6 Keys of a happy union
There are a number of conditions that are absolutely necessary for the happiness of two. We chose the six most, in our opinion, important. And although the degree of their significance at different moments of life of the pair may vary, each condition should always be part of the relationship between partners.
1. Mutual tolerance
Why is it difficult
If you think about it, it is our differences that underlie every love story. It is they who attract, cause an irresistible desire to get to know another, make it unique in our eyes. “Do we not say:“ He (or her) cannot help but love, because he is not like everyone else, ”the family psychotherapist Viktor Makarov argues. “But the time passes, and it is precisely those features of the partner who at first inspired, sometimes begin to annoy and even make unbearable”.
Why this happens? We mistakenly believe that it is possible to build something strong and thoroughly together only with complete unanimity on all issues. Another possible reason for our intolerance is the inability to completely distract from the figures of their parents, building a relationship in their own pair. “Unconsciously, we are looking for a resemblance to the features of a mother or father in a partner – or their complete opposite,” Viktor Makarov said. – And inevitably we are disappointed, realizing the inadequacy of the replacement. “.
The unconscious image of an ideal partner that each of us has is often hindering us. “To see the differences between another means to admit that he does not answer in everything the desired image drawn by imagination,” Viktor Makarov notes. This discovery may be a disappointment that some worry. Like the end of love.
Why is it important
Love is born at the moment when each of the two sees and accepts what makes up the originality of the other: we can love it just the way it is actually. The famous analytical psychotherapist Robert Johnson calls such a relationship “mature love”. Refusing to create the perfect or born fantasy of the couple, we get a chance to make his union unique: its uniqueness is that everyone brings his own unlike relations.
To accept the differences of another also means recognizing its need and the right to have its own space. This is absolutely necessary if we want to avoid a sensation of pressure, a kind of “suffocation”, which arises from excessive intimacy in daily life. 35-year-old Natalya recalls that she had difficulty tolerated Sergei’s passion to the game of football with friends.
“Every Saturday, he disappeared in training … I could not understand this: it seemed to me that he was just trying to escape from me!”But one day she came to his stadium. “I saw how he, forgetting about everything, delights the ball with his friends. Noticing me, he was embarrassed. Although he did not dare to tell me about it, I felt superfluous: it was his element, his separate life, and not our common ”. After that, Natalya also found a lesson that serves her very much: on Saturdays she dances Flmenko, and it has nothing to do with Sergey.
What to do
Recognize the differences. “He is an owl, and I am a lark”, “She loves the sea, and I am mountains” … Formulate the differences between you, this will help to see the other as he is, and not as it seemed or I would like to or I would like. Better recognizing a partner, and at the same time, you can easier to settle conflicts.
Understand what is good in them. “In order to live together for a long time, it is necessary not only to recognize the right of a partner to be different, but also to love his individual features, because it is they who fuele the life of a couple,” Viktor Makarov explains.
Relate the features. We must try to find those points in which you are ready to give in. Of course, this is not about doing this on the list. You just need to consider ways to combine your differences in order not to confront, but supplement each other. And remember that the consent achieved is never finally: its conditions change as each of the partners and the couple as a whole changes.
Show more curiosity than fear. “Having discovered after years that the other still remains unlike us, we can be afraid that he will eventually fall loving us or want something new from the relationship,” says Viktor Makarov.
There is a way out of this situation: “”. Listen to another carefully, look in all eyes, allow yourself to be surprised at another or slightly change habits … and most importantly – agree that the Universe of another can keep his secret. After all, it is this secret, the inability to find out, understand, to exhaust another and gives rise to our attraction to him. “.
2. General values
Why is it difficult
“When love begins to give way to mature relations, partners sometimes realize that they have. There is no mutual understanding in the main issues, ”said Gestalt therapist Maria Andreeva. In other words, it becomes clear to them that they have different life values. These values are determined by the moral position of each. This is how we look at life, the principles that we have chosen for ourselves and by which we live every day.
Our values develop under the influence of education and education, the characteristics of our personality, social environment, cultural environment and, finally, our own experience. Under the influence of such a variety of values, they cannot fully coincide with different people, and besides over the years they change significantly. “If the views of partners are radically opposite, it will be difficult for them to build relationships,” warns Maria Andreeva.
Why is it important
The life values of a person determine the hierarchy of his priorities, desires and needs. It depends on them how we build our lives in society, relations with other people, including pair. Is marital fidelity important to us or is it secondary? Do we consider mutual assistance to fundamental value or give preference to competition? Whether partners put the same meaning in money and work, do they share the idea that “the family is sacred”?
