41: What is the Easiest and Best Thing You Can Do For Your Relationship?

If you're a parent and married or living together. You don’t have a lot of time. Here I’ll share the easy and best thing you can do for your relationship.

I’ll share the basic frame I use with all the couples I work with. And we’ll start at the most fun – more harmony.

Appreciation Reflections:

·       What are some of my partner’s unique positive traits?

·       How have I benefited from those positive traits?

·       How has my partner made me a better person?

·       What do they do for you and your family?

·       In what ways have I grown while with my partner?

·       Reflect on an amazing vacation or getaway together. What about that was so great?

Naikan Reflection:

·       What have I received from my partner?

·       What have I given to my partner?

·       What troubles and difficulties have I caused my partner?

Welcome Home Exercise

Love Language Quiz

More about Jason Polk, Couples Therapist

Transcript

Jason: 0:00

Today, I'll share with you a basic frame I use with all couples I work with, and we'll start with the most fun and that is working for more harmony and connection. What's up everyone? This is Jason Polk you're listening to Healthy Relationship Secrets for Parents, the podcast that saves your relationship from parenthood. My mission is to help you have a thriving relationship. and be great parents at the same time. The question is, what is the easiest and best thing you can do for your relationship? If you're a parent and married or living together, let's face it. You don't have a lot of time here. I'll share a great place to start. And the thing is, it's not too painful. We're going to talk about in a subsequent episode, having less disharmony and that can be a little more difficult. But here we're focusing on creating more harmony and it can be fun. We all want more connection, right? We want to feel closer to our partner. We want peace. We want to get along. So why not practice building this peace? Why not practice creating more connection? Sometimes, we focus on things we shouldn't do. We focus on avoiding conflict, avoiding disharmony. But one way of looking about it too, while that's important and we're really going to discuss that, we can also work on creating connection. Personally, if I'm feeling connected to my wife, her inherent natural annoyances are not as loud. I don't care as much if she leaves her stuff on the floor. Number one, an easy but really important place to start is to create appreciation. I'm going to give you some questions that I want you to reflect on. And don't worry, I'll put these questions in the show notes. So if you're driving, don't try to write them down at the same time. Obviously. Number 1 what are some of my partner's unique positive traits? Number two. How have I benefited from those positive traits? Number three, how has my partner made me a better person? Number four, what do they do for you and your family? Number five, in what ways have I grown while with my partner? Number six, reflect on an amazing vacation you two had together. Uh, what about it was so great and maybe even pause. Hopefully you have a really good getaway, with your partner. My wife and I, we've been to Florida several times we kind of like the Gulf side where generally it's a less hip side as opposed to the Miami side. But man, we love this chill at the beach and generally when we're at the Gulf, um, and the temperature. The water is perfect. I digress. So, think about an amazing vacation. Also, acknowledge your partner doing things like, thank you for making the coffee, thank you for taking out the trash. Think of the things that, although they may be small, your partner does around the house. Any... Positive acknowledgement is a good thing. Okay, so you have your list. The next thing you do is to share this with your partner. And if appropriate, you may request your partner do the same. Starting to build appreciation is relatively easy. And it can go a long way. Here's a quote from John Gottman. He's a couples researcher. He says, Active focusing on your partner's merits allows you to nurture gratefulness for what you have instead of resenting what is missing. So that's really, really important. Imagine if we had more gratitude for what we're getting and less on what we're not getting. There is a formal practice that I've done once, and this practice is called Nikon. And Nikon practice originated in Japan, and is designed to cultivate appreciation and humility with three simple questions. And I changed these to gear them toward your relationship. Number one, what have I received from my partner? Number two, what have I given my partner? Number three, and here's a good one, what troubles and difficulties have I caused my partner? Now this last question, the purpose is not to make you feel like crap, but I think the purpose is to reflect on your side. There's always things we can do better. It also creates humility. And while I was writing this, I reflected on that question in my own relationship. What troubles and difficulties have I caused Jess? And I can be judgmental and critical. Where does that come from? Just like my dad, I'm a therapist, so I think of these things. It feels bad for Jess when I'm like that. Jess obviously, doesn't like it. The potential of this exercise is that I can appreciate she stays with me despite me being a pain in the ass sometimes. Obviously, this doesn't excuse my behavior and I'm working on being less judgmental, of course. however, if I do want to offer feedback it's important to do so. Obviously without the criticism and the harshness. Okay, so that's it. There's some questions for appreciation, and if you want to do that Nikon exercise, I'm going to put the list in the show notes. Next, it's knowing what makes your partner feel loved. How do we know what makes our partner feel loved? Chances are if you've been together for a bit, you have a pretty good idea. Ha ha ha. Uh, one way to get more familiar with that is to take the language of love quiz. I'm going to put a link on that in the show notes as well. You two both take it and share your results with each other. Another thing, and I got this from doing couples therapy with my wife. Our couples therapist gave us exercise for share a list of 20 to 30 things your partner can do for you. That can make you feel loved or make you feel nice, and then you share that with your partner. Be specific. Ideally, what a video camera can record, not, I want them to be more empathetic, right? Okay, what does that look like? What would they be saying to convey that empathy? So that's the purpose of the list. Okay, so you make a list, you give it to your partner, you share the love language quiz results and then simply with this new information, you do it. Give to your partner through their love language do some of those things throughout the week that can go a long, long way. this was even noted in our couples therapy. Even small tweaks can go a long way. Okay, so we got appreciation, we got knowing what makes your partner feel loved. Next one is pretty quick. It's simply greeting each other when you get home. I made a video with my wife. It's called the welcome home exercise. And again, I put a lot of links in these show notes. I'm going to share the link of the video. But basically what it, is when you get home, the partner who is home simply drops everything, unless you're in the restroom, of course, and gets up and greets your partner. Okay. And then the next one, an easy and fun thing to do to create more connection is to have a date night. I know it's cliche, but as parents, you gotta do this. First, get a sitter, if needed. Number two, go on a date. It is that simple and you know,, you may devote more time to your children, work, hobbies, exercise than your relationship. part of the mission of this podcast is to remind you to move the relationship up a little bit more in your hierarchy of time allocation. If that makes sense, we want to make it more of a priority. And the reason why we do this is because we benefit. The last one is to consider having a weekly meeting, consider having a weekly check in. And that basically gives opportunity for anything that has come up, any issues that have arose. Get on the same page with kids, finances, and John Gottman, who I mentioned, I got this idea from him for a weekly meeting. He talks about start it with appreciation. And good thing you now know ways to express appreciation. And then share what you would like to talk about if anything and then end on What can I do that can make you feel loved slash appreciated in this upcoming week? So that's it Things you can do that. I think are easy and fun is to appreciate your partner Knowing what makes your partner feel loved and then doing what that is. Greeting each other when you get home, having a date night. And consider having a weekly meeting to get on the same page. Trust me, that's going to create more harmony, connection in your relationship, which is what we want. So thank you for listening and next week. I'm really excited. I have an interview with a social worker from Quebec her name is Anouk She works with emotionally intense kids and we're gonna talk about that We're gonna explore that and then how to navigate that with your partner. So again Thank you so much for listening. And Hey, a reminder. If you've benefited from this material, please give a review and share this with anyone who could benefit as well. Again, thanks for listening.