Find the Skills Your Relationship Needs

Marriage is not something that you have. It's something that you do. How well you do marriage is largely a matter of skill and attitude. The more relationship skilled you both are and the more positive your attitudes, the more likely you are to have a successful marriage.

Attitude alone cannot sustain the relationship, no matter how well-intentioned you may be. For example, if you and your partner regularly fight because you fail to understand each other's real needs, even the most sunny outlook will sink under your persistent failure.

If you don't credit the importance of relationships skills, when the relationship goes badly, you'll turn to blame or incompatibility to explain what's going on. You won't say – I'm not handling this situation well. I need better skills. However, when you think "inadequate skills" rather than "inadequate people," the marriage can improve. Get the skills you need! But which ones?

You don't always know what skills are needed in a given situation.

When you and your partner fail in equal measure – as when you both wander off topic during important conversations – neither of you can very well blame the other. Together you have a good chance of troubleshooting the situation and discovering where the problem lies. Ask your partner, "What am I doing - or not doing – that isn't helping?" If your partner knows and can tell you without blame – and you can hear without resentment – the relationship is already improving.

Sometimes the problem is clear, but the remedy eludes you. And sometimes the failure is long forgotten. You chronically avoid each other but can't remember why, only that you fear moving closer. In both situations, you probably need the help of a relationship coach or counselor who can prescribe the right skills and help you learn them.

Needless to say, you can't count on your partner viewing relationship skills with the same respect that you do. If you want the marriage to improve, you have to work on the skills you need, regardless of whether or not your partner joins you in the effort. You are the only person you can change. And telling your partner what skills he needs, if he hasn't asked your opinion, is not going to work.

If you're working alone at this point, the first step is to get oriented: You're looking for the skills you need, not for opportunities to blame your partner. Pay attention to your partner's complaints about your behavior. The more upset your partner is, the more attention you should pay. What would you need to do -and what skill would you need to draw upon – for your partner to feel better?

Develop a picture of the outcome that you would like, then work backward to the skills that are needed to make that picture a reality. For example, you want your partner to feel relaxed and at ease during the day-long outing you are going to take together. You figure that making yourself fully available on the trip to listen and empathize will help. What skills are involved?

In some situations, your values determine the skills that you need. Trent wants his wife, Sara, to break off her friendship with Melanie, who is divorced and whom Trent believes doesn't like men, himself included. Sara values her right to choose the friends she wants. She also values her marriage and doesn't want her friendship with Melanie to threaten it.

Does she need the skill of assertiveness to hold her ground with Trent? Or does she need to deepen her sensitivity to him and perhaps do as he wishes? Sara's values will decide where she focuses her need for skills.

The marriage will be most meaningful to you if you learn and use the skills that support your primary values. What is the highest value that you want to express in the relationship? For example, is it love for your partner? Is it serving your own interests?

Turn to your own wisdom for the answer to how you should develop in the relationship. Once you are clear what that highest value is for you, sit quietly with yourself without distractions. Wait until you feel quite still and receptive inside. Then ask yourself, "In this situation, because I value X above all else, how should I act? The answer will point you toward the skills that you need.

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Copyright © 2005 Dr. David E. Sanford All rights reserved.
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