Marriage Counselor – Page 5 – One Life Only Counseling Services

Divorced? Separated? What can you do?

by Nathan Chua

It took quite a while, but after listening to a podcast interview between Steven Hayes and a couple of divorced individuals, I realized that there is a significant part of the population that I might have missed writing about in a while. I mean we even have local laws that give this segment of our population the same perks as the elderly and differently-abled. Like them, I have also had my share of failed relationships to say the least! How could I?

One of the main problems that people in this segment find themselves in is the walls that they can build around them. Borrowing from an illustration that Dr. Hayes used to describe what these walls signify in our language, it is like asking these clients who have chosen this path after a painful end to a relationship to fill in the blank in this statement, “I will never be that _________ again.” The words that came out of your head tell you what these walls were meant to protect. In the interview Dr. Hayes and the interviewers came up with the following: trusting, innocent, and vulnerable.

Now don’t get me wrong though, there is a place to be mindful of red flags in a potential relationship. But for many who become closed off to relationships and the risks of having one again, they usually end up lonely. They substitute the pain of presence with the pain of absence.

Here’s my version of a little metaphor that Dr. Darin Cairns used in one of his demonstration counseling sessions. If you were playing a therapist to a client named Joe, who decided after being dumped by the love of his life, to remain closed off from any future dates with other women, ask yourself a few questions about him. Do you think that Joe would become safer and less vulnerable to getting hurt? Of course. In the long term though, if he remains unwilling to go out and date someone, do you think he’d be happier? Would he be more or less lonely using this way of coping in the long run? You’d probably say no to both.

Recovering from a lost relationship takes a bit of a balance. You and I still have that part of us that’s willing to go out there and try something different. It is something we share with other animals. We learn by trial and error. We have a bonus though, we also have minds that can direct us to what really matters to us in the long run. If we learn to open up to the pain of our past, we also learn that we care about relationships, or what it is that’s important to us. If you sense the same negative feelings you have had with that abusive partner, then it’s probably time to say no to another one. The problem happens when you and I close off to those painful memories of the past, then we are liable to become victims of the same problems in the future because we don’t learn from them. We just run away from them.

We might also cling on to the belief that somehow our relationship will change the person in front of us. Our problem-solving minds really try to do us the service of staying away from unpleasant thoughts and feelings and clinging on to the pleasant ones, so much so that we are left unaware of the possibility that we are falling into the same traps in the past. Yes, it may feel good to see how you changed the individual in front of you, but do wait for a while and see if it lasts. As Dr. Russ Harris mentioned in one of his training modules, there is a difference between blind and mindful trust.

To summarize, if there was a rule that I can recommend you do in your future as a single individual looking for companionship or deciding to choose a life as a single, then it is this. Be mindful. Be mindful of what you see in front of you, be mindful of your thoughts and feelings, and be mindful of your dreams and aspirations. Maybe then you’d come to see that whether you remain single or find that relationship that you’ve been looking for, you still have a full life in front of you that’s vital and challenging at the same time.

You can regain that vulnerability and innocence all over again, but also be wiser and more mindful at the same time.

Listen to this blogpost on Spotify! Click here!

Vulnerability: The Price of Admission to a Loving Relationship

by Nathan Chua

If you are one of my readers who is married, let me ask you this question, “Was there some little, small part of you that wondered if marrying this person, a right decision?” If your mind is just like mine, I am sure it did. There’s a funny anecdote about what comes to the mind of a bride as she walks down the aisle to wed her fiance. It’s a play with homonyms, “Aisle, altar, hymn,” turns into, “I’ll alter him!”

If you are one of my readers who was making a big decision of buying a car or a home, was there a little, small part of you that questioned such a decision? If your mind is just like mine, I am sure it did.

If you are one of my readers who is deciding on whether to start a career or go back to school for higher levels of education, is there a little, small part of you that questioned such a choice? If your mind is just like mine, I am sure it did.

