Relationships require work, and sometimes we forget this and coast on autopilot. If you are looking to revitalize, refresh, and improve your relationships with loved ones, whether friends, family members, and/or romantic partners, our couples counselling Calgary therapists have you covered. Based on our experience as professionals, personally, as well as from educational and self-help materials, we’ve compiled our top 10 list of tips to help improve the quality of your relationships. You deserve the best and you deserve to be happy and satisfied with the people you are surrounded by.
Enjoy our list of tips from relationship and couples counselling Calgary:
- Go to Bed Angry, if Needed. The old adage ‘Never go to bed angry’ is not as effective for improving and maintaining quality relationships as we once thought. The Gottman Institute, who have studied relationships in their ‘Relationship Lab’ for multiple decades, discuss here why going to bed angry is okay. Basically, if something is upsetting and you need time to cool down and process it, take that time. Just make sure you come back and discuss it at some point because you don’t want to go to bed angry ALL the time.
- Provide Gratitude. Gratitude practices are important for mental health and are discussed a lot in individual counselling, so why do they come up in couple’s counselling Calgary too? Because they’re important, if not essential, to a healthy relationship! It is so easy to take our key relationships for granted and gratitude is a way to show our loved ones they matter, we care, and we see what they have to offer. Gratitude can look like a ‘Thank you’ for a specific task being done, a supportive conversation, or just them being them. I guarantee it will make your loved one smile to be thanked for being them. What better way to be seen than hearing those words? Lovely.
- Provide Reinforcement. This is a bit different than gratitude, though can sometimes sound the same (and if you prefer to combine them into one feedback delivery system within your relationship rather than split hairs about which is which-go for it! It will be very helpful to you and your loved ones). With reinforcement, we are providing validation and encouragement of things we would like to see more of. Did you appreciate your partner taking out the garbage when it was full? Reinforce it! “I really appreciated you taking out the garbage. Thank you.” Does your partner’s efforts with your children go noticed? Reinforce it! “I think you’re amazing with the kids and the time you spend with them is really important.” Anything that you want to see more of in a relationship: Reinforce it! People like to know what they’re doing well and could do more of, so let them know. Don’t be shy to reinforce the big and little things. It’s all meaningful and is an activity that may be offered to you in couples counselling Calgary.
- Spend Quality Time Together. In longer-term relationships with partners, family members, and children, it can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and forget about spending personal, quality time with each other. Co-existing and running a functional household is important, but is not the same as taking time to truly appreciate, learn, and keep getting to know each other. Think of how you act when you’re first dating someone. Remember all the time talking, laughing, sharing, and doing activities together? That can continue to exist in some shape and form in longer term relationships too. There is a book called the ‘5 Love Languages’ that proffered that people give and receive love in different ways. While not all professionals agree with this proposed system, most will agree that it is important to spend enriching time together. Couples counselling Calgary often suggests making a point of weekly or biweekly ‘date night’ to have this quality time become part of your routine.
- Talk. And LISTEN. There is a difference between talking and waiting for your next turn to talk and talking while truly listening. Unfortunately, most of us are guilty of not doing as much listening and this erodes the quality of our communication with others. Make a point of listening to what your partner, child, friend, coworker, family member is saying. Try reflecting it back. Try asking them questions about it. Try reinforcement or gratitude, “That’s really interesting, thanks for sharing.” You will get more out of the interaction and so will they. Couples counselling Calgary can be helpful as it provides a place for people to slow down and actually hear each other out. Try this on your own and see how it goes.
- Be Curious. Who doesn’t love to feel wanted, needed, and valued? Everyone is craving this at some level and it feels good to be engaged with. Questions and curiosity are a great way to build and rebuild bonds. Be curious about their interests, feelings about something, hobbies, actions, work/school, friends, everything! Even if they’re talking about something you are unfamiliar with or not interested in, your relationship with them means that you are interested in them and your curiosity is a great way to show engagement that transcends shared interests. Homework in couples counselling Calgary can often be around questions that open up dialogue and get us out of rote patterns. Try this for yourself. The Gottman Card Decks App can be a great way to get conversations started, offering questions on various topics from the silly to the serious.
- Discuss Goals, Values, Feelings. These are the more serious conversations that can be easy to avoid but, when avoided, lead to breakdowns in intimacy and communication. It is important that we talk at a deeper level with our loved ones, especially about shared path and goals if we are sharing a life together, our values, as well as feelings about everything big and small along the way. Couples counselling Calgary offers a place for these conversations to be brought back on the table, as sometimes couples don’t know how to do this for themselves. If you feel willing, try re-engaging your loved one on these deeper topics.
- Take Time For Yourselves. Not all time has to be with your loved one. It is important that you both have time on your own, as well as with other people that you care about. This offers diversity in experience and perspective, can increase gratitude, and provides great fuel for exciting conversations about things we heard, shared, and learned from others. Couples counselling Calgary encourages diversity in network and self-care to keep relationships strong.
- Express Interest In Them. Don’t like chess? You don’t have to, but you may want to have your loved one teach you, get curious about their interest in the game, and play with them from time-to-time if this is something they are into. Take time to do things together. Maybe you take turns planning ‘date nights’ so that you have a chance to experience different things that you are each interested in. Show a desire to get to know who your loved ones are, what they like and what matters to them. People need to feel seen and valued in relationships. You don’t need to wait until you’re working together in couple’s counselling to do this.
- Consider Therapy. Couple’s counselling Calgary can be a first, medium, or last resort for couples. You don’t have to wait until things are bad to explore couple’s counselling. Couple’s counselling can offer many valuable tools, strategies and insights for couples, families, and individuals looking to improve their relationships at any time. Approaches that are often used in couple’s counselling Calgary include the Gottman Method and resources mentioned throughout this article, as well as others like Emotion-Focused Couple’s Therapy and more.
You may find this list overwhelming as there is a lot of change that can happen from this list. That’s okay. You do not need to overhaul your relationships all at once, go step by step and bit by bit. Pick one item on the list that you are going to focus on and put your full attention and practice into this for 2-3 weeks. Once you feel you’ve got some traction and this is coming more naturally, pick another, and so on.
Relationships require work and effort and we know you have a life to live as well. Any change is a marathon, not a sprint, so lace up and get slowly training so that you can be in it for the long haul.
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Sana Psychological is a private practice counselling agency in Alberta. We offer mental health and addiction recovery support from a team of professionals who can support you, your family, and loved ones.
