Best New Year Resolution for your Relationship

Here comes the time we put our new year resolutions together. We begin to take stock of our failures and successes in the last 12 months. 

To get the best of your marriage in 2016, you must avoid some things. As a matter of fact, if we avoid the first, it saves us the energy to prepare for the next.

Here are four modes to avoid to keep the spark in your marriage.

 Avoid the Flight Mode: 

Flight mode is when you flee the scene when you and your partner have a misunderstanding. Make sure you talk about issues in your marriage. Build the habit of talking about your relationship with your partner. Let out everything bothering you about the relationship and never hold back anything. Don't move away from your spouse. Improve the interaction between you and your spouse but if you move away during quarrels,  you are on a flight mode.  This is extremely dangerous for your relationship.

Avoid the Fight Mode: 

This is when you get into an argument when you are trying to talk about an issue. Talking about an issue shouldn't lead to a fight. When you talk about your relationship, you want to make it better. This mode comes up in an arguement  and  in a discussion. Fright mode is a result of fight mode and flight mode. When you fight regularly, you tend to run away from discussions that will lead to a fight, then you are already in a fright mode. These two modes (fright and fight) are about fear. 

Avoid the Right Mode: 

This is the mode where each party in a relationship believes he/she is right. It's a refusal to be wrong. So when you think you are always right, you can never change. Until you are open to learning and changing your views about being right all the time, you are never going to change your ways. This is very dangerous for your relationship. The danger with the right mode is that you are unwilling to listen to the opinion of others. It shows your stubbornness. Relaxing your right mode is helping your process of effective communication with your spouse.

Avoid the Spite Mode: 

This is when you decide to show how much you are angry by throwing tantrums. It's a mode of getting back at the other party. It's about proving a point that hurts the other person. This mode is dangerous. It can keep you spinning around and around on a spot and not yielding a positive result. 

So my dear friends, this is my advice to you. To enjoy a beautiful relationship in 2016. Simply wear a 

Sight Mode: 

This mode helps you to keep a vision of where the relationship is headed. It keeps you out of where you are now and makes you fight for where you are headed. It keeps you out of your fears and takes you to a higher place. This mode makes you believe that something can change. This is a positive mode which can help build your marriage. 

Build a Unite Mode: 

This mode brings the two of you together. It makes you a team. Marriage is not about two people with so much ego. It's about two strong people willing to make things work regardless of the obstacles they encounter along the way. It's about having each other's back. It's  about being a team. You can overcome the killing modes by lowering your reactivity when issues come up.

I wish you a Merry Xmas and a prosperous New Year in Advance

Credit: Lee H.Baucom, Ph.D