3 Secrets Every Woman Should Know to Enjoy a Great Relationship

‘If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading’ – Lao Tzu

Ever had one of those days, where you feel like you are getting nowhere with your man?

It’s a losing battle getting him to compromise on something you want. You feel totally helpless and begin to wonder where your relationship is heading.

“He always wants his way”, a good friend of mine Nicole complained. To keep peace in the relationship, she said she gives in to him but feels hurt that he doesn’t respect her wishes.

But did you know that everything we do follows a certain strategy?

Let me explain.

Over time, our subconscious mind is embedded with patterns of behaviour we have learnt.

An excellent example is our morning routine of getting ourselves ready for work or getting the kids organised for school. We go around this mundane process with little thought; actually subconsciously having mastered the tasks.

In simple terms, there is a sequence of steps that we run automatically in our heads to achieve a specific outcome.

Now, that’s all good.

But, the thing is, if you aren’t happy with the result you are getting, change what you’re doing.

Imagine for a moment you are going to bake a chocolate cake.

You gather the ingredients, follow the recipe and voila! You have a perfect cake. Similarly, there is a recipe or strategy for every type of behaviour.

Now, let’s say that for some reason you don’t want to eat chocolate cake anymore. You want a banana cake instead and so you now follow a different recipe.

You have made a conscious decision to bake a different cake to enjoy a different experience.

Similarly, there are circumstances in our lives when you yearn to experience different things.

Seeing Nicole’s desperation for help, I offered her these solutions:

Focus on the bigger picture.

Ask yourself what you really want. What is it that you want to experience?

Is it only to have your hubby listen to you OR is it also to have a close bond, companionship, meaning, love and happiness with him?

Focus on the bigger picture or the bigger purpose. It’s about looking at all aspects of life and fulfilling the required needs of each one of them.

We have specific patterns of behaviour that automatically give us the responses we may not always like to receive.

Unbeknown to her husband, Nicole feels rejected. This stops her from enjoying a life of self-belief, self-confidence and self-worthiness.

Instead of feeling helpless and stuck in her current unhappiness, Nicole needs to change her strategy to experience true happiness and flourish as a beautiful woman that she is.

Responsibility is the price of freedom

Relationship is a two-way street.

In Nicole’s case, it is her responsibility to ensure that she is happy and her needs are being met.

Then, she also needs to find out what her husband wants and what makes him happy.

Couples unintentionally ignore each other’s wishes due to poor communication, different values, beliefs and different priorities in life.

As with baking a different cake, Nicole must deploy different approaches and strategies. Perhaps even learn new communication skills and create a new mindset.

As she begins to change, her husband will change accordingly, creating a whole new life for them to enjoy.

Take different actions to move forward.

“If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got” – Albert Einstein.

Let me go back to baking that cake.

Now for instance, your cake doesn’t turn out as you desired. Do you give up or do you evaluate what didn’t quite work and make necessary adjustments to improve your cake?

If Nicole truly loves her man and desires to find a way out, she must begin to understand herself, her hubby and their relationship.

In other words, instead of allowing him to dominate, she must tell him what it means to her to be heard; how she feels towards him when he doesn’t and how she would feel if he did.

To get her man to value her, her wants and needs, Nicole needs to inspire him by