Relationship counseling - Family Tuning

Relationship and Family Tuning

by Irina Timchenko

Leave your comments about this article below

You certainly know that both people in dating and marriage find themselves negotiating various decisions all the time. Each of you has his/her individual position, and is going to prove that this position is right....

I can't light no more of your darkness
All my pictures seem to fade to black and white
I'm growing tired and time stands still before me
Frozen here on the ladder of my life.
Too late to save myself from falling
I took a chance and changed your way of life
But you misread my meaning when I met you
Closed the door and left me blinded by the light.
Don't let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see
I'd just allow a fragment of your life to wander free
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me.
I can't find oh, the right romantic line
But see me once and see the way I feel
Don't discard me just because you think I mean you harm
But these cuts I have, oh they need love to help them heal.
Don't let the sun go down on me(B.Taupin/E.John,1974)

At the same time, the way you put your opinion can work for or against you in family negotiation process. There are a number of essential rules for the kind of communication that will make your relationship thrive and flow with love. Here are two of them:

Never criticize. This does not mean that you cannot give feedback on something your partner is doing or not doing, but there is a vast difference between feedback and criticism. Feedback has the following essential components:

Specific reference to action that is being taken or not taken by your partner, instead of generalizations;
How it specifically impacts you;How specifically you would like the situation to change;
How the change will impact you;
A request for change.

Criticism on the other hand is designed to help the person doing the criticizing dump the anger that has built up as a result of actions the partner is doing or not doing. The problem with criticizing is that if you use communication in your relationship to dump your anger, it will be hard to use it to build up love.

If you need to express your anger, do so; but again, express it as feedback and/or your feelings. For example: "I am angry at you for doing so and so, or I am very angry at you because you again forgot to do such and such." Don't dump your anger by being critical, as in "You just never think about anybody except yourself!"

Never nag. Nagging is designed to get a reluctant person to do the thing he or she is reluctant to do. Nagging does not work, because even if the reluctant person does the thing he or she is being nagged about, the thing will rarely be done properly. Even if it is, the nagger will never be satisfied with the thing, because of how much energy and aggravation had to be expended to get the thing done.

Nagging has an unspoken aspect of anger and frustration in it. Do not waste your precious communication time and resources on nagging. Instead, ask for what you want. Ask as many times as you feel you must, always being honest about how much anger or frustration you are feeling as a result of having to ask repeatedly.

But know that no matter how wonderful your partner and your relationship are, no one will do everything you will ask of them all of the time. You will get reluctance or a flat-out "no" sometimes, and you need to deal with these gracefully. The key is the frequency of the reluctance and the "no's" and how important you consider the thing you are asking for.

At times it may be prudent to give up and do the thing yourself or ask someone else to do it. At other times, it makes more sense to keep asking your partner until he or she finally understands how important you consider your request. Remember: good, consistent, quality communication is essential to your relationship and to both of you being happy with each other and building trust.

Strict Standards: CaptchaLib_hncaptcha::getCaptcha() [captchalib-hncaptcha.getcaptcha]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Captcha/lib/classes/captchalibs/class.captchalib_hncaptcha.php on line 50 Notice: Undefined index: path in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Captcha/lib/classes/captchalibs/class.captchalib_hncaptcha.php on line 50 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 255 Notice: Undefined variable: emailfield in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 255 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 256 Notice: Undefined variable: websitefield in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 256 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 259 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 259 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 261 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 261 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 262 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 262 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 263 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 263 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 264 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 264 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 265 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 265 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 266 Notice: Undefined variable: title in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 266 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 266 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 266 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 267 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 267 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 268 Notice: Undefined variable: author in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 268 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 268 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 268 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 269 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 269 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 270 Notice: Undefined variable: email in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 270 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 270 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 270 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 271 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 271 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 272 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 272 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 273 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 273 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 274 Notice: Undefined variable: website in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 274 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 274 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 274 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 275 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 275 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 276 Notice: Undefined variable: content in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 276 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 276 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 276 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 277 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 277 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 278 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 278



Add A Comment

	
Add A Comment























	
		Code in the picture:
		

	
	
		Your Name(*):
		

	
	
		Comment(*):