Many learn the hard way how tumultuous and difficult first year relationships are. That first year can be very difficult if you don’t go in prepared and just waltz in ‘drunk in love’. Today, I’m going to be sharing four tips that will help you so you won’t learn the hard way.
1. Prepare an activity that has you both focused on something other than yourselves for your first date.
When you are engaged in an activity that takes the focus off you, you naturally have fun with that other person, instead of sitting around having drinks and talking about yourself to each other. You get to experience the other person rather than have them tell you who they are. And that is so much more revealing and exciting!
Answer this question: How can you add adventure to your next date?
2. Relationships are about allowing your partner to express themselves, evolve, and engage in the world around them.
When your partner can express themselves, they align with their higher, authentic self. And they will have so much more to contribute to you and your relationship.
Your partner had their own life before you, and they’ll continues to have their own life alongside you. This is the love map of their inner world. It includes their experiences in the past, the present, and the future to come.
You must remember it’s your job to appreciate their love map of the world—a map that continually evolves and expands as they grows richer from a full life of friends, family, and of course, you.
Answer this question: What can you allow your partner to experience and bring something new back to your relationship?
3. Focus on what works in your relationship.
Relationships take time and understanding. Nothing good ever comes easy. And when you are an independent person sharing your life with another independent person, each with their own temperaments and past experiences that affect their present reactions, there are bound to be things that work and things that don’t.
There will inevitably be arguments in every relationship, especially first year relationships because they’re just starting. We must focus on ways to calm situations down rather than ramp them up.
What works for you? Figure out what method of communication will lighten the situation. Is it saying something kind during tense moments or expressing gratitude for something they did well earlier that day? Or perhaps it’s making a joke about oneself to release the pressure?
Answer this question: What can you sincerely catch your partner doing well during your next argument to lighten the mood?
4. Approach your relationship (and life) with a “Yes, and…” attitude.
If you ever took a drama or improv class, you know that answering your partner’s questions with a “no” is a dead-end. It kills the scene, leaving it stagnant with nowhere to go. Improv students are always taught to say “Yes, and…” so that the scene can keep going. Take that attitude to love and life.
Life evolves. It changes. Life is about growth. And if you want to grow together, you need to adopt the “Yes, and…” attitude.
“Yes, and…” always goes both ways. It simply has to for the relationship to grow.
These difficult decisions all involved understanding the love map of one another’s inner world, finding endeavors we could mutually work on, being open to each other as we evolve, and focusing on the positive even when we might disagree with the other person.
Answer this question: What can you say, “Yes, and…” to this coming week?
IN CONCLUSION
While first year relationships can be tough, they can also be beautiful and filled with passion. Following these tips, you can reduce the tough times and enjoy more passion. Love and light, Wonder.
