“Stacey, it totally pisses me off! My partner puts everything before me: work, friends, sports, you name it! I’m SO sick of it – how can I get them to change?”
Can you relate? Nearly all of my students have that same question when they first start working with me, and it doesn’t matter if they’re male or female. Women feel like men put work, sports and the guys before them; men feel like women put the kids, their family of origin, and friends before them. Both long to be the other’s #1 priority, yet neither one is feeling it coming from the other!
Deep down, we all long to be our partner’s #1 priority! We all crave the kind of alignment and synergy where nothing and nobody can come between us! We want to know that nothing else is more important than us or comes before us.
My husband Paul and I are blessed to have that kind of rock-solid synergy in our relationship today, and I will tell you that the effects of it go way beyond our love relationship with each other!
When you have this level of unshakable love, and you and your partner are indivisible, it translates into you being confident and unstoppable in all of the other areas of your life! You’ll dare to try more things and take bigger risks.
When you have this, all of the crap that comes at you from difficult people or challenging situations just doesn’t get to you. When day to day things aren’t going well, you are able to “not give a shit” because you’ve got your partner!
No matter what happens, you have each other’s backs (and fronts, and sides)! Most things roll off your back, unimportant in grand scheme of things. When you do experience health challenges, grief & loss, or financial hardship it only serves to draw you closer together.
It’s so worth doing this work to create your unshakable love relationship! You’ll not only set a great example for others (especially your kids), you’ll also bring that confidence to your work, your business, your other relationships, and your entire life. It will transform everything!
Paul and I didn’t always have this, though! We didn’t just “get lucky” and marry the perfect person; we had to create this! If you’d like to experience this, you’ll have to do the work to create it too.
The good news is that the ability to create a magnificent relationship is a skill and it can be learned! Today I’m going to talk about the 4th step of our proven 8 Step Relationship Transformation System® and then I’m going to share a tool that we teach our students, so that you can begin creating your unshakable love, starting today!
STEP 4: Synergy
Synergy means you create a rock-solid, fully aligned relationship, where you bring out the best in one another and you’re able to have a far greater impact in the world together than you ever could apart. You’re indivisible, and literally nothing in this world can tear you apart or come between you! You continue to grow and thrive together, no matter what challenges life brings your way.
The tool that I’m going to teach you today addresses one of the most insidious threats to synergy in a relationship: talking badly about your partner!
Over the years, it’s become socially acceptable to complain about your partner; trash talk your partner; throw them under the bus; nitpick; and blame them – in front of other people!
When I’m out in social circles, I will often overhear friends talking among themselves – bitching and complaining about their husband or making fun of their wife – just for sport! They commiserate in order to bond, make themselves feel better, get support, or elicit sympathy and compassion by saying negative things about their partner.
My darling, if you do this, you are shooting yourself in the foot! Your intimate love relationship is your primary relationship and you’re destroying it whenever you give in to this social norm of talking badly about your partner to other people. (Yes, even if your partner isn’t around to hear it!)
Now, I know you haven’t been intentionally destroying your relationship – there’s no shame or blame here – I just wanted to give you a heads up about this dynamic today, and give you the tool to turn it around! Ready? Buckle up buttercup…
NO TALKING BADLY ABOUT YOUR PARTNER TO ANYONE, EVER.
That’s right – if you want to create an unshakable love, by definition, you cannot speak badly about them to anyone, anytime.
After teaching this to so many students, I can practically hear your next thoughts…
“What do you mean? I can never have another bad thought about my partner, ever again? I can never even be disappointed in my partner, either??”
Ha! Nope, I’m definitely not saying that! You’re human and of course you’re going to have moments where you’re frustrated and there’s kerfuffle. You’ll be unhappy and you’ll want to complain to someone, “OMG! Can you even believe what they did or said?”
I totally get that. Those are your feelings. They’re normal and valid. However, during those times you must make a choice for how you will handle them, and these are are your options if you want to build up your relationship instead of tearing it down:
- Go talk directly to your partner about it, and resolve it. Unfortunately, many people lack the skillset to do so. That’s because no one ever gave us a relationship education and taught us these skills! It’s part of the reason so many relationships are in a hot mess!
- Bring your challenge to an appropriate person to get help navigating past it. This can either be a coach mentor like myself, or a community of like-minded people who are all working toward developing themselves in order to transform their relationship.
NOTE: It is CRITICAL that if you go to speak to a mentor, coach or tribe about your challenge, you do NOT speak badly about your partner to them!
In a community like ours, we understand that WE have the power to fix our relationships!
You want to find a place where there’s no blaming of partners allowed, ever, because they understand how destructive it is to your relationship and how disempowering it is for you!
We teach our students to use a “Personal Responsibility Statement” to share things that they’re unhappy or frustrated about: they state the challenge they’re having and then ask what they can do to change the situation with their partner.
We do this because when you blame or criticize, you’re making yourself a victim. The quality of your life will depend on whether the other person changes or not, so you’re making yourself powerless if you wait on them.
Take personal responsibility so that you can take your power back!
Instead of bitching and moaning about what they did or said, ask, “I’m struggling with getting triggered in this situation and it’s not serving me. What can I do differently to get a better result and change this dynamic with my partner?”
Everything comes back to personal responsibility. Under no circumstance does bitching about, speaking badly about, complaining about, making fun of, nitpicking, or saying anything negative about your partner, to anyone else in your life, ever help your relationship!
My call to action for you today is the same one we start our students off with:
Take the oath that you will never, ever speak badly about your partner to anyone else in your life, again.
Make the commitment to do the work…
- Talk to your partner
- Talk to a coach
- Find a mentor to model
- Learn strategies that actually work to create the relationship you desire
- Talk with a supportive community that knows how to do this work
… whatever you do, do not say anything negative about your partner to your friends, family, co-workers, or a community that doesn’t have these skills!
The great news is that becoming UNSHAKABLE in your relationship is absolutely possible! And living in your unshakable love will be even BETTER than you imagine it will be.
Sweetie, your unshakable love is NOT something that is found, and your partner is not going to hand it to you! You have to create it! It’s a skill set, and it can be learned!