As you can see, all of us have one thing in common, that judging, comparing, and problem-solving part of us that is located in between our ears. In some cases, it’s basically telling us that all choices have to be easy and that we can always hold on to both sides of a decision without sacrificing the other.

As we get near Valentine’s day, I want you to start noticing what your mind tells you is not working in your relationship. Are you starting to feel like the moments when you’re feeling resentful in your relationship are increasing while the pleasant ones are coming fewer and farther between? If so, the next step is to notice what you do when these resentments take over your behavior. Do you become aggressive, passive, or passive aggressive when these resentments show up? Are you starting to see your partner as a problem to solve? As someone who needs some psychological fix? As someone who is incapable of doing certain things that you like? On those occasions, what do you notice happens to your interaction with your partner? Are your ways of interacting or communicating helping you get into a more intimate relationship, or is it making your relationship more distant and problematic?

Secondly, remember that that problem-solving part of your mind is there for a good reason. It wants to protect you from harm and help you get through challenges to your personal comfort. The least it wants to happen is to keep you in a vulnerable state. When it’s time to check your finances because you seem to be losing part of your savings, your problem-solving mind will tell you that you need to find out what’s wrong and what’s making your finances vulnerable to the changing conditions in your work or career. If you are being attacked by a dog, your problem-solving mind will help you get out of that vulnerable situation and into safety. If your partner is physically abusive and verbally threatening, then your problem-solving mind can help you find ways to escape such vulnerable situations or find help from the authorities.

When it is our inner experiences that are involved though, our minds still treat our thoughts, emotions, urges, and physical sensations as external threats. It’s part of the work that is done in therapy where people learn to recognize what is a mental or inner threat and what is an actual physical threat. We can escape, fight, or surrender to a physical threat to stop the pain, but we cannot do the same to our inner experiences in order for them to go away, at least without severe consequences to our own vitality. To paraphrase an expert, “Where are you gonna go where your thoughts, feelings, memories, and emotions don’t go?”

Whether you’re celebrating Valentine’s day with a romantic partner, a parent, or some other loved one, the key to a connected and loving relationship is opening up to your more vulnerable feelings. For those of you who are married, remember that your vows meant that you are opening yourself up to vulnerability. No matter how perfect your partner may seem, he or she may suffer a debilitating disease or die anytime. You are taking that step towards the risk of experiencing emotional pain, because love and vulnerability come in a package. Vulnerability means you open up to the pain of possible loss, rejection, mistakes, and many others that come with what is called that state of being human by both you and your loved ones.

Let me end with this quote from Ross White:

“Vulnerability is the price of admission for a vital and meaningful life. If we are to be true to what is important to us, we will inevitably expose ourselves to some risk,” Ross White

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Listen to this article on Spotify! Click here!

How to start Marriage/Relationship Number 2

by Nathan Chua

New year, new dear? Yes, you can, as a couple, start your relationship all over again! You might be wondering how in the world can I, as a counselor, help you change your partner? Oh he’s been like that for a good part of two decades now! What gives me the audacity to claim I can change your partner? Well, there is a way my friends! And the wonderful thing about it, is it’s up to you, not your partner. Let me tell you how to curtail your long wait.

I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but paradoxically, the best way to change your partner is to accept him! Of course I’d be lying if I told you that this was guaranteed. But chances are, if you’re reading this, you’ve already tried many, many ways to change your partner, and they all haven’t worked. In fact, the more you try to change your partner, the more rigid he becomes. Most of the time, you find yourselves stuck in a verbal skirmish that could put to shame some lawyers you know, in terms of the tenacity and adroit argumentation that both you and your partner display.

