Are You a Quality Partner?

“To have a quality relationship, you need to be a quality partner’

I heard this the other day while watching an old interview with Shelley Lewin- relationship coach on Expresso.
I just loved it! It struck such a cord with me as I had had a similar realisation only a couple of weeks ago.

As with all relationships, ours is by no means perfect and there are certain things that my husband does or doesn’t do, which are a continual source of frustration, anger and resentment for me.

When my husband and I said our vows at our wedding, one of them was ‘I will love you as you are and not try to change you’. Well, on our wedding day, I started saying mine and as all great Freudian slips go, I said : I will love you as you are and try not to change you.’ I realised my slip up straight away and corrected myself but years later, I think of that slip up and wonder if it really was a slip up or my inner truth bursting out.

Because, to be honest, I haven’t upheld that vow.
Confession: I do try to change him. Not the essence of him and not consciously but by constantly getting at him to be more like this, less like that, I’m inadvertently saying: I want him to be something else. I want him to be the way I want him to be…so then I thought, am I the way I want him to be?

Do I treat him like he’s the most important person in my life?
Do I romance him?
Do I see him?
Acknowledge all that he does?
Why should I expect him to do all these things for me when, truthfully, I’m not doing all of them for him. And so I had the thought,
‘I need to treat him the way I would want to be treated. I need to treat him like a King if I want to be treated like a Queen.’

So without telling him, I started doing this. I was more open, loving and caring. I left loving little post-it notes for him. And an amazing thing happened. All the things I felt I wasn’t getting from him, I started getting. Not because I asked him to, not because he was trying to please me, but because I was being the kind of partner that I wanted him to be and by his own natural feelings, he met like with like.

I leave you with this question to ponder and would love to hear what you have to say: Are you being the kind of partner you want your significant other to be?