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Welcome to Relationships Turned On. I'm your host, Laura Press, marriage and relationship counsellor. I believe relationships can be fixed and you deserve to have a connected and loving relationship. I give you the tools, strategies and insights so you can have a world-class relationship. Welcome to this episode about all about planning for the worst and hoping for the best in your marriage.
Quick disclaimer before we dive in, this is for educational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered medical or mental health advice of any kind. Okay, so what on earth does it mean when we talk about planning for the worst and hoping for the best?
Now, I know within that kind of headline within itself, it's a little bit repellent in like, oh, I don't want to think about the worst, I don't want that to ever happen, nor do I. I do not want that for you either. However, if we never think about those really challenging, sometimes really detrimental times in our relationships, then we just react. Sometimes we overreact or under react or we fly off the handle, we say things we don't mean, we really, really hurt our partners and then regret it later. So there are many, many things in your relationship that you can plan for the worst and hope for the best in. So there's nothing wrong with having a plan that sits in the drawer on your phone and it's ready to go for those challenging times in relationships. You have go-to strategies that are like, yes, okay, now I know I can go and do those things.
And it empowers you, it doesn't depower you to have these ready to go, to have these at your fingertips. And plus, when you've had this baseline discussion with your partner and you've written things down, so it's very important when we're talking about these that you write them down with your partner, that you both agree, not just one of you, and that it's tangibly in place. And what I mean by tangibly in place is not just a notion or an idea that you've discussed, but it is written down. It's more concrete when it's written down, and there's also less room for error or misinterpretation or misunderstanding between you and your partner, which is crucial when we're talking about these sometimes triggering topics. Not always, but sometimes triggering. So what do you need to plan for in your marriage? So there are things that you should be planning for in terms of fortifying and protecting your marriage and relationship.
These are things like healthy boundaries. And this relates to in-person healthy boundaries with, say, the opposite, the same sex. It means boundaries in terms of technology and how we communicate and the types of language we use. For example, in a lot of relationships, it is not, it's outside of the boundaries of the relationship to use the same kind of pet names or terminology that you would use for one another. For example, hey babe, hey, you know, sexy, those kinds of things are typically reserved for your partner.
However, if you've never had that discussion, then that's not always clear to both people. Now you might assume that it is, never assume. So my rules in relationship are make it clear, make it explicit, and never assume. You should never assume. Assumptions are a lot of the times where fights happen and also misunderstandings and miscommunications are where the fights happen. So it's really important to never assume and to be explicit, lovingly explicit in your
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communication.
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So, make sure you've got the healthy boundaries in place. Make sure you've, you know, clear standards and expectation for what you want your relationship to be like, look like, sound like, how you tangibly want to spend your time, things like that.
Now, another way to fortify or protect your marriage and relationship is to have a safe space for discussing really difficult things that might come up in your relationship or marriage. For example, maybe someone else did or said something inappropriate in your vicinity, okay, and that would be considered outside the boundaries of your relationship and you need to tell your partner about that. You would have pre-agreed upon this safe space where it's non-judgmental, non-criticising, and you allow your partner to speak it out.
For example, hey, so-and-so, I would really like just to go into our safe space. Now, you can name it something different. Safe space, I think Melissa and Priscilla uses the words love bubble. And I just want to have a chat with you, it's really important. So you mutually know that this is a destruction-free, a safe, a respectful environment, and it's important to keep that in place. What happens is if you do not keep those kind of rules or standards in place, then it doesn't work. It becomes no longer a safe place, it becomes a place where you can't tell your partner anything and that kind of translates to the whole relationship after that. So it's really important to keep those kinds of things in place. And that doesn't mean your partner won't be cranky. What it does mean is that we take a few deep breaths and we moderate our reaction. We might say, okay, I'm obviously really unhappy with that. Can you explain a little bit more so I can understand better, for example. So another great way to protect or fortify a relationship or plan for the worst is to have a mutual agreement of what you would do in X, Y, Z scenario.
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Okay.
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Now, what do I mean by that? I mean something happens and like the example before, it's outside of the boundaries of your relationship and you know it would not be okay and it would probably anger or piss off your partner. So you have an agreement of what you would like to be in place. For example, that you would come together and talk about it, or you would write your partner a letter and hand it to them straight away, or you'd have in place these things of what you would like to do in X, Y, Z environment. So for example, maybe you get an email from a colleague and it doesn't feel right to you in a little bit, whatever.
You have an agreement of what you would do in that situation. Another example would be maybe what would happen if you have the biggest fight and it felt like you might even break up. What would you want to do in that scenario? For example, you would want to be respectful as possible. You would still want to have that team mentality. You'd still want to talk things through when you're calm. So writing down what would you do in those scenarios. Another way to plan for the worst and hope for the best in your marriage is to set clear goals and expectations.
Expectations can be a huge issue in that you've never discussed them, you don't know what expectations your partner has of you, or you just guess and assume and react from behaviours, wherein in actual fact it may not be the case in their mind. And you've never set the clear boundaries or the clear expectations or the clear goals of your relationship, or like for example, the clear goals of your savings account. So there's so many aspects to this that really should be looked at. Set clear goals and set clear expectations with one another and talk it out and write it down.
