62: 10 Tips to Fix Your Relationship and Get Back on the Right Track

In this episode, Jason shares ten actionable tips to help couples maintain harmony, reduce disharmony, and effectively repair their relationships. 

The tips are structured within a framework that includes understanding the phases of harmony, disharmony, and repair. 

Key points include connecting with your partner through daily gestures, understanding and navigating attachment dynamics, using timeouts to prevent conflicts, making effective apologies, showing vulnerability, using communication tools like the feedback wheel, and taking things less personally. 

The goal is to foster more connection and less conflict in relationships.

00:00 Introduction to Relationship Tips
00:06 Understanding Relationship Phases
00:47 Tips for Maintaining Harmony
02:37 Addressing Disharmony
06:04 Effective Repair Strategies
08:46 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Links:

State of the Union Meeting

Feedback Wheel

Relationship (Attachment) Quiz

This episode in 10 tips to fix your relationship in blog form.

Transcript

0:00

Hey everyone, I want to share 10 tips to fix your relationship and get back on the right track. But first I'm going to introduce the show. Welcome everyone. This is solving disconnection and creating connected relationships for couples and parents. My name is Jason Polk, and I've worked this exclusively with couples as a therapist and coach for over 10 years. On this podcast, I share my experience professionally. Personally and those of our amazing guests. All relationships cycle through three phases. That's harmony, disharmony, and repair. And synonyms for the harmony phase are connection, passion. Those for the disharmony phase are disconnection and pain. And My goal as a couples therapist relationship coach is to help you two spend more time in harmony, less time in disharmony, and the intensity is not as much, and for you two to be able to provide quick and effective repair to move back into harmony. And I'll break down ten tips in the context of this framework. So, tips one to three are for maintaining harmony and connection. And these are generally the easiest and the most enjoyable to do. So number one, connect with a hug or a kiss before you leave, know one thing your partner is doing for the day before you leave. Number two, connect with a hug or a kiss when you two reunite after the day, and invite your partner to share about their day. Number three, go on a date and schedule separate times to discuss the relationship. And one of my favorite relationship quotes is, Intimacy is not something you have, but something you do. And that is by Terry Reill. And this is an excellent reminder because now that you two have been together for a while, Possibly married and with kids, it doesn't mean the relationship work is over. I know from experience, if you're not feeling connected to your partner, their natural annoyances will be loud. For example, if I'm not feeling connected to Jess, my wife, I'll be keenly aware of her imperfections and vice versa, because we all have them. And scheduling Separate times to discuss the relationship. This has been called the State of the Union meeting by relationship expert John Gottman. And I'm gonna share a link to, um, more details on the State of the Union meeting. Um, basically if you could do it once a week, twice a week, or check-ins on the relationship, that is a good thing it's. it's important because we get busy during the week, all right, so that's Harmony. So tips four through six. These are for less disharmony. And number four is understand the underlying dynamics of your fights. And this is where attachment theory can be helpful. And I'll share a link to episode number 32 called, how can attachment theory help your relationship? The purpose of it, it helps us understand our partner's natural reflexes regarding connection and separation. So real quick, for example, maybe one partner kind of had a preoccupied, sometimes they're sometimes not parent or parents, so they are more into Connection or lack thereof. It's more at the forefront of their mind and they tend to be the pursuers in the relationship. And if you grew up in a household where, you know, there wasn't much emotions, not a lot of heart to hearts, hugging, stuff like that, you have a tendency for more space to not share your emotions, to not talk about things, to want alone time. And so it's important to know that and know that these are natural reflexes. However, it doesn't get you off the hook. You still have work to do. And I'm going to share the relationship quiz that I made and subsequent emails will give you things you can do. Based on your attachment style, but basically if you're in a connection pursuing side Your work is to be vulnerable and request for example. I've been feeling disconnected let's go on a date and then for the withdrawing side It's okay to want space but you have to be aware of your reflex and be relational about it. For example, I need 20 minutes just to myself. After that, I'm all yours. Let's hang out. So that's how that works. So number five, understand how to get out of those dynamics and negative cycles. And so I shared a little bit about it based on attachment theory. Be aware of your reflexes and what you can do to spend less time in a pursue withdrawal cycle, if those are your attachment styles. A simple but not easy way to get out of an argument or a conflict is by pausing, taking a break, some couples use a safe word, or using a more formal timeout. Because as you know, if we're really upset or angry and interact in that state of mind, we will have to apologize for everything we say or do later, and a timeout or a pause is a good way to make it so there's less to apologize for. And number six, know how to prevent disharmony and do it. And knowing what you can do on your side is essential to preventing disharmony. And one way is to know how to take care of your attachment reflexes, as I mentioned. And, again, to summarize, if you have a reflex for space, take appropriate space. Sharing that you need some time and then sharing when you'll be back and conversely, if you desire more connection, request it and share how not getting it makes you feel. Don't demand connection, or it will have the opposite effect. And for repair, this is seven through ten give a plus apologies I got this from Sherry who was a guest on the podcast That is episode number 43 So an a plus apology is to acknowledge what you did, I'm sorry and then Number two is convey how that felt gosh. I imagine that must have felt Horrible, frustrating, painful, whatever it is. And then number three is share your plan for how you will avoid that action in the future. For example, I'm working to avoid this. Or I'm seeing a therapist to work on my anger. Whatever that is. Number eight, vulnerability. And vulnerability is vital in relationships because it's the basis of emotional intimacy. It can be used to repair because it gives your partner something to connect to. For example, I feel blank because of blank. It's not you did this, you stink, you always, you never. And with vulnerability, you're leading with an olive branch and not a sword. And in the repair context, vulnerability is sharing what is below the anger. And number nine, use the feedback wheel. I'm also going to share a link to the tool. Basically what it is, there's a speaker and there's a listener. You are speaking on an issue as an appropriate center speaker. You're sharing what you made up about the incident or the issue, how you feel, and what you would like. And then partner B basically conveys back what they heard. And that can solve a lot of problems in relationships. Okay. And number 10, basically take things less personally. Another way to say that is no. Your partner is generally trying their best. And what I mean by that is we don't wake up on a mission to upset our partner. For example, I don't have a notebook listing all the ways I can annoy my wife. And then I'll go ahead and pick one that day and work on it. Generally, we operate automatically and we usually inadvertently upset our partner. And this doesn't mean that we don't work on what upsets our partner. We do. But also, when looking at our partner, we need to give them some grace and also find ways to help our partner come through for us. You know, let's be collaborative. For example, how can I help you get what I want? And so, it's a collaboration. And so, these are some ten things. using the framework of harmony, disharmony, and repair that you can get on the right track and fix your relationship to have more connection. Thanks for listening. If this has resonated with you, or if you gotten anything from the podcast, please give us a five-star rating and share this with someone who could benefit from. This information