Home > Work > Love More, Fight Less: Communication Skills Every Couple Needs: A Relationship Workbook for Couples
1 " Generosity of spirit is an inside job. It’s all about choosing trust over insecurity or resentment. "
― Gina Senarighi , Love More, Fight Less: Communication Skills Every Couple Needs: A Relationship Workbook for Couples
2 " Couples who stay curious about each other, engaged in learning about their partners, open to growing together fare better long term. They're able to adapt to changes and navigate bumps in the road with resilience. And they maintain passion and intimacy by fueling a sense of discovery and space for fascination, mystery, and surprise. "
3 " One of the clearest paths to building strong and healthy relationships is practicing mutualcompassionate accountability. "
4 " Then the more reliable and consistent we are in our follow through on commitments, and ourrelationship repair work the deeper trust grows. "
5 " To grow your ability to cultivate intimacy with others, begin by growing your intimacywith yourself. "
6 " Too much and too little communication is killing our relationships. "
7 " It's not possible to have trust without boundaries. But for most of us, boundaries are a real mystery.Without clear boundaries, it’s not possible to build trust with others- or to earn trust from others. "
8 " The relationship we have with ourselves sets the foundation for every other relationship we have. "
9 " True reliability is built not only by following through, but by following through more than once on promises. Which is why it takes time to build trust. We need to see changed behavior in the person who harms us more than once. "
10 " If you’re not asking yourself how you’ve contributed to the conflicts between you and your partner, then you’re not being brave in conversations or with yourself. "
11 " Trustworthy relationships are built on a foundation of goodwill. Couples with solid trust are able to give each other the benefit of the doubt in conflict, and they weather conflicts more easily because of it. "
12 " Emotional intimacy is something we all deeply crave in relationships. It's that feeling you’re really understood and loved by another not in spite of, but along with your imperfections. It’s a deep sense of knowing, feeling “gotten” by someone who really matters to you.It’s arguably the best part of being in a relationship. And it’s extremely rare. "
13 " Often couples are deeply connected, fascinated really, with each other in the first weeks of therelationship but as years pass we build familiarity (which is a good thing) and our curiosity wanes.We get out of practice staying curiously engaged. Asking strong follow up questions is one place to start that shift. "
14 " Direct, honest, straightforward communication is kind. Sidestepping the truth doesn’t serve anyone involved. "
15 " Learning to accept and move through healthy conflict is an essential component of keepingpassion alive long-term in partnerships. Couples who honor individuality and autonomy oftenexperience more fulfilling intimate connections because they more easily save space forfascination, independent growth, and robust personal adventures. "
16 " Empathy means giving compassionate attention to another by either silently or verbally reflecting their feelings and needs. There’s no need to fix or take care of the other person’s experience, only to offer warmth, acceptance and respect for their perspective and experience. "
17 " Learning to accept and move through healthy conflict is an essential component of keepingpassion alive long-term in partnerships. "
18 " Communication can ruin a perfectly good relationship. "
19 " Lots of couples get stuck blaming and finger-pointing about topics and can feel likethere’s no way out.The antidote to blame is personal accountability.Moving to a mindset of accountability means looking at and owning your contribution to theconflict (however small it may be). "
20 " While many of us struggle with taking too much ownership over things that are not ours, there’salways a truth that both parties contribute to every conflict.Sometimes your part might be as simple as not speaking up or not staying curious; other times it might be a bigger issue, like a tendency to blame or shout, a lack of accountability, an inability to respect boundaries or projecting insecurities. "