The 4R’s to Intimate Relationships

The 4R’s are the foundation for a healthy intimate relationship with your partner. These are:

Respect – Respect means honoring and holding your partner in the highest regard. Treat your partner like you would your most valued possession.

Responsibility – You are 100% obliged to attend to the chores, problems, and the relationship contract..

Responsiveness – Be attentive to your partner’s needs for attention, affection, and emotional support. Be willing to help without question.

Resourcefulness – Solve problems together using all of your creativity and resources. Find novel ways of solving problems.

The 6R’s or “RRRRRR”

The 6R’s are a way you can control yourself when you feel angry and manage disputes you have with your loved ones. The 6R’s are the Following:

Recognize How You Feel. Know the warning signs which tell you that you are losing your temper. What do you do when you feel angry? How does your body feel? What kinds of things do you say to yourself? What kinds of things make you mad? Who makes you mad?

Restrain Yourself. The best way to get into trouble is to do something when you feel really mad. Generally this causes people to get a case of “foot in mouth” disease. When you feel yourself ready to blow tell yourself to “slow down,” think about the bad things that might happen if you lose your temper, take a deep breathe and tell yourself to “hold it.”

Retreat. If you feel you things are going no where or you are about to lose control, leave and take a “time out.” Tell your partner you need a break but you’ll be back later when you’ve both cooled down.

Relax. After getting into an argument do not dwell on what happened. This will only make you more angry and miserable. Instead, do something to get your mind off of what happened. Get with a friend and have some fun. Do something you like to do.

Reflect. After you have become more settled think about what happened and what you plan to do to solve the problem with the other person. Often it helps to talk things over with someone else.

Resolve. After coming up with a plan you have to go back and deal with what made you angry in the first place. Generally, there are three ways you can solve the problem. This is the three AAA’s.

Avoid the situation. Sometimes the best way to deal with something that has made you angry is to just stay away from the person or situation that made you mad.

Assert Yourself. Others times you need to go back to the person and tell them you did not like what he or she said and request it not happen again. If you do this be fair and firm, but not nasty. When confronting your partner use the 5F’s:

Facts – Recall as factually as possible what the dispute was about.

Failure – Point out how both of you have not been upholding your responsibilities to the partner contract.

Feelings – Share how you feel about what happened and the current situation.

Fears – Share your fears of how the current situation might adversely affect the relationship in the future.

Formula – Make a proposal of how both of you can make things better. Just do not focus on what you want the other person to do differently, also state how you intend to change for the better to. Keep suggested changes positive.

Accept the situation. Then there are times when things happen to us we do not like but we cannot change. At such times getting angry is only a waste of time since there is nothing a person can do to change things. We just have to learn to live with things the way they are. In order to do that we can do the following:

Build resistance. We can learn to live with a bad situation by taking good care of our health, eating right, getting enough sleep, and exercising. This gives us the physical strength we need.

Change our attitudes. We can deal with a bad situation by keeping a positive outlook. We can tell ourselves “things will get better,” and “this won’t last forever.”