43-year-old Elena, who survived the https://globalpharmacy24.com/drug/kamagra-polo divorce, says: “Like all my relatives, I attach great importance to family rituals, joint dinners and holidays. And my ex -husband did not tolerate this spirit! I was hoping that over time he would get used to. But this never happened “.
To avoid a clash of values, there is one simple way: try to find out in advance the views of the partner
A different approach to the same issues can become a problem when children appear in the family, since each partner will insist on his own rules of education, based on what he considers the main thing in life. “Often the appearance of the child reveals the contradictions that were not visible before,” notes Maria Andreeva.
So, 30-year-old Polina believes that education should be built on the basis of “love, encouragement and freedom”. And according to her husband, “the child needs a clear framework and discipline”. Having found out that their positions are very different, the couple decided not to have children yet. But then what? Is parting the only way out for those whose values do not coincide?
What to do
Discuss. To avoid a clash of values, there is one simple way: try to find out in advance the views of the partner. “Do not spare time to get to know each other, talk more, discuss any little things,” suggests Maria Andreeva. In conversations about life, society, family, our priorities are often manifested, and at the same time the fundamental mismatch of values.
“Once my friend and I watched a report from Cuba, the plot of Fidel Castro,” recalls 36-year-old Svetlana. – And suddenly he began to talk with heat about the need for dictatorship, a “hard hand”. At first I was very surprised, and then suddenly realized that I was completely different to imagine the life, structure of society, human relations. And somehow it immediately became clear to me that we did not have a common future. “.
Accept. Everything is possible for two, while love and respect between them. If they decide to connect, then everyone should sincerely and consciously accept the principles by which the world of another exists.
Share a family story. To make it easier for partners to understand each other and come to an agreement regarding common values, American psychologist John Gottman invites them to talk about relatives and generally about family history, which invariably serves the main source of the individual values of each person.
In the book “Seven Principles of the existence of a viable couple” there is a story of a woman who grew up in a family of immigrants. Tell her husband about the ancestors who arrived in the United States, she always emphasized that for her loyalty and devotion are fundamental values. And her husband often recalls his grandmother, whose generosity and generosity remain for him a model of human qualities. “After they shared with each other and with their children, the story of one became the story of the other. So there was a common story of the new family that they created, ”writes John Gottman.
Create common values. If partners do not have common values, they always have the opportunity to make the values of each of them, and then not their personal views will arise from this “mixture”, but the values of a new couple, which begins to create its own family history.
3. Friendly intimacy
Why is it difficult
The assertion that spouses are also friends does not seem so obvious to many. After all, we usually imagine love as a romantic, passionate, sexual feeling … Meanwhile, the very first conclusion made by John Gottman based on a long -term study of married couples sounds like this: “Real friendship is based on happy marriages”.
Friendship arises from common interests and hobbies, but also from mutual respect and support, from the desire to listen to the joys and suffering of another.
“In happy marriages, the couple know each other to the smallest detail,” says John Gottman. – They are well aware that the other loves or does not like, his characteristic features, hopes, dreams. “. And this is possible only when each partner is constantly attentive to another, which is not easy: people see every day and forget to look at each other. In addition, many people believe that you need to be friends with friends, and not with their loved ones, leaving sex and … conflicts to the share of family life.
Why is it important
“The best friend, the best friend is the one or the one we love, whom we have chosen, whom we know best and who knows us better than others. We can rely on this person, we share with him memories and plans, hopes and fears, joy and grief. “-writes the French philosopher Andre Count-Sponville in” Petit Traité des Grandes Vertus “. And concludes: “Is it not obvious that this is how things are in a married couple?”
On friendly relations there is a “current of tenderness”, which, along with “erotic current” becomes a component of a marital union. Erotic current is sexuality, passionate feelings. “And the current of tenderness brings everyone a kind of continuation of maternal love, what invariably encourages, comforts, supports,” explains Vadim Petrovsky. – This tenderness gives us confidence that even when we are bad, we are not alone. “.
Not at all infringing on love and desire, tenderness perfectly complements them. “From time to time, sexual desire is dull,” continues Vadim Petrovsky. – It’s good if, in moments of calm, partners can rely on a different emotional component – tenderness ”.
The degree of friendly proximity between partners primarily depends on how well the partners know each other. Do they have a detailed “map” of the world that is another? John Gottman says that this “map” is located in a special brain zone: all significant information is stored there about your beloved. Guided by her, the wife avoids talking under her husband about a policy that he does not stand, and he, in turn, does not forget to bring her favorite spices from her business trips from her business trips.
