“She Only Thinks About Herself. What About Me?”
What to do next…
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Meet Steve and Sara.
20 years ago, when they were deeply in love and planning for their wedding, they both shared with their family and friends how blessed they were to have found each other.
“I really love how I feel when I am with Sara. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me. She loves me, respects me and supports me”
And Sara gushed:
“He is so generous. He gives me everything I want! I am so lucky!”
Now, 20 years later, after being married for 19 years with two teenage children, a boy 17 and a girl, 15, they are saying something different.
Steve: “My wife complains everyday about not getting what she wants. Does she ever ask me what I want? No!”
Sara: “He’s stingy and a tight wad. All he does is work and complain about me spending money.”
Steve: “She’s so insulting when she doesn’t get what she wants. It’s
always about that she wants”
Their frustrations with each other began shortly after their second child,
Serena was born. The theme of the arguments was what the other
was not doing that they used to do.
Both accused the other of not listening.
Over the years their arguments became more frequent and intense. Secretly they began to question whether they loved each other anymore
because they were becoming more miserable by the day.
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.”
~ J. Pierpont Morgan
Steve and Sara knew something had to change, but believed it had to be the other person.
So they scheduled an appointment for couple’s therapy. They went to two sessions eager to present their list of complaints about each other.
They were frustrated when the therapist tried to guide them to go deeper beneath the surface of their complaints to the root of the problem. They had difficulty hearing that this was the path to take to repair the damage to their relationship, get along better and begin to build a life of happiness together.
So they quit and blamed the therapist for “not listening” to their complaints about each other.
So they didn’t return for their third session and nothing changed. They continued to live at home in a hostile communication environment and continued to argue about the same complaints they had about each other.
It got so bad that they considered divorce. Although divorce was not their first choice, they didn’t want to continue living together in misery.
Then one day after their worst and most heated argument, Steve said to Sara:
“I’m tired of this! I don’t like how I feel when we argue like this. Maybe we should go back to the therapist to help us to get through this. Clearly, what we are doing is not working. Maybe it’s time for us to listen to someone who knows how to turns things like this around better than us.”
With tears in her eyes, Sara agreed.
So, they went back to the same therapist, and to their surprise, not only did they listen to her, but she also helped them to listen to each other in a deeper way and to do something different based on what they heard. They discovered how to get back to what they enjoyed when they first came together 20 years ago when they were planning for their wedding.
Steve shared with Sara that he is now enjoying how he feels when he is with her. He now feels her love, respect and support once again. He agreed to show her more love, respect and support.
Sara was pleased to share with Steve that not only does she appreciate his generosity, that she now realized that she can and will become more generous.
Yes, they both changed based on their individual decisions to be better and to do better to contribute to each other’s happiness.
Now they think about themselves, each other and their relationship in a way that works for them instead of against them.
What about you?
Can you relate to Steve and Sara?
Would you like to discover what they did to turn their complaints about each other into a plan to follow to enjoy more happiness with each other?
Ask yourself this one question:
What will happen if you continue to argue about the same thing over and over, like Steve and Sara, for the next 6 months? The next year? The next 5 years?
Are you happy with your answer?
It doesn’t have to be that way.
“Things do not change; we change.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
If you would like to discover what Steve and Sara did to turn their complaints into a solid plan to stop struggling and start building a life of happiness, check this out now.
You’ll discover:
- How to get to the root problem of your complaints
- What to do about it
- What you can do to bridge the gap from where you are to where you want to be together
