It’s an amazing free online event covering a huge diversity of relationship-related topics, and including talks by some of the people I regularly mention here: Alex Iantaffi, Sophia Graham, and Justin Hancock, as well as Ruby B. Johnson, Kevin Patterson, and Liz Powell who I met at the Poly Dallas conference back in 2018.

In my interview I spoke about a number of topics that I’m hoping to cover in a new relationship diversity zine – coming soon!

• How we need to understand relationships – and relationship struggles – through the lens of cultural and developmental trauma.
• Relationship diversity, and why this model is more helpful than binaries when it comes to relationships.
• Why we need to focus more on how we relate, than who we relate with or what relationship style we subscribe to.
• How our relationships with ourselves, others, and the world are interconnected.

You can check out my talk on day 2 of the conference, May 17th.

Sign up to the event here. Download the free Relationship Superconference Guide here.

The post Relationship Super Conference appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

This new year episode is all about how to talk about sex with partners and other people in your lives, as well as navigating discrepancies in sex drive in your relationships. You also get to hear me and Justin singing so it’s clearly not to be missed

Justin has also just brought out an awesome activity book about sex and relationships which includes wordsearches, dot-to-dots, and boardgames along with lot of sound advice and info. Do get a copy for you, or the young person in your life.

If you’re any kind of teacher or educator then check out his amazing free RSE resources over at the Durex DO project.

The post Podcast: Who to talk to about sex, and how appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Lately, however, it seems to me that kindness and honesty are more inextricably linked than I previously thought. It struck me that kindness without honesty is not really kindness, and that honesty without kindness is not really honesty. So whether we are somebody who – in life – prides ourselves on our openness and straightforwardness, or on our compassion and generosity, we have to engage seriously with the other aspect in order to be truly as we are aiming to be (honest, or kind, respectively).

Kindness without honesty is not kindness

The first one is, perhaps, the easier to explain. If we are keen to be good for the people in our lives, and if we strive not to harm anybody, we may find ourselves sacrificing honesty for kindness. We pick up on what people around us seem to want from us and try to provide that for them, whether or not it fits with us.

So, for example, we might take on more work than we can comfortably manage in order to help others, claiming that we’re fine. We might say that we feel more for somebody than we actually do in order to make them feel good. In a conflict we might lie about what we find difficult about somebody in order to save them pain.

These are all examples of kindness without honesty, and they all frequently backfire.

Working too hard without taking time to look after ourselves often results in us working less well and/or eventually having to stop suddenly because we simply can’t keep it up. Such a situation is usually worse for the people around us than if we had been honest about the load we could reasonably commit to in the first place, or if we had said as soon as it was becoming difficult.

Similarly if we offer too much to people in our lives and then don’t follow through on that, they are left confused and hurt. If we keep trying to give what we have offered (in terms of time, emotion, or commitment) even when we don’t really have it, people generally pick up on this, or we end up so resentful that we pull away from them completely.

Finally, if we are never honest about our experience of other people because we want to save their feelings, we prevent them from learning things that may help them in the long term. Or perhaps we ensure that – when somebody does tell them – it is in a less supportive and helpful way which may be too painful for them to be able to hear.

So aiming to be kind rather than honest often ends up being unkind. Real kindness requires us to be honest with both ourselves and others, even if that is painful and hard.

Honesty without kindness is not honesty

This one is a little more difficult to explain and I am still working it through it myself. I think that if we are honest with somebody without thinking compassionately about that person than we are not being fully honest with ourselves, or with them.

So, for example, we might honestly tell somebody who we are struggling with that they are stupid, or lazy, or annoying.  But it is not really honesty if we only see part of the picture and fix that as the truth. Full honesty involves seeing the way the person is being, but also having the imagination to understand the reasons why that might be the case. It also involves honestly looking at our own behaviour and how what has happened emerges from the exchange between us rather than being a matter of isolated individuals who could have internal characteristics such as stupidity, laziness, or annoyingness. Finally, full honesty requires us to see the whole person, rather than only the part of them that we are currently focusing on.

Bringing honesty together with kindness helps us to do all these things. Kindness encourages us to ask ‘what might be going on for this person that they are behaving like this?’, starting from the assumption that it makes sense rather than seeing them just from the self-centred point of view of our own desires and how they are blocking these. Kindness to ourselves enables us to look honestly at what we bring to the situation, without being overwhelmed by  guilt and shame when we realise that we are also being imperfect people and contributing to conflict, confusion and pain. Finally, kindness opens us up to other aspects of the person – particularly the ones that are impressive – when our attention is in danger of being fixed on ‘negative aspects’. It allows us to see that what we are finding difficult may well be inextricably connected to things that we find valuable about this person (stubborness and being committed, for example, or flakiness and being easygoing).

Honesty plus kindness helps us to see more clearly – indeed honestly – the vulnerability which we all share which underlies much of our behaviour. Then, instead of moments of conflict making us feel disconnected, isolated and alienated, they actually have the potential to connect us more fundamentally, as we recognise the familiar fears and dreads, hopes and desires, that drives the very behaviours that we are finding so difficult. But we need at least a little kindness to cut through the sense that we are up against a bad, blameworthy, inexplicable individual who is just getting in our way.

Honesty, without the kind recognition that we are all suffering and defending ourselves against suffering, is not really honesty.

Find out more…

There’s more about conflict in my books Rewriting the Rules and The Secrets of Enduring Love

If you enjoyed this, you might also like my zines, Staying with Feelings and Plural Selves.

The post Kindness and honesty: Can we have one without the other? appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

why is deceit taken to be a good thing? The answer is to communicate

If we agree that communication is a good idea this begs the question of what is meant by communication. How do we actually go about communicating about our relationships with the people we are in relationships with? My book deals quite a lot with communication about points of conflict, and includes some suggestions regarding communication about sex, monogamy and commitment, but I thought that it was a topic worthy of further exploration here.

I’ve been at two workshops in the past month or so which have dealt with relationship communication in general, and with communication about sex in particular. At both of these I came across some useful ideas which I’ll share in the next couple of posts.

Meta-Communication

The first workshop I attended focused on the idea of communication about communicating. This might sound a bit meta, and indeed one word for it is meta-communication.

Basically what it means is that people have different ways of communicating which they prefer, or which come more easily to them. Instead of launching into conversations with people in our lives, and then becoming frustrated or angry if they communicate in ways we find difficult, it might be worth starting with a conversation about how we’re going to communicate.

