Psychological life counselling

By Dipl.-Päd. Jürgen Bendszus, scientific counsellor and therapist

Learn to love - healing communication

A long, good partnership can succeed with almost every person. However, just as we have to learn our language, we must learn to love.

Is a contented love-relationship an illusion?

Love is more than just infatuation! For in love we accept our partner not only for his/her strengths, but also with all his/her weaknesses. It isn’t easy to accept the other person with all their weak points and limits. Especially when unavoidable crises and conflicts arise, we are challenged to accept the other person just as they are circumscribed by their personalities – without denying and repressing one’s own needs and interests. In times of crisis, we learn to love.

Just as a language can wither away if we don’t practice it, a love can also waste away, if we neglect our partner and the relationship. Then, in the end, only pain, despair, resentment and separation remain.

What must we do in order to avoid this point? How can we preserve a love-relationship and develop it positively? And what can we do if serious problems and conflicts come about and the problems only seem to grow? Can a relationship be saved even if all seems hopeless?

Further exploring the 8 basics or ground rules for a successful relationship can help you stay happy or become happy again, even after the early phase of infatuation.

1. Don’t make accusations

If other people disappoint us, let’s not react with accusations so easily. We learned this approach early on from our parents. The tendency to make accusations is deeply rooted, but accusations aren’t good for a relationship. They have little effect and lead the partner to defensiveness, guilty feelings and withdrawal. Therefore: show your partner your desires with “I-statements” (statements from the first-person perspective)! Show him/her, how you feel, when your needs aren’t met. Examples for I-statements:

“If you don’t have time on the weekend, then I feel sad.” – “If you don’t tell me, when you’re coming home in the evening, I get worried.” – “If you shout at me, I get scared and it hurts me.” – This self-revelation, revealing your innermost feelings helps the partner, to understand the effects of his/her actions. This makes it easier for the partner to work towards your desires better than if you make accusations and react aggressively.

2. Practice supportive listening and empathy

From the conversational therapy of Carl Rogers we know that healing processes can occur just by the therapist listening to his client’s worries empathetically (having sympathy with his emotional world). Listening empathetically makes it easier for the client to talk about his innermost worries. What works in psychotherapy also works in a love-relationship. Approach your partner with empathy. Try to see the problems in your relationship and your partner’s problems through their eyes and feelings!

Example: your partner comes home from work cross and displeased. Don’t assume immediately that you’ve done anything wrong. Perhaps your partner had problems with colleagues. Simply ask him/her about possible problems: “You don’t look so happy this evening. Perhaps you’ve had a difficult day?” or “You seem a bit tired and stressed out today. I can imagine that you’d like to relax a bit now.” If your partner starts to talk, then give him/her time! Be aware of the deeper emotions that are behind his/her words! Did he/she get mad about someone? Did he/she feel overwhelmed? Did someone hurt or wound him/her? Or is he/she simply tired?

Often we just speak about superficial things. If we try to access our partner’s inner world, that can help us to better understand his/her worries. That lessens tensions in the relationship and encourages mutual affection.

One problem that many people have, especially men, is that it is hard for them to talk about their deeper emotions. And many people tend to repress their feelings, especially their anxieties such as feeling overwhelmed, helpless, ashamed and other awkward emotions. If one has too little understanding for one’s own deeper feelings, then one can hardly understand one’s partner’s deeper feelings. This brings tension to a relationship. We, as counsellors and therapists, often have to deal with these problems.

3. Don’t retaliate

Example: your boyfriend angered you because he flirted excessively with another woman at a party. You say to him spontaneously: “I can do the same to you”, and you yourself look for someone with whom you can flirt. You want to get back at your boyfriend. You want to punish him because he hurt you so with his flirtation and your self-esteem can’t bear it.

You could also punish your boyfriend in a different way, for example by not speaking with him for three days, by denying him sex, etc.... Whichever method of vengeance you choose, none will really help you or your relationship. If you hurt your boyfriend again, your relationship worsens. Further, you don’t change anything about your boyfriend’s motives and desires.

It’s better to choose the method of self-revelation, revealing your innermost feelings: avoid accusations, probing questions and any form of retaliation. But show your boyfriend in an opportune moment that you’re not happy and that you’ve been hurt. If he loves you, then he’ll try to avoid hurting you this way in the future! There are many other examples of  conflicts in love-relationships that are better solved through an open discussion and not by means of retaliation.

4. Learn how to deal with controversial themes such as sex and money

Sex: There can be many reasons why your sexual desires aren’t fulfilled.

Often deeper, unconscious conflicts and anxieties play a role as well as low self-esteem and insecurities. Then it would help you if you could both ask a counsellor or therapist for support. In one case I was very surprised with a married couple of twenty years because although they knew each other quite well, neither had the courage to speak out about their own sexual desires.

