Here’s a quick tip to help you stop being so critical of your partner.
It’s such an important one to master.
Top psychologist and relationship expert John Gottman carried out decades of research on exactly this. In the end he could predict to an accuracy of 90% which couples were likely to separate based on how often they were critical of each other.
In fact there were 4 particularly damaging behaviours which had the most negative impact including how often couples were overly defensive, how they spoke down to each other and how they managed conflict.
So if you’re really honest with yourself, how many times per week would you say that you typically criticise your partner? And what situations are you in when this normally happens?
Preempting these situations will help you to choose a different behaviour, but how?
Well, neuroscience tells us that you can reprogram your responses. The critic in you is likely to be instinctive. It’ll be your immediate reaction. Not the best version of yourself.
If you give yourself time to respond, as you’d expect, you’ll come up with something better…
But is it as simple as counting to 5?
Not quite, but it’ll help.
This is because there are effectively two brains at work. Your emotional brain, with its quick reactions and your advanced brain with its perspective.
One thing that has been proven to work is if you visualise when these situations are likely to occur and rehearse self-control.
When you do this, you will have a better chance of stopping those critical reactions in the future.
If you’d like to find out more about how I might be able to help your relationship going forward, drop me a message to find out whether our membership or couples sessions are the right fit.
~Steve~