Married, Dating, or Single: The Best Relationship Advice You Will Ever Receive

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  We expect more from relationships than ever, without the skills to deliver it

  Terry Real, a family therapist for 40 years and founder of Relational Life Therapy, says people now want to be 'lifelong lovers,' with intimacy and great sex in their 70s and 80s. They're trying to do it in a patriarchal, individualistic culture that doesn't cherish relationships. He'd like relationship skills taught in elementary school. Getting the love you want 'literally means being a pioneer.'

• 02

  Ask for what you want instead of criticizing what's wrong

  His 'relationship technology' starts simple. Tell the truth. Teach your partner what you want ('I'd rather you do it this way, honey'). When they start doing it, reward them, even if it's a 'half-ass job.' Complaining about how miserable they've made you is 'about the worst way' to motivate someone. You wouldn't train a dog by only punishing it.

• 03

  Real intimacy means moving past traditional gender roles

  Real describes two forms of control. 'One-up' control ('sit down, shut up, do what I tell you') is more traditionally male. Control from the 'one-down' (codependency, enabling, managing your partner) is more traditionally female. Men need to move into vulnerability, and women need to move out of 'resentful accommodation': going along with things while seething.

• 04

  Every relationship is harmony, disharmony and repair, and most skip repair

  Disharmony is normal, though our culture treats a good relationship as all harmony, so we feel bitterly disappointed and aim it at our partner. Most couples cycle between harmony and disharmony with no repair, because repair takes skills nobody taught them. He adds that 'we all marry our unfinished business,' which is why relationships can heal us.

• 05

  The key question is which part of you is talking

  Real's most important clinical question isn't what the stressors or patterns are. It's whether he's talking to your 'wise adult' or your 'adaptive child,' the strategies you built as a kid. The prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until about 26, and when you're triggered, the younger part takes the wheel.

• 06

  First skill: relational mindfulness

  Most of us tolerate the hurt of a rupture for about 10 seconds before falling into our automatic reaction, which doesn't work. When flooded, take a break: walk around the block or take 10 breaths. Agree in advance that either of you can say 'I'm flooded, see you in 20 minutes,' and let your partner go. 'Don't corner an animal.'

• 07

  Going one-up feels good and wrecks your marriage

  When hurt, we jump from shame and helplessness into righteous anger ('What kind of person does that?'). Real calls it 'devilish' because grandiosity feels better than the wound. Quoting Gabor Maté: 'you don't see the wound, you see the scar.' Remedy: if you're one-up, yield and get vulnerable. If you're one-down, find courage and speak up. Aim for 'democracy,' a 'we.'

• 08

  Reparent yourself instead of demanding your partner do it

  We marry people hoping they'll give us what we missed as kids, then fight when they don't. Real's 'new news': they won't. Speak to your inner child directly, as in 'Chris may be abandoning you right now, but I'm not. I got you, kid.' Maturity, he says, is dealing with your inner children instead of making your partner deal with them.

• 09

  Nagging can be a defense against closeness

  To a listener who has become 'the critic' after 11 years, he asks who the complainer was in her family growing up. Picking at a partner can feel safer than receiving love, because closeness can itself be trauma-triggering. Once the behavior changes, you have to let the good in.