Accept love and compliments

It is better to give than receive. I think.

Some people really struggle with receiving and accepting.
In a relationship, each person will give and each person will receive. It’s not just takers and givers, it’s “both and”

If you are good at receiving, that means the person who’s giving will enjoy themselves more. Have you ever done something nice for someone and they receive it really well and you feel good about yourself?

Have you ever tried to give someone something that you know they need but they won’t accept it, they won’t take it?

​It doesn’t feel good to go through that. Work on your ability to accept and to receive, please.

​Listen Better

In my blog in October 2021, www.boicecounseling.com, I wrote about a month’s worth of blogs that deal with how to listen better to your partner.

How to build rapport by listening, connecting emotionally, and I suggest that they continue that process to get to enlightenment through ecstasy. Doesn’t ecstasy sound good to you?

So how many different ways do you know how to listen?

Let’s go with active listening. Men tend to listen quietly. They don’t back channel or lean forward or make eye

Contact in a lot of cases.

Women tend to know to do this and they get reinforced for doing it correctly.

​So let’s all acknowledge the person who’s talking by looking at them, making eye Contact, leaning in, letting them know that we hear them with an occasional uh-huh, and from time to time The listener can ask the talker to pause and ask a question that follows up and indicates that they were listening. Or maybe that they lost track of what they were saying.
 
I can ask the question, “Is this what you mean?”
 
Deb Tannen PhD  says that we miss 30% of what the person said. Completely miss it
An additional 30% of what someone says, we distort through our own filters.
 
That means that I only hear 40% of what someone tells me. At least accurately
 
I should probably be checking in more frequently to make sure that I really understand what they’re saying.
If the person talking can talk in sentences rather than paragraphs, instead of 10 or 20 minute segments, that means that their listener can hear what they’re saying. After roughly 4 sentences, pay attention to the listener. They have glazed over and the talker continues talking, oblivious that they lost their audience. Pay attention to the person who is talking and the person who is listening. That strategy helps them to be understood more. If the talker wants to be understood, the talker needs to cooperate with what a listener is capable of doing.

Be nice

​One of my favorite clients stories was a gentleman who came in and needed to know what he needed to do differently to have a happy marriage.

At the end of the session he said, “Thank you very much. I appreciate knowing I have to be nice to her.”

Six months later he called back and said, “Hey Mr. Boice I tried that being-nice-thing and it really works. My wife is very happy and I’m happily married now.”

I’m thinking he knew that he had to be nice and something that I said reinforced that being nice was a good strategy for him.

We all know we need to be nice when we’re talking.

Can we be nice when we’re communicating what we need to communicate?

I think it’s always in our control to be nice to the other person, even when we don’t agree, even when we’re upset, we can still be nice.

So, part of your job in this is to be nice when you’re communicating.

​Conflict avoidance
 
I don’t like conflict.

Very few people actually like conflict. Can you be OK with that? Some conflict is necessary even though you don’t want to have it.

When you avoid necessary conflict, that is weakness. That is not courage or bravery. It is not helpful to any relationship.

Necessary conflict means that it’s conflict that will come out that has to be dealt with even though it’s awkward and you don’t like it.
 
That’s part of being an adult. Adults deal with necessary conflict.

If you choose not to do with a necessary conflict you warp any relationship.

Pay attention to how you feel when there is conflict. Deal with those feelings.

If someone is telling you that they don’t like what you did, sit with that. Just listen to them.

You don’t necessarily owe them an apology, but you might. You might just need to hear them out and acknowledge their perspective.

Even if you don’t agree with them, can you acknowledge that they have a perspective?

To that person their feelings are reasonable. When you say that someone is being ridiculous, what you’re saying is that you don’t understand their perspective. Pretty much everyone on the planet thinks that they’re being reasonable at the time.

Later on, they might challenge it, but at the time what I was doing was reasonable to me even if it made no sense to you. I am not obligated to make sense to you.

Let’s look at one or two steps of conflict. A relationship is based on relating to one another.

When someone does something or says something, how do you relate to their behavior or their speech? You can say “when you did x I felt—"

In this field, we call that an I statement. When you left the dishes in the sink overnight, I felt resentful. I felt frustrated that I had to clean up after you. I felt irritated that the kids didn’t do what I asked them to do.

I felt disappointed that I didn’t get what I wanted. I felt discouraged that we’ve come this far and there’s still so much more to go. These are examples of i statements and they’re very low level confrontation that you do early on during conflict.

When you do have to confront some thing, you’ve chosen this battle, you’ve chosen to do I statements as feedback rather than criticize the person. You can also choose to express a need.

For example, did you know that with anger there’s often an unmet need?

