Are You Too Nice For A Happy Relationship?

Are You Too Nice For Your Own Good

Clients come to me all the time feeling frustrated that the man they’ve settled with takes them for granted, or doesn’t give as much as they’d want them to.  And though there are numerous reasons why they are in the situation they are in, almost without fail, if the woman is complaining, she is invariably being too nice for her own good.  

What I want to talk to you about is the myth that being nice gets you what you want as often as you think it would, and open your ears to the idea that, in reality, in personal relationships, being too nice can make it harder for you to have a happy relationship. 

In our society, women and men are groomed from an early age to value certain behaviours from each other, despite the fact that there is supposed to be gender equality, from my experience relationships show the true differences between men and women, and being too nice is rarely valued in men as much as it to women. 

And this is my point, if you are not getting the things you feel you want or need from your partner, then have a look at how much you give and how much you receive.  It’s important for you to realise that taking on board this new idea, may well help save you experiencing even more frustration.

To give is good or is it?

Over the last 8 – 9 years of being a coach, I can categorically state that every single female client I have had, believes she is being selfish if she thinks about herself first- or even thinks of herself at all.

Now think about that, hundreds of women think that in order to have a successfully happy marriage, selfishness is bad, wrong and they shouldn’t be it.  Yet these same women are the one’s where they are being taken advantage of in some aspect of their life, they give way too much and they are starting to resent it, their needs often get overlooked and they become more frustrated and unhappy. 

So my solution to their predicament, is to think about others less, and themselves more and that’s when I get

“ But isn’t that being selfish?”

Over the years my answer has always been the same, if you’re giving too much and that makes you feel frustrated or unhappy then give less and think about yourself more.  There isn’t a book handed down through the generations, that says you need to be doing what you are doing and that if you think of yourself first – now and then- that you are selfish.

But no matter how many times I’ve said it, no matter how much logic I throw at their argument, being overly accomodating, thinking about others first, will deplete you emotionally and lead to dissatisfaction. 

The other interesting thing is when I say to them that they are being too nice, I’ve never had one woman agree with me, they all maintain that they are not, they are mean, or other negative things, and being too nice isn’t how they would describe themselves.

Now reading into that we could go off on another tangent about self esteem but that’s another long story really.  What I would like you to consider here, is whether you yourself suffer from frustration, anger, annoyance and if you do, is the route of it your inability to say no, or to think of your needs and make them a priority?

To help you answer that, I will give you a couple of pointers to help you identify whether, you give too much, so take a read through and assess this for yourself.

If you give too much then:

1.         Do you  think about your partners needs first, what would work for him, what would work for others and you think about how you can fit around this?

Then learn how to think about what you want or need first, as apposed to thinking about pleasing your partner first. 

I am not saying not to think about him and his needs, but once in a while think about what you want first and start to hold back slightly, do what you want in little ways, and build your confidence in looking after yourself first.

2.         Do you rush around to fit other people’s errands into your already bulging schedule?  

Start being realistic about your the time and what you really can fit in.  If you spend your time running around others making sure things get done, and you flop exhausted at the end of the day because you are taking on too much of other peoples ‘stuff’ then see what happens if for once, you say no- and come up with an alternative for others to help you out for a change.  (Or do their own errands)

If you believe that if you don’t do things it wouldn’t get done and that others don’t even offer you help, then ask yourself if people, your husband for instance, does offer to help and you decline, or if he did offer once but because you always said no, he has stopped offering.  Or if in fact he has always expected you to carry the bulk of the work and that’s just how you settled. 

No matter what the initial stimulus, the important thing here is to notice how you got into the situation you’re in now, and to slowly start doing the opposite of what you’d normally do. 

Understand that over extending yourself, doing things for others that they can do for themselves, or not saying no for fear of offending others all contribute to you carrying more, and though you may on the one hand believe that you aren’t selfish and that’s a good thing, after a while, as you know, you end up carrying more stress.

