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What do you mean, it's not all about Me!!?

What do you mean, ‘It’s not all about ME?’ I have been sharing that message all over the place… and now someone like Tony Robbins comes along and tells me it’s all about serving my partner…about making them happy?

Tony Robbins, and world-class psychotherapist, Cloe Madanes have created a relationship program titled, “The Ultimate Relationship Program,” and it has ten disciplines, the first one being: Put your lover first – it’s not about you. Well I tried it one day, and it worked, so I am going to give it another go one day, but wait until he isn’t expecting it. After all I can’t give it all up at once.

I have been thinking about this quite a bit, and really do believe that I can only receive to the level of loving that I give, so if I want to increase my self worth, the best way that I can achieve that is by giving more love to my husband.

Lots of people get caught up in the trap of pointing fingers or isolating. We have been offered a new way of looking at our needs: The Robbins-Madanes program offers us six human needs to look at, and suggests that we prioritize these needs in ourselves and also in our partners. When I support my partner in achieving his highest needs, and he focuses on mine, it’s amazing what happens. Shawn and I both had the opportunity to work first hand with Cloe Madanes on an exercise with these needs and have since introduced them in a workshop here at home. The results for us and our workshop participants were astounding.

These exercises also give us tools: Common ground, rules, something to measure our results to and having a structured game plan is something that most relationships lack.

Scott Stanley, Ph.D. and Co-Director of the Center of Marital and Family Studies and a research professor of psychology at the University of Denver, says that men avoid talking about issues, because they are afraid things will just blow up. Men will talk if there is an agreed upon structure in place for handling disagreements. Stanley points out that we have a Geneva Convention for war -- white flags, no-strike zones, etc. We need similar rules for managing relationship conflict. It turns out men are happy to do their fair share if they know the drill - what's expected of them and what works.

If it’s true that men just want to make their women happy then why don’t they? Lot’s of times it’s because the women don’t tell the men what they want or they think they do, but it’s not clear to the man. Saying, ‘We haven’t been to a movie for a while,’ to a man means, ‘we haven’t been to a movie for a while,’ it doesn’t mean, ‘I would like to see a movie tonight.’

I was having the conversation with my daughter, Andrea, yesterday about why don’t we ask our partners for what we want and she said, ‘We don’t ask for what we want in case the man says no, and then the illusion that they will do anything for us is gone.’ Good point.

Do you have a game for your life? For your relationship? Write the rules, rewards, and look for different ways to play your relationship game. We are incorporating the human needs piece into our relationship, because it’s easy, and we can check in weekly by rating ourselves and each other in the six different categories.

We will be introducing these human needs again in a one day workshop coming up in the fall, as well as, offering three hour sessions, where Shawn and I will work 2 on 2 with couples through the exercises together and provide the couples assistance with their game plans: Sort of like a coach, not a referee.