The first principle of course is not to hope that your partner or wife should change. That is the wrong approach. You are the one who needs to change!
It is difficult in the beginning but easier as it goes, particularly if you can remember never to use words of conflict in conversation. What are words of conflict? They are words you know full well, as they quickly provide the fuel for a hostile reaction, not a feeling of love or empathy.
So, the art is to change radically- and definitely stop doing things that you have always been doing. If you are a constant TV watcher and your relationship revolves around looking forward at the TV and NOT at each other, one night simply turn the TV off and look at your partner and talk about your heart’s desire and all the things you have never told each other.
Become in fact a new person, and you will be surprised. Tomorrow morning you make the breakfast, coffee or tea and toast and don’t just start reading the newspaper or magazine. Some people even start watching the Finance channels first thing in the morning and then leave for work without kissing their partner, let alone looking at them.
Next time you come home from work, smile when you see your wife, hug her, and see how she is taken aback. I guarantee she will be wide-eyed, and she will not be able to believe what has happened to you. When were you last genuinely affectionate and looked deeply into your partner’s eyes? When did you last surprise each other?
If at first it feels like pretending, then pretend, because in so many ways we are doing just that, because it has become a habit; however this pretension can lead to a genuine feeling of love and will surprise us if we let it. What’s to lose?
When you become a new person, your wife becomes a new person. She will have to, to respond to you. In the beginning she will find it hard because it will be almost like living with another husband, but slowly, slowly she will see that if you can change, why can’t she?
Never hope that the other should change. In every relationship start the change from your side.
Chris Borrett
Image Credit-FreeImages.com-Stephen Tainton
If by chance, you have not encountered my previous posts outside this blog, one of my favourites is about “How To Make A Decision and Stick To It”. You have the luxury of reading it by clicking here.