The keys to a more loving relationship

In the spirit of the month of February being the month of love, I recently attended an event hosted by the University of Santa Monica on the keys to a more loving relationship. The core idea Drs. Ron and Mary Hulnick shared at this event, is that we are all engaged in a fundamental misunderstanding about love, and that is that we believe love is “out there somewhere”. This idea resonated with me.

Often people are looking for love, and they believe that when they find it, their lives will change for the better. In many ways, this is a passive way of engaging in any relationship. Waiting for love to find you or for the loving feeling to come over you, is essentially saying YOU can’t create love or relationship. You must WAIT for it to happen to you. And that’s not entirely true.

Of course, you can never make someone love you. But you don’t need to. As I shared in a previous article, love is not really a feeling. Love is a conscious choice and an action. Love is a way of being. And when you fall in love with someone, what you’re really falling in love with, is the projection of yourself that you see in the other person. You see yourself at your most loving self, and you believe that it’s the person you are infatuated with that is making you feel that way, when in reality, it’s because you’re showing up with no judgement and in full loving of the other that you start to feel so joyous when you spend time with your significant other.

See, when you show up this way, you remove any barriers to authenticity and connection and real, meaningful connection becomes possible. In fact, the connection then feels so deep, that you might say to yourself that you have found your “soul mate”. You have not found your soul mate. You are simply connecting soul to soul with another human being and that is the most profound connection you could make.

These kinds of connections are even possible in friendships or any other relationship where the conversation is open, vulnerable, and authentic, and where there is no judgment of the other. That’s why people also report feeling deeply connected to a best friend. And that’s what makes a coaching conversation so powerful – it’s essentially a “thou and thou conversation” as Marcia Reynolds would put it, where the divinity in me recognises the divinity in you and we are in deep loving and appreciation of each other.

Over time, as the initial infatuation fades and we start to bring judgment into the relationship, we start to feel less connected to one another, and we start to tell ourselves that we have fallen out of love. What has actually happened, is that we have stopped looking at our beloved through the eyes of loving. We are now looking at them through the eyes of judgment. Judgement of any kind places a barrier in the way of real connection. Connection simply isn’t possible when there is a lot of judgement.

A few years ago, my husband and I attended an Imago couples’ course, and we were taught to discuss any issues or concerns we might have in our marriage by sitting facing each other, holding hands, and looking each other in the eyes. I now understand better why that is so effective for dissolving conflict.

Essentially, if you are looking your partner in the eyes and holding on to them, it becomes really difficult to maintain your judgements of them. You cannot look deep into someone’s eyes without seeing their soul. And when you see their soul, you stop judging. You open your heart to loving.

Think about how we fight. When there is disagreement, we move away from each other, we break eye contact, we create distance. Why? Because we feel disconnected and believe distance is necessary. Of course, if you do find yourself at the peak of the anger cycle, it is wise to remove yourself from the situation, to avoid polluting the space with things you might later regret saying. But once you are no longer riding the wave of that emotion, it helps to move closer and to look the other person in the eyes, to look for their soul, for their real essence, and to suspend any judgment you might have of them, if you really want to reconnect and heal the rupture in the relationship.

Core principles for building sustainable relationships

I will share three principles for all relationships with you first before I share the keys to a more loving relationship with you. You see, there might be many keys to creating love and connection in a relationship, but they are only sustainable when they are built upon some core principles for creating and fully committing to the relationship in the first place.

The first principle is that love is not outside of you. It lives INSIDE you. YOU are love and you can choose to show up in love. You are not a passive participant in the game of love. You showing up as fully and as authentically as possible, is what makes real connection and the blossoming of love possible. When you give yourself permission to be real, you essentially give the other person permission to be real. And love is always a choice. You can choose to close off, to disconnect, to judge. Or you can choose to stay open, to connect, to love.

The second principle is that the issue is not the issue. How you relate to the issue is the real issue. Anything in your life can be seen as either a problem or an opportunity. Conflict or upset in a relationship might be perceived as a problem to be fixed. Or it might be perceived as an opportunity for deeper connection, self-discovery, and sometimes even healing.

In the Imago couples’ course, they shared that we feel drawn to specific people in our lives, because they are to be our partners in healing our childhood wounds. Whatever we ourselves have lost in childhood, is often what the other person holds and vice versa. So, viewed from this perspective the things about your partner that annoy you the most are essentially gifts in your life. They are there for YOUR healing, if you choose to see it that way. You can start by asking yourself, “what is being mirrored to me by my partner that I don’t want to see in myself?”

The third principle is that nothing will change if your partner changes and everything will change when YOU change. People often claim that if only their partner would stop doing something or if only they would change, then things would be different. However, it’s not what your partner is saying or doing that is the real problem. It’s how you are interpreting it or processing it on the inside. It’s the meaning you ascribe to it.