I like when someone listens to me when I’m talking, especially if I’m hurting. A basic human need is to feel understood.

I appreciate when somebody takes the time and effort to understand me. This often will be enough to get rid of the conflict.

If the person is listening to me only to correct me, change me, convert me, persuade me, or use my words against me, I really don’t like that.

That’s almost an instant fight if they listen and immediately say “yes but,”- what I hear is that they didn’t really listen they want me to listen to them without having to listen to me.

That doesn’t land well for most people and I don’t like it, either. So, when you’re having conflict, listening is huge and then letting the person know that you get where they’re coming from, if you get where they’re coming from.

If you don’t know where they’re coming from then you go back and you clarify. You can also use sound effects when you’re listening to let the person know that you get where they’re coming from.

If it’s something that’s painful that they’re expressing, it’s common to say, “that sucks.” The person usually feels heard and can keep going on.

If you can do the basics here, you actually reduce conflict and prevent unnecessary conflict.

​Practice the skills and keep practicing as they are the fundamentals. If you can’t do the fundamentals the other parts are gonna be significantly harder.

​Here’s how I prefer to date…
Am I attracted to her physically, politically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually (not necessarily in that order)?
 
If yes, I don’t want to only text her. Meeting in person gives me a more accurate impression and perspective.
 
There’s research that states the longer you wait between the first contact and the in person meeting, the more you’ll distort (in your mind) who they are.
 
Research also indicates that the first two weeks set the stage for the rest of the relationship. They set precedent for how you’re going to communicate and relate to one another.
 
I don’t want to phone her except to exchange information. To me, the phone call is never a substitute for meeting in person. I don’t want you to get used to phoning me because of that.
 
You lose so much in a phone call and people trick themselves into thinking it was a high quality interaction and my perspective is different from that.
 
I see early stages of dating similar to exercise. If I exercise once a week, I’ll never get to my goal. If you want to know someone, once a week won’t cut it.
 
If there are phone calls and texts, it is only to set up in person meetings or convey information- not a tool for emotional connection. It is not a replacement for human touch and contact. Again, those are my opinions and preferences.
 
I’d rather hear the story in person, full attention, understand and feel understood in person and less likely to have misunderstandings that way.
 
You tell me that you have time free, you don’t have your kids, you’re not getting together with friends.
 
You just prefer the time alone to being with me.
 
And you’re 100% entitled to that, you just can’t come back and say that I didn’t ask or that you were not available. There was a trade-off and you made a choice for what you valued more. It’s OK to value what you value, just own it.
 
Not everyone has a schedule that allows in person meetings. In my point of view, that means you will have unsuccessful attempts at a meaningful relationship.
 
Again, similar to exercise. If you don’t have the time to do the necessary exercise, you won’t have a successful exercise experience. Not a personal reflection… you just don’t have time to do what is necessary to build a successful foundation.
 
Set it up for success…

We Have a Type
She was married to a cop and now wants to date a counselor. Can anyone else see where this might be too big a gap to traverse? The personality types (stereotypically, at least) are vastly different. 
I don’t have tattoos.  I could get tattoos and “pass.”  I could add a piercing or two, to be convincing. But if that is not who I am, then I am wearing the uniform or treating it like a costume. I am who I am for a reason. I make the choices I make, for a reason. You like who you like. They can trick you for awhile, but you are going to figure it out eventually.
Don’t change who you are, because, well, you can’t. You can pretend or play dress up for awhile…
 
Or she went out with a football player and now is falling for a soccer player…

Yes, we are dealing with stereotypes out of necessity. Can you imagine not being able to say anything because there is an exception to every rule?

Okay, so what makes someone attracted to being a cop is not the same set of values, skills or beliefs, right?

Football players tend to be a little different, from a personality standpoint, from soccer players. Not all, not all the time, but if you look at the tendencies…

She told me in a session that she did not want to be attracted to the guys she dated, but she was clearly attracted.

She knew it would not work out and she was looking at why she would still date someone she knew would fail her.

Freud would suggest that it goes back to her relationship with her father. That the woman is working out issues with her father and the man is working out issues with his mother, through the relationship itself. The neo-freudians would say that we choose a mate who has the bad traits of that parent. They are not clones, but they have a trait that we need help working through. You can either work on the issue with that parent, or your partner- your choice.

Oddly, the person who attracts you, has this trait. Cool how that works, and annoying at the same time.

Think about her father for this one: She dates the guys who don’t mind bending the law, bending rules and ethics, then dates a guy who prioritizes integrity. You can learn a lot about her father from her choices and then she realizes she has to try to do it differently and dates the “opposite” and this is helpful as well. Daddy is still the benchmark, see? The guy who does it with integrity will show her a perspective and give her an experience that is different. She is not familiar with it or used to it and integrity will feel weird or boring or unattractive to her.
 