Relationships are a minefield at the best of times, but what always comes through from my clients is that if they give too much, they end up feeling frustrated, and dissatisfied.  Finding the balance takes time, and if you start now with first recognising whether you do give too much then at least you know where you can start to make some changes .

By being more’selfish’ you will have more opportunity to being happier and more fulfilled, and you’ll find it easie to meet your own needs.  In short, being more ’selfish’ helps you look after yourself better than you may be at present. 

This system for boosting your relationship is simple really, by being able to focus on what you need to be happy and more importantly give yourself what you need to be happy, you are more likely to be happy.

But, I also know that the idea of you being labelled selfish by yourself or others will put you off ever thinking about yourself and feeling comfortable doing so,  so if you do use this idea, acknowledge to yourself that you  are important enough to be looked after. 

And the good thing is this strategy can also help you improve any health issues that you have.  This technique is great to use when you need to feel better about yourself to achieve something first as well as other benefits.  

If you would like any more help and support on this, then leave me a comment or question below, and I’ll get back to you with more pointers.

Until the next time….

How To Protect Your Relationship From Stagnating

How To Protect Your Relationship From Stagnating

There are so many ways to stop your relationship from stagnating and an often overlooked way is through cooperation.  

Cooperation is when you and your partner work together for a mutual benefit.  You have shared goals and shared responsibilities and you both work together to achieve the outcome.  You are in effect a team and as a team you both make sure that what needs to be done gets done. Read the rest of this entry »

Should You Really Have Your Ex Back?

Should you really have him back?

Hundreds of women every day scour the net or their local bookshop for answers that will tell them whether they should have their ex back. 

So in an aid to help you, I’m going to outline some things for you to consider if, like the hundreds of women who search daily  for answers, you’re considering having him back. Read the rest of this entry »

What Do Marital Problems Really Mean?

What Do Marital Problems Really Mean?

How many tips, hints and strategies have you tried to get your relationship back on track?  How many books, courses and seminars have you been to with or without your spouse to ‘save’ your marriage?

The reason I ask is because I wonder if you’ve considered what marital problems really mean.  What I’d like you to think about is that on the one hand marital problems could be down to lack of time spent with each other, so you grow apart,  or stress at work spilling over into your life, so you argue more,  taking each other for granted, so resentment is built up or even hurt or anger from unresolved issues. Read the rest of this entry »

Getting More Understanding In Your Relationship

You just don’t understand!

Has anyone ever said this to you, or you to them? 

You just don’t understand is something we all say, especially about our partner, family members and parents.  And when one of my clients complains that her husband, doesn’t understand, she feels deflated that he doesn’t just get ‘it’.  And she thinks that the solution to the problem  is to get him to understand, because then everything would be fine.

She firmly believes that if he understood her then he’d give her what she wants,  and the problem would go away.

But would it? Read the rest of this entry »

How Do I Know He’s Ready To Commit?

Is the relationship going anywhere or not?  What tells you he’s not going to commit?

Read these two scenarios and tell me the likelihood that they will foster a committed relationship.

Scenario 1

“ I’m 30 and my boyfriend is 55 and has never been in a long term relationship.  We’ve been together for over a year now, is there any chance he will ask me to marry him?”

Scenario 2

“My boyfriend and I have been together on and off for around 3 years now.  He can’t seem to make up his mind whether he wants to stick with it or not.  Will he ever commit to settling down with me or not”

What do you think, do you think they’ll get together and commit to their partner and live happily ever after?

The thing about commitment is that we all want it, but it’s not always that easy to get.  And it doesn’t seem to matter whether or how much your partner loves you, it’s not necessarily a sign that he’s ready or able to commit to you.

So here are some signs that will tell you whether your relationship is going anywhere or not.

Sign 1

Previous dating history

He has a bad history of previously failed relationships.  In fact he hasn’t been able to sustain a deep and meaningful relationship for more than a few months at a time.

Sign 2

His parents were unhappily married. 

