We have supported each other through career developments, relationship troubles and life transitions. There is nothing  I can’t tell her. The topics of sex, death, love, God…we have explored them all.

THE INGREDIENTS

Great relationships don’t just happen.  A good relationship may develop through time spent together and experiences shared, but a great relationship requires something more. It takes deliberate ongoing care and attention to build such  a relationship. This applies to friendships and romantic, family and work relationships. They are all essentially creative and life-affirming because great relationships help to build great people.

Every relationship has its idiosyncratic qualities, depending on the personalities of the people involved, but there are  some common factors that help to build a more special relationship, such as courage, generosity and compassion.

COURAGE

In my work as a psychologist I meet many people who say they have good relationships with their friends, family  or lovers. While it is wonderful to have the shared understanding and experiences that make for a good relationship, a great relationship requires more. My job is to help people take these good relationships to the next level,  which is a process that requires courage.

If you have courage you will be  open to the opportunity for growth that a relationship can provide. This growth requires honesty and openness. No longer can you sweep things under the carpet. (It just gets lumpy and will trip you up later anyway!)

I remember working with two friends, Angela* and Janice,* who had decided to become business partners. They wanted their project to have integrity and vitality but knew they needed help stepping into this new territory. I explained that even though their relationship was strong, they now needed to make themselves vulnerable.

“But how can being weak possibly help anything?” asked Angela.

The more dynamic of the two, Angela was making the common mistake of equating vulnerability with weakness when, in fact, it’s the opposite.

What I was asking Angela and  Janice to do was to be prepared to  reveal themselves without protecting  the other’s insecurities or defending their own.

Both women had a good degree of self-awareness, so now they would need the courage to put it to good use, which would mean admitting to their own flaws and being able to apologise when they made mistakes. Conversely, it would mean speaking up when they had doubts about what the other was doing.

In the past Angela and Janice  had never really had disagreements,  as their personalities complemented each other, which was why they felt they would be good business partners. However, they had different ideas about how a business should be run. Angela’s dynamic but scattergun approach was now irritating to Janice’s more measured and thoughtful nature.

Initially, Angela and Janice were rocked by their disagreements, but over time the two women discovered the creativity that comes from working through difficulties. They learnt to courageously offer their own input while at the same time accept the influence of the other. The alchemy that resulted gave their business a good chance of being a success.

generosity

It takes ongoing generosity for people to find ways to relate well with each other. This is not the “generosity” of compliments, favours or gifts (often given as purchase for self-worth or the approval and esteem of others). It’s the generosity of stepping outside your usual way of being to make the effort to understand, respect and work in with the different ways that others operate.

Counsellor Dr Gary Chapman says there are five different ways, or “languages”, to express love or care. Some people need to hear it; some need physical touch; others like gifts; others respond to acts of service; and some need quality time together.

People in a good relationship will regularly express their love or care for each other. People in a great relationship will express their love in the language of the other person, not their own language. For example, I find it easy to tell my partner about my love for him, however, his language is such that he needs to receive it in the form of some action that I do for him, such as making his lunch for work. When I speak in his language he can hear me. You are giving a gift when you translate your language of love or care into an unfamiliar mode.

A good relationship may go through phases that are not consciously noticed. In a great relationship you notice the phases and adjust accordingly. Again, this requires a generous attitude. For example, if you don’t have children you still share in the ups and downs of your friend’s parenting experiences. Similarly, if you’re the one with children you still support your friend’s career or relationship aspirations. You don’t let the relationship drift apart just because there are no longer the familiar shared experiences. You grow from being able to share the differences.

A great relationship also requires that you feed it generous helpings of appreciation and affection. This takes conscious effort because all too often we take the daily gifts of others’ contributions to our lives for granted.

When I work with couples I sometimes suggest they attempt to give daily positive feedback to their partner. However, when I see them again and  ask how that went, often the reply is “Woops, we completely forgot about it!”

To create a great relationship you need to notice good things about the other person and make the effort to comment on them. In that way you generously affirm, support and celebrate the other person’s life.

COMPASSION

“Did you hear what she did?”

“Oh, I know. It’s dreadful, isn’t it?  And you know what he said about her…”

You can hear such conversations in any café on any day. People get together and gossip about someone who is probably a “friend”. It is the antithesis of a great relationship when people vent and form alliances to make themselves feel better about their own insecurities.

