One Powerful Principle for Couples to Improve Your Relationship

Photo by Colin Maynard

If there was ONE THING couples should do to improve their relationship …

In fact, if you had to choose ONLY ONE thing to maximize the quality of your relationship.

What do you think it might be?

It’s learning to work WITH EACH OTHER.

What does this mean exactly?

It means you need to:

• DEPRIORITIZE maintaining control over each other or winning arguments
• PRIORITIZE working and finding solutions together

These are two sides of the same coin. Let’s start with the behaviors you’d need to deprioritize.

Deprioritizing Behaviors That Create Conflict Will Dramatically Reduce Your Stress

It is commonly accepted that conflict is an inherent component of any relationship.

So much so, that it’s not only portrayed as a major aspect of romantic relationships in movies.

But it’s even suggested that it’s a necessary component to improve relationships.

I couldn’t disagree more.

Imagine coming to terms with that!

It means you just have to accept that your relationship comes with a lifelong inclusive package of endless drama, fights, conflict!

How is that supposed to make you feel loved, stable and safe in your relationship?

It obviously cannot.

So first off, I’d like to dispel that myth.

If you’ve fallen victim to this misconception, know this:

Fighting, conflict and domination games cannot contribute to improving your relationship.

On the contrary, you need to do whatever you can to reduce any of the following behaviors:

• Trying to establish superiority or dominance over each other
• Insisting on being right all the time
• Playing the blame game
• Bending the truth (aka lying)
• Picking fights or seeking conflict
• Looking for faults or wrong-doing in each other

This is important.

Because doing this will FREE UP mental and emotional ROOM for what comes next.

Prioritizing Working Together Will Increase Stability & Safety

We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again.

You need to try and work TOGETHER as a couple.

Think of each other as a team. You work as a unit and put your well being and your relationship FIRST.

Over time, you’ll get better and better at it.

Karolina and I used to have PLENTY of conflicts and fights in the past.

But overall we kept the majority of our focus and attention on seeking to cooperate and work together on the problems we had in our relationship.

This is what allowed for steady and continuous improvement.

If you don’t do this, you’re leaving your relationship to continue at random.

And who knows where it might end up.

It’s tough to see couples argue about the same topics time and time again without putting their heads together to solve the issue.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Relationships don’t have to wander aimlessly and be centered around conflict and control.

They can IMPROVE and be FUN!

So working together means the following:

• When you have a conflict, actively work together to solve it
• Be as honest as possible with each other
• Work on building trust together
• Seek to cooperate and encourage
• Build real trust over time

In other words, work on BUILDING your relationship together.

Much like you would a castle. It’s stone by stone to build the walls.

Even if it doesn’t look like much at the beginning, you’re setting SOLID foundations, that will be able to withstand the curve balls life will throw at you as a couple.

Things will never be perfect overnight and you’ll still fight about things.

So you’ve removed a stone or two. Big deal.

You can put them and more back up tomorrow.

When you can count on gradual and steady improvement, it will give you an ever-increasing feeling of stability and safety in your relationship.

So keep working on reducing behaviors that lead to conflict.

And investing in ones that increase your team spirit and the sky will be your only limit.

If you have any questions about working together or having difficulty doing so, let us know in the comments and we’ll get back to you.

We’d love to help out.

Gabriel