Counsellors and therapists refer to this as a focus on ‘process’ rather than ‘content’. When we’re dealing with the process of communication we’re talking about how we communicate. That means we can then go into the content of communication with an awareness of this. If the discussion of content becomes difficult it can often be useful to return to talking about the process, before getting back into it.

Of course this is applicable to all kinds of communication. For example, it can be useful to start a workshop or group discussion with a consideration of the kind of communication people would like and what processes would be best to enable it. It might be worth putting some ground rules in place, or agreeing on some mechanism by which people will take turns in contributing like putting up hands, holding an object and passing it around, or nodding when they’ve finished talking. Agreement, disagreement, need for clarification and other things can also be expressed in various ways verbally or nonverbally.

The aim of communication

This brings us to consideration of the aim of the communication, which is vital. The style of communication that works best depends very much on what we are aiming for. For example, in a workshop or seminar, if we are aiming for as many diverse views as possible to be expressed, and for everyone to feel as safe as possible expressing them, then ground rules which cultivate a culture of openness and open up space for different contributions are a great idea. If we are aiming to reach a quick joint decision, or to have a feisty back-and-forth debate, then other modes of communication might work better.

So it can be useful to recognise that this is not about prioritising certain kinds of communication over others, but rather about a collaborative process of finding the best communication style for the people, and aims, which are present.

This is an important point because different ways of communicating are more or less comfortable or familiar depending on all kinds of aspects of people, such as their cultural or class background, age, generation, disability, sexuality, race, gender, and so on. For example, I’ve been in situations where people have felt excluded from conversation because norms against talking over each other, or against touching, gesticulating or raising voices, have been so different from the ones they are familiar with. There is also great diversity in things like how comfortable people are with silence or with expression of different emotions; how relevant they feel it is to tell personal stories or to use academic language; or what they understand by direct eye-contact or sitting close to somebody.

Those old ‘mars and venus’ style ideas about gender differences in preferred ways of talking (direct or indirect, listening or problem-solving, talking it out or retreating to think it through) are useful to consider in some ways. The problem with them is that we can’t generalise as simply as ‘men this and women that’ because gender doesn’t work in this way for many people, and because there are so many intersections between gender and other aspects of a person. Rather it is more useful for each person to consider all aspects of their identity and background, and how these have shaped their own preferred ways of communicating.

How we prefer to communicate

A great starting point for communicating about communicating is to consider how aspects of ourselves like culture, class, gender, age, generation, disability, sexuality, religion, experience, etc. impact on how we tend to communicate. You might consider questions like:

• How did the people around you communicate when you were growing up? Who was included or excluded from interactions? What styles of verbal and non-verbal communicating did people use? Which ones were more or less approved of or successful? What did you like or dislike about this? Which aspects impact on your communication styles today?
• Are there any aspects of how your particular body and/or mind works which mean that certain ways of communicating are easier, or more difficult, for you?
• What expectations do you think there are on how people of your gender, race, class, age, body type, religion, cultural background, or sexuality communicate? Do any of these fit your preferred way of communicating? Do any of them not fit?
• Remember an interaction which you really didn’t like and one you really did like, in recent weeks. What do the differences between these tell you about your preferred way of communicating?
• Do you have any hard limits (ways of communicating that you are absolutely not okay with somebody else using)? Do you have any strong preferences for ways in which you would like to communicate? Are there aspects you’d be willing to compromise on?

Suggestions that were put forward in the workshop I attended were also to consider whether we preferred to communicate:

• Straight away, or after having some time to think
• Verbally, in a written form (e.g. email, text, webchat) or some other way
• Face to face or not (e.g. internet, telephone, etc.)
• At particular times of day (e.g. not first thing in the morning, not last thing at night)

Relating to the last point a lot of people agreed that it was worth having your physical needs met (sleep, food, etc.) before embarking on an important conversation.

What are we aiming at?

During the workshop we came up with lots of different things which we might be aiming at when we communicate with another person. It can be very useful indeed to discuss what we are aiming at before getting into the conversation itself, given how many conflicts occur simply because people are looking for different things out of their interaction. Think, for example, about times when one person really wanted someone to listen and sympathise, whilst the other person assumed that they wanted advice. Or there are times when one person is just enjoying making a connection whilst the other person assumes that there needs to be some definite point or outcome to the conversation. Perhaps one person really wants to get some practical support whilst the other person thinks it would be useful to just keep listening.

You might find it useful to add to the list below (from the workshop) of things we might be aiming for in communication. You could then think about which ones you are looking for (in general, from different kinds of interactions, or with different people). When you’re about to communicate with somebody it could well be useful to compare notes on what you’re looking for from the conversation and consider whether they are compatible. If they can say what they are hoping from you, you can then say whether that’s something you have to offer or not (in general, or on this occasion).

• To make a connection
• To impart information
• To find out information
• To get support
• To problem solve
• To make a decision
• To persuade
• To discuss
• To get a response

Communicating love

One particularly loaded kind of communication is communicating our love for other people, and having that communicated to us. Something that I touch on in Rewriting the Rules is that people often have different ways in which they like to express their love, or to have it expressed to them. For example, if one person likes declarations of love and the other person thinks that it is best to show that they care by doing household tasks, then the first person might end up feeling very unloved despite all the others’ efforts. I’m reminded of the line in the Billy Bragg song ‘no amount of poetry could mend this broken heart, but you can put the hoover round if you want to make a start’.

Author Gary Chapman suggests that there are five ‘love languages‘ or ways in which people like to express love and to have it expressed to them. These are:

• Words of affirmation
• Quality time or undivided attention
• Gifts
• Acts of service
• Physical touch

In the workshop we agreed that these were not static things that we had the same across all relationships, but that it could be useful to think, in each relationship we have, about:

• Which of these ways of expressing love do we prefer to receive? (there may be more than one, there may be additional ones for you)
• Which do we prefer to give?
• Which do we not like to give?
• Which do we not like to receive?
• In what specific ways do these work for us? (e.g. if we like words of affirmation, which words do we prefer, how frequently and in what form?)

As with communication in general it can also be helpful to think about the expressions of love that were, or were not, familiar to us growing up; associations with age, gender, race, class, etc.; and any things that are vital to us (e.g. not liking public displays of affection, wanting one text message a day minimum from a loved one, needing people to turn their phones off on a date, etc.)

