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What transitions couples from desperation about their difficulties to delight in sharing their lives together? Here’s the 8-step pathway along which I guide my therapy clients, and which you are welcome to take as well.
1. Make a list of all the issues about which you have disagreements, including the issues that you refrain from talking about out of fear that talking might lead to arguing.
Your self-help treatment will be complete when you have found mutually agreeable solutions to all of these issues, and also have learned the skills to resolve new issues as they arise with similarly win-win solutions.
If the list seems interminable because you fight about everything from time of day to where to live, odds are the problem is less that you are facing some challenging differences, and more that your manner of talking with each other needs a major upgrade.
2. Fix your focus solidly on yourself. Attempts to get your partner to change invite defensiveness. No one likes being told they're doing things wrong or, far worse, that they are a bad person. Better by far for both of you each to use your energies and intelligence to figure out what YOU could do differently.
Here's a question that can get you started. What would enable you to stay loving and good-humored even if the frustrating pieces in your spouse’s repertoire never get an upgrade? That's how to become “self-centered” in the best sense. If both of you are seeking to do your own upgrades, the marriage will blossom.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201303/marriage-problems-heres-8-step-rescue-plan
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