Relationship Rescue: At what position does your partner stand for you?

Saving your relationship from ruin. How to do it. There could be any number of things going on that are causing your relationship to stop working well for you. This can be caused by how you view your partner. Consider for yourself whether you consider your partner equal, beneath you or above you.

For example, a man once came to me who had an Asian girlfriend and she wanted to leave. She was done with it, but he wanted her to stay. She was his everything, his princess

Every time he mentioned her, he looked up. I thought that was interesting. So I asked him, "When you think about her, where do you see her? Imagine you make a picture of her, where is she in that space?"

He looked up. And I asked, "Is she standing there? Up there?"

Yes it was.

"Get her down at eye level."

So he did. And heaved a sigh of relief. It was much nicer. Equal.

Then we started playing with it a bit. Little left, right, eventually on the same level and side by side. Then we talked a little bit more about what it means and how it works.

This was an exercise of the social panorama by Lucas Derks[1]. Highly recommended to use sometime.

That was actually the entire session. This was about five years ago. They got married and they now have children.

Very interesting and we didn't work with her at all. We didn't hold any sessions so she felt comfortable here. Nothing at all.

We only worked with the guy. This eventually had an effect on her as well, causing her to stay.

Surely it is extraordinary how much influence you have on another person when you change yourself.

She apparently felt stifled by someone who wanted to do everything for her. Now he does things differently, and in this case it worked better for her.

This doesn’t mean it works in every relationship, but in this case, it did.

So what's out there?

A relationship and its demise are not two things you can grab hold of. It's not a thing. It's relating. You do something and you get a reaction to it and that's the relationship.

Downfall is also a thing or a process. Undergoing it might be.

They are all verbs.

Then when you do something different, relate something different, the outcome is different. The relationship becomes different.

So you can say your relationship is bad, but your relationship is not a thing. You can also say you are doing something right now that is not working. Then if you start doing something different, it's going to work differently. I'm not saying it's better, I'm just saying it's going to work differently.

When you start doing things differently, you get a different relationship. You get a different result.

What you do you have a lot of influence over.

One of the things you can do is the social panorama.

When you think about your own relationships, your partner, your father, your mother, your friends, your siblings, where do they stand? Are they looking toward you or away from you? Are they standing close or are they standing far away? Are they in color or are they black and white?

Play around with that. To what feels right for you. Maybe they should be further away, closer, at your back or in front of you?

Play with it and if it feels right, click them and then see what the effect is.

I did this with my children. My oldest son was a little distant in my mind and I moved him closer. Now I have a much better relationship with him. That's just very interesting when you think about it. That doing something in your mind can have such an effect.

Also listen to this podcast:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/1829200-hoe-red-je-je-relatie-van-de-ondergang?play=true

Are you too materialistic?

In addition to where your partner stands with you in your thoughts, you can also ask yourself if you might be too materialistic. In fact, research shows that the more materialistic a person is, the more likely they are to be dissatisfied with their marriage[2].

If you really love possessions and money, you might ask yourself whether this is actually helpful and where this desire comes from. Perhaps you secretly fear poverty, or maybe cutting back on consumption for a while could help you break free from your focus on materialism.

Do you often argue about money? If so, this could be a problem for you or your partner.

If you don’t know why you’re materialistic, a hypnotherapist can help you with this. Through regression, for example, you can discover which moment in your life contributed to a materialistic mindset and how logical it actually is to have this mindset now—especially if it’s making your relationship less enjoyable.

In the process, you can also get other suggestions from a hypnotherapist. For example, how materialism can still play a role in your life without ruining your marriage.

When changing yourself doesn't help

Is changing your own behavior not helping? Then the Gottman method can also be helpful to go through as a couple. For straight couples and gay couples, this method works[3].

In the method, you first discuss how the relationship came about and then you assess the relationship on points with which you agree and disagree.

You’ll then go through specific steps. For example, you’ll learn to recognize when your partner is actually making a “request.” Some comments are subtle hints asking for attention or help, but it’s easy to overlook them.

This is one way, for example, to strengthen the bond of friendship between you. In addition, the program explores how to resolve conflicts effectively and how to work together to find meaning in the experiences you’ve shared and what your relationship is all about[4].

Positive reinforcement

Do you want your partner to exhibit a certain behavior more often? Then pay close attention to this. For example, whenever your partner does something that makes you happy, give them a compliment or a high five—but in any case, do something that makes your partner feel good too.

This increases the likelihood that these desired behaviors will be exhibited more often. So is your sweetheart cleaning up? Then don't go grumbling about what he/she just didn't do right, but show that you are glad he/she is doing something instead of doing nothing.

This positive reinforcement or feedback often plays an important role in couples therapy as well[5].

Hypnosis and saving your relationship

Hypnosis has long been used to save relationships. Difficulty getting pregnant can be the breaking point for some relationships. In that case, hypnosis can be used to strengthen the relationship, which may allow the pregnancy to succeed after all.

This is done with suggestions and with seeding ideas that can have great impact on the relationship[6].

This is also true if you notice that you or your partner struggles to form a bond—for example, if you or your partner has a fear of commitment. Hypnotherapy can help heal this by addressing the emotional wounds related to attachment that you may have experienced as a child.

Age regression is then used for this purpose. You then go back to when the fear of commitment arose and see what impact it has had on your life to date.

Indeed, this can cause healing in the worldview you have and how you view relationships and bond with people. The research shows that participants experience a kind of relief (just like the man who wanted to save his relationship) and feel better emotionally and psychologically as a result and then behave better[7].

Yet bonding is not always the most important thing in couples therapy anymore. Increasingly, it is also about the interaction you have with each other. Indeed, modern relationships seek a balance of independence, being able to rely on yourself and, on the other hand, being able to do something together as a couple and to pursue the same goals or ideas.

Hypnosis can then help shift the focus to the future and how you want to fill that shared future, so you can proactively solve problems and know which direction to take with that solution[8].

So hypnosis can be used individually to see if it helps if you unconsciously change awkward behaviors to save your relationship. On the other hand, hypnosis can help strengthen understanding and interaction and bond with each other.

Want to know how hypnosis works and how you can make it happen? Then come join a free online hypnosis masterclass.

Or enroll in one of our training courses. Trainings are conducted online, so classes can continue anytime.

Sources:

[1] https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/assets/look-inside/9781904424031.pdf

[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10834-017-9563-2

[3] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jmft.12276

[4] https://www.gottman.com/about/the-gottman-method/

[5] https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-49425-8_49

[6] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207144.2020.1762493

[7] https://search.proquest.com/openview/8513c67e1132027ed50ae8a751197a65/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

[8] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amanda_Ferguson7/publication/289342749_Working_with_couples_using_hypnotherapy/links/57259ca408aee491cb3aa3de/Working-with-couples-using-hypnotherapy.pdf