If you and your beloved have been knee deep in petty domestic disputes, and tensions at home are so thick that you can't even stomach the sound of your significant other eating dinner (do you have to eat your peas like that?), then it's probably time to roll up your sleeves and dig into a little relationship DIY improvement.
Here are six tips for patching up the cracks in your house of love:
Also see: Eight expert tips to improve your relationship and make love last
1. Start with a coat of "conflict is normal."
Think fights about money, sex, and the division of labour are unique to you and your partner alone? Think again. They're the three major reasons people seek marriage therapy, says London, Ontario-based marriage and sex therapist Guy Grenier.
Realize that these issues aren't peculiar or particular to your alliance or its health, says Grenier, and then you can begin to tackle solving them with smarter communication techniques.
Also see: Seven ways empathy can improve your relationship
2. Layer on some feelings - avoiding those pesky facts with their sharp corners.
Good news gals, next time you're telling your hubby how you feel when he forgets to call about being late and then he admonishes you to stick to the facts and eschew the emotion, let him know that that Dr. Guy Grenier - an expert in marital concord - says that's just hooey.
"When it comes to relationships you don't focus on facts you focus on feelings," he explains, causing approximately 4 billion women to break into simultaneous applause across the globe. "Your relationship is supposed to be about feelings. You're not with the other person because of the facts about the other person. You're with the other person because of the feelings you have for them and hopefully the feelings they have for you."
Also see: How to take a relationship from good to great
3. Put "I" language in your communication-friendly tool belt.
You may have been given the green light to get emotional but you must do it wisely. That means no accusatory "you" language: 'You never do this…You always do that…' Instead, stick to "I" language.
"When you stick to I language - I think, I feel, I believe - you're Teflon, you're bullet-proof. You are the world's leading authority on you," explains Grenier. More importantly, when you choose "I" over "you" your partner is less likely to feel attacked by what you're saying and therefore is more likely to listen to how you feel.
Also see: Stop nagging! Six tips to break the habit and improve your relationship
4. Fluff the pillows in the boudoir, metaphorically speaking.
Boring sex life? Tell us about it. No, seriously. You really need to talk about it. One of the biggest issues surrounding sexual dissatisfaction in long-term relationships is the inability to speak honestly about what's going right and what's going wrong in the bedroom, says Grenier.
Make "eroticizing your relationship" a priority, he advises, which is a lot more fun than it sounds. Start by asking your partner what's working in the boudoir and what's not and then make creative suggestions along the lines of 'We've never tried…'
Also see: Relationship rescue plan: Three strategies for successful relationships
5. Maintenance work: talk to your partner every day.
The best relationship maintenance is conversation so talk to your partner for at least 20 minutes every day, in casual shooting-the-bull sessions Dr. Grenier calls "wine/whine time."
Whether it's a jovial chat about work while sipping a glass of wine, or a tea and cookies handholding session while your partner whines about how much he loathes the commute, make sure that these chats centre on the small-scale, innocuous details of life.
"The more meaningless the information we share during whine/wine time, the more it cements people together," says Grenier, who says this daily interaction acts as "relationship glue."
Save the big talks for quarterly tune-ups, says Grenier. "Every three months or so sit down and have a 'how are we doing?' conversation in which you discuss your feelings on the state of marital concord, sex, money, future plans.
6. Lay the path to agreement.
Occasionally couples face big decisions. Should we move? Should we renovate the bathroom? Should I quit my job and go back to school? When partners disagree on the answers to these questions conflict can emerge.
Dr. Grenier says there are four "paths to agreement" when dealing with a contentious issue. You can persuade your partner to change his or her mind. You can compromise. You can take turns, i.e., 'this time you can quit your job, next time I get to quit mine.' And if none of those paths seem to resonate, there's always number four: end the relationship.
Whoa, what?
"[Number four] often serves as a reminder to go back to the other three," jokes Grenier. It also makes taking turns look like a pretty great alternative.
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