Jennifer Martin Rieck is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and the owner of Epijennetics Counseling & Consulting in Libertyville, Illinois. She is also the owner of and writer for epijennetics.com, a website that explores the mental shifts that lead to healthy expression of self and healthy connection to others.
Many people who come to counseling seeking treatment for anxiety or depression end up mentioning that they want to work on their relationships and communication concerns. In my experience, this is an area of concern for most people who have a growth mindset and want to create lives that are healthier. Being a good communicator or having healthy relationships is not something that we ever truly perfect, but rather something that we continually work at.
As we grow as individuals and continually form new relationships, we must continually be evolving and stretching ourselves to be better: better communicators and better listeners, better at giving love and better at receiving it, better at making healthy boundaries and better at respecting boundaries, better at being authentic in our lives and encouraging that in others. We must continue to dig into problem areas and be less avoidant and we must continually seek to be more vulnerable and authentic ourselves. Although many people inherently understand the need for growth relationally, the question still remains as to how we put this desire for growth and improvement into action in our lives on a daily basis. That is what I hope to spell out by providing 6 ways to improve relationship satisfaction.
Explore your attachment pattern
For individuals who seem to experience the same type of relationship conflict or dissatisfaction in relationships, attachment style is often at the root. Attachment styles are the way that we typically operate when connected to others. In my own clinical work, I like to use the love style quiz by Milan and Kay Yerkovich to help individuals understand their own style of engaging in relationships. In their work, Milan and Kay Yerkovich not only look at someone’s individual style but also how their style interacts with their partner’s style. This can help both parties understand their contribution to the unsatisfying pattern in their relationship and can also help raise self-awareness in individuals about the impact of their family of origin on their beliefs about relationships. Individuals are often acting out of these beliefs without even realizing it. Understanding your attachment style and how you can improve your connection to others is a great first step to changing unsatisfying patterns in your relationships.
Understand personality types
In my work with clients, I always explore personality using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Helping my clients understand their personality type and the predominant personality traits of themselves and those important to them does a couple of things to help improve relationships. First, it helps individuals understand themselves and who they are at their core. Personality tends to be fairly stable throughout life, so understanding their personality type, what makes them tick, and the strengths and weaknesses of their type give them insight into their own needs, feelings, and values, as well as highlighting potential blind spots. Understanding personality traits in general also helps them to better understand the other people in their lives. Personality types are not right or wrong, they are just different. Understanding that their partners, friends, and family members aren’t likely to ever have a different personality will help them accept the things they need to accept while still articulating their own needs. This also gives both parties a language to communicate why they might want something different or feel a certain way and helps both parties be more compassionate about the differences that exist.
Understand your schemas
Schemas impact most of us and how we react to things in relationships. Schema Therapy, the type of therapy that I practice, focuses on an individual’s pervasive and enduring thought patterns. At the heart of Schema Therapy is an understanding that long-term, ingrained, and often unconscious beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world around us are at the core of enduring mental health and relationship distress. Schema Therapy addresses common schemas that have been found to be present in many individuals suffering from mental health concerns. Some examples of common schemas are Abuse/Mistrust, Emotional Deprivation, and Abandonment/Instability.
I think of schemas like triggers, often resulting in big reactions when set off intentionally or unintentionally. For example, someone with a high Emotional Deprivation schema who has had chronic experiences of others not meeting their emotional needs may have a big reaction to a seemingly small invalidation of their feelings. For example, if this individual were to try to talk about how they feel about something to a friend or partner and that person’s phone rang and they answered it, the individual may become very upset without even being certain of the reason. They may tell themselves, “Nobody will ever care about my emotional needs,” and experience distress as a result. Understanding our own schemas and managing our reactions is our own work. However, having a language for communicating why we might be triggered by something and helping those we love understand it, may improve our connection and reduce the likelihood of it happening again. Vulnerable discussions about schemas and needs can help us to be less triggered in our relationships and often can provide depth and emotional intimacy with others because we are sharing the most vulnerable parts of ourselves with them.
