The Teenager Times: Strategy for Long-Term Relationship Success

By Mike Bundrant, NaturalNews

From personal experience I can testify that when I use the following strategy in all of my long-term relationships, both business and personal, my troubles disappear. To get the strategy, we need to apply two principles:

1) Behind (nearly) every behavior is a positive intention. The exception would be acts of pure evil with the sole intention of inflicting harm for the sake of inflicting harm, which is rare. Most cases of destructive or self-destructive behavior are not purely evil. For example, smoking cigarettes. Smokers are not evil. They are getting something out of smoking such as enjoyment, relaxation, taking a break, exercising independence and so on. We can safely call these secondary gains ?positive intention.?

Likewise, positive intention is a common factor in communication. Parents who yell at their kids often hold the positive intention to help them succeed, or help their children avoid mistakes. Yelling isn?t the most effective way to accomplish this, but the positive intention of most parents does exist.

2) The meaning of your communication is the response you get (not what you intend). This is a powerful principle. It boils down to this: If I say something to you intended to be neutral or even helpful, but it offends you, then the meaning of my communication was offensive, not helpful. Your response gives meaning to my communication much more than my intention.

Recently my wife asked me how she looked. I replied, ?Ok,? in a mildly pleasant tone. I was feeling fine, perhaps a bit distracted. The truth is, I think she?s beautiful and she knows it. She never looks bad to me. I guess I thought an Ok was good enough this time.

Well, I had another think coming. She responded to my ?Ok? as if I had just told her she looked like a troll. She wasn?t looking for an ?Ok.? She was going for a, ?Wow! You look stunning,? and that isn?t what she got. So, her feelings were hurt.

Now, I?ve got two choices. One, I can defend my ?Ok? as an endorsement of my well-publicized position that she really is stunning. In so defending, I might become offended myself at her lack of giving me a break and being so particular about every word that comes out of my mouth and so on (you can imagine where this one is headed?)

Or, I can simply accept that I hurt her feelings?that her response is what gave meaning to my communication, regardless of my intention. Given her hurt feelings, I now should spend my energy making my true feelings more apparent.

I am just suggesting that we let go of the narcissistic pattern of defending our intentions and taking offense at others rather than figuring out how to communicate more effectively.

Try it. For the next few days assume that those with whom you are in long-term, mutually beneficial relationships hold a positive intention toward you in what they communicate. And, as you communicate with them, if they respond to you in less than desirable ways, find a better way to communicate your intention so that their response matches. Simple.

Source: http://theteenagertimes.blogspot.com/2012/07/strategy-for-long-term-relationship.html

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