Yes, they exist - rules for love
If, after 16 years of motherhood, you asked me what it means to educate children, I would say, "have love, have love, have love again!" And then: "For years preaching the same rules of manners: Do not scream like that, go into your room until you calm down, stop complaining, say what you want, listen, if anyone talks to you, everybody does I'm sorry, if you happen to have one, please say thank you, do not flip it when things are not going the way you imagine. " Of course, not only do I preach, I try to be a role model. I think I manage to a degree. However, there is one person whom I have had a hard time with (and still struggles with) from time to time to behave as I expect my children to do. This is my man.
I treat my husband differently than my children
We nagged each other.
Already we are a couple forever. Nobody is closer to me than he is. I've never cursed, shrewdly, impatiently, unobjectedly, reproachfully treated anybody for the past 23 years. Presumably because in the course of our relationship I have succumbed to a common misconception that says: love = trust = I do not need to pretend = I do not have to pull myself together = I can puke my partner's frustration, so often and so whenever I feel like it. Especially when I was a kid and because of my belief that I was too big and my husband did not have enough family responsibilities. We quarreled frequently. I nagged him regularly. So often and so persistently that he, whom I had previously considered a well-balanced man, developed a pronounced nagging allergy. From then on, the smallest nagging particles in the home atmosphere (deepened nasal root wrinkles on my part) sufficed to cause him to breathe in his breath: "What's wrong with you now?"
He felt wronged and reacted angrily. I felt misunderstood and started howling. We got along with each other again and again, but the mood was chronically irritated. Until one day, after I had started another noise, he suddenly paused and said, "By the way, I promise you that I will never let you sit down for a younger woman with tighter breasts." Short break. "If I leave you one day, it's simply because I can no longer bear you!"
I fell silent. (That sat.) Then I had to laugh. (No matter how stupid I find my husband, I find his humor almost always great.) Then I took his warning in with the everyday life, thought and came to a realization that was so banal that it is now a mystery to me, why I needed many relationship years to come to this conclusion: all the people I know (including myself) hate it when you're constantly picking on them and their inadequacies. Every human wants to be treated well. Why should it be the other way around the man I live with?
I knew myself well enough to know that I would not be able to make a heartfelt, generous, indulgent wife by heart. But what I could decide was to behave better. I would force myself from now on to be more affable. First measure: Do not bounce off immediately, if something does not suit me, but after trouble occasion always at least half a day wait until the trouble response. Second measure: not always criticize the man, but also praise sometimes.
The ultimate tips for those who are tired of partnership crises
The US psychologist and couple therapist Harriet Lerner has formulated a total of 106 such codes of conduct in her book "Relationship Rules: The Ultimate Tips for Those Who Are Suffering from Partnership Crises." Your guide is not a guide for in-depth relationship analysis. He simply gives behavioral tips that help to maintain an attitude when dealing with relationship issues. For the solution of such problems, according to Lerner, is much easier for those couples who, despite all (perhaps even dramatic) differences, manage to be polite, well-controlled and halfway objective.
Rules do not require lengthy explanations. Most of the time the author submits, two pages, to explain their meaning and purpose. Many chapters already know what they mean when they read the title - and that they are right: no matter how complicated it is between two people, a simple truth remains valid in every situation: screaming and raving do not help.
Among the 106 rules, according to Lerner, one should "choose the most important and important rules for you and follow them in the long term".Then "your relationship gets an excellent chance of success". Because the respective behavior, which recommends Lerner for many conflict situations typical of couples, is an expression of respect towards the partner. And respect (not: I-leave-completely-authentic-the-sow-out - you have to really get used to it) is the greatest proof of love, the most important prerequisite for a stable long-term relationship. For me, the most significant tips are guiding my dominant, impulsive and often vocal personality in a regulated way.
Then I imagine, in our guest room sat listening an English gentleman.
After all - on Rule No. 10 ("Change First") and No. 3 ("First take a deep breath, then talk"), back then, when I decided to become a nicer wife, I came even without Harriet Lerner. Rule No. 81 ("Stay relaxed, even if you firmly represent your point of view"), I now master quite well. No. 19 ("Just a Critique of the Day") I occasionally disregard. No. 15 gives me big problems: "Talk less." I would like to. But somewhere the pressure has to go yes: If the good morals, I can not explode with a loud bang, I have to drain the steam slowly, sentence by sentence. Rule # 59 was developed by Harriet Lerner specifically for men: "Raise your awareness of the laundry." By that she means, what cost me my husband years to cost: that I find him particularly irresistible when he saves me from the evil overburdened by household and family. Harriet Lerner recommends very pragmatically: "If you want to have sex with the mother of your children, then try the following: Participate in the housework."
But my favorite rule is Rule # 43: "Put yourself in the position of a distinguished British houseguest." It does not happen very often, but from time to time I still think that this time it's really impossible for me not to go blank. Then I imagine - as recommended by Harriet Lerner - in our guest room sat listening an English gentleman (for example, the Earl of Grantham from the TV series "Downton Abbey"): Already I manage to dominate myself.
And lo and behold! It works!
After I had decided to spend a little time before I broke loose, amazing things happened: Most of the occasions that had brought me to an acute simmer I forgot in the course of the day. Even if I remembered, I usually kept my mouth shut, because my anger had fizzled and it seemed silly, half a day late to want to talk about my husband (again) bought the (in my opinion) wrong type of tomato would have. Once there was a topic that was still on my mind even in the evening or the next morning, I managed to speak it so calmly that my husband did not close his ears immediately out of self-defense. "What's wrong with you? You're so funny relaxed," he said at some point. "Are you stealing secretly or something?"
Also, the intention to praise and thank, caused a small miracle: He directed my gaze to what was going well - there was more of that than I had previously perceived. In the past, when my husband once made dinner, I thought, "Well, go on, why not?" Now I said, "Great that you cooked for us, you supertype, thank you!" The first time the supertype looked like I was crazy. After a while he also started to thank me for eating. Embarrassing, but true: That did me very well after my recognition of the thirsty wife's soul. (The children also have long been thankful when one of us gives something tasty to the table - and even occasionally volunteer to cook, because they too want to be praised and praised.) Life can be so much easier if one has understood: good behavior is contagious, even in relationships.
