24 Tips for Having A Great Relationship

24 Tips for Having a Great Relationship shows you how to develop each of the ingredients that create Great Relationships. Her tips will help you and your partner empower each other to have a relationship that delights you both, and that others will envy and want to emulate. In 24 Tips for Having a Great Relationship you will: Discover how to be fully yourself in a relationship and live your own values. See why BOTH partners must take full responsibility for communicating needs. Find out how to negotiate so that resources can be used in a mutually supportive way. Empower each other and your relationship. 24 Tips for Having a Great Relationship also helps you find out how to discuss values, solve problems and play with your partner. You’ll learn how to connect to and enhance your power instead of draining it away by trying to please each other. Use this book to improve ALL your relationships!

About Relationships
Expect the closeness and distance you
experience with your partner to vary
from hour to hour, day to day, and season
to season. People experience enough
closeness much as they experience
enough food—any more leads to
discomfort. We all have different
capacities.
Learn from your experience. Notice what
works, and what usually receives a
negative reaction from your partner. Do
what works and stop doing what does not
work.

Communication
Ask your partner for what you want.
Contrary to popular belief, your partner
cannot and should not read your mind.
Asking increases the odds of getting
what you want. Be specific.
Keep agreements you make with your
partner. Keeping agreements builds trust
which is the basis of almost everything
important.
Difficult Communication
Speak in sentences or, at most,
paragraphs instead of pages during a
difficult conversation. Your partner will
only remember the last sentence or two
you say and forget the beginning of a
long speech.
Admit your mistakes—even if you don’t
like the way your partner confronts you
about them. It is tempting to defend
yourself by attacking your partner, but if
you do, you both lose in the long run.

Play
Laugh together. Share the jokes or
cartoons that make you grin, rent a funny
video or remember the stories about
funny (especially in retrospect) things
you have experienced together.
Challenge your partner to resolve a
problem with a squirt bottle duel at ten
paces. If the situation is really serious, try
aerosol whipped cream (at three paces)
instead.
Tasks
Hire someone to do the chores you both
hate—or do them together. Start by
looking at the things that never seem to
get done, probably because neither of
you wants to do them.
Occasionally do a task that your partner
does not expect you to do. Let your
partner be pleasantly surprised that s/he
does not need to prepare dinner or mow
the lawn.

Boundaries
Name the movie you would like to see,
or the restaurant you like best, before you
ask your partner’s preference. That way
you avoid being angry because your
partner did not read your mind.
Forgo retaliation. If you think your
partner is preoccupied and ignoring you,
look at the ways you are ignoring your
partner and change your own behavior.
This works for any behavior you don’t
like.
Money
Create shared financial goals. Be sure
you discuss and agree on priorities. If
one of you thinks your savings are for a
great vacation, and the other expects to
use them to invest for financial
independence, you are headed for
trouble.
Spend less money than you make. Use
the extra to build a reserve. Relieving
money- related stress gives you energy
for the things that really matter.