I had of those revelations on the weekend that have left me looking at my relationship in a different light.
A thought that now I've had it I wonder how I'd not seen it this clearly before.
It's this: we can love our partner, and not love our relationship.
One of the key pieces in all the coaching I do is to get men to make a distinction between their partner and their relationship - and get them to start working on their that rather than on their partner.
However this phrase though has taken my thinking around this idea to a whole new depth.
Loving a partner is not enough
You have to love your relationship with them for it to work. And by work I mean work for you.
So many men who've not made this distinction end up getting their relationship, and how they feel about their it, tangled up with their partner (or potential partner), and how they feel about their partner.
Without this distinction, it's so easy to lose sight of and connection with the person you're with - the challenging bits of the relationship can end up dominating our perception of our connection.
Take a moment to reflect on how you feel about your partner, and how you feel about your relationship. It's very likely you have different feelings about them.
What if you loved your relationship?
What would change?
One of the keys to continually growing great relationships is that you can do a lot about your relationship, far more than you can do about the person you're in, or wanting to be in, one with.
But here's the magic key: you can do more to change how your partner relates to you, how deeply you connect with each other, by focussing on your relationship rather than on them.
This is a critical jumping off point for creating a sustainable connection you love.
For many of the men who do relationship coaching with me, this one of the key pieces that really changes things for them.
How does it make a difference?
- You remove the pressure and expectations from your partner to do something or be someone.
- You take full responsibility for creating the relationship that you want.
- You look at what you can do to change your relationship so it works for you.
Sometimes this just means changing a few things. Sometimes that means stepping right outside your comfort zone.
What's changes for you apply this insight to your relationship?