Okay, financial planning is another one that can be very triggering for couples and never gets talked about or if it does it just becomes a fight. Again, this is something that we need to plan for the best and the worst in, okay. So sitting down, running through numbers and things like that on an ongoing basis is important and can stop you from getting into that place. So you can see from actually planning from the worst, you can protect your relationship and fortify it way more than getting into a reactive space. A little story for you is, for example, there's many couples that would overspend. One of the partners in the relationship would overspend. And it became an issue, and then the only way it was really addressed was the credit card statement would come, and they'd go, oh my goodness, where are all these charges for?
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What did we buy this for?
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Oh, hang on.
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And that's it. Like, that's the whole conversation. It's reactive, it's angry, it's, you know, in the midst of doing kids and life and work, and it gets nowhere. Sitting down on an ongoing basis, checking your numbers, checking in with spendings and savings habits, your overall goals for that is very important. Okay, the other one that often doesn't get discussed is health and wellness. Now, it seems like a weird one, but you can check in with one another and ensuring you're giving the time and space for the other person to achieve their health and wellness goals. What might that look like? For example, one hour a week, two hours a day, whatever it is for you. Maybe you take turns with babysitting with the kids, you know.
It looks different in every situation and sometimes it's literally just a conversation of, hey, I really would need that time to be my best self, to be as fit and healthy as I can. Again, when you have good individual mental health, your relationship as a whole becomes way more healthier, if that's even a word. Okay. So the next one is network and relationships. So being really clear with what you believe are healthy, connected relationships. And I can say something to this that's probably not spoken about a lot, but if you have people in your sphere that are not particularly supportive of the relationship, they talk it down or they look at and talk about things outside of the boundaries of your relationship, then that's a conversation between you and your partner about how important it is that that person is in your life and how often and how frequent. And are they themselves helping or taking away from you protecting and fortifying your relationship. Very important.
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Very, very important.
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The next one I want to look at is a positive mindset. In your relationship, are you constantly just bringing negative things to your partner or talking negative things about your relationship or thinking negative things about your relationship? This has an impact. Please do not think it doesn't. It very much does. And over time can have this very large negative stacking effect, okay? And so what I mean by that is we think, oh, we just can't communicate, we fight all the time, we can't spend time together, or we don't like spending time together, or we have different interests now, but we used to have different interests in this stuff. We no longer make an effort in our appearance and da-da-da-da-da-da, right?
You can see how that snowballs, the one thought can lead to the next and the next and the next. And I'm telling you right now that a pattern interrupt is needed because you need to get back on track and you need to start thinking positively of your relationship because the more your mind snowballs in that way, the greater chance that you're actually going to cause discord, interruption, upset, hurt in your relationship. Very important to be aware of.
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Okay.
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And the last one to strengthen and fortify your relationship is to seek professional advice. Look, there's no two ways around it. Sometimes we don't want to get our car serviced or go to the doctor or dentist, but we know these things are... It's good for the car, it's good for our teeth, it's good for our overall health. And it's important. We know that in the end, these things strengthen. It'll strengthen the function of our car or it'll strengthen our teeth or it'll strengthen our overall health. And the same is said with marriage or relationship counselling.
A lot of couples have it in place to protect their relationship and marriage and ensure that resentment triggers, traumas, past things when they were younger as not coming through and hindering their current relationship. Now, big disclaimer, of course, a lot of the times there is a lot of stuff coming through, but if you're proactively addressing it, moving through it and working on it, you're gonna have a lot more of a peaceful, loving, calm relationship. So it is not just a reactive situation where you go and get counselling because things aren't so great right now or we're fighting or there's no trust or there's no intimacy or there's no passion. Yes, you definitely need counselling then, but most of the time people come to counselling too late.
So, if you're already thinking about it, now is the time to take action. And if you're not, and even if your relationship is in a great place, there are so many ways to still improve it and move it forward and ensure you have those positive relationship habits in place, which is imperative. That's what creates that long-lasting, that joyous, that connected, that passionate and honestly fulfilling relationship in the end, is to ensure that you have all these things in place, so planning for the worst and preparing for the best or the other way around, and also getting help. Okay? You know, it does take a bit of leisure at times and we can very much in today's society look at things in isolation. Like we're sort of taught, you know, through a lot of social media and things like that, that we should be strong on our own.
You know, we should be doing everything for our kids, we should be working full time and have the most loving relationship and have a six-pack and have our finances squared away. Like, the list is endless. And have, you know, the beautiful clean house. The list is endless of the things that we are constantly bombarded with and taught. And to be honest, people are strong when they lean on supports. You know, you will see people go out and get supports in business, even in their profession.
They'll collaborate with other people, they'll go and talk to other people, get ideas with other people, not so much in relationships. It's very, very hush-hush. We're all good, we're all fine. You know, when you go to that dinner over with the other family, we're all fine, everything's good, and then you get in the car and you fight, or you fight all the way there, and then you fight all the way home. You know, those kinds of things, you know, those little red flags where we go, okay, let's just not accept this. Let's look at what we can do better. And that is so important because ultimately you deserve a loving, fulfilling, joyous relationship. Now it is your turn to turn your relationship on. So I would love to know what's the number one thing you got from this episode. Please comment below and subscribe as this helps get the information out to more listeners. Thank you so much for listening and have an amazing day. Thank you so much for listening and have an amazing day.
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Thank you