Let me explain what I mean with an example. If let’s say your partner is not as neat and tidy as you are. You are now exhausted with all the cleaning up to do and the reminders you have to make to help your partner remember to do her side of the bargain. You then come to therapy and learn that these things are better off accepted and can take a long time to change, especially with the way you have been heretofore dealing with the problem. Based on this new understanding or awareness that what you have been doing is part of what keeps you stuck, you start laying off on the reminders and become more accepting of the fact that your partner will be hard-pressed to turn into the neat and tidy person that you want. There is a likelihood that your partner will notice the change in your attitude. You no longer holler and complain as much as you used to. She may notice that and begin to see how hard it is for you to be left alone taking care of house chores. Pretty soon you see her performing some of the chores to please you, precisely because you have accepted her with these differences she brings into the relationship.

Another tip is also to be more noticing of your partner’s efforts to change. If you notice that she has started doing some unexpected cleaning, be mindful enough to show her your appreciation. Give her a smile or a hug or say some encouraging words of appreciation. You’d know more than I do what makes your partner happy. Show her that you’re not missing the forest for the tree…maybe for the first time in a long long while.

Now, do you notice also that in both of these pieces of advice that I just enumerated, who is in control? Is it your partner or you? It is you. You have control over your actions of whether to accept your partner’s differences in the way she keeps her place tidy. You also have control over your behaviors that involve encouraging her by your appreciation.

So creating marriage number two is not about changing your partner, it’s more about changing you! And the most accessible parts of you that can be changed, are those that involve your choices to act. You may feel frustrated and uncomfortable, but in the end you have the option to keep whining and complaining and criticizing your partner, or start the process by coming to accept that certain things are hard to change.

As a summary of what you can keep in mind to help you change the way you have been approaching your relationship or marital concerns, here are some immortal words from Albert Einstein, “We cannot solve problems with the same thinking that we used to create them.”

Listen to this blogpost on Spotify! Click here!

The Surefire Way to Save Your Relationship!

by Nathan Chua

More often than not, couples come to counseling explaining their respective sides of the mess that has become of their relationship. Each of them has turned into a lawyer for their respective cases to prosecute and defend. For the trained eye though, they are engaging in a pattern of attack and defend. They’ve come to therapy to find an advocate or the ultimate authority in the person of the counselor. It is the therapist or counselor who will make the final determination of who is right and who is wrong. In some cases, they see the therapist as the final arbiter who can determine the fate of their relationship.

For those who are hoping to find some ways of resolving their differences, they face the dilemma of still loving and caring for their partner, but at the same time, can’t wrap their heads around why they end up fighting like mortal enemies over some trivial matters. It’s like their partner turns into something else other than the person they fell in love with. This while each shows glimpses of that lovable side in more sober moments.

Couples find themselves dealing with two dilemmas. These twin dilemmas are what I described in the first paragraph of this blogpost. The dilemma about who’s right and who’s wrong (i.e. who should back down and submit to the authority of the counselor), and the dilemma of whether the relationship is worth saving or not.

Fortunately, there is a surefire way to save your relationship. I believe that no matter what you end up doing as a couple, a successful handling of your dilemma means that you retain a relationship with your partner regardless of whether it remains together or not. With this silver bullet to all relationships, a couple may end up having a better way of handling their conflicts, or discover that they might be better off as separate individuals who can still learn to be friends after.

The best way to find out what the ultimate fate of the relationship will be, is to change the only thing that each partner has the most control over: Themselves! In other words, if you change yourself for the better, you are more likely to enjoy a couple of possible results. You either end up having a better relationship because your partner notices your positive changes, or you realize that no matter how much you change, your partner doesn’t.

Let’s take the first possible result. If your partner senses the positive changes you have made, there is a greater likelihood that they will change too. For example, when, after years of trying, you decide not to badger your partner about how messy the room is. Your partner may notice that sudden but welcome change. Having felt relieved of the constant reminders, your partner may in turn show you their appreciation by, well, cleaning up the room!

Changing yourself can also solve the dilemma of whether you should stay in the relationship or otherwise. If you have done your part to make changes in yourself and see a lack of response in your partner, then maybe it’s time to come to the realization that you no longer share the same ideas about who or what is important to both of your lives at this moment. By getting yourself out of the attack and defend pattern, you will know that your partner’s unresponsiveness is not rooted in the way you handle conflict, but a difference in your life directions.