Hopefully these suggestions have shown how useful it might be to engage in meta-communication (or communication about communication), not just when we have problems or conflicts, but much more generally in our everyday interactions.

If we can accept that there are many different ways of communicating, and approach each other with curiosity to find out what our preferences are, then we are in a better place to understand how our communication works. Perhaps we can make a habit of starting conversations by articulating what it is that we’re looking for, and commit to shifting from content to process any time that things become tricky.

Find out more…

There’s more on meta-communication and love languages in my book The Secrets of Enduring Love.

The post Meta-Communication appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

The question comes off the back of the publication of a couple of recent books which make the argument that affairs can be very positive experiences for those who have them, and that it is our cultural attitude about infidelity that is the problem, rather than infidelity itself.

Infidelity is good for relationships?

For example, in his latest book How to Think More About Sex, philosopher Alain de Botton argues that we must not underestimate how tempting and exhilarating affairs can be, nor how difficult it is to stay with one partner over our increasingly long life-spans. This is especially tough with all the (historically recent) pressure for genuine love and passionate sex to last through illness, children, conflicts, and all the other challenges that long term relationships face. Alain de Botton argues that:

spouses should not blame each other for occasional infidelities; instead they should feel proud that, for the most part, they have managed to remain committed to their union

He suggests that it takes immense patience and kindness not to sleep around and also not to end up hating one another.

In sociologist Catherine Hakim’s latest book The New Rules, she argues that high rates of marital breakdown can be linked to puritanical approaches to infidelity. She suggests that internet dating and ‘playfairs’ (recreational sex) could actually be a path to happier relationships, and certainly should not inevitably lead to break-up.

But what about honesty?

There is a lot to commend the fact that de Botton and Hakim are questioning the taken-for-granted rules which people have applied to relationships, pointing out the historical and cultural shifts which have left us with the current attitudes we have towards infidelity: that it is a terribly thing and should inevitably result in the end of the relationship.

However I’m surprised, when reading extracts from these books, that both authors seem content to accept, as taken-for-granted, that people must get married and that any additional relationship must take the form of a (sexual) affair. They question whether infidelity should always be viewed so negatively, but they don’t seem to seriously question whether there might be other ways of doing relationships which offer alternatives to the marriage plus secret affairs model.

As I mentioned on the programme, my major concern about infidelity is not the sex outside marriage/relationship issue, but rather the deception, secrecy and dishonesty involved. Occasionally affairs can be ‘good for relationships’, making them stronger. But when this happens it is generally because the affair forces the couple to start communicating about what they want, perhaps respecting that they each have some needs that can’t be met in a single relationship.

It seems to me that, rather than encouraging a more positive attitude to affairs, it would be better to encourage more open communication throughout the relationship, about all aspects of it.

Not just affairs

Such open communication would help because problems don’t only arise in relation to obvious infidelities (sexual relationships with other people). Research has demonstrated that most people in monogamous relationships do not talk up front about what they mean by monogamy, and that there are often quite major differences in their assumptions, which can cause serious problems when they come to light. For example, one person might be very close to an ex partner, and the other might think this is not okay. Or one person may feel that cybersex is not ‘real’ sex, whilst their partner thinks that it definitely is. There may be disagreements also around flirty behaviour or close friendships.

Of course there are also many groups now who are explicitly negotiating the rules around monogamy in their relationships. For example, in swinging, open relationships, polyamory, and in the ‘new monogamy’ or ‘monogamish’ relationships (which are somewhat open to emotional or sexual connections with people beyond a main couple). Some of these relationships involve a couple who have other sexual or emotional relationships, and others involve people having multiple relationships which are not couple-based at all.

In my book, Rewriting the Rules, I suggest that, whatever style of relationship people choose, it is useful to have conversations about where they stand on continua of emotional monogamy (from only having one close person in their lives to many) and sexual monogamy (for only have one sexual partner to having many).

Of course such conversations don’t stop people changing through their relationship, or making other connections which alter their feelings on these matters. The monogamy conversation (like the sex conversation, and the ‘what we want out of life’ conversation, and many others) needs to be an ongoing conversation throughout all our relationships.

The post Is infidelity good or bad for relationships? appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

In the first post the author defines what they mean by the term which is an attempt to move beyond the dichtomy of ‘sex positive’ and ‘sex negative’. New sex-related phenomena (such as the recent 50 Shades trilogy, or any new ‘sexualised‘ trend amongst young people) tend to be met by two responses: either criticism of the ways in which the phenomenon reproduces and reinforces problematic gender roles, and often coercive or violent sexual practices (sex negative), or defence of all sexual practices and erotic materials as liberatory, with an emphasis on people having freedom to choose what they do sexually (sex positive).

[Note: as Radtransfem, commenting on Sex Critical, points out, it is also often the case that the ‘sex’ in ‘sex negative’ and ‘sex positive’ actually means different things. For example, in ‘sex negative’ what is meant is often ‘objectifying-women-negative’ and in ‘sex positive’ what is meant is often ‘diverse-sexual-practices-positive’]

The author of Sex Critical argues for an alternative position to sex negativity/positivity – being sex critical – whereby all sexual representations and practices are considered equally critically. This is an important point because it tends to be non-normative sexualities (such as sadomasochistic sexual practices or lesbian, gay and bisexual sexualities) that are subject to scrutiny in wider society, whereas people rarely question the sexualities that are considered to be ‘normal’. It is also important because there is a tendency for some ‘sex positive’ writers to assume that all sexual representations and practices are inherently good and liberatory, when actually there might be reason to question the ways in which they operate, and problematic norms that may be present.

So being sex critical we wouldn’t assume that any sexual representation or practice was beyond question, or inherently  positive. Rather we would ask questions about it such as how it fits within wider culture, what ideologies it upholds, and whether it really offers any kind of truth about who we are (something that is often assumed about sexuality).

Sex Critical is written by a humanities scholar, so is perhaps more focused on representations of sexuality than on our own sexual practices. From a psychology/therapy perspective I am interested in how the idea of being sex critical might be useful in people’s daily lives. My chapter on sex in Rewriting the Rules certainly has a sex critical flavour as I question how people might be constrained by the cultural rules about what kinds of ‘good’, ‘normal’ or ‘great’ sex we should be aspiring to, and then look at the possibilities that are opened up, and closed down, by various sexual communities who understand and practice sex in different ways to this (e.g. bisexual, sadomasochistic, erotic fan fiction, and asexual communities).

