Expressions of Love in Marriage

At this web site, there is a great reminder of how important it is to expression love in your marriage.  Check it out!

SSS Aproach to Balance

Often we can find ourselves trying to balance many roles in our lives, such as spouse, mother/father, employee, etc.  It can be difficult to not get caught up in one role or the other, which can result in the other's coming up a little short.  There are skills out there that can help us to find more balance in our family and home life even with all of these roles.  One such technique that is taught by Dr. Victor Harris in his book Balancing Work and Family in the Real World is the SSS Approach.  The SSS stands for Support, Share, and Strategize.

Support Collaboration is key.  Support your spouse or partner on specific household and childcare tasks.  Work as a team on certain issues involving your family and home life and delegate certain responsibilities and tasks in a fair manner.  Tap into skills/qualities you use in your career to help in your family and home life as well.  Discuss work and family life priorities with your spouse/partner and what you both consider these to successfully look like.

Share Delineating a responsibility as completely "yours" or "mine" discourages sharing in tasks and it discourages taking over certain responsibilities when it is necessary at times.  Share in your family tasks even if you decide on who has primary responsibility over that task.  It is necessary for you to make choices and remain flexible each day.  It's OK to feel guilty or feel insecure about your performance as a spouse/partner, parent, or employee.  Everyone experiences these feelings, and you should accept them.  Share your feelings of guilt and stress, as well as your insecurities, with your spouse/partner.

Strategize It's one thing to say you will share in a responsibility; it's another thing to actually do it.  Develop strategies or action plans with your spouse/partner on how you will handle certain responsibilities or regular issues that arise.  Together, write them down and discuss them as a team like you would prepare for a meeting or presentation. 

Take a few minutes now to think about one or two issues that you regularly struggle with, and think of an action plan to involve your spouse/partner using the SSS approach to help you balance these issues more effectively.  Then, sit down to discuss it with your spouse, and modify it together as needed.

Relationship Skills

We all have relationships with people, whether it is with our spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, or even our children.  While most of the time we love those we have relationships with, sometimes we lack the basic skills in keeping those relationships healthy.  John Gottman, one of the nation's leading researchers on why marriages are successful or unsuccessful, has come up with nine important relationship skills.  While these are given with marriage in mind, I think they are important tools for any relationship.  Dr. Gottman and his researchers have pinpointed these nine skills and have determined that, if learned, these skills can help to put a relationship on a positive path.  There are basically two different categories for these skills: the do's and the don'ts.

The Don'ts

1. Criticism-Attacking someone's personality or character with accusations and blame (for example, "You never think of anyone else," or "How can you be so stupid").

2. Contempt-Intentional insulting, name calling, rolling the eyes, sneering.

3. Defensiveness-Feeling victimized by others in response to contempt, and refusing to take responsibility for personal actions.  Being defensive blocks a couple's ability to deal with an issue.  Even if one partner feels completely justified in his/her actions, becoming defensive only adds to the couple's problems.

4. Stonewalling-Withdrawing from interactions and refusing to communicate at all.  When couples refuse to communicate about their issues, the relationship becomes fragile. (Note: It is completely fair in a relationship to explain to your partner that you are overloaded emotionally and that you need to take a break, call "time out," and calm down before you say something you don't mean.)

The Do's

5. Calm Down-Disengaging from an interaction before something hurtful is said must last for at least 25 minutes for a person to really calm down.  Otherwise, it is easy to slip back into an emotionally charged conversation and to say things that are hurtful.

6. Complaint-Bringing up a complaint about a specific issue or behavior is actually one of the healthiest activities a couple can engage in (for example, "When you fail to call me to let me know you are going to be late, it makes me feel like you aren't considering my feelings and the fact that I will worry about you.")

7. Speak Non-Defensively-This kind of language is an art form that usually includes speaking with a soft voice, beginning with "I feel..." statements rather than "You..." statements.  Listeners must demonstrate trust in order to communicate effectively without eliciting defensiveness.

8. Validate-To validate another person, one must: Listen by giving full attention, listen to the emotions and needs being expressed, and understand from the other person's point of view.

9. Overlearn Skills-To overlearn means to master the eight other skills in the list so that they remain available even in times of weariness, stress, or anger.

One suggestion I would give if you really want to know where your strengths and weaknesses are in these skills is to keep track of them for a week.  Write them down on a tally sheet, and then 3 or 4 times a day put a plus or minus sign next to each skill: a plus if you did the skill correctly, or a negative sign if you did not.  After the week is up, tally up all your scores and see where you stand.  This also helps you to learn the skills better, and think about them more often, which can help you implement them more in your life, which is good!  You can also use this same method to track your 8 personal needs to see what areas you are lacking in and need to improve in to help find greater balance and happiness in your life!

Marriage Tips

10 Ways to Daily Improve Any Relationship
Complied by Victor W. Harris, MS
Professor at USU

1. Say "I love you"
2. Kiss or hug
3. Give a compliment
4. Mediate for 3 minutes (Why it is wonderful to be married to my partner. . .)
5. Touch "Goodbye"
6. Touch "Hello"
7. Share a personal feeling
8. Perform an Act of Service
9. Keep a Promise (Trust)
10. Provide Surprises