As a life coach, part of my job is to support my clients in having amazing relationships with everyone in their life. But often I find that a person's primary relationship with their spouse, lover, or partner is the most significant and influential.
If you are not in a good place in your primary relationship, then it has a negative impact on everything you do in your life. So in the Inspired Action Coaching program I place great emphasis on being in harmony at all times with your primary partner.
Here are six questions that I recommend you ask each other on a weekly basis to clear out any resentment that has built up, or any complaints that might get in the way. Here goes!
1. Is there anything that you are making me wrong for? Are you thinking I am wrong for any reason?
Now the trick here as the asker of the question is to realize that your goal is to resolve the feelings that are happening between you two. So when your spouse or partner says, "I'm mad at this" or "I am upset about that," your job is to just listen and take responsibility for the way they are experiencing you.
So their viewpoint is not necessarily the truth, but that is how your partner is experiencing you, and their feelings of upset are valid for them even though you might have excuses and reasons about whatever it is they have made you wrong about. This is not an opportunity to share your reaction to the experience. It is an opportunity to agree, to appreciate, to understand, and to take responsibility for those things that your partner experienced as feeling upset because of you.
2. Is there anything you have been trying to tell me that I haven't heard you say?
Again, your job as the asker of this question is to simply listen and listen only. This is not a time to argue, this is not a time to take positions or to be defensive. It is an opportunity for your partner to say everything that is on their mind. Truth be told, the two of you are off leading your own lives during the week. You are not normally focused on listening to each other.
3. Which of your needs are not currently being met?
Now, by asking this question, you discover what it is your partner needs and you're able to then make a promise to meet those needs or say that you're not going to meet those needs, or negotiate, or whatever it is. But the issue that we're faced with is that our partner is wanting these needs met, believes that we need to be meeting them, but we don't even know about them, or maybe we do know about them, but we had forgotten or not created a structure for needs to be met, so this is an opportunity to open that up. Maybe one partner wants to be taken to the movies. Or would like cuddling time with you. Or perhaps a partner needs time without the kids, where you are taking over. What is it? Get it out in the open.
4. What are you happy about in our relationship?
Now this gives your partner an opportunity to talk about what is good, what is right, what is working, what are you excited about, and what feels good right now. Our mind's job is to focus on what is potentially wrong and then avoid it, so this is a way of really subverting the mind's normal function and getting it to function in a more powerful way. Gratitude is so, so powerful in relationships.
5. What would you like to be acknowledged for?
When you ask your mate what you want to be acknowledged for, it honors that the two of you are not necessarily together all the time and there are things that your partner is very proud of that he or she wants to be acknowledged for, and you have an opportunity to acknowledge them. It really makes a big different in relationship to be able to acknowledge each other.
6. What are you committed to in our relationship this week?
When you ask that question, it creates a whole different way of operating inside of your relationship. Now you're operating inside of a commitment and you know where the other person stands, what they are up to, what they are committed to. It will profoundly impact the positive feelings in your relationship.
Now, the first time you have this conversation with your partner, your mate, your spouse, it's going to be a long conversation because you haven't been this deeply in communication in a long time. The second time, it will be shorter and easier; the third, easier and easier.
My wife Claudine and I have been doing this process since 1999, and today we just zip through. In fact, we're so used to clearing up and acknowledging each other and talking about what we're happy about with each other, that we don't even wait for the Sunday date night conversation to come. We just have the conversation ongoing all the time. It's just now, how we deal with each other. It took practice, it wasn't easy, it wasn't our normal way, but eventually, if you will keep this structure in place, your relationship will get into an amazing spot. You will be blown away by it. You will feel so happy.