What this can tell you is his tendency to either want to avoid marriage, because he doesn’t have any positive role models, and make a hash of it no matter how much he tries, or go out of his way to make sure his marriage works,  which of course is good.

Sign 3

He is committed to something / someone else.

You know about golf widows don’t you?  The idea that if a man is so committed to a sport or hobby , or even his car, that is  will get his time, attention and care.  So find out if he is committed to something else or someone else- for instance an aged parent.

Sign 4

What kind of decision maker is he?

If you ask him to make decisions does he find it easy or hard to make one?  Let’s say you ask him to go out with you but it’s the playoffs and he just doesn’t know what to do- so he either vacillates between the pros and cons of his decision, sits on the fence refusing to make a decision or he defers the decision making to you.  His pattern here is  a good indication of how he deals with conflicting options and committing to you could be one of them.

Sign 4

You need to persuade him to give you what you want.

If you have to give him good reasons why he should be  in a relationship with you, why you should get married or any of the other big decisions  a couple makes, then it’s unlikely that he will have committed to it and find it easy then to change his mind.

Sign 5

Some day honey

If he puts off making decisions about the future with “ some day honey when things are ….” type of responses- then you  could find yourself waiting for perfect situations to arrive and as you already know,  they never do.

Sign 6

Timing

If you are older than your partner or more mature and want to settle down, but he is still a child at heart and wants more adventures, you need to ask yourself whether you can wait or will the call of the wild always take precedence. 

Sign 7

Wanting children

As Women our  biological clock can increase our sense of urgency to get married and have children.  For the man, it may not be so urgent.  Of course there are women who want to put off having children for as long as possible and it might be the man who is getting more broody.  The thing to assess here is are you two likely to be on the same page at the same time with this issue?

Sign 8

Pressure from parents/ society

Depending upon your culture and upbringing, you may have unwritten rules about when you ‘should’ be married and settled- and this may not tie in with what your partners expectations are.  So you may need to be married sooner than your contempories and he may not share this. 

Sign 9

Ultimatums

Ultimatums from you or from him signal that you are both out of tune with each other, because if you have to be ‘forced’ or you have to ‘force’ your partner to marry/ or commit to you then over the long run this can breed resentment and anger, and split you both apart.

Sign 10

Falling in love too early

You may be one of those women who fall fast and heavy, and as soon as you’ve met someone you want to settle down with him.  There are no rules as to how quickly anyone should get married or settle into a serious relationship, but if you go in with this is mind even before you’ve met your potential mate, it may be colouring how you act and the pressure may be getting in the way.

Having read these 10 signs- can you see that there are always little clues  to what is really going on in a relationship.  But as much as these signs can indicate whether your partner is ready to commit to you, or not,  if at the end of the day you want to still be with him, being aware of potential conflicts can spur you  on to finding a solution.

And as for our couple at the start of this, they didn’t get together- but now they are free to find someone who is in the position to commit and more importantly who wants to commit,  and that’s the most important thing for you to take from this.  

Until the next time….

You Love Your Husband- But Does He Still Love You?

You Love Him- But Does He Still Love You? 

How to know if your husband loves you- and indeed whether you are still really in love with your husband.

Tell me about your early years together

A strange opening question- so let me explain. 

Imagine that you’re sitting in a marriage counsellors or relationship coaches office,  and the first question she asks you both is “Tell me about your early years together”

What is the first thing that would come to mind?

Note:   Do this for real now- you’ll understand why in a moment.

Whatever you answer here will determine the strength of your relationship and whether you or indeed your husband is still in love with you- and your marriage is going from strength to strength or it’s on it’s last legs and cannot be revived. 

As much as it can be painful to actually face the fact that your marriage may not be as strong as it could be, and it can be even harder to even ask yourself whether your husband still loves you,  if you do, you can potentially save your marriage, know when it’s time to bail- thus saving you and your family more months of drawn out misery, or reassure yourself that there is nothing really to worry about.

Facing the hard questions can really be the best thing both short term and long term.

