LIFE PARTNERSHIP THERAPY
When the person with whom you once shared your deepest secrets and greatest hopes no longer trusts you completely, your world feels less secure and more uncertain. When frustrations and fears replace safety and security, instead of looking forward to the future together, your thoughts focus on getting through another day and questioning why life isn’t better.
Life partnership is based on selecting the person you believe really connected with you, permitting you to be authentic and vulnerable. The connection with your life partner was filled with promise, but promises seemed to come true. Then, perhaps out of nowhere or gradually across time, the promise of having each other’s back and caring about one another fell silent or disappeared.
We get into relationships to have specific needs met, the ones we can’t satisfy ourselves. Inside your most important relationship, you need and desire the experiences of…
Attention + Affection + Acknowledgement + Approval + Applause
When these foundational needs are met, you feel validated and worthwhile, and your sense of self moves upward. You are made to feel special. Further, being close to your life partner fills your need for intimacy - the experience of being close to another person while being your true self, without concern for being let down or thwarted.
The language of Relationship Intelligence provides the foundation to understand what love is, what happened to our love, and how to rebuild a loving connection.
Every relationship is only as strong as its foundation, which begins by examining the trust between you and the most important person in your life. To enjoy this person's experience of “getting you,” telling the truth is essential. Getting to the “deep truth” is ultimately what matters most. Next, once you’ve shared your truth with your life partner, beyond them extending assurances, they’ll keep your confidence, be believed, and get back to feeling real. Long-lasting commitment must be shown by honoring promises over time. Finally, the reward for becoming relationally intelligent is closeness and enhanced authenticity. In other words, the prize for improving your Relationship Intelligence is intimacy.
The Relationship Intelligence model views life partnership on top of the pyramid of relational connection. The image below reveals other major types of relationships based on degrees of trust and vulnerability experienced. Are there more types? Of course, the model underscores the primacy of life partnership.
Solve problems resulting from disconnection and the REPEATING past.
When two people are no longer connected, and the threads that hold them together become thinner and thinner, the emotional weight of this reality is often too great to manage over time. Learning what causes disconnections and becoming more effective at making heartfelt reconnections becomes the key to becoming relationally savvy and interpersonally smart.
The past is an essential root of relationship problems. When we become aware of how our past repeats itself and the life lessons learned long ago continue to influence our decisions and shape our behaviors, we strengthen our ability to control situations more than situations controlling us.
The r.IQ model is comprised of two intersecting axes – basic building blocks and core principles:
The basic building blocks of the relationship intelligence model involve trust, truth, commitment, and intimacy, in that order, always!
The core functional principles include balance (self + others), perspective (details + big picture), self-awareness (insight + empathy), and adaptability (yes, you have options), also in that order.
By learning how the two r.IQ axes function separately, and together, you strengthen connections and gain mastery over life’s trickiest problems – the ones that seem the hardest to figure out and navigate.