By now in your relationship, you have probably already experienced a challenge or conflict with your spouse or potential future spouse. Did you both handle it as well as you would have liked? After 30+ years, I can tell you, there will be conflicts. Your love will be tested. It’s not that you were tested. Being tested is a given. It’s how you came through the test that matters.
Many of the couples I work with are not following guidelines like this and even after learning these concepts in therapy, they are complacent at home and do not follow them. Too many relationships are mediocre because of this. They accept occasional or even frequent blow-ups as normal and typically fight about the same 3-5 things every time.
If you want better, you will need to become a student of healthy communication, learning and then practicing healthy communication strategies, until they are woven in to how you live your life.