Here are some initial thoughts on how we might be sex critical about our own sexual practices, desires, and the representations we see around us. For all of these we might ask the following questions:

• How does this relate to common cultural ideas about sex? Does it perpetuate them and/or resist them? In what ways?
• Who is included/excluded? Is there room for sexual diversity or is one form of sexuality presented as good/right/normal/ideal?
• What is opened up and closed down in terms of possibilities for us? In what ways might it free us up, or limit and constrain us? (e.g. in terms of the roles we might take and the experiences we might have)
• Is there any sense that this sexual practice, desire or representation might mean different things to different people at different times, or is it assumed that it always means the same thing universally?

So, for example, a woman reading and enjoying the 50 Shades trilogy, and thinking about bringing some of the ideas from the book into her own sex life, might think that:

• Cultural ideas: The books suggests the possibility for sexual practices beyond genital sex (the cultural norm), but they do also suggest that women shouldn’t need to communicate about the sex they want and that men should automatically know what they want and be able to provide it (problematic cultural norms).
• Inclusion/exclusion: 50 Shades includes the possibility of  forms of kinky sex being  part of our potential sexual repertoires, but it also all take place in a heterosexual context, between just two people, who meet cultural ideals around attractiveness (youth and desirability to others): anyone outside of this seems to be excluded. Also it seems that orgasms are important (so what about people who struggle to orgasm, or for whom orgasm is not vital to sex?)
• Opening up/closing down: It might free us up to expand our sexual menu in some directions, enabling us to talk about our desires because we know that so many millions of people share them (given how popular the book is). However, it might also limit how far we can go in challenging rigid gender roles in relationships and sex, such as the idea that men should be active, dominant and protective, and women passive, submissive and in need of protection.
• Multiple meanings: We might easily get the impression that only troubled people who struggle with intimacy should be into BDSM, as well as thinking that only certain forms of BDSM are acceptable (the ones on Grey’s ‘yes’ list, or the ones that Ana goes along with). Instead we might recognise that lots of people enjoy BDSM for a variety of reasons, and that people have different activities that work for them (rather than there being a universal agreement on what is and isn’t okay).

The post Sex Critical? appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

I’m about to start writing a chapter for my mindfulness book on depression so I’ve been mulling over what the experience of being depressed Is like, and what things help and hinder when we’re in that place. At the same time I’m becoming fascinated and concerned by the processes of conflict between people which seem to inevitably happen in all the academic and activist groups I’m part of. I’m wondering what might be done to maintain some kind of useful dialogue, rather than people convincing themselves that the other side is wrong and bad while they are right and good, and thus ceasing all engagement. Even as I see the problems in this approach I recognise the same tendency in myself.

As these two lines of thoughts unfurled themselves yesterday I found that they began to weave together into a similar set of ideas, so I decided to write a little about the patterns that I see in how we experience depression and conflict, and in how the experience can shift. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised that these ideas have come together: I deliberately started my book on relationships with a chapter on the self because of the connections that there are between how we relate to ourselves and how we relate to others.

Depression: Tuning out, turning in

When I reflect on being depressed the experience is one of being simultaneously tuned out, but turned in. What I mean by tuned out is that when we’re depressed many of us become terribly concerned with other people and the outside world. We monitor ourselves closely through the imagined gaze of others and judge what we think they are seeing very harshly. We become anxious about what others will see in us, and frightened that we will get it wrong somehow and be exposed in all our uselessness. Decisions become very difficult because we are so tuned out – trying to be okay for everyone else – that it is almost impossible to tune in to what we want and need ourselves. We might find ourselves busily rushing around trying to please everyone and not letting on how much we are struggling, or we might withdraw from contact as much as possible for fear of what others might see if we let them in close.

At the same time as being tuned out, we are also turned in. While we are hugely concerned with what other people think of us or how we are being seen out in the world, we don’t really see or hear the people around us because we are so turned in and focused on our own struggles. We often spend a great deal of time in internal conversations with ourselves about whether something is wrong with us, what it is, and how we might fix it. We view other people in terms of their danger to us (‘they might see me as I really am!’), or the possibility that they might be able to help (‘maybe they have the answer’), but it is hard for us to make the shift that is necessary to understand how they are feeling and what is going on for them. Often we assume that we are the only person who is this bad and full of problems, and we are so fixated on not showing other people that this is the case, or apologising to them for our perceived wrong-doing, that there is no space available to turn towards their experience and let go of all of our own stuff for a moment.

Depression: Turning out, tuning in

When I think about the moments of relief when that heavy tangled weight of depression has lifted, they are often moments when I have managed to ‘turn out’ in spite of all this. Perhaps somebody else’s pain has pierced my bubble, or in professional mode (as a tutor or counsellor) I’ve had to put my stuff down and turn towards another person to hear about their struggles, or I have remembered how this worked and deliberately reached out to somebody else and asked how they are doing. Sometimes the relief just takes the form of sitting on a train or walking down the street and suddenly opening up to the fact that all the people that I see have their own fears and desires, tragedies and triumphs, which are just as precious and concerning to them as mine are to me.

This turning out works on several levels. On a very basic level listening to somebody else, or imagining their world, means that our mind is occupied with something else for a moment and we have a brief relief from the clatter of noisy and critical thoughts that has been exhausting us. Then there is the way that helping somebody else (anything from flashing a kindly smile through to giving them a supportive shoulder to lean on) can leave us feeling better about ourselves: we do have something to offer after all. Perhaps most fundamentally though is the sense of connection to others which is an antidote to the sense of isolation and alienation that is a major element of depression for so many of us. If people let us in through opening up to us, or just reveal their pain on their faces, we might realise that they struggle too, often in similar ways to ourselves. We realise that they are also scrutinising themselves constantly with a stream of critical comments running through their heads. We are no longer alone. In fact that pain is the very thing that links us to everybody else.

Related to this it is often the case that in finding compassion for another person we become able to find a little of the compassion that we need for ourselves. This is an important part of what I’m calling tuning in. Instead of only being attuned to what other people think of us (whether we are normal or abnormal in society’s view, whether or not this person approves of us, etc.) we can tune into our own feelings and experiences. By turning out and really seeing and hearing the other people around us we might realise that they aren’t really that concerned with us because they are so busy worrying about themselves. Or, if they are judging us and disapproving of us, we might realise that they are doing this out of their own pain and anxieties rather than because they are seeing any true flaw in us. For example, it might be that putting us down gives them a brief reassurance that they are okay, when they secretly fear that they are not. Even if there is an element of truth in any criticisms they are making of us, we can manage to hear it and bear it because we are no longer trying to present an unreal perfect image to the world. We are turned out enough to be able to appreciate our impact on other people, and tuned in enough to own up to such things without thinking that it means that we are a terrible person in total.