Yes, she is going to get a different experience. She dates someone who is selfish and then dates someone who has dealt with his ego and knows how to keep it in check. She will not feel the same way in each situation. Yes, there are more variables, but let’s stick with the most obvious ones first.

People tend to be on auto pilot. What you learned early in life, you tend to do now. Very few people are spontaneous, in the moment and experiencing life for the first time in the here and now, therefore, one’s past is a likely indicator of one’s future.

If, in the past, you liked the “bad boy,” even though you know it is not good for you, your tendency is to be attracted to the bad boy in the future. If your father was a “Bad boy,” you likely learned that is the way to be a man.
 
You likely have him as your template for “real man” and when you see a guy who does life differently, you might tend to see them doing it wrong (instead of different) because we tend to see different as wrong before we realize what is going on.

So, how do you work on that?

She knows she would do better with a guy who honors her and treats her well, but has a template of a bad boy…
Heal it. Re-experience it.

Become fully aware of the attraction, where it comes from and feel it.
Feel it.

Feel it and re-process it and integrate the new information.

You can learn new things from old events and old processes. Unlearn the lesson you learned previously.
Look at the old with your current wisdom. Part of you knows that what you have been doing is not working.

It has not worked to keep dating alcoholics and drug abusers, guys who are physically and emotionally violent, yet you find yourself always attracted to them.

There are red flags and now you see them, but make the same choices.

Now that you are aware, you can do the necessary work. “What about this attracts me?” “What feels familiar?” “How will this end, if it ends?” “How does this remind me of my dad?” “How do I feel, when I first consider doing it differently?” “If I was with this guy instead, how would it go poorly?” “Is there a part of me that has to still work out issues with my father by repeating relationships with this type of guy?” “Do I need to see my father over and over again and see why he did what he did before I can move on?”

That is part of the healing process for many people. Feel it when you re experience it. Keep repeating the behavior until you experience it again and learn the lesson. Or unlearn the old lesson…

Try new ways of doing things and be open to learning new things. You will be attracted to different men, when this happens. Once you have healed 100% of your father issues, you tend to work on your mother issues. Your mother showed you how to be a mom, and how to be a wife. She was your first template.

By the way, men have the same problem, just with mom, then dad. They learn how to be a man from their dad, good or bad.

Don’t be too hard on yourself. It takes awhile to see the pattern and that is why counselors can be helpful. We have more training and education on what to look for and where to look, so we can help you find it faster, saving you some pain.

So, be aware of what you are doing. Slow it down and questions things.

They heal their relationships with mom through the girlfriend and wife, if they are conscious.

​Not everyone is awake and aware, though, so not everyone is learning or wants to learn. But you do, otherwise, you would not be reading this.

​Early dating is all about getting to know the other person and what they like and don’t like, what they’re looking for in a relationship etc.
 
You might be super attracted and want to spend time together in person. You might not be someone who desires time in person, or your life is in a place that you can’t make the schedule work to see each other. No blame is intended. Sometimes people would click in a year, but not now. Maybe this season is too busy and you’re overwhelmed.
 
How much time do you want, ideally, to spend together? Do you want to talk every waking moment? Do you want to just text and meet up every week for an hour or two? Put it out there and don’t take it personally. It’s similar to trying on clothing- it fits or it doesn’t fit. Nothing wrong with the clothing (person) just doesn’t fit. No blame and nothing personal.
 
I find that some of my clients are satisfied with a distance relationship, even when they live a few miles away. To my way of thinking, That’s on-line dating instead of meeting someone online and then doing actual dating in person. Not everyone does this the same way or wants to. That’s okay, it just means you’re close to fitting but not quite there. You have a ton to offer, are clearly desirable and with the right person and preference match, you’ll be happy.
 
Do you find phone conversations to be as satisfying as in person get togethers? Are they an equal experience? To me, it is similar to junk food. It fills the time with lower quality connection. It tricks you into thinking you have a connection. I recognize that sometimes it is necessary or desirable but I see people substituting it for actual connection. Not everyone sees it my way and I don’t want to persuade or convince you. No desire to change you, just let you know how I view it so you can understand me better.
 
Do you have enough time to get together in person and ask questions that lead to connecting?
 
When things are smooth, do you want a lot of time in person or a little? Why? What does an ideal week look like to you? Recognizing that everyone is looking for something that fits them…
 
During the work day
A zero texts/calls
B hourly contact
C three-five times
D only as needed
 
If you want more or less, ask for it.