To end this post, just remember that when all things seem hopeless, you still have yourself to count on for change.

“Be the change you want to see in the world,” Mahatma Gandhi.

Listen to this post on Spotify! Click here!

Why some good advice may be bad for your relationship

by Nathan Chua

These words of wisdom can range from the general to the specific. How often have you and I heard some talk show hosts and even some clergy, tell us what to do in our relationships, only to find out that these seem to backfire or only give short term results but eventually fail us when we most need them in our most distressing moments.

Here are some examples that hopefully covers the general and the specific advice:

Love your spouse.
Do something to satisfy your partner’s love language everyday.
Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.
Don’t be stingy with your apologies. Apologize as soon as you can whenever conflict ensues.

If these types of advice did work for the majority of us, then we would see a lot less marital discords and separations in our midst. Last I heard, the “divorce” rate in our country doesn’t veer away much from the averages in more economically-developed countries. Last I heard also, the divorce rates among therapists are even higher than the average in a developed country like the United States.

For example, let’s use the advice that one should immediately seek reconciliation with a partner to avoid drifting apart. One way to do that is to make an apology as soon as the conflict starts. This could end up with the couple not just fighting about what they fought about, but also fighting about how the apology was done! Double whammy! And then the couple goes off on a tangent with even more issues about the past or future worries about how the relationship will unfold.

Context Matters:

The types of advice we hear from talk shows and read about online are well-meant. I mean who could argue that you should make an apology or that you should address your partner’s love language. The reason this doesn’t qualify as the silver bullet for change in your relationship, is that we are all different based on our own histories, and also that not all situations are the same.

Going back to the earlier mentioned example, a highly conflict-avoidant partner may use quick apologies to appease situations. The offended party though has a history of ranting and in his or her view, being hit immediately by an apology doesn’t offer a chance to release some of that inner tension or start any kind of meaningful talk.

So for instance, they fight about one not being responsible enough to take out the garbage, Partner A is angry because this has become a constant irritant between them while Partner B uses his quick apology once again to keep the peace. A now becomes more annoyed because this was not the first time B has used his apology to avert a discussion. For A, this does not allow for them to have a constructive conversation or a moment when they are both open to arriving at a compromise. And there they go! A gets into a fit that B does this, and B retorts that A should be more receptive to his or her apologies. So the fight goes from a simple household chore, to their differences in the way they handle conflict. Sound familiar?

As you can see from this example, no advice however sensical they may sound, will be done in a vacuum. In other words, the solution becomes the problem so that the original problem remains while they fight about the solution that didn’t work because one did not live up to the expectation that the solution is supposed to provide!

So next time be mindful of the advice that you hear in popular media and psychology. Understand that your partner and you are unique and your situations, likewise. Try other ways to address these situations that have remained a concern for you for many months or years. Be aware of these situations as you see them coming. Look back and see how the situation unfolded, and understand why your relationship is vulnerable to such conflicts. In other words, be mindful of the context before you apply the advice.

Finally, remember that you love this person for so many reasons that make your life so much more meaningful. One of your vows you made rings a bit like the idea that you accept this person for who he or she is. As Christensen, Jacobson, and Doss have written, “Approach change in the context of acceptance [for] change is the brother of acceptance, but it is the younger brother.”

Listen to the podcast version of this blog! Click here!

Get to know the difference in our approach to counseling…in 30 minutes!

I am quite sure that many of you think that all of the counseling practices being offered in the Philippines are just the same. Pretty much about common sense advice to deal with your difficulties in the secret life you and I have in our minds. You probably hear a lot of these in talk shows and see them online in your Google searches.

I must admit that from 2009 up to 2019, my practice varied only slightly from what was and is still widely available in the Philippines, that of a syndromal and symptom-reduction approach to therapy.

