Hi everybody, a very warm welcome to this week’s podcast on how to heal your relationship.

I hope those of you listening today got a chance to listen to last week’s podcast, which was my first ever on this wonderful subject matter.

If you didn’t a quick introduction, my name is Aisha Walker. I am a couples coach and a relationship coach, so I work with individuals and couples helping them heal, prove, fix, evolve their relationship. And last week I was sharing with you the simple reason why trying to change your partner doesn’t work as a strategy and strategies are something I talk a lot about in coaching, couples coaching, why trying to change your partner, pushing your partner to change does not work.

If you want to hear a little more on that, go back and listen to last week’s episode. But I’d like to build a little more on that rather large idea and explain a bit more why it doesn’t work.

What is one of the biggest problems in relationships, why pushing and wanting to get your partner to change is part of that and move on to some practical things that you can actually do to cause change in your relationship, real change, change that actually does work. So here we go, let’s dive straight in.

Why Pushing Your Partner Doesn’t Work

Well let me ask you another question first, why do we get into relationships in the first place? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier just to live on your own and do everything the way that you want to do it?

Why are we pulled into relationships? Well it’s my belief and my experience that relationships, connection with another person in particular, a significant other is something that is a need.

So when I say need, I mean it’s a non-negotiable for our happiness, for feeling that we are living a truly fulfilled life. It’s one of the things that causes us to feel that is connecting with others, being part of something else outside of ourselves.

Our Need For Connection

We are social animals as human beings, sharing with another, feeling cherished and loved by another, being part of something that is bigger than us as an individual is deeply satisfying to us as human beings.

It’s also linked to another very, very important need and it is a need for certainty and security in our life. When we feel that there are others who got our back, who are going to be there for us when times are bad through thick and thin, then we feel a bigger sense of certainty, safety and security in our lives.

So they meet two very important needs, this need for certainty and this need for love and connection to feel cherished.

Now those are wonderful and important needs and we will put up with a whole heap of pain in relationships just for the opportunity to have that sense of connection with another met.

Our Need For Autonomy

But there is another need that we have as human beings that can be in direct opposition to this need for connection and that is something that I call our need for autonomy to be acknowledged and respected for being an individual, for our unique way of showing up in life, for our unique way of seeing life, our own particular viewpoint, our own particular way of doing things, our own values that are deeply important to us that have come about through our own life experiences, through the culture that we grew up in, through the values and things that our family instilled in us from an early age that make us who we are.

Those are very, very important to us and when we feel that we are not being valued for our individuality and our autonomy are right to govern ourselves and not be governed by another, when we don’t feel that that need is being met, then we will become resentful.

And I think this is often what happens in relationships. When we get together initially, that’s not really a big issue.

The Honeymoon Period

Think back to when you first met your partner in that lovely time that I call the honeymoon period, when you’re kind of in sync over everything, your hormones are all of a flutter, you can’t keep your hands off each other, love is blind, your partner can do no wrong, and their very differences are nothing but a delight to you.

The need for autonomy, the need to be different, to be recognised where our differences are, doesn’t really come up at that point, our differences in fact are often what delights us at that stage of relationship.

But relationship can’t stay at that stage, like all things in life, it must grow and deepen and evolve and we move into that next stage of relationship, which generally for most of us usually involves actually physically moving in together, starting to share the same time and space. And that is when our differences can start to be a problem.

Relationships Evolve

When we start to feel that we are being judged by our partner for our different ways of showing up in life, for our different ways of being for our very different values. And they come up in very, very practical ways. I’m talking about moving in together, so how about you start discovering that your partner has a very, very different attitude to house maintenance to you.

Maybe you are somebody that really enjoys tidiness and beauty and things being in their exact place and a sense of structure and order, but your partner is very free-flowing. They kind of are more interested maybe in comfort rather than tidiness.

So you start to bump over whether things are put away or how the bed is made and these things that seem like really stupid little things, things that because you love each other really shouldn’t bother you, actually do bother you because they’re not small.

They are about being acknowledged for your own way of being, for your own way of showing up in the world. That there isn’t anything wrong with your way of showing up in your in the way that you enjoy, that your way perhaps of being tidy is a perfectly good way or their way of being a little more free-flowing is a perfectly good way.

Differences Appear

It could show up in other ways. It could be that your partner maybe is quite introverted that they like alone time or just time with you that they enjoy solitude and peace and quiet and maybe you’re somebody that really loves to socialise.

You kind of have an open door policy in your home and your partner’s kind of quiet away of being is becoming a real issue and it’s something you’re starting to argue over. How many people are going to be invited for dinner next week or just turn up unexpectedly and how are both of you going to deal with that?

Maybe you’re starting to discover you have different attitudes to finance. One of you is a saver. You like to plan ahead. You like to think far into the future. You like to save your pennies so you can spend on other things that you’ve actually planned for but maybe your partner isn’t that way at all. They’re a little more free-flowing again, a little more spontaneous. They really like splurging on that unexpected experience or gift to show their love for you or somebody else. Maybe they’re a bit of a gambler.

Maybe they enjoy taking a chance because that’s how they feel that they will bring abundance into your shared life together not through planning and saving but through taking a chance and you guys are starting to really bump against these very different ways of showing up in the world.

It is this need for autonomy versus this need connection.

