Relationship Tips

How much of your relationship are you spending trying to get the other person to behave differently?

You want them to remember, notice, listen, pick something up, or stop looking at their phone.

Then you can be happy.

I understand that impulse. I like trying to control everything, too.

But I have learned that I have more peace and more enjoyable relationships when I stop trying to control other people and take responsibility for how I show up.

Here are the relationship tips I return to in my own life and in coaching.

1. Stop trying to control the other person

You cannot make someone behave exactly as you want. Trying and failing can make you miserable.

This does not mean you cannot communicate preferences or make suggestions.

You can ask someone to pick clothes up from the floor. But notice what happens if they do not.

If your happiness depends on their compliance, you are trying to control them.

You can instead recognize that they make their choices and you make yours. You can decide whether you want to be in a relationship with someone who leaves clothes on the floor.

That is different from believing you must change them before you can decide what to do.

I notice this in pickleball. When I miss a shot, I want to make my partner move differently and cover me.

When I ask how I can improve my own shot instead, I get better and have more fun.

Practice letting go of control for a moment at a time. You do not need the other person to become you.

2. Stop comparing the relationship with an ideal

You may compare your relationship with someone else's or with how yours used to be.

You may compare the other person's behavior with what you would do.

But they are not you.

Most of all, notice the idealized relationship in your mind. The one you expected or think you should have.

When you are constantly disappointed that reality does not match it, you miss the relationship in front of you.

Relationships are part of the 50:50 experience. They give us opportunities to understand ourselves, our emotions, and how little control we have over other people.

You can experience the actual relationship without requiring it to become a perfect version first.

3. Say the nice thing out loud

If you think something kind and true about a person, say it.

Do it often. It does not become unnecessary because they already know how you feel.

You can appreciate their humor, intelligence, beauty, or the way they show up.

Do not offer the compliment to get one back. Do not keep a score of how often you say something compared with how often they do.

Simply share the positive thought.

My friend Aprille Franks does this beautifully. In the middle of an ordinary conversation, she will say something she appreciates about me.

She also calls me on things when needed. The relationship is not only compliments. But hearing the positive thoughts she has is wonderful.

I want to keep doing that for the people I love.

4. Practice loving yourself

For many of us, ourselves may be the hardest person to love.

Learning to love ourselves helps us develop the ability to love other people.

People pleasing gets in the way. You play a role you think the other person wants instead of being honest about who you are.

Then you feel resentment because you are not showing up as yourself.

I want you to know yourself and love yourself in the whole human experience—awful and awesome.

That gives you a way to hold space for someone else to be human, too.

If you constantly criticize your body, that pattern of judgment can spill into how you see another person's body.

You begin comparing both of you with an ideal instead of appreciating who is actually there.

Self-love helps you practice being present with the truth of yourself and allowing another person the same space.

5. Give grace without dropping boundaries

People forget, arrive late, lose their temper, and make mistakes.

Sometimes there is an opportunity to give grace.

That is not the same as making everything okay all the time or having no boundaries.

You can let someone know that next time they are late, you will not wait, while also acknowledging what happened today and being glad to see them.

You can allow a mistake without making it mean something terrible about yourself or the whole relationship.

Grace and a clear decision about what you will do can exist together.

6. Tell the truth kindly, without an agenda

Be honest about what you think and feel.

Take responsibility for it rather than making the other person responsible for changing so you can feel better.

You do not need to lie, hide, or people please.

You can say you are afraid, worried, hurt, or angry in a kind way.

The purpose is sharing the truth, not using the truth to force a response.

When both people can be honest about their experience, there is room for a beautiful kind of intimacy.

7. Watch the thoughts you have about them

Your experience of a relationship includes what you think about the other person.

Those thoughts influence how you feel and how you speak and act.

With my children, I consciously choose to believe they love me and that we have an amazing relationship.

I do not require them to call or visit for that to be true.

I want them to spend time with me because they want to, rather than because I have created guilt or obligation.

If I interpreted a missed call as proof that they did not care, it would be harder to feel loving when we did talk.

Choosing a loving interpretation makes my own experience easier. I am not trying to control their thoughts. I am taking care of mine.

8. Decide who you want to be in each relationship

Go through the important relationships in your life.

How do you want to be with your children, partner, friends, or colleagues?

What are you willing to do? What are you not willing to do? Where are you people pleasing or not telling the truth?

How dependable do you want to be, and does that differ between relationships?

Making those decisions consciously helps you practice all the other tips.

When a disagreement happens, return to the question: who do I want to be right now?

Face the problem together

One thought I share with my son is that a problem does not have to become me against you.

It can become me and you against the problem.

Hold the issue separately rather than making either person the enemy.

You can understand what is happening and work toward a solution together instead of trying to win against each other.

That can help a struggling relationship become stronger.

You can have relationships that support your growth while loving deeply. Practice telling the truth, allowing humanness, and choosing your own way of showing up.