“Let’s Work on Our Relationship.”
"Oh boy, I can’t wait. When can we get started?"
All joking aside - be honest, does that phrase make you want to run for the hills? It would make me want to! You’ll get a better response if you say something like, “Hey, you want some alone time or you want to do something with me?” And if they want to do something with you - brainstorm how to spend the next hour, or evening, or day, with you!
I’d be willing to bet that you’d make more headway AND you’d have fun in the process. Another time you might want to say: Hey, I could use some alone time, is it okay with you if I go to my “Man Cave,” or my “She Shed?” Then when I’m in a better mood can we do something together?
Almost every couple who comes to see me begins by telling me they have to work on their relationship!
I don't know how that misunderstanding became so popular but it really needs to be dispelled. After all, does the idea of working on your relationship really sound appealing to anyone reading this? Are you going to jump out of bed in the morning so happy that you can start working on your relationship today? That doesn’t sound very good to me, unless you’re wanting to create a platonic work partnership. In fact, the idea of having to work on a relationship signifies dissatisfaction with “the relationship.” When in fact, the only real relationship we can ever have is the one we have with our own thinking! Since every experience we have, from birth to death, is coming through us from Mind, Consciousness and Thought! No one on the planet can make us feel a certain way, only our thinking about them, and the situation can do that.
As my teacher, Sydney Banks would say:
“The only thing wrong with any relationship is negative thinking.”
That was one of the most profound truths I ever realized in life. It sounds so simple, perhaps even simplistic, but wow, when you see how profound that really is, the game changes!
From what I’ve observed about the idea of having to work on a relationship:
It makes people hold the other person accountable - tit for tat - you’re not working as hard as I am, thinking.
It increases the level of insecurity - the amount of work becomes evidence of whether your partner cares enough about you, when in fact s/he may have just had a really rough day at the office.
It becomes yet another yardstick to judge your partner by - as if you couldn’t find enough to judge, without this too?
Plain and simple - working on a relationship does not work out well; not for either person, so how did that idea become popular?
What if the reverse was actually true? What if having fun together brought you closer together and more in alignment with each other? When people interact with a nice feeling, they treat each other with kindness. It’s automatic. It doesn’t take work. While the couple who's working on their relationship, has their head down, nose to the grindstone, thinking about what they should do to make things better. How boring and awful is that? Get out, have some fun and then when you’re back in the house all energized and connected, brainstorm how to get through the household tasks in as pleasant a way as possible.
I knew a father who liked a tidy home but his teenage son just couldn’t understand why that would be so important, so the father, in a moment of humored called himself Felix - when he got home from work he’d called up to his son, and said: “Hey Oscar, Felix is home.” That was a signal for his son to come on down to the living room and they’d both pick things up and tidy the place up. That became a ritual of theirs which was actually quite bonding, as they both straightened things out together, they’d chat about their day. You’d be amazed at the creativity the mind will deliver when we’re not smothering it in personal thinking, taking ourselves too seriously!
What if all it took to have a fantastic relationship was understanding something about how the mind works, to everyone’s advantage, when you know how to access the creative power source?
What do you think about the idea of having to work on your relationship? What are your thoughts about this? I'm really curious. Please comment below.
It’s good to find a sense of humor about how we operate!
