Hope everyone had the Valentine’s Day weekend they hoped for, whatever that means for them.
In this next conversation with Lee of The Obscene Sailor, we talk about maintaining settled relationships, and maintaining your self-identity as part of them. Lee fixes his mic, and makes me speechless, as we talk about the skills we can work on today to sustain us through rocky times in the future. Much like last week, many of you may also find this helpful with your platonic relationships. Turns out that decades with a life partner and decades with a life-long friend can run into many of the same problems, with many of the same solutions. Turns out, the same way we approach traditional self-defense by preparing in advance for potential danger in the future is the same thing we should do if we want to best navigate long-term relationships.
The theme we return to over and over again is communication skills – but what are those really? How do we get better at them? The clarity and honesty that’s required is difficult on many levels, especially when the topics are potentially divisive or painful. And even if you’re able to have those conversations, then what? Even more than in past weeks, we expand the idea of what’s included in good communication, and discussing what bad communication looks like. We also introduce the concept of relationship capital, and how to invest in yourself and your partner for the future, by having those conversations early on so that revisiting them isn’t nearly as explosive as raising a contentious issue after it’s become a simmering resentment. Not everyone has those opportunities, or they’re trying to strengthen an existing partnership, so we also talk about managing fights and red flags. Drawing from our own lives, we offer a few examples of what works…and what doesn’t.
The book Lee mentions is available here (affiliate link, makes me small amounts of cash money etc).
The Tik Tok video Annette describes is at https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/groom-throws-cake-at-bride-tiktok/.
Finally, before you hit play, please be aware that we talk about a few particularly sensitive topics this week, including the aftermath of trauma in later relationships, and behaviors that can be or be construed as abusive. It’s not all negative though, so I hope you’ll join us.
