Here are some little ways that you can work on things with your spouse that don't take very long but can be a great boost to your relationship and enhance the Retrouvaille dialogue work that you both do to support the relationship!
IF YOU HAVE 10 SECONDS…. This is called - "Hit pause". This will come in handy the next time he’s/she's really bugging you. Say, when he’s/she's dawdling, making you late again to visit your mother. Before one righteous word flies out of your mouth, FREEZE.
Just watch him/her for 10 seconds. Visualize yourself in his/her shoes. Visualize your spouse the way they looked the first time you fell for him/her. Pause the action. (In email terms, it’s a kind of a Save As Draft so you don’t actually send the inflammatory message).
Ten seconds gives you time to reflect and discern what otherwise would not have entered your mind...like “Oh, he’s/she's very uncomfortable with my family,” or “Hmmm, he’s/she's been whipped at work and needs to be in control of something (pathetic as his/her choice may be.)” It might occur to you that “a few minutes late” isn’t worth a fight. This pause or mini-reflection will help you regroup your emotions and curb impulsive or reactionary behavior and speech.
IF YOU HAVE A MINUTE… This is from a great article in the current Scientific American Mind by Robert Epstein (do it with your husband/wife):
Embrace each other gently and gradually synchronize your breathing with each other. Just stand there inhaling and exhaling together, as if you were one being. A minute or two of this, apparently, lowers your inhibitions—and that can help couple's reduce the "distancing" in mind and or body that exists between them and re-bond.
IF YOU HAVE 2 MINUTES…
Jot down three things he’s/she's done lately that you appreciate (OK, one?).
Send the list as a note to him/her in an email at work. Or slip it under his/her coffee mug in the morning. Or just casually mention, “You know, I dug the way you handled that surly waiter the other day.”
Yeah, it may seem a tad corny, but experts say it really works. Certainly, if there’s one thing the research on happy long-term couples shows, it’s that they figure out how to accentuate the positive with praise!
“When you say or list what you appreciate in him/her, it brings those things more to the forefront of the mind,” says Gail Saltz, MD, Today Show commentator and author of The Ripple Effect: How Better Sex Can Lead to a Better Life. “It also prompts him to say what he/she really appreciates about you.”
IF YOU’VE GOT 5 MINUTES… Try a daily "forgiveness ritual", suggests Sharon Salzberg, a revered spiritual teacher and cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. It's like a little "shot of immunity" to prevent you from fighting - it can create a safety zone in your relationship.
Find a quiet spot to sit, and let these phrases go through your mind: If I have hurt or harmed you, knowing or unknowingly, I ask your forgiveness. If you have hurt or harmed me, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive you. “You’re not saying, ‘It's all right that you did that,’" Salzberg explains. You’re just opening up your mind to ideas like, "I let go of seeing you solely as the perpetrator; I understand the conditions that led to that action,” and, “I am not identifying myself only as the person who was hurt; I’m bigger than that.” You may even realize, “I have to let go of unrelieved anger to have any space for love to grow.” See if 5 minutes a day doesn’t warm up the love dynamic. For a real intimacy boost? Get him/her to do it too.
