After you get your Valentine - Then what? Takrn from: LETS TALK Goldstream Gazette February 2011 ( Republication of Saanich News Lets Talk article, Feb 2007 ) Remember when Prince Charming kissed his Valentine, the beautiful Sleeping Beauty? He carried her up the stairs, and we saw them disappear behind the Palace Doors? The story ends there. We’re told they lived “Happily ever after.” Now most of us know “this just isn’t so”. “Happily ever after” is a “fairy tale”. In real life finding your prince or princess is not the end of the story - it’s the beginning. And the real question is - After you find your Valentine, then what? From my experience counselling couples, knowing the challenges that face any couple on the journey to real enduring friendship, here are five tips - five fundamental skills meant to support you in keeping your partnership healthy, and satisfying. Tip # 1. Learning to make yourself Happy There is nothing more important in relationship than learning to make your self happy. Each person. It is an art and begins as you let go of your hope or expectation in which you’re holding your partner responsible for your life turning out. Looking after ourselves is a clear life skill. It has something to do with learning to be able to quiet ourselves, to enjoy or be present to life’s simple moments, to satisfy our own needs as they arise and to dance with life’s predicaments problems and challenges as they appear. There is nothing more empowering than two people in a relationship committed to looking after their own personal well being - and doing that. Even if only one person in relationship practices this skill it makes an enormous difference. Tip # 2. Relationship is an Inside Job Most people think a relationship is something that exists “out there” outside of themselves. However consider this. A relationship is not really “out there” at all. A relationship exists in what you are saying to yourself, in the thoughts and stories you are collecting, about the other and the relationship. A relationship is an inside job. In this way, being in a relationship is like growing a garden. Your thoughts, your decisions, your stories, your views and judgments are the seeds that take hold and grow in your garden. Tend to your garden regularly. Clear weeds that appear. Learn to let grievances judgments, quarrels, disempowering stories go, disappear and dissolve. That’s how you keep your garden soil fresh and clear for new growth. Tip #3. Think of your spouse as your friend Quite naturally, a relationship includes moments of misunderstandings, conflicts, personal reactions and sensitivities. Given these moments, your partner can begin to feel to you like an adversary sent to your life to deliver certain trouble and difficulty. Want to break this pattern? Do it by remembering you began your marriage as friends and you are learning together. Let this awareness of “being their friend” colour your actions and watch the difference it makes. Tip #4. Accept Differences, because you have them You and your partner are very different. Have you noticed? Many couples spend a great deal of their time resisting and quarrelling about their differences, trying endlessly to improve, or fix the other. These efforts to change the other only produce “protective circles”, a feeling of defensiveness and distance, and displace the experience of intimacy. Consider - part of the spark of a marriage is produced precisely by your differences. Think of your differences as being like two sides of a coin. They expand and contribute to your range of responses as a couple to life. Make peace with your differences, accept them, celebrate them – because you have them. Tip #5. Intimacy is a creative affair A relationship is a knowing, understanding, and appreciation of another person’s way of being. This is the solid foundation the ongoing “action” of a relationship. Notice however, that if you are going to have appreciation and regard, they don’t just naturally appear on their own. To have appreciation and regard in your life, it must be consciously searched for and created. Then once found for this to be real the appreciation needs to be expressed and communicated. Ongoingly creating appreciation and regard, relationship becomes a creative affair. ________________________________________________ Paul Beckow is a certified marriage therapist on the west shore. He can be reached at 250 721 2477 or contacted through his website at www.paulbeckow.com		For personal or couple counselling, for more information, or to register for a course - please contact Paul Beckow at The Victoria Family Institute.