When we are depressed, or otherwise suffering, it doesn’t really matter whether we start by turning out or tuning in. Either one begins to make the other easier. So it might be that we deliberately try to empathise with other people or imagine what they are going through, and that gives us the space to find a bit more compassion for ourselves. Or we might start by tuning in to ourselves – sitting with however we are feeling without judging it or criticising it – and that might enable us to open up and see the other people around us.

Conflict: Tuning out, turning in

How are similar processes involved in conflict situations? It seems to me that often when a conflict bubbles up our reflex response is to tune out but turn in. We focus entirely upon the badness and wrongness of whatever has been done to us (tuning out), while our concern with the pain and suffering that the other person has caused in us means that we turn in on ourselves and find it almost impossible to hear where the other person is actually coming from (turning in).

This pattern is what leads to the escalation of conflict. Often both people or groups regard themselves as the wronged parties (tuned out) and both are so concerned with the suffering that this has caused to them that they can’t find any empathy for the others involved (turned in). Under those circumstances each thing that one person or group does is interpreted as a slight by the other, who then try to express their pain and anger at what has been done to them which is read as an overreaction and unreasonable response by the original person or group who then responds defensively. We are all prickly and hyper-aware of everything that the other person says and does (tuned out), at the same time as being defensive and protective of the sore spots in ourselves that the other person is (often inadvertently) bashing up against (turned in). This means that we tend to interpret what ‘they’ do in narrow and simple ways, often assuming that they are acting out of malice or personal defects while we are very aware of all of the complexities of the situation that have led us to act in the ways in which we have.

In some ways conflict is the opposite of depression because we are hard on the other person and see them in limited ways, while being much more understanding of ourselves (whereas in depression we are much more forgiving of others than we are of ourselves). However, these kinds of conflicts and depressions often have the same thing at their root: Our secret vulnerabilities and shames which we are afraid might be exposed. In both cases we are hyper aware of others who might be seeing these things (tuning out) and defending against the possibility that they will reveal something we fear is there (turned in). But in depression we defend by withdrawing and separating ourselves off, whereas in conflict we defend by lashing out and trying to make our pain all somebody else’s fault.

Conflict: Turning out, tuning in

It follows that we can also shift conflict situations in the same ways that we shift depression. We can attempt to turn out and/or to tune in. Again it doesn’t really matter which one we shift first, it will probably make shifting the other one easier as well.

For example, we might start by tuning in. Instead of allowing ourselves to react in a knee-jerk defensive way to the other person or group, we might sit down on our own for a while with the aim of listening compassionately to ourselves: Why it is that whatever is happening has hurt us so much? Each time we start trying to list whatever the other person did wrong and why they are so bad we can gently bring ourselves back to tuning into ourselves instead: What are we feeling? What does it remind us of from other times in our lives? Which of the vulnerabilities that we know that we have have been triggered by this situation?

Alternatively we might start by turning out. We might recognise how we are limiting the other person or group by imagining them as just stupid, bad, crazy or malicious, and start trying to open up to the fullness of what they are and really trying to listen to where they are coming from. We may remind ourselves of the complex and multiple reasons that have led to us responding in the way that we have, and try to assume that the same will be true of the other ‘side’ of the conflict. In Rewriting the Rules I suggest we might turn our common accusation ‘how could you do that!’ into a genuine and curious question ‘how could you do that?’ This might involve us on our own imagining all of the different reasons why the other person or group might have done what they did (given what we know about them if they are somebody we know, or just what we know about people). Alternatively, or after this, it might involve us sitting down with them with the intention of really listening to where they are coming from and trying to create a situation where they feel safer to tell us this.

The combination of turning out and tuning in will hopefully mean that during such conversations we can be more aware of what is triggered for us, so that we can respond to the situation itself rather than bringing in all our previous baggage. Tuning in also means treating ourselves kindly so we are less likely to take everything else somebody throws at us. If they are still in conflict mode then we can hear the pain behind their words, while not remaining in situations that are hurting us or taking on board criticisms that are unfair. This may involve, for example, insisting on more time apart before trying to communicate, or asking somebody else to mediate.

Conclusions

Of course every depression and conflict are unique to the people involved in various ways, and I will not have captured here all the different things that they can mean to different people at different times.

With depression there are aspects of the social situations which are involved that mean that another important element is turning out towards wider society and the ways in which it encourages that self-monitoring, critical, way of being with ourselves. I’ve written more about that here and here.

With conflict there are some important things to tease out about how we deal with very real power imbalances, oppressions, and privileges which are often in play. In my view the compassionate approach makes it more, rather than less, likely that people will be able to own up to these things and speak openly about their impact, but I also understand the fear that compassion and empathy for others could smooth over such things and lead to an acceptance of abusive and problematic situations. I write more about those tensions here and here.

I hope that the idea of shifting from tuning out and turning in to turning out and tuning in is a helpful one for thinking through your own experiences of depression and conflict, and I’d be very interested to hear other people’s reflections.

Find out more…

There’s more about how to tune in in my Staying with Feelings zine, and this post about noticing.

There’s more about depression and conflict in relationships here, here, and here.

You can find out more suggestions for practical ways of turning out and tuning in in the Rewriting the Rules chapters on self (in relation to depression) and conflict (in relation to conflict), and in my Social Mindfulness and Self-Care zines.

The post Tuning out, turning in – Turning out, tuning in: Depression and Conflict appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Monday 16^th January 2012 saw the launch of a new Open University research project called Enduring Love? Here I will introduce the project and also summarise the talks at the launch about current thinking on relationships, and the pressures they are under.

There has been plenty of research on break-up, divorce and separation. The team behind this project decided that it was time that we knew more about what makes people stay together as well as what makes them split up.

The plan is to get as many people as possible to fill out the online questionnaire so that the researchers can get a good idea of the diversity of ways in which people are experiencing long-term relationships, as well as anything that people who stay together have in common. At the same time, there will be much more in-depth research on sixty couples who will keep a diary of their relationship, take part in interviews together and separately, and explore the way they live and how they feel in their relationship. The detailed research will consider various aspects of the couple relationship such as emotions, sex, commitment, and the way that their partnership fits with other important relationships in their lives. You can already get an idea of the kinds of things people are saying about their relationships from the video clips and podcasts that the team has put together.