So have you answered my initial question yet?  And what was your answer?  What was your response to such a question?

There are no typical answers to this question- and that’s okay because that’s not really important.  What is, is the type of response you gave, because that gives the real clues to whether your husband still loves you  ( if he answered this) and whether you still love him.

If you responding with a flood of good memories about your past which left a smile on your face, you know the kind of smile that you get when you’re reminiscing about the past, then that’s the kind of response that tells you that your marriage is still good now, despite any difficulties you are experiencing.

If, however you found it hard to connect to your past with your husband, and you only remember when things didn’t work out, how bad the reception was when you got married for instance, then, this shows your marriage may not be heading in the right direction.

And worse still is if you really couldn’t remember anything.  Let me illustrate.

When I finished with a boyfriend of mine, at the time it was quite easy.  I had been dating him for 8 months and I had found it extremely challenging – to say the least- to be with him.  But being the stubborn kind of woman I am and having a high need to make things work, I persevered.  But after 8 months of resistance from him and no sign that he wanted to commit to anything more than a casual affair, ( no he wasn’t married) I gave up- and walked away.

Now 8 months isn’t a short while to spend with someone, but what surprised me about it  was how easy it was for me to walk away giving my gritted determination to make things work.  I didn’t even go through the usual grief period when something has ended, that we all go through even if a situation had been bad. 

There was nothing.  And I even got annoyed that I had wasted 8 months of my life on that man, and chunnered to myself, as I walked around my local town, about the fact that there were no memories.  I tried to wrack my brain to come up with something, no matter how small, that was good about the last 8 months, but I couldn’t think of anything. 

But there were lots of good things we had done, but none of it stuck.

This is a classic case of a relationship that was dead and instead of there being any good memories all my brain could access were the negative events- which over the 8 months probably only totalled, 20-30% of the whole, but enough to make it feel like it was the full 100% of the time.

So this illustrates what a dead relationship feels like, not being able to come up with anything in response to “Tell me about your husband” ( boyfriend, partner, significant other)

But does he love me?

So the burning question I’m sure you want to know, is how would you then know if your husband really loves you, or is still in love with you?

Again you would have to be there to witness his answer.  So let me ask you a question- seeing as though it’s only you and me here today.

“ Tell me about your husband”

As you answer that question note where your mind goes and what it settles on.  Like the first question note how you respond to that question.  Do you smile as you talk about your husband?  Do fond memories or daft memories surface?  How does it feel inside as you talk about him?

Now whilst you’re answering those questions let me explain their significance.

Again it’s not necessarily in what you say- though it is important, what is more important is how you responded to this question,  because the question is deliberately vague so as not to lead you in any direction- you will automatically pick that for yourself.

So what did you come up with?

If you managed to find good memories, even memories of how awful it would have been if you couldn’t have been with him,  and your mind flitted from specific situations where you just thought the world of him made you smile, then your marriage is in great shape, because you still love him. 

The challenge here is that if in the midst of marital strife you can still draw upon some fond memories of your husband and things you like, love or admire in him, even if begrudgingly admitted, then the love is still there,  at least from your perspective.

As for your husband- you can test this for yourself- be careful to keep it light and non threatening,  and non pressured, because you just want to gauge his reaction.  If, like you, he can find fond memories, or at least admit to feeling mushy, then it’s a great sign there is still love from him to you.

 And as simple as this sounds, carrying on from the story of the guy I dated for 8 months, I couldn’t think of anything positive about him and certainly nothing I admired about him- even though as I said there were huge positives at the time.

So take note that the most important thing here is to keep connected to why you love, like and admire your husband.  If you can do this you will sustain a great marriage, and if it’s in trouble, and it’s the right marriage for you, you can rekindle the passion flames which are so important to longevity of any relationship .

So try it for yourself.

Think of 1-5 things a day which you 

a) love about your husband

b) admire about him

c) like about him

And let me know what you come up with.  Just post your comments below.

Until the next time.