Intimacy in Relationships: The Three C’s of Healthy Relationships

In this episode of The Optimistic American, Paul Johnson and Dr. Emily Bashah sit down and discuss the three C’s of every healthy relationship: communication, compromise, and compliments, and why it takes courage to be vulnerable enough to find love.

• There are three C's to every healthy relationship: communication, compromise, and compliments.
• If someone you are with can’t get any insight into who you are and how you feel, it’s going to be very difficult to grow together. Choosing how you communicate with your partner is going to be critical for a successful relationship.
• You need to understand the core values that brought you together in the first place.
• It’s important to remember that your relationship with someone can end at any time and shouldn’t be taken for granted. A mentor of Emily’s advice on marriage was to “never stop pursuing your spouse. Just because you have someone, that doesn’t mean you can keep them.”
• If you can’t coach the other person (and vice-versa), and help them understand where you’re coming from, the odds of you being able to communicate with them and compromise, or get the compliments you’re looking for become very remote.
• Abusive relationships can come as a result of trauma bonds, where there are positive feedback loops and patterns in the relationship alongside the abuse. This can result in codependence. Oftentimes, the abuser will foster the dependency on them which encourages the environment of captivity, which is when autonomy begins to disappear.
• Be financially capable of taking care of yourself.
• Research has shown that men and women are both hardwired and socialized differently. Women tend to be process-oriented, and men tend to be product-oriented, but that’s not a set-in-stone rule.
• These traits are necessary for a good parenting environment, even if they don’t come from the traditional male/female pair. We need both perspectives and diverse ideas if you want a company or a country to succeed.
• Love is one of the most important things you can find in life, and do find it you need to dare greatly. You need to be able to surrender and be vulnerable in a relationship, and that takes courage.

 

Communication Strategies

• Emily has clients that tend to be fault-finders when it comes to their relationships, but she turns that around by observing what that attitude says about themselves. You can’t expect someone to want to be with you if they always feel inferior because of your criticism.
• Emily tells the story of how something at work was making her life very difficult and her very frustrated. She asked for “pre-forgiveness” as a way to let other people know you’re stressed and not at your best. We’re all human and we are all going to make mistakes, asking for pre-forgiveness upfront will give people a heads up and make them much more likely to extend the grace you need.
• Good communication makes things clear and prevents your partner from creating stories in their head to fill in the gaps of their understanding. It’s important to externalize the problems and name them, so the other person doesn’t feel threatened by it.
• We all have problems and challenges in our lives, and those have emotional effects on us. You can make the situation worse if you don’t inform people what is going on in your life. By communicating those emotions, you give the other person the opportunity to feel like an ally rather than a contributor to the problem.
• We all have moments of crisis in relationships. They come about because you both have a version of the story going on in your heads, and without knowing each other’s story the odds of finding common ground are slim.
• Don’t fight via text. Get them on the phone or meet them in person. You will apply the version of the story in your head and miss all the nuances that in-person communication comes with.
• Really listen and try to feel through the other person’s perception. It’s hard to see our own habits, but you can get a glimpse of how others perceive you by paying close attention.

 

Compliments

• Some believe that others learn through criticism. Paul believes that people learn more effectively through inspiration.
• Compliments lead naturally from inspiration. If you constantly highlight what you like about someone and their behavior, it will naturally reinforce those things in the relationship.
• Keep your eye on the good places you want your relationship to go and focus your language around that.

 

Compromising

• Compromising can be easily misunderstood. Co-dependent patterns in relationships can form when this becomes too extreme.
• Co-dependency is an excessive amount of emotional dependence on your partner.
• This can also lead to an abusive and controlling relationship.
• The traditional roles of men and women in relationships are changing as society is changing. 60% of all women are in the workforce today.
• People in a relationship can take roles in different spheres of life without being co-dependent if we look at the value of the effort both parties are bringing to the table.
• We each contribute to our relationships in different ways and we all play a role. The real key is to value those roles and come to a relationship with love.
• We all have limitations. It’s important to accept each other for who we are. We each have to compromise and respect the role each person plays in the relationship.
• A common issue among couples going through a divorce is resentment. If you see that pattern in your relationship, it’s important to get some therapy to work through that because resentment will gradually destroy everything.
• Tell your partner what you need when you are laying your problems out to them. If you’re a man, a solution is not always the reason people come to you. Sometimes, they just need you to listen to them and be there for them. They might just be looking for support and understanding, not a hero.

 

 

Mentioned in This Episode:

optamerican.com

Addictive Ideologies: Finding Meaning and Agency When Politics Fail You by Dr Emily Bashah and Hon Paul Johnson