First of all I am not a great expert but I want to share with you some advices that have enhanced our life as a couple.
Like everything in life there needs to be a time to tune up, adjust, clean or whatever you call it. I like to call it the cleaning season. Sometimes at the "heat of war" or when things are not going right we (as humans) tend to say or to act in a matter that we may regret. When the time goes by we forget to apologize but the reason of our attitude was because we were emotionally overloaded.
If you are reading this and you think that your relationship is hopeless and divorce is only the next step, keep reading. You will get a cool overview on how to get your marriage back.
In order to make sure to clean all those frictions, follow these tips to help you enhance your relationship:
Preparing the field: I like to call it that way because you need to see your relationship as a team. One person weakness can be the other person strength. How to prepare the field if you want your marriage back? Well, it has to be some place neutral. No kids, no friends, nobody except both of you. It might be a restaurant that you like or a place to take a cup of coffee. Schedule the date and time and both agree to get there.
Emotions out, respect in: Do not bring your emotions to this meeting, just bringing a fresh open mind to hear and to be listened by your partner. A very important rule is that none of you can raise the voice, say bad words or something, respect comes first.
Creation process: Before going there, think about what you want to create and that you will not stand up from the table until you create what you wanted. Do you want to create communication? do you want to create love? do you want to create passion? It is up to you
The exercise: You need to take with you a notepad and a pen because this will get interesting. Once you both have something to write on, you will first write down what nerves you from your partner. The top 5 things that you simply can not live with, that drives you nuts. Afterward, you are going to write the top 5 things that you like most about your partner. If feelings have been hurt, it might be kind of difficult to think about it at the beginning but you can also think about the things that made you fall in love of him or her. Because it could be that you fell in love of the sense of humor which has been lost or something. Just think about the top 5, no more.
Throwing the ball: After you wrote it, you will have to exchange your lists. It is quite important that you do not avoid anything, just write it as it is without fear and very nice surprises will happen. Up to this point, emotions need to be managed, think positive.
Negotiation: You will be really surprised about what your partner likes about you and what he or she dislikes. Sometimes he gets very upset when you leave the garage door open and you did not even know about it. However, the best part until this point is that you both have points to negotiate. Do you see the power of this? I mean, sometimes he does not like you to leave the garage door open but she does not like you to squeeze the toothpaste. Or she loved your sense of humor that you lost along the way.
Of course, both of you will have to make additional efforts to avoid making what drives your couple nuts but this will be like a relief valve and a lot of stress can be reduced with this technique. Everything will be taken literal because it is going to be written and few emotions will be involved.
Think about the new possibilities ahead on your relationship, talk in a very open manner. The words that come out of the heart, will go straight to the heart.