People in a mature relationship still have their own insecurities, but they don’t undermine the other person to make themselves feel better. They understand their own weaknesses and those of the other person, treating such knowledge with respect and compassion. It doesn’t mean they don’t speak up about problems, but they do so in confidence. A mature relationship is not about trying to make the other person change. It’s about supporting them to grow into their best self.

GREAT COLLEAGUES

In my work I see a lot of people sorting through work issues. Many say it is rare to come across great work colleagues.  It seems too many people let their insecurities rule them, which results in workplaces that are competitive instead of collaborative, where jealousy and sabotage replace generosity and support.

If you want to foster great work relationships you have to stay “clean”, which means not participating in gossip or dirty politics, no matter what tone  is set by those higher in the ranks.  A wise employee realises that a healthy workplace can help people to evolve. With this insight you can encourage collaboration and power sharing because you want people to thrive and develop. You respect others’ differences, allow their strengths and support their progress. You don’t have to be in management, either. From the bottom up you can be quietly influencing the business culture and forging relationships that are ethical, creative and mutually inspiring.

GREAT FAMILIES

Plenty of people who sit on my couch for therapy tell me their family relationships are good, but it doesn’t take much digging to uncover stories of confusion and enmeshment, especially when “caring” is the motivation for stepping into another family member’s territory.

Great family relating involves maintaining clear boundaries. For example, a parent is not their child’s friend, just as a child should not become their parent’s confidant. A child is responsible for living their own life, not fixing up or compensating for their parents’ mistakes or suffering. Their parents’ relationship is none of their business. Their only business is to take the “gifts” their parents may have given them and use them to build the most satisfying life they can.

At the deepest level, respect for such boundaries creates freedom and satisfaction in family relationships.

GREAT LOVERS

Leonie* and Gavin* were both creative, self-aware people who had been in  a relationship together for a few years. Both were following their own passions and supporting each other in that, despite it being difficult at times to achieve balance. They had worked through challenges together and felt  sure in their love for each other.

They came to see me because they were concerned about their frequent arguing. They wondered why this was happening in an otherwise good relationship. As we spoke it became clear the arguments were occurring because they were heading into a new phase in their relationship. They were going deeper and revealing more of themselves to each other. They could see past each other’s personas to their true selves.  This is not always pretty and is definitely not comfortable. Many people choose never to be that honest.

An essential thing that Leonie and Gavin both learned to do was maintain their own sense of self, regardless of what was going on with the other.

Many relationships experience  co-dependency where both partners lean on each other. While this might seem cosy, it means that when one wobbles,  the other does, too.

Your partner is not a surrogate parent who is there to hold you up. You can never fully become an adult until you can hold yourself up, or “self-validate”, as psychologist Dr David Schnarch calls it.

As Leonie and Gavin negotiated  this new territory they found that it brought rewards despite the challenges.  They became better at staying with the difficulties instead of avoiding them, blaming each other or being defensive. They became better at accepting themselves and better at accepting each other. Over time they reported they could quickly get back to feeling their love for each other after a disagreement. The result was two human beings with compassion and emotional intelligence  – the hallmarks of a great relationship.

LOVE IN ACTION

Great relationships are, in fact, about love. Love is a force of evolution. It helps human beings to grow. It is an active thing and a conscious choice. It takes effort to be your best self and it also takes effort to foster that in others. It takes courage to go beyond what is comfortable and to face up to the truth of our less attractive qualities. In a great relationship you relate from the generosity of your heart and you speak to the greatness within the other’s – this is love in action.

*Names have been changed to protect  client confidentiality.

Cynthia Hickman is a psychologist working in private practice in Melbourne.

RELATIONSHIP TOOLBOX

Noticing: remember and  comment on the little things.

Self-awareness: know  when it’s your issue firing up;  know when it’s theirs.

Sensitivity: sandwich  negative feedback between  two positive comments.

Humility: it’s not all about you!  Don’t take things personally  when someone reacts badly  to something.

Empathy: we are all different,  so make an effort to understand the other’s point of view.

Affirmation: you need five  positive statements to balance  the effect of every negative one.

Celebration: share in and  affirm others’ successes.

Effort: make the time to call,  send an email or catch up.

RELATIONSHIP REPAIR