A Fabulous Insight Into Real Relationships...

.... well in my opinion anyway.

I rarely re-blog anything, but this appeared on my LinkedIn page today and when I read it there was huge resonance.

I did not decide to re-blog it immediately, but on reflection think that this is worthy so please read and enjoy this blog from Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author and blogger at www.happiness-project.com. She wrote about marriage and her relationship with her husband, but I think you can apply this to many relationships and switch gender too.

5 Mistakes I Continue To Make in My Marriage

One theme of my happier-at-home project is marriage.

I have five particular problem areas in my marriage. Here they are, along with the strategies I try to use to address them, though they remain challenging:

1. Demanding gold stars. I'm a gold-star junkie, and my husband just isn’t very good at handing out gold stars--and that makes me feel angry and unappreciated.
In response, I now think more about doing things for myself. I used to tell myself I was doing nice things for him – “He’ll be so happy to see that I put all the books away,” “He’ll be so pleased that I fixed the schedule” etc. – then I’d be mad when he wasn’t appreciative. Now I tell myself that I’m doing these things for me. “I’m so organized to have bought all the supplies in advance!” Because I do things for myself, I don’t expect him to respond in any particular way.

2. Using a snappish tone. I have a very short fuse – but my husband doesn’t like it when I snap at him. He’s funny that way. Many of my resolutions help me keep my temper in check. I don’t let myself get too hungry or too cold (I fall into these states very easily); I try to maintain reasonable order, because clutter makes me crabby; I try to control my voice to keep it light and cheery instead of accusatory and impatient; I try not to make my (supposedly terrifying) mean face. Confession: I’ve worked on this issue relentlessly for years, and I fly into brief-but-hot rage at least once a week. At least.

3. Not showing enough consideration. Studies show that married people treat each other with less civility than they show to other people — definitely true for me. I’m working hard on basic consideration, such as not reading my emails while talking to him on the phone. Very basic, I know.

4. Score-keeping. I’m a score-keeper, always calculating who has done what. “I cleaned up the kitchen, so you have to run to the store” — that sort of thing. I’ve found two ways to try to deal with this tendency.
First, I remind myself of unconscious over-claiming; i.e., we unconsciously overestimate our contributions relative to other people’s. This makes sense, because of course we’re far more aware of what we do than what other people do. I complain about the time I spend paying bills, but I overlook the time my husband spends dealing with our car.
Second, I remind myself of the words of my spiritual master, St. Therese of Lisieux: “When one loves, one does not calculate.”

5. Taking my husband for granted. Just as I find it easy to overlook chores done by my husband (see #4), it’s easy to forget to appreciate his many virtues and instead focus on his flaws. For example, although I find it hard to resist using an irritable tone, my husband almost never speaks harshly, and that’s really a wonderful trait. I try to stay alert to all the things I love about him, and let go of my petty annoyances.

What are some mistakes you make in your marriage or long-term relationship? Have you found any useful strategies for addressing them?

--Speaking of relationships, if you'd like to make your relationship more loving and warm, join the 21 Day Relationship Challenge. Learn more here. In just three weeks, you can take concrete, manageable steps to deepen your relatioships.
(Photo: Driek, Flickr)

I hope you found this interesting?