So, in a way we are back to the second principle here – the issue is not the issue. How you relate to the issue is the real issue. If you keep placing the blame for your upset on your partner, you will never really resolve it. You will just take your baggage with you into your next relationship, because the real issue actually lives inside you and it’s what’s triggering your judgment of your partner.

You can never force anyone to change, and wanting them to change is essentially judging them as not enough, and resisting reality. What’s far more meaningful, is to heal the places inside of you that hurts when someone else says or does something, so that regardless of how they choose to show up, you maintain your own sense of wholeness.

See, the ultimate state of loving, is to hold space for exactly how the other person chooses to show up, with no inner judgment on how they are choosing to show up; to appreciate them just as they are, with no burning need for them or the situation to be different.

Keys to a more loving relationship

Now for the keys. And I’m mindful here that this is not a finite list. There may be many more. Perhaps you have some of your own that you have found to be truly transformational in your own relationships.

Seek to become a good heart-centred listener. In other words, don’t listen for when the other person stops talking and you get to share your opinions and viewpoints. Rather listen with deep curiosity and a desire to understand the world from their perspective. When people feel truly seen and heard, they feel loved.

The message sent is not always the message received, so check in with the other and find out how something you said landed for them. Misunderstandings result because of individual perceptual filters, so it’s always valuable to slow down the conversation and check for any perception filters. There is an opportunity for your partner to share how something landed for them and for you to rephrase if it did not land the way you had intended it.

An important caveat here is to not operate from assumptions, but to simply ask. Share what you thought you heard and ask if that is what they meant. Or share how something they said made you feel and be willing to hold space for your partner to explain or share more for clarity’s sake.

Speak kind words always. Or as Don Miguel Ruiz would put it, be in integrity with your words. Sometimes it’s valuable to check in with yourself to make sure that you are not holding grudges or making assumptions. WHAT you say is not as important as HOW you say it. The energy you emit through your words, is far more important than your actual words. If you are feeling annoyed or frustrated and trying to hide that, it will still come across. So, staying in integrity in this instance would be through sharing openly that you are feeling annoyed or frustrated.

Keep your agreements. Broken agreements lead to broken trust. And any relationship has a finite trust account. If you make too many withdrawals from that trust account, eventually, it becomes almost impossible to regain that trust.

Develop and maintain mutually agreed upon ground rules for your relationship. In other words, design your alliance of how you will be with each other and how you will resolve conflicts.

Have a shared vision for your life together as a couple.

Drop any false narratives you might be holding on to. Don’t close your heart off to your partner.

Take responsibility for your own upsets. Look inside yourself for what’s going on and do the inner work necessary to heal whatever wound is on the inside. Blame and resentment causes ruptures in the relationship. It creates disconnection and defensiveness.

Stop judging. Your job is not to fix your partner but to love them. So, aim to keep your relationship a judgment free zone. And when you do catch yourself judging, call yourself back to loving. Part of this also includes forgiveness, which is essentially letting go of the grudges, upsets, annoyances you are holding on to. In reality not forgiving causes YOU more pain than it does the other person, because you are carrying that around inside you and over time it becomes toxic. It seeps into every aspect of your life and clouds your judgement. So, for the sake of your own inner peace, let it go.

Share gratitude, appreciation, and admiration. I’ve shared many times that gratitude goes a long way. I see it as the starting point of anything, even of creating a more loving relationship.

Resist the urge to complain about your partner to others and placing others in the difficult position where they are forced to choose sides.

Deepen the friendship. Sustainable long-term relationships are often built on friendships. Always have each other’s backs. This is key to keeping the relationship strong.

Celebrate each other’s successes.

Intimacy is a by-product of caring honesty.

Keep romance alive in the relationship. Touch in loving ways. Find ways to express your appreciation of your partner.

Be willing to give up your personal space and remain flexible in the relationship. Alternate between and honour each other’s preferences.

Maintain humour, fun, and playfulness. That leads to deep joy in the relationship.

Conclusion

My invitation is to pick the principle you want to work on most from the core principles I shared here. And then identify the keys that you consider strengths in your own relationship.

What would be a stretch for you in your relationship? Pick on attribute/key you want to work on and commit to a practice that would support that for the next 33 days. Run the experiment to see what happens.

It’s always worth it. We are social animals. No-one is meant to traverse this earth alone. Whether that is in romantic partnership, in family relationships, or in friendships, we all need those people in our lives who acknowledge and champion us and who invite us to bring our whole selves into the space. We all need someone to hold space for us, to express appreciation for us, to let us know that we are seen and loved. My deepest wish for you is that you get to experience what it’s like to be loved in this way.

References:

1. Breytenbach, C. (2021). It starts with gratitude. Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/it_starts_with_gratitude/
2. Breytenbach, C. (2022). Love is an action. Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/love_is_an_action/
3. Ruiz, D. M. (1997). The Four Agreements: A practical guide to personal freedom. California: Amber-Allen.