Related Article: Schema: Don’t Be a Puppet at the Mercy of Your Past
Know your love languages
Most people who come to counseling are somewhat familiar with the concept behind The Five Love Languages. At some point in couple’s therapy, this concept almost always comes to the forefront. What I find in doing couples therapy routinely is that most people have a desire to make their partner feel loved. However, many times the effort being put forth to show love is more focused on how they themselves like to be loved or what they have experienced as loving in the past. For example, someone who grew up loving to receive random gifts from their parents, who felt very loved when they got a gift, will often give gifts to others in an attempt to make their loved one feel special. However, if their partner or loved one had parents who gave them unthoughtful gifts throughout their childhood in an attempt to feel good about themselves but didn’t invest time in their child’s life, they may feel anything but loved when receiving a gift. The point behind the Five Love Language is to understand that we need to show our partners love in a way that causes them to actually feel loved, and that may be very different from how we feel loved. Because of these differences, individuals in relationships are often “missing” each other in their attempts because they aren’t aware of the differences that exist for each of them. Learning to meet others' needs and show love in the way that they best receive it is crucial to experience satisfying relationships.
Communicate your needs
One of the most common things that I hear in couple’s therapy from individuals is that they believe that their partner or loved one should know what they need without them asking. Although it is true that we should look for partners who have basic empathy and are respectful, expecting another person to know what we need or want from one moment to the next is not realistic. Taking into consideration that each of us likely has different personality types, love languages, attachment styles, values, etc., it is very unlikely that, in any given situation, we would both want or need the exact same thing. Part of experiencing the joy of relationships is allowing ourselves to be known and knowing others. This requires that rather than expecting others to read our minds or trying to read the minds of others, we practice honest and vulnerable communication about our needs. Increasing your self-awareness in terms of personality, love languages, attachment styles, and schemas will help you to better understand yourself, but at the end of the day, it is up to you to learn what it is that you need from others when you are experiencing strong emotions, feeling triggered, or just lacking a sense of connection. The more you explore your needs with your partner and experiment with how your partner can best meet them, the more your relationship satisfaction will increase.
Related article: Mind-Reading: An Ineffective Way to Address Needs
Align your expectations
One of the most common reasons that people experience disappointment in relationships is that they don’t have the same expectations as their partner, parent, or friend. So often, we imagine how we want something to be and then project those expectations onto others. For example, we have a birthday coming up and we imagine an ideal birthday experience that makes us feel special and cared for by our partner. We don’t communicate our expectations or desires to our partner and get unpleasantly surprised by the complete opposite of what we imagined. Now we are disappointed and angry at our partner but our partner has no idea why because they never had a clue about the expectation. Another good example of this that I often hear is about paying on dates. Often individuals become resentful over time because the person they are dating isn’t paying for their meals or is expecting them to split the cost. The expectation that the other person should pay was never communicated, and therefore, resentment and disappointment grow. This example is not intended to suggest that the expectation for chivalry or taking the lead in dating is an unreasonable desire, just that an unagreed-upon expectation can harm relationships if not communicated.
Related article: Expectation and Fairness: Can You Tell the Difference?
Start improving your relationships today
Doing the work to become a healthier person and a better friend, lover, or family member, is every bit as challenging as it may feel. However, you can come a long way in your attempt to grow by simply exploring yourself through the tools above. Raising your own self-awareness will equip you to start speaking up about your needs and your expectations and will set you on a journey towards increasing relationship satisfaction and quality of life. If you are unsure about where to start, begin with the 6 steps above. If you still have questions, engage in therapy and work on clarifying what you want. Although individuals often feel stuck and unclear about how to move forward, therapists are often very familiar with situations like yours. If you are in the state of Illinois or Wisconsin and would like to work together in therapy, feel free to reach out through my website. I’m rooting for you!
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Jennifer Martin Rieck, Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor
Jennifer Martin Rieck is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and the owner of Epijennetics Counseling & Consulting and epijennetics.com, a website that explores healthy self-expression and healthy connection to others. She specializes in working with individuals who struggle to break free from Narcissistic or Self-Sacrificing relationship patterns.
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