Managing your personal relationship account

What does a successful relationship really mean to you? What does it take to build a successful relationship?  

Successful relationship means different things to different people. To some people, it is the ability to achieve individual personal goals within the relationship. To others, it is being able to achieve common goals in the relationship. Some people consider a successful relationship as the one in which all the parties in that relationship have the opportunities to contribute towards achieving common goals and at the same time able to pursue individual goals without conflict.

The most successful relationships, I belief, are the ones founded on shared values. To all intents and purposes, shared values are the implicit and explicit fundamental beliefs and principles that hold two or more people together. In a relationship based on shared values, some goals are for common good. Others are for the good of the individual in the relationship. In order words, each party in a shared-value relationship is free to pursue their individual goal provided it does not conflict with the common goal. 

You can express shared values in terms of individual’s attitudes towards the relationship itself. You can also express shared values in terms of attitude towards for example, finance, career, family, friends, love, kindness, creativity, abundance/scarcity mindset, home, travel, etc. Attitudes affect expectations. The more the number of these shared values in a relationship, the more the likelihood that people in that relationship would have similar expectations which are good for building successful relationship.

You can think of a relationship between two or more people as a joint bank account. Each party to the relationship has a stake in the account. Any member in the relationship can invest in the account. They can deposit fund into the account. They can also withdraw fund from the account. The money you deposit is your own stake in the joint account. Any time you withdraw from the account, you reduce the outstanding balance. As long as you are in credit, the account will be ok.

In a relationship, deposits are all the good deeds you do on a daily basis that enhance the quality of the relationship. They include the following among other various things:

·         focusing on what you like in your partners;

·         showing respect and kindness to your partners;

·         allowing your partners to be who they are;

·         appreciating little things they do;

·         making non-judgemental comments about your partners;

·         thinking of and understanding the need of your partners first

·         showing interest in what they do even when you are not interested;

·         understating any issue from their point of view;

·         being sensitive to their feelings, etc.

Whenever you do any of these good deeds, you add fund into the relationship account. Each deposit increases the amount of trust in your relationship. You can deplete the fund any time you fail to do any of these and other good acts. 

On the other hand, withdrawals are those things you do or fail to do that help to undermine the relationship.  They include the following among various others:

·         making negative comments about your partners

·         Carrying malicious rumours against them;

·         making false allegations against your partners;

·         focusing on what you do not like about your partners;

·         attempting to dominate them;

·         making judgemental or disparaging remarks;

·         always thinking of your own self interest first;

·         not showing any interest in what your partners do;

·         not showing sensitivity to their feelings;

·         not giving them their own space both physical and emotional;

·         one partner making decisions that are important to all partners;

·         not respecting the views of your partners, etc.

Each time you do any of the above, you withdrawn fund from your relationship trust account. If the relationship account was already in debit at the time of the last withdrawal, things could be begin to go wrong. If your relationship account were in credit at that time, there may not be much trouble depending on your past withdrawal records. 

Just like any accounting book, there is a relationship credit or debit balance. This happens when the frequency of your relationship withdrawals exceed the frequency of your relationship deposits. In this situation, you have a relationship debit balance. It is always nice to watch out for how long you can sustain such account imbalance. To sustain a happy and successful relationship, you must seek to be in credit balance most of the time. You can do this by frequently putting more funds into your relationship deposit account. Good deeds add to the fund. Bad deeds reduce the fund. Good deeds build up trust. Bad deeds undermine trust.

Some relationships can survive a couple of short-term debit balance. This happens when you have continually maintained credit balance over a long period. You can draw from the reserve trust you have built over a long time to overcome your short-term relationship challenges.

Before you enter into any relationship, always play what I call shared values game. Some people call it shared value analysis. Some call it shared value solicitation.  The purpose is to gain an awareness of what to expect prior to entering into a relationship.  If you want to know how to play this game, you are free to contact me at mam@valuelifebalance.com.  Once you know how to play shared value game, you could play it on your own, with a trusted friend, or with a life coach. It is good to have the knowledge you could gain from playing shared value game even when you fear such awareness could deter you from going into the relationship.