Therefore if you don’t get what you want, ask for it! Let your partner know what you like when having sex! Be honest about it: if you don’t feel like having sex, say it. Then the partner should ask again if you really don’t want sex. If the answer remains “no”, then the other should accept this and say “okay”. Then you could experience a sudden surprise and, after being honest with each other, the desire for sex flares up again for both unexpectedly. Don’t always leave love-making up to chance. Reserve special times for it when you will be undisturbed – for example by children – times you can be tender. Look for a new, unusual place to have sex! Be creative with your sexuality and be a bit courageous! Sexuality has a lot to do with confidence. Therefore be courageous in other life situations too. Be willing to take a risk sometimes – but not irresponsibly – and work on your self-confidence!

Money: Fighting about money can seriously compromise a relationship. One is either too wasteful or too thrifty. If you have problems with the fact that the other is too wasteful or thrifty, you should question the deeper motives.

Look for conversation, but avoid making accusations and denunciations! Behind every cheapskate there can be fear that without money one’s needs for security and independence are threatened. Low self-esteem can hide behind the need to spend money. Some people always need new clothes or cars in order to build up their low self-esteems. Sometimes spending inordinate amounts of money is an indication of deeper problems: A mother buys herself a new car, after her daughter has tragically lost her life.

If your partner doesn’t know how to deal with money, tell him, that you aren’t happy about it! Also show him your own needs and interests clearly. Sometimes power struggles, struggles to gain influence and strength in the relationship lead to conflicts about money. Don’t allow fights about money to escalate and harm your relationship. Why shouldn’t you ask a third person for support and advice when dealing with such problems? Don’t remain alone with your problems!

5. Solve conflicts

Some couples say that they never fight. If psychologists hear this, they are sceptical. If points of conflict aren’t discussed and are swept “under a rug”, the danger exists that feelings, needs and discontent will also be repressed. If one partner usually is the winner and the other usually the loser, the danger increases that the relationship is going to end. Whoever consistently loses in these conflicts is going to be hurt and his/her self-esteem will be affected. This partner may look outside the relationship for recognition and success and this could possibly lead to an affair!

The woman or the man frequently feels that she or he is in an inferior position in conflicts and hopes to have needs met in an outside relationship. Therefore, it’s important to learn to speak out about conflicts and try to solve points of argument. If a partner feels too weak, then they should temporarily seek counselling and support from outside, even through a professional psychological therapist. Help from outside is especially necessary when conflicts have become old and set. If partners have been practising a destructive conflict style for years, unsatisfactory situations repeat themselves again and again. They need professional help.

In couple therapy they could, for example, learn about the six step method for solving conflicts according to Thomas Gordon: 1. Define the problem – 2. Identify all possible solutions – 3. Evaluate the established solutions – 4. Choose the most promising solution – 5. Realise the solutions. – 6. Test the effectiveness of the solutions.

It is most important in a love-relationship that there should not consistently be the same winner and the same loser. Needs should be discussed openly. There should be a willingness to comply. Then your love-partnership can develop positively!

6. A partner’s behaviour can change, but not his/her personality

Example: A young woman in love believed she would be able to heal her alcohol and medication addicted boyfriend if she married him. This hope is, in most cases, an illusion when one is dealing with deeply set personality structures, attitudes and behaviour patterns. As your partner has developed certain character traits over years or decades, you will hardly be able to change them. Depth psychologists are convinced that the basic structure of the personality is developed in the first six years.

Can’t you change anything? Yes, you definitely can change your partner’s outward behaviour patterns that disturb or upset you, up to certain limits. Examples for changeable behavioural patterns: wasting a lot of money – forgetting when the other partner’s birthday is – if your boyfriend prefers his car to spending free time with you (assuming he loves you!) -  if one does too little for one’s outer appearance – if one doesn’t do a fair amount of the housework – if one pays too little attention with regard to your desires and needs...

It’s more difficult if... : you have a partner who always wants to determine the way things go, - or who gets easily excited, - who is overly shy, - to whom work is more important than a relationship -  or who can’t talk about feelings. It’s even more difficult when there are dependencies such as excessive drinking, gambling, sex addiction or work addiction or when certain character traits surface such as perfectionism, the inability to criticise oneself, narcissism (egoism and excessive egocentricity), being overly aggressive, having extreme fears in life, strong distrust, etc. These are deeply rooted personality traits that have developed over a long period of time, that you as a partner can do little about.

Often people change only after a lot of pain such as an experience of separation. In my work helping addicts I have experienced how people – often men – were only prepared to change when they had lost everything: their work, their apartment, their wife, their children. Surprisingly positive changes come with the birth of children. Children challenge us, take us to our personal limits, parents often have to give in. These experiences with children often lead to changes of personality traits that made others suffer. Through children, a lover may lose his/her excessive self-centredness, excessive ambition, unwillingness to give in and become sympathetic people.

Paradoxically, attempts to change a partner directly are met with resistance. If you can accept your partner the way he/she is, amazing changes can take place. Example: Timo emphasised that his girlfriend should lose weight. She defended herself and even gained weight. Only when he stopped criticising her about her weight, did she decide to do something for her figure and lose weight.

Learn more about basics 7 an 8:

The five languages of love: express your love in such a way that it is felt

Excuse yourself – be able to forgive

© Dipl.-Päd. Jürgen Bendszus 2010

All rights reserved. This site is for information and support only and not a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment.

Titel of the original German text: Lieben lernen