Changing Your Relational Landscape

We seek out counseling when we feel a sense of brokenness in our relationships that often stems from a change in the landscape or dynamics of the relationship. Individuals and couples often want to transform their relationships and to change their unhealthy and destructive behaviors into a healthy and productive connection.

When Relationships Need to Change

There are several factors that can impede healthy connection for a couple and neglect in a relationship can materialize in various forms. My clients enter therapy because they are experiencing the following areas of brokenness:

1. They are disconnected and unavailable, both emotionally and physically.
2. They have a single mentality and an independent decision-making framework.
3. They receive more affirmation from other people than from their partner.
4. They have unhealthy priorities related to money, advancement, or power.
5. They lack commitment to the relationship.
6. They fail to establish inclusive collaboration.
7. They are in survival mode instead of thriving together.

How Do Relationships Change?

Changing the landscape of a relationship requires making a concerted effort to engage in conversations that will provide self-reflection and enable collaboration with your partner. We tend to fear what we do not really understand. Couples may find that the landscape of their relationship has deviated but they are unaware of how this change has occurred. How did we get so far apart in the first place? Will my partner’s feedback trigger defensiveness or criticism? Are you ready to hear your partner’s truth? Contemplating the aforementioned questions can cause more anxiety than clarity. We become stuck and see how things used to be as acceptable.

How Do I Start to Build a Healthy Relationship?

Here are some excellent starting points to explore as you work with your partner to move from a “stuck place” to a stage of “growth and connection.”

• Evaluate your expectations of one another. What are your gifts? How are your core values honored or dishonored in the relationship? What keeps you from walking in your gifts in the relationship?
• Clarify the vision or mission statement of your relationship. Where do you want to be as a couple in the next six months, or one year from now? What projects would be helpful to incorporate into the relationship that promote growth, connection, and individuality? Explore rigid or abrasive conversations and ask what fuels this negative way of expressing your feelings and needs.
• Explore behaviors that hinder collaboration and mutual respect. When you are willing to be self-reflective in your relationship, you are able to identify behaviors that continue to demonstrate defensiveness, criticism, contempt, and uncontrolled anger.
• Establish accountability partners for your relationship. I encourage couples to make connections with other couples who can be champions for the relationship. Accountability partners are given permission to call you out on poor behavior, while providing a safe haven for expressing disappointment and growth.
• Establish communication habits and rituals that encourage connection and transparency. It is easy to box our spouse into a way of responding that is not healthy. Conversations of this nature are often riddled with fear and anxiety. If conversations become defensive or critical, concentrate on how your individual behavior hinders connection. Identify rituals or events that encourage daily and weekly connection. Date nights or family meetings are good places to start.
• Refuse to do the same things expecting a different result. We often want things to change without seeking to do things differently. Approaching difficult conversations involves observing what has failed in the past and exploring different ways of addressing the issue. Your ability to remain in a space of acceptance after disappointment plays an important part in changing behavior. Accepting that we all fall short and owning our shortcomings is a great start to doing things differently.

Christian Counseling to Change the Landscape of Your Relationship

Changing the landscape or dynamics of your relationship will take time and effort. In other words, try not to cure every challenge in your relationship at one time. Set realistic expectations during times of transition. Most importantly, give grace in the moment as you navigate, learn, and accept the changes in your partner. As a Christian counselor, my goal is to help clients maneuver through challenges with grace. Christian counseling can help and I am here to provide that support. Please reach out to me here.

Photo
“A Path,” Courtesy of Chad Flickr CreativeCommnons (CC BY 2.0)