Since 2019 though, I have come across an approach that I believe jumps out as the most scientifically sound that I have ever experienced applying in my own life, as well as those that I have helped in the past two years or so!

In my zeal and excitement to share this with you, I am now offering a 30-minute session that is packed with enough information for you to see how this relatively new approach in the field of counseling and psychology works so well, and why it is now the most researched method in the world for the last 20 years!

What you will be shown is what Dr. Kevin Polk calls the Psychological Flexibility Point of View, which can neatly sum up this approach to therapy in just 30 minutes!

Feel free to reach out to us and book yourself a quick 30-minute appointment that we are confident will change your life’s direction! Yes, that’s all we ask! Thirty minutes and you are free to decide if you wish to continue your work with us or not.

You can be an individual, a couple, or a family. Just take 30 minutes of your time and see if this is something that will explain best why you and I struggle within our mental worlds!

Call or message me now at 0917 886 LIFE (5433)! I’d be more than excited to share my newfound knowledge with you, so you can start your journey towards creating that best version of you that you’ve always wanted!

What is One Life Only Counseling about?

Hi everybody! We have recently updated our definition of what One Life Counseling is all about. In our zeal and dedication to provide you with the best possible results in your quest to change your lives for the better, we began our new journey towards a process-based approach to our work. This applies to all our clients including couples and families.

We will never be satisfied unless we find the best possible and most effective approaches that empower you and help direct you to a path of growth and personal satisfaction in living the kind of life you have long wanted for yourself and your loved ones!

We have put the updates in italics.

Here’s what you can expect from One Life Only Counseling:

You can be assured that your information with be kept completely confidential.

You will be respected regardless of your religion, gender preference, ethnicity, economic status, and even your personal lifestyle and values.

Your counselor will not impose his or her values and beliefs on you.

We use brief, scientific, and evidence-based approaches to address your concerns. These approaches are known to produce the best results that require only a handful to about a dozen sessions for you to experience life-changing results, as against years of seeing a therapist which can, at its worst, foster dependency.

Since 2019, we have adopted new therapy approaches that do not categorize people into sets of symptoms. They are process-based approaches to therapy that are now gaining appreciation from thousands of experts in the field who have found the current symptom-reduction, syndromal approaches less than adequate in addressing the human condition. The process-based approach has been found to be effective in many areas of concern ranging from common mental health concerns like depression and anxiety to even work and sports performance.

Since 2019, we have been very excited to offer this type of a radically different approach to therapy that is not just about relieving symptoms, but rather helping people towards creating lives imbued with meaning and purpose.

This is content is the subject of our first podcast in our One Life Only Counseling Spotify Channel! If you wish to hear this on Spotify, click here!

Goals of Counseling: What is it all about anyway?

by Nathan Chua

I remember a person who shared with me that she had been with her therapist for several years. She felt it helped her in terms of managing her anxieties and anger issues. She went on to share that she needed her weekly sessions to get some relief from all the emotional struggles that go on during the week. This type of counseling is called supportive counseling which certainly has its place in the field. In my graduate studies, I can certainly attest to the fact that I used to do this type of work in dealing with my test cases to begin my training in listening or counseling skills. With this person who shared her experience though, the weekly sessions have become a psychological crutch, just like taking a break from her cares for at least an hour a week. *

Counseling work is more than just being supportive. The goal is more about having clients learn, as experientially as possible, skills that can be brought to their everyday lives. The counseling room becomes the lab where these skills are introduced and tested.

I don’t really mean to be simplistic here but I thought the title can help us focus on knowing what goes on inside the work I do and its ultimate goals. If we come up with something that would make it simpler and more understandable, then we would have done a better job in assisting people in appreciating what all these working sessions are for.

If you wish to change the way things are in your relationship with your partner, then you need to try different things. In ACT or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy linggo, we call that expanding behavioral repertoire. It is also referred to as flexibility skills. If you start a conversation with your spouse with a criticism or a “You” statement every time, you are more than likely to get defensiveness in return. And so on and on you go with the circular arguments that often lead you to ultimately just avoid each other or get into a massive shouting match.

