How to maintain a strong relationship

Often a coaching client will come to me with the aim of working on work and career-based issues and yet it will also quickly become apparent to them that there are some really useful lessons to learn for their personal and romantic relationships too. 

This makes complete sense to me, because we only have one brain and one personality, and we use it at both work and home every day.   In the way I work with my clients, we include time spent looking at how we behave and respond to things, especially things that are difficult, annoying, stressful or we’d rather avoid.  No wonder, then, that home life is going to be part of the mix.

And I often find that my clients will learn far more about themselves and how they want to change and improve if they use home and relationship issues to work on as well as work and career issues.  Often we can get real clarity about how we tick and how we might improve by looking at home issues.  That’s why I did a training course in relationship coaching alongside my other coach training.  And it’s proved invaluable. 

After the first flush of giddy attraction, every romantic relationship settles down into its own rhythm and we’re no longer able to hide those parts of ourselves that are perhaps not us at our best!  Every relationship that’s going to last a fair amount of time needs some occasional servicing, maintenance, adjusting and thought. 

Here, I am sharing what I believe to be the 6 key elements of maintaining a healthy, sustainable and successful relationship – whether at home or at work (with thanks to the superb coach Michael Bungay Stanier).

1.      Stay Curious

You will never, ever see the full picture of what’s going on in a relationship or the part you’re playing in it.  I’m sorry, but you just won’t.  You will have blind spots, mistaken assumptions and unconscious biases.  And sometimes you’ll just be plain wrong.  Try to be curious about how you ‘turn up’ in relationship settings and encounters.  What would it be like if you watched a video of how you were behaving in an argument or when you were taking a stand on something?  Would you be entirely comfortable with what you saw?  Also, be curious about what’s going on for the other person in the relationship that may be causing them to act a certain way, because that’s usually the key to solving the problem. 

2.      Stay Vulnerable

This phrase may put you off, but bear with me.  What I mean is remain open to the possibility that, as mentioned above, you won’t see the full picture, just as the other person won’t either. Remain accepting of the fact that you’re a fallible human being who has flaws and nowhere more so than in how you conduct relationships with other people.  Share your thoughts, feelings, worries and hang-ups with the other person, even if it makes you feel vulnerable or you’re worried you’ll look weak or faulty.  Your relationship will fare so much better than if you keep all your cards close to your chest.  You will encourage the other person to open up too (I guarantee) and then you’ll be likely to see things much more clearly. 

3.      Stay Kind

This is so important: assume positive intent on the part of the other person.  Being in a relationship can be hard work and no-one is perfect.  Be generous, forgiving, open-hearted.  Assume they have good intentions but are perhaps just not getting it right.  If you’re in a romantic relationship with them, the chances are you chose well at the outset and they’re a decent person.  Hold on to that thought.  They may be really pissing you off, but there are very few people who do that just because it gives them pleasure.  They are almost always tired, hurting, scared, angry, frazzled or exasperated with what it’s like to live with you!  Assume there are good intentions are buried somewhere down there in their motivation, even if not immediately apparent.  Be more curious. 

4.      Adjust Always

Ask most people who have been married for decades what the secret of a long, successful relationship is and they tend to say ‘being willing to compromise’ or similar.  Being in a good relationship is all about making small adjustments, every day, to how you are interacting with the other person.  Compromise doesn’t mean surrender or subjugation.  It means adjusting to events in a co-operative way to find the best way forward for both of you.  There are very few situations where insisting on holding a certain line on something that’s disagreed about is going to help a relationship. 

5.      Repair Often

The quicker you repair a rupture in a relationship, the better.  Pausing, acknowledging your part in the problem, apologising for that and making a generous offer of repairing things is essential in a good relationship.  Perhaps being the ‘bigger person’ if needed.  Yet, for many of us, saying sorry can feel hard, especially if we’re feeling a bit hard done by.  And many of us have grown up in families, schools and workplaces where those we looked up to were a bit useless at saying sorry easily, or even saw it as a weakness to be avoided.  We adopt these models of behaviour so easily, and repeat them ourselves, over and over.  But we don’t have to remain stuck with them, and we can learn a different way.  You shouldn’t apologise for something you’ve not done, but in every rupture in a relationship, I’m pretty confident you will have done or said something at some point that you could say sorry for, as a way of paving the way towards a repairing of what’s gone wrong.  It often prompts the other person to apologise too, and that’s when the proper repairing can really take place. 

6.      Reset as Needed

If things are really not going well, a reset can be the answer.  This might involve having an honest conversation (using the above techniques) to air the problems and see what can be done.  At work, it might involve getting support from HR or a coach, or going out for a long lunch together to thrash it out.  At home, it might involve a quiet evening or weekend away or some other time together where you are able to be calm, thoughtful, vulnerable and willing to work out what needs adjusting and what needs repairing.  Sometimes a trusted third party may help, such as a wise friend, coach or therapist.  A proper reset involves honestly appraising what’s going wrong, the part you may have played in it and looking at what’s needed to sort that out, from a position of mutual vulnerability and willingness to repair and to not remain stuck in the unhelpful repeating patterns of behaviour in the relationship that are causing the problem. 

These 6 key elements to maintaining a strong relationship can of course only be a starting point, and following them can be hard work at times.  But I sincerely believe they offer the answers.