Finding Middle Ground

So you want to be with your partner but you’re really struggling to find a way that middle ground if you like that meets your partner’s needs and meets your needs and what often happens when you bump when you discover that they’re very very different is that love, this lovely wonderful love that you have for each other isn’t enough. And the sad conclusion that many couples come to at this stage is if your partner really loved you they would naturally see and understand your way of doing and being in the world. You wouldn’t have to defend it.

They would automatically understand the importance of shifting to accommodate you but here’s the problem.

They’re having the very same thought about you.

They’re feeling that if you really love them you would be understanding them. You would be really acknowledging their autonomy, their way of showing up in the world and they are starting to feel hurt, unseen, unrecognised, controlled even or perhaps dominated by you.

And you begin to wonder whether each of you really actually loved each other because you cannot find a way through this impossible problem of meeting the way you like to show up in the world and then meeting the way that they like to show up in the world.

So you start to criticise, to judge, to cajole, to guilt, to shame, to plead.

All of those ways that I talked about in last week’s podcast you start to employ these tactics in hopes of getting your partner to recognise your autonomy and they start to do the same.

The Wall Of Resentment

And what you then start to do as a couple is build something that I call the wall of resentment and brick by brick you build this wall of resentment up between you, feeling more and more hurt by what seems like your partner’s refusal to recognise you for who you are.

What Can You Do?

So what can you do? How do you meet each other’s needs when they seem to be so very different?

Well, the first thing, and there are many things you can do, but the very, very first thing that I suggest that you consider before asking your partner to recognise your autonomy.

And here it is, guys, get ready for it. The first thing that you need to do is recognise your partner’s autonomy. As that wonderful human being, Mahatma Gandhi said, be the change you wish to see. If you want recognition and the right to be different and to do things your way, are you first and foremost recognising that right in your partner?

Recognise Your Partner’s Autonomy

Are you recognising your partner’s autonomy? Now, you may think that you are, but if we were to check in with your partner right here and right now and ask them if they felt recognised by you, hand on heart, what do you think their answer would be?

That you truly accept them for who they are and the different ways that they like to be and show up in the world without judgment is not an easy thing to do, especially if you can’t see a way that you can in practical terms make those things work. Let’s take a very, very practical situation.

Let’s say one of you is somebody financially who does like to take a bit of a risk, right? And for the other in the relationship, that’s terrifying and a really bad way to go.

How do you recognise that person’s autonomy? That sounds really scary, right? Does that mean you have to just go along with their way of doing things?

So here’s your big listen, your big, big idea today. Recognising your partner’s autonomy does not immediately mean you’ve got to go along with and immediately employ their way of seeing the world or doing the thing their way. It just means your first step is to acknowledge their right to be different. Don’t worry yet about how you find a way, a practical way to incorporate your very different, let’s say attitudes to finance or socialising or keeping the house tidy.

Acknowledge Your Partner Is Different

The very first thing you want to just focus on, baby steps guys, baby steps, don’t try and eat the whole elephant once in one go. Don’t try and fix the big problem at once. Take the first baby step and the first baby step here today is recognition.

It’s acknowledgement that your partner is different and there is nothing wrong with them that isn’t anything to be fixed or changed. There is just something to be acknowledged that they are different to acknowledge that.

You will find the practical way later and I will take you through many things, many steps, tools and strategies that you can do to find that I don’t even like to say middle ground because that sounds like compromise and I’m not up for a compromising relationship.

I’m not finding the grey area for both of you where you sort of get each of your needs met. I absolutely believe that you can be extremely creative and imaginative around how the how part of how you meet each other’s different ways of being but before you can get to that creative part before you can open your wonderful imagination into ways of doing that.

The very first thing you have to have in place is a respect and an acknowledgement of your partner’s right to be different.

You want to have a good relationship, do that first and here’s the really hard bit guys.

Do it even when they’re not doing it for you. That’s when to do it.

Be The Change You Wish To See

Don’t wait for your partner to change first.

Don’t have some rule in your head that says if I take the first step they’ve also got to take a step. It’s 50-50 or I’m not moving forward. If you’re going to run your relationship from that dynamic, I take one step and then they take a step and then I’ll take the next step.

You are going to move forward at a snail’s pace or not at all. In fact it will probably be one step forward one step back.

Be Brave

Be prepared to be the one to go first.

To step up, to be the leader even when your partner is behaving really badly and not acknowledging your right to be who you are.

But how do you do that when how they are being has you getting triggered? You want to turn up from that higher place from that more evolved place to be the leader to be the change you want to see. But as soon as they do X off you go. Your fuse is lit. It’s already game over. Words are coming out of your mouth and you’re back on that old dynamic of tip for tap, of judgment, of getting angry, of shaming each other, judging each other, gifting each other.

How do you get how do you not get triggered? How do you step up and be the leader? How do you be the change you wish to see? So once again I’m going to leave you on that cliffhanger. How do you do that? But what I’m going to suggest that you do this week is really think about first of all whether you are willing to recognise your partners right to be different even when they’re not willing to recognise yours.

Are you up for that? That’s a very very important question or are you going to wait for them to make the first move?

Okay, I think that should be plenty to think about for the next seven days. I suggest you really consider that question and how you feel about it and what level of willingness you feel in your heart whether you’re up for taking that first step, being the leader, being prepared to recognise your partners right to be different without judging that difference even when they’re not doing it for you. 

As always have an amazing seven days and tune in once again this time next week every week for how to heal your relationship. Until then take care.