The project is called Enduring Love? with a question mark to give the title a double meaning. The researchers are keen to explore what makes relationships work for those who stay together long term and who find that a fulfilling way to live. At the same time it is clear that some couples feel pressured to stay together even when they are very unhappy. It is useful to know what makes an enduring love, as well as what the experience is like when love itself becomes something to be endured. Of course many relationships include elements of both these things: when times are hard the relationship feels like something to be endured, and when things are going well the ‘enduring’ nature of the relationship is something that may be celebrated. Enduring hard times can build intimacy as well as sometimes breaking it.

At the launch event we heard from a representative from the Department of Education who spoke about ways in which the research could feed into government strategies around relationships. For example, it could help to illuminate the diversity of relationship styles that people are currently engaged in, feeding into relationship education in school PSHE, developing relationship therapy training, and informing programmes which help couples to transition to different forms of relationships (for example, those who continue to co-parent or live together when they are no longer a couple).

After the talk from the DoE, author and journalist, Kate Figes, spoke about her book Couples: The Truth which was based on interviews with a range of couples. She found that people don’t tend to reflect on their relationships whilst things are going well – only when things go badly wrong. People also felt that their relationship had to be private and that it was disloyal to talk about what went on in their relationship to anybody outside of it. Finally, people were very concerned about whether their relationship was ‘normal’.

Of course when nobody speaks openly about the reality of relationships, it is easy for us all to assume that everybody else’s relationship is much better than our own (because that is what they look like from the outside), and to worry that something is wrong with us. One reason that I love the book Mistakes were made (but not by me) is that it argues that intimate relationships are actually one of the most challenging things we can possibly do, because letting someone in so close that they get to see all sides of you is exposing, and often confronts us with difficult truths.

Kate’s ideas resonated with my own thoughts on this topic as she highlighted key pressures that relationships are currently under, many of which I also explore in my book Rewriting the Rules, which is out later this year. She said that there is romantic pressure to find a soulmate who will provide us with our happily-ever-after; there is sexual pressure to have perfect exciting sex throughout a relationship; and there is pressure to be monogamous, with any kind of infidelity regarded as unacceptable. However, the first two pressures make it more, rather than less, likely that people will end up looking elsewhere because nobody can be everything to us, people change over time, and such insularity can leave us gasping for freedom.

Kate reckoned that important ways forward were for people to be more honest about the lows and highs of their relationships, to communicate better with each other, and to recognise the impact of our backgrounds, cultures, and family histories on how we understand relationships (which will inevitably be different to that of our partners). She also argued that the adversarial legal system is very bad for people who are trying to shift their relationship into a different form (co-parenting for example) and that mediation is a better alternative.

We also heard from academics Lynn Jamieson and Ann Phoenix who talked about their own research in this area and what their hopes were for the Enduring Love? project. Lynn spoke about the way our understandings of coupledom has changed over time. An older participant in her research spoke about the way marriage used to be just what people did at a certain age, whilst many now see love as a vital ingredient. Lynne, and others in the audience raised questions about who we count as a couple. For example, many couples now don’t live together some, or even all, of the time. There are also people who are in secret couples which others in their lives do not know about. And polyamorous people have relationships with more than one person so they may be in more than one couple, or in a triad/quad or family rather than a couple at all. In Rewriting the Rules I question the dividing rules that we have between romantic love and other kinds of relationship which are not always clearcut (what about a romantic relationship that has become more like a friendship over time, or a close friendship between people who live together and have intense rows and good times together?).

Lynn suggested that the Enduring Love? research could provide valuable insights into ‘practices of intimacy’: what are the building blocks of relationships that we may not be aware of but which we use everyday to connect with those we’re close to? What is the role of talking (and deciding not to talk about certain issues)? Other practices include practices of caring for each other, learning about each other, spending time together (physically present and digitally mediated), prioritising, and giving and receiving.

Lynn agreed with Kate about the ludicrous pressures of cultural ideas such as ‘The One’ and ‘Mr/Ms Right’, suggesting that we might move towards celebrating more pragmatic arrangements that people have in their relationships. Ann Phoenix went on to explore such ideas further in her talk which highlighted the roles of myths and stories that couples have about their relationships (which draw upon cultural myths as well as family backgrounds). Like Kate she highlighted the importance of recognising that all relationships have dissatisfactions and disharmonies as well as shared stories, even if these are more rarely spoken about with others.

Ann suggested that key areas to consider, when exploring relationships, include the diversity of experiences of those in transnational couples (who may be forced to live apart and/or have different backgrounds and privileges, for example), and same-sex couples. Like polyamorous people, such couples have the additional pressure of frequently having to explain their relationships to strangers, which is a very different experience to those whose relationship is take-for-granted and even celebrated by others and by wider culture.

Ann also discussed change, which is something that I focus on in Rewriting the Rules. She said that over time we are not the same people who we were back when we got together, never mind being the same couple. She also questioned the binary way in which we tend to see ‘enduring’ and ‘breaking up’. As I explore in my chapter on break-up, given the shifts that relationships go through over time we might begin to challenge what it means to ‘stay together’ and to ‘split up’ and what there might be between these two extremes. Perhaps ‘enduring love’ is a love that is flexible enough to shift and change over time as the situation demands it.

Hopefully the sociological approach taken by the Enduring Love? researchers will enable a continued exploration of the psychosocial nature of relationships. Our intimate relationships happen in a wider context of global, economic, political, and social change as well as within wider social networks which may support or constrain our relationships. We know, for example, that social policies influence whether people can live together or not, and economic situations and policies determine who can get married. Clearly cultural ideals about relationships impact our expectations and experiences. Relationships are not something we learn how to do once and for all, rather they are a work in progress operating within a world which is also changing all the time.

The post Enduring Love? appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

After these journeys, Scrooge is returned to the present day: Christmas day. He is so appreciative of being given another chance that he delights in everything that previously would have elicited a ‘bah, humbug’. I would argue that one thing we can take from the story – whether or not we celebrate Christmas ourselves – is the value of being present. In understanding ourselves, in really seeing other people for what they are, and in remembering the impermanence of life, we can return to the present more fully than before in a way that is better for ourselves and for others around us.