Unfortunately, we are the creatures who think that we can do the same things over and over again and come up with the results we want, even if the evidence clearly shows the contrary. We like to follow rules and rule-following becomes the dominant reinforcer of our behaviors, and not the actual contingencies that show up. We can see this if we break down the process of how people get hooked to the slot machine or some form of gambling addiction. Although it is true that there is a one in a billion chance that you might hit pay dirt, the addicted person is not aware of the consequences happening as they continue this obsessive behavior.

Taken in these terms, we in this helping profession are after you getting out of your comfort zones. Comfort zones are places where we want to end up that give us the short term feel-good moments. Being able to analyze your spouse and find out what’s wrong with them, can give you that sense of accomplishment that you know something they don’t. Getting that high in front of a slot machine when you win a small pot can be intensely rewarding at the moment. However, the long term consequences eventually show up. You no longer become the spouse you want to be. The more you criticize your partner, the more they snap back. Slowly eating away at the relationship you once thought will go smoothly through the years. The more you gamble, the more you end up piling up debts and spending countless hours unable to do anything else that could have otherwise been spent more productively and meaningfully.

I’d like to borrow a phrase from a book to help you, my readers, understand how counseling works. The work is about being comfortable with the uncomfortable. Maybe it’s time you tried another approach to your spouse, even if it feels embarrassing or extremely “so not you.” Maybe you need to sit with those urges to gamble and find out what really is behind the pull towards the addiction so that you can find alternatives to spend all that energy on. To paraphrase a well-known ACT therapist, Kirk Strosahl, maybe there’s something more important here than what you feel.

If you are like the person I discussed in the first paragraph of this post, then be wary. That’s because the counseling work is making you feel comfortable! If you start to do things that are uncomfortable with the help of your counselor, then you might be on the road to being comfortable with being uncomfortable. That’s also when you know that your work with your counselor is worth all that time and energy. Maybe you’re on to trying something different that moves you towards what I regularly use in my discussions with my clients: being the person you want to be, and living the life you want to live.

*The example here is an amalgam of different cases that do not refer to any person in reality.

Getting Married to be Happy?

by Nathan Chua

Of course we do, that’s all there is to expect in married life, right? For those of us who have gotten married, I bet there’s plenty of thought of “living happily ever after,” especially in those moments when it was actually about to happen. Pretty much up to the time leading up to the wedding, everything spelled h-a-p-p-y. Pick any random year into a marriage, and we are likely to find about half of that on the brink of separation, because either one or both of the parties are bone-tired of having to suffer through the other’s insufferable ways.

We often get caught up in these all or nothing moments in our minds, where we believe that within our unhappiness, we can never have happiness. One or the other has to go. But here’s a good example to prove that this may not be necessarily so. Look back at those moments when you and your future spouse were just minutes away from exchanging vows. If I may so boldly predict, I am quite sure you had moments when thoughts like, “Am I making the biggest mistake of my life here?” were right there coming from the back of your head in the middle of your own wedding ceremony! He’s so clumsy he keeps stepping on my train! She’s turned from angel to t-rex in months! Further still, pick up any major decision you’ve made in your lifetime and tell me you never had thoughts about whether your choice was right or disastrously wrong, and I would be the first to congratulate you for being that rare master of your own mind.

Part of what can help your marriage is if you understand how your mind works that makes being married such a disappointment. We often get carried away with thoughts that we can’t have both positive and negative emotions at the same time inside us. Well, think about your dog or pet. How many times has your mind told you getting that dog is a big mistake and yet you still love him to death? So with the dog it goes, “I love him and sometimes I think getting him was such a big mistake.” There you go, both positive and negative emotions all in one situation.

