Mary Pender Greene is internationally known as a psychotherapist is often referred to as New York’s #1 relationship expert. Mary joined the show to discuss “Bringing That Spark Back to Your Relationship”.
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Interview:
Eric Michaels: What is the biggest misconception about getting and keeping love?
Mary Pender Greene: I think the biggest misconception is that people are looking for others to make them happy. The real core of a relationship comes from your ability to be a whole person yourself. If you can focus on being your best self it allows you then to be able to attract somebody that you can share a life with or a relationship. The myth is that I can be half of a person and find somebody that is going to make up the other half of me. It is important to be able to recognize that taking care of yourself, being clear about who you are, being responsible for your own life and then sharing yourself as a whole person with somebody else.
Eric Michaels: Are arguments healthy in a relationship?
Mary Pender Greene: Arguments are necessary for a relationship to be happy because no matter who you connect with, it is absolutely not possible to be with that person and have everything that you think and want be the same thing that they want. It doesn’t work that way. It means that you have to have the ability to negotiate with a person in order to be in a healthy relationship. If you can think about it in a larger sense that whether you are negotiating with your parents or whether you are negotiating at work, whether you are negotiating with friends, you have to be able to know what you want and then articulate it to somebody else. It means that negotiating, which in essence is what I described as a fight. I am not saying you will be mean or nasty towards each other but you are going to struggle with the person about what works for you and what works for them and then something that would be a compromise in the process. I think the biggest thing is, is that people don’t know how to fight fair, and so often a fight with the idea of hurting each other. What feels extremely important last night if you win or I win, that means the relationship loses and wouldn’t be able to have a healthy relationship. The goal is not to hurt the other person but to come up with something that is very much close to a compromise.
Eric Michaels: What tips can you offer about fair-fighting between partners? Speaking about arguments – let’s continue with the topic!
Mary Pender Greene: The first and most important idea is that you need to be clear about what it is that you are fighting about. Many times when people fight fairly they will bring up something that happened in 1982 – and you know you did… and have all sorts of things on the table that have been piling up over the years of being in a relationship. What you need to do is to be able to compromise about one item where you are going to talk about it and tell the both of you are in a place where nobody has got all of what they want but there is something in the middle that’s for the relationship. If you are looking to beat up on the person and blame them for everything that has ever happened in the relationship or in your life for that matter it means that it’s not a fair fight. The goal is to be clear and to be mindful that the two of you are connected in a meaningful way. The other part is to hold hands when you have a discussion because you need to be reminded that this is the person who you care about and it is harder to say hurtful and mean things or lose track of the fact that this is the person I care about when you are holding hands and looking at them. The other thing is about having clarity. Sometimes people will say things like I want you to make me happy. Of course it is so vague and so broad and so in essence if you have a request and finding that your request is something that you want them to do. If indeed you are just saying I am not happy, I want you to make me happy – it is too vague and it is not specific. It is very hard for somebody to respond. The other part of what makes your fighting difficult, people would like you to read their mind. If you really love me you would know what I want. That is not realistic and so what feels important is to be clear about what you need and also clear about what it is that you want, specific about what it is you want, and what you want somebody else to do.
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Mary Pender Greene discusses:
– The importance of communication between couples.
– What can couples do to keep the spark alive?
– Special tip of advice…
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Note: The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of the show host or it’s owners.
http://healthpodcast.podbean.com/2010/11/12/bringing-that-spark-back-to-your-relationship/