Holiday seasons, however, are often times at which we are least able, or encouraged, to be present.

Jamie Heckert argues that we generally spend a lot of our time either in the future or in the past. When we are in the future we try to predict how things will work out or to force them to fit a certain ideal that we have. We are not in the present because we are too busy thinking about the next step or overall goal. When we are in the past we focus on attempting to become ‘the person who has done that’. The present is just a means to the end of building up a set of perfect memories that we can look back upon.

During the holiday times this future/past way of being is often exacerbated. We may spend the build up to the period dreaming up hopes and expectations for how it will be. For me, this year, this meant clinging on to an idealised notion of days relaxing by the fire to get me through the last few weeks of work. In such ways we often fix upon the past (the rituals that we do every year which must happen identically for it to be a ‘good’ holiday) as well as the future (how great the holidays will be once we have finally done everything).

There are many problems with this. For a start such fixed ideas are difficult if the people we share the holidays with have different ideas. In my case, for example, it will be problematic if their ideal of the holidays (which has built up just as intensely) is of getting out in the snowy hills, or of seeing lots of friends and family. We may find ourselves in blazing rows with partners, friends or family members as both parties feel the other is ruining our perfect Christmas, New Year, or whatever. Incidentally I have found that labelling one’s loved one a ‘Grinch’ under such circumstances is a particularly unhelpful way to go.

Another problem is that this rigid way of approaching holidays is inflexible to change. If anything happens to disrupt the usual festive rituals or our idealised fantasy (such as illness, travel problems, or lack of money) we may find it hard to adjust and so either lash out or plunge into despair. There is intense pressure on particular days to go well, such that even minor set-backs such as burnt potatoes or a duplicated present can feel as though they have spoiled everything.

We can also spend the festive days themselves stuck in past or future. If we are stuck in the past we might find ourselves constantly comparing this event to previous years to determine how it measures up (which is likely to be unfavourable if we are comparing it to a time when we were just enjoying it rather than worrying about whether we were having a good time). If tough stuff happened at this time of year previously we often find that it haunts us, or if things were particularly wonderful previously (perhaps with an ex partner or friend) then that can be equally difficult. We can also be in the past in a memory-building kind of way, spending the whole day trying to engineer perfect moments like Bill Murray does in Groundhog Day, or constantly capturing everything on camera or documenting it on facebook or twitter (not that these things are bad per se, but if we spend our whole time thinking ‘this would make a great blog entry’ we’re probably not completely present to ourselves or to the people around us!)

If we spend such days stuck in the future we might keep thinking about all the stuff we have to fit into the day, planning it in so much detail that we never actually enjoy what we are doing at the time. We open the presents worrying about getting the meal ready on time, we eat the meal thinking about all the washing up we’ll have to do, we wash up concerned whether there’ll be time for a walk while it is light, etc. etc. Or we may focus on the longer term future: how many more days we have off before we have to go back to work, or whether we’ll all be able to get together like this again next year.

Of course the day on which many of us become exceptionally future-focused is New Year’s Eve as not only is there a heap of pressure to be having the most wonderful time when midnight rolls around, but we are also focused on all the things we plan to do to make ourselves better people in the coming year. New Years resolutions easily become a way of focusing on a future perfected self rather than the perfectly acceptable self that we are at the moment, as well as becoming another stick to beat ourselves with as we inevitably struggle to match up to the ideals that we have set for ourselves.

An alternative to such resolutions might be a commitment to aspire to something, with the gentleness and awareness to appreciate that we won’t manage it all the time and that this is not just another thing to be hard on ourselves about.

I’m suggesting here that something we might commit to over the festive season and beyond is to be present to ourselves and to other people: to gently bring ourselves back from past-ruminations and future-planning to the present moment, however it is. For example, we might realise that even if it is New Year’s Eve we’re actually feeling tired and antisocial and would rather not party tonight. We might see the thought that went into the gift we’ve been given even if it isn’t what we were hoping for. We might find perfection in an unexpected moment such as washing up with our siblings or curling up alone with a leftover sandwich.

This blog entry is dedicated to my brother who, years ago, infamously excused his not having bought anyone a gift by saying ‘my love is your present’. Of course a Christmas never now goes by without this line being trotted out at some point, much to his embarrassment. But he was actually onto something. To paraphrase his original words, whatever gifts we actually give to each other, perhaps we could keep in mind the idea that ‘the present is your present’.

Find out more:

Being present is an idea which is common in Buddhist philosophies and the mindfulness therapies which are based on them. You can read more about this in my book Mindful Counselling & Psychotherapy.

The post Christmas presence: Being present over the festive season appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Relationships Today

Perhaps the first thing to say is that, whilst a royal wedding is rather an extreme situation, it also illustrates very well some wider patterns that are present in relationships today. Many commentators have linked their wedding to the recession, and certainly marriage is often found to be an almost ‘recession proof’ industry. When things are bad economically, people still want to get hitched.

Also, the desire to wed remains despite our knowledge of the high chances of the marriage ending at some point. In terms of UK statistics, one in ten marriages will not last five years, and somewhere between a third and a half will eventually end in divorce (more exact statistics are difficult due to yearly fluctuations). Of course, there is probably even more pressure on in the case of the royal wedding, due to the high rates of separation in the royal family (three out of four of the Queen’s children having been divorced).

So what does it mean that people are choosing to marry despite all of this? Perhaps it speaks to a great deal of hope that is being placed on romantic love, to the extent that some have suggested that it is almost a new religion in its own right. At a time when work is precarious, and when many people do not have strong religious beliefs, relationships are often the place that they turn to seek out validation, meaning and belonging. This is quite a change from past times when relationships generally served more practical purposes to do with finance, work and the raising of children. As historian, Stephanie Coontz, puts it: ‘people have always loved a love story. But for most of the past our ancestors did not try to live in one’. These days we do try to live in a love story, seeking out The One and hoping for a happily-ever-after despite all the evidence against this being the most likely outcome.

The pressure is on relationships to fulfil us in every way throughout our – increasingly long – lives. However, we also know that relationships are a point of great potential struggle and pain. Living up close alongside somebody for many, many years may be one of the most difficult things that any of us do. Indeed, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson argue that romantic relationships are the most dangerous places to be because they are where we are forced to confront ourselves and to learn about how we are capable of behaving. It might be possible to keep up a shiny, happy veneer with our work colleagues, our neighbours, and even our families once we are no longer living with them, but our partner gets to see us when we are at our most tired, stressed and ill.