Getting married to be happy is how our use of language tricks us into going to an extreme. The reality is more like getting married is meant to find purpose and meaning in your union, and many times it won’t be, just happy. Playing to win a championship game isn’t just about being happy, it is hard! Raising kids is not bound to be happy all the time, in fact it is the most challenging task for even the most notable names in history who have done seemingly harder and more exceptional deeds outside of raising a child! Why? Because the fact that it is hard and not very easy makes it challenging and fulfilling at the same time. The same is true with marriage. Your partner can sometimes be lovable and be challenging to live with. Learning how to accept this is something couples often have difficulty finding room for, because the mind suggests we can only have room for one.

Sometimes the best things in life are hard and painful, which is precisely what makes a life more purposeful and meaningful. We humans love solving problems even when it’s not always fun to do, or not always the happy thing to do. Come out of yourself and notice how your mind works; I bet you’ll see great wisdom.

Why do we end up fighting over my requests for change?

by Nathan Chua

You will never be like our friend Joe. He knows how to make Valentine’s day special for his wife. I clean your closet for you and you never even try! I need you to change or else I will never be happy in this relationship. I have done so much for this relationship so why can’t you do the same for me?

These are just some examples of how couples end up escalating their fights. They end up not just fighting about the issue at hand, but also the way they fight about it. In the following article I will be writing about a few common requests that couples make that usually backfire. Here is a short list of some of these ineffective petitions for change that couples use:

Did you notice how sweet Joe is to his wife? Why can’t you be more like that?

The problem with this type of request is that it immediately makes your partner defensive. Your partner, just like everyone else will then make comparisons to other people who are less thoughtful to their partners than him or herself. We all have the ability to make both upward and downward comparisons. Comparisons usually make way for even more comparisons that will defend your partner’s position and invalidate yours.

After all of the work I have done to keep this household clean, you can’t even pick up after yourself! When will you learn not to dump the dirty dishes in the sink and leave them there for hours?

The problem with this demand is that you turn your partner’s differences into defects. It may not take you much to clean up, but it can take quite a bit of effort for your partner. What may seem easy and logical for you, may not be as evident to your partner.

There are quite a few more of these, but I will now turn to ways in which you can make your requests more likely to be granted. Please note that I don’t claim certainty here. But at least these types of requests will be less likely to compound the issues by turning your fights into fights about the way you fight. You might be surprised at its simplicity.

Make simple requests for no other reasons but for the fact that such changes will make you happy! Most, if not all of us, go into a pair-bonding relationship for the simple reason that we want to make our partners happy. It gives us pleasure to know that we have done something that makes our partners smile.

In some cases though, you may find it hard to talk about these requests for change without ending up in a major altercation. In such instances, you might have to be a bit more creative. Do something different in the way you make your requests, like handwriting an open letter or sending an email.

If all else fails, there are a few things that have less to do with how your partner is, but more to do with how you are in the relationship. One is being able to accept the fact that in all relationships, there are bound to be inequalities. Your partner will be unpleasantly surprised if you suddenly demand for something that was never there in the first place. Secondly, come to terms with the fact that change is bound to happen in any relationship. In fact, keeping things as they are will take more effort than accepting that change will happen over time. To use a metaphor, keeping a car or house in its original state is much harder than accepting the fact that they will eventually break down in certain areas.

Finally, the only thing that I can guarantee will make changes in your relationship, is a change in yourself. Do what your partner has been asking for. Do it without asking anything in return. Give your partner an incentive to do what you’ve been requesting for. Be kinder, sweeter, and show your partner that you have come to accept many of the differences that he or she brings into the relationship.

Attempts to change your partner by sheer force of command usually backfires. You can only influence change not demand it to happen in order for it to happen. If you change, there is a greater likelihood that your partner will notice how much you have come to accept him or her, and thus show changes too. It’s just up to you to be more mindful of the changes you see in your partner and appreciate your partner’s efforts. As humans we all harbor aspirations of becoming the best person we want to be, most especially in this one special relationship that is like no other. Your partner is no exception.