According to the American psychologist, these small signs of attention mean much more rare, although fiery confessions in love, since they allow maintaining mental connection daily. Strengthening intimacy and affection, they serve as a secret means that allows you to overcome storms in a marital life. The stronger the bonds of friendship and intimacy in pairs, the better they protect partners from aggressive feelings: that which binds them is always more important (or at least important enough) compared to any stumbling block.
What to do
Spell out. “To make friends, try to stay together more than time, do what gives you both,” advises Vadim Petrovsky. Take care of the garden, play sports, walk, go to the cinema, join in long -term projects that require your joint regular participation.
Create your own rituals. The anniversary of dating, weddings and even the first quarrel – an occasion with humor and pride to look back at the path traveled. Thus, traditions are created, what John Gottman calls the “culture of the couple”.
To recognize each other deeper. For example, playing a game where you need to name the best friends of the partner and those who annoy him, guess his most coveted dream or the most beloved melody ..
Show tenderness. Of course, it is impossible to be near every second and every time to devote all your attention and time to your beloved (oh). Always one of the two will have a reason to feel abandoned. In this case, instead of reproaches (“You never be tender with me”) try to restore the “Teca Teck”, first giving it to the partner yourself.
4. Talk to each other
Why is it difficult
“If partners want to get closer and get to know each other deeper, of course, they must communicate,” says Jungian analyst Stanislav Raevsky. But here is a paradox: the more complex and thin thoughts we share with a partner, the higher the probability. misunderstanding, incorrect their interpretation and disappointment: “I never suspected (a) that you might think that, I just don’t recognize you!”
And since we will not recognize a partner, suddenly he is not the same as it seemed to us? How can we continue to love him? Conversation between partners – subtle art. To do this, it is not enough to comply with the rules of communication set forth by Karl Rogers in “the view of psychotherapy. The formation of a person ”: to talk about your feelings in relation to the behavior of another, and not criticize him, more often from the first person (“ I ”), and not about the second (“ you ”), etc. D.
The fact that works in relations between colleagues or in pedagogy, in love communication gives a malfunction due to high emotional stress between interlocutors. Partners are immersed in their relations, there is no distance between them, which would allow everyone to simply perceive the words of the other without accusing and unable to make judgments.
If you say in accordance with all the canons of communication: “I don’t feel happy in our relationship now,” the partner will most likely hear the rebuke: “You cannot make me happy”. In addition, there are days when he would prefer not to know anything about the existential problems of his girlfriend, even knowing how important it is for her to be heard … The risk of misunderstanding between partners is also associated with the fact that the way of communication depends on the gender and, wider, on the nature and education of a person. Imposing our manner of communication, we can thereby neglect the needs of another.
Why is it important
Does this mean that for strong and long -term relationships it is better to keep silent more? Of course not. To communicate is to share thoughts and emotions, but it is in this, among other things, the meaning of life together.
“Words help to better know and understand each other, do not guess, namely, get an answer to any questions – who likes or what you want,” says Stanislav Raevsky. “In addition, the conversation reduces the distance between partners, helps to overcome crises and realize yourself as a couple”. Communication gives partners an indispensable sense of security: speaking with you, I prove to you that you exist for me.
But what about the famous idea that lovers understand each other without words? Undergovernment is dangerous, it allows the accumulated discontent and mutual claims to spoil the relationship. “Love does not make us transparent, it is a harmful error – to believe that spouses do not need to talk,” says Anna Varga family psychotherapist. “We need to try to be understood, otherwise we risk drown in our own inventions.”.
What to do
Speak, but not all. To make communication successful, you need to first set its boundaries. Communication is by definition the exchange of information, and not splating out emotions, experiences and thoughts. Streams of words that do not even contain reproaches, clutter up the space of another, take away his energy from him. The main thing in communication is not the ability to say or hear absolutely everything, but our confidence that we can share absolutely everyone with each other. This subtle difference is very important, because in the latter case the relationship is based on trust.
Meet to talk. An unhurried conversation is alone – a great opportunity to calmly discuss difficult or painful topics, which, if you touch them in the heat of the dispute, will only aggravate the conflict. But the conversation tete-a-tett is needed not only for this. If there are words in which partners are better not to know the measures, these are the words about how good they are together and how many wonderful things they performed together. It is a pity that over time, the spouses begin to forget about these positive messages that feed a happy couple.