This is something that is well captured in the Christian wedding vows. It really will be for better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health, and at the worse, poorer and sicker times we all (us and our loved ones) have the capacity for cruelty, coldness and cowardice. There will be times when we find ourselves frustrated, angry and bored with the love of our life and scared about what that may mean, as well as times when we see the loving gaze slip off their own faces to be replaced by something else. Such times can be terrifying if we have invested in this relationship the idea that it is a constant validation that we are okay and secure. It can be even harder if what we were expecting was some kind of constant perfection and happiness.

This may sound depressing and defeatist: an argument for not marrying at all, but it is not. Even if we didn’t get married, or form romantic partnerships, we would still get intimate and connected to people, and these struggles would still arise. What I am arguing against are the industries that continue to sell us dangerous myths of perfect people and eternal happiness: the ever-smiling billboard, television and movie couples, and the self-help books and magazines that promise to reveal the secrets of ‘successful’ relationships which will lead to impossibly happy-ever-afters. This is what so many publishers, advertisers and film-makers sell, because they know that people want to hear it. But our constant saturation in these messages is the very thing that is leading to so much pain and struggle and heartache. And the image of the perfect love may well result in us leaving a relationship too quickly assuming that there must be something wrong with it, or staying in a tough relationship too long because we don’t want to admit to ‘failure’.

Perhaps instead of loading all these expectations and pressures onto every marrying couple we could offer something different: a recognition that relationships will be tough at times and that there aren’t any simple tricks to constant happiness. As Beck and Beck-Gernsheim have pointed out, along with wanting a great deal from relationships, relationships themselves have changed so much in the last few decades that we can feel lost and uncertain. Old rules, for example about rigid gender roles in relationships, no longer apply, but there are no new rules out there for us to follow either. As they put it: ‘love is becoming a blank that lovers must fill in themselves’.

If love is a blank then the thing that is, perhaps, most needed to fill in that blank is communication. The wedding gift that we might give to couples, based on all the relationship therapy and research about relationships, would be communication.

A Wedding Gift: Communication

I’ll use the wedding vows that royal couples make to demonstrate both the importance of communication these days, and also the ways in which it might work. We make a lot of explicit, and implicit, promises to each other all the way through relationships, but we often fail to think much about what these promises mean, or to check whether they mean the same thing to both people. Research suggests that young couples actually often disagree quite strongly about the things that they thought they had both signed up to.

Royal wedding vows are the ones from the Church of England 1662 Book of Common Prayer. This means that they will go something like this:

‘I, xxx, take you, xxx, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward; for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish, till death do us part; according to God’s holy law. In the presence of God I make this vow.’ (and vice versa)

And later: ‘With this Ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.’

There are a lot of promises in there. To pick out some key ones, it seems that in marriage people are promising the following:

• To stay together, through whatever happens, till death
• To love each other throughout this time To have, or belong to, each other
• To be sexual throughout the relationship (with my body I thee worship)
• To share their worldly goods (usually understood as living together and sharing money)

In terms of the first promise, it might be useful – giving the statistics on separation – for couples to talk through this commitment. Would they want to stay together in exactly the same way, for example, if they found that they were fighting all the time in ways that hurt themselves and those close to them, or if one or both of them changed such that they found themselves with very different life goals. Some recognition that people and relationships change over time would be helpful here, and perhaps thinking about what they might do when such changes happen. Would the relationship staying in its current form be prioritised over their well-being? The idea that relationships can shift and change might take the pressure off a little as it offers something in between staying together exactly as we are, or completely ending the relationship.

In terms of loving each other throughout, it is worth talking through what love means to each person and how they express it, or like to have it expressed. People often feel very differently about this, for example, with one person liking regular declarations of love and big romantic gestures, whilst the other prefers practical signs that the other person has taken them into consideration (by doing the washing up, for example), or thinks about them during the day (the odd text message).

In terms of having and holding, it is very important to consider to what extent people belong to each other and to what extent they are free. This is at the root of so many big relationship conflicts. For example, one person might make a decision about their career which the other would have expected to be consulted upon, or one might think that they were free to be closer to certain friends than the other is happy with.

There is also often an expectation that marriages will stay sexual throughout, but there tends to be very little communication about what sex means to each person and what they actually enjoy. Research has found that people who have been in relationships for over a decade still haven’t told their partners all of their sexual likes and dislikes, and of course these can change over time. It is useful to talk through what people want sex for, which actually differs quite a lot (e.g. from a release, to an affirmation of their attractiveness, to a reassurance about the relationship, to an expression of intimacy, to a sense of a physical need that requires regular fulfilment), and also recognise that this will fluctuate through the relationship too.

Finally, it is well worth communicating about what will be shared and what will be separate. Does sharing worldly goods mean having joint finances, for example, or keeping some separate? Do we expect to spend all our time together, or to have periods of separation? What are the limits on what would be acceptable (e.g. can we go on holiday with other people, or work apart for a while)? And what about space? Are we planning to live together, sleep together? Will there be any separate space? Who will be responsible for keeping shared space clean and tidy (and to what extent)? Or for caring for children, pets or plants? Will we have any things we keep private (e.g. certain activities or information)?

It is likely that with all these kinds of questions and more, there will be some aspects that both people agree on, some where they disagree but are able to reach a compromise which meets each other’s requirements as well as possible, and some where they simply can’t agree. These last ones occur in every relationship. They are points of tension which are likely to crop up every now and again, but can be a lot easier to cope with if there is awareness of them and respect for difference (rather than each person trying to force the other into their way of thinking). It can be very hard to respect that, while you would like to share everything, the other person really values keeping some things to themselves, or while you like lots of public displays of affection and ‘I love you’s’, the other person prefers more private intimacy. Also, of course, both people will change over time, so it is worth revisiting these promises and seeing whether things have altered and any renegotiation is necessary, rather than ‘you’ve changed’ being a fatal accusation.

Hopefully a grounding of mutual commitment to communication, to respect for difference and change, and to understanding and forgiveness for behaviour when things get tough, will be a better basis for the rough and the smooth to come, than the expectation of perfection (in oneself and one’s partner) and a fairytale happily-ever-after.

Find Out More:

There’s more on all these topics in my books Rewriting the Rules, and The Secrets of Enduring Love

The post The Royal We: Advice for marriage and commitment appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.