The One Sided Marriage

Studio 5 Relationship Coach Matt Townsend explains how to make your marriage more balanced.
Love is like a vessel, it is good for two reasons, holding and pouring. In order to have a relationship work you’ve got to have two things going for you.
• Two people who can hold the love their partners gives them.
• Two people who can pour the love their partner needs.

Many couples I see in my office have problems either holding or pouring. So if you are in a relationship where you are not feeling that you are benefitting equally in the relationship than you need to figure out what is going on.

Here are four keys to help you get more from your partner to make it more mutually beneficial.

1. Open the discussion
One of the first keys to making sure that two people can benefit in the relationship is that you have to communicate your needs to each other.

2. Identify the hole in the bucket where you may be losing the love
Five holes that I tend to see a lot in my business that make it so that some partners aren’t pouring love equally in the relationship are the following:

• Ignorance – People just don’t know any better or don’t know how to connect and feed to their partner.
• Physiological – Some people are physiologically incapable because of injury, imbalance, or illness to actually love their partner.
• Psychological – Some people have a history of abuse or some past experiences that make it difficult for them to trust their partner and that impacts holding and pouring love to their partner.
• Addictions – If someone is addicted to something then they will find it hard to give all of their time and attention to feeding their partner and will instead feed their addiction.
• Distractions – Anything else that takes your time, focus or energy is a distraction from your relationship. This could include other people, other relationships, commitments, hobbies, etc.

3. Make a plan
Once we understand what hole is leaking the love out of our relationship, then we need to build a plan to patch the hole. Some keys parts of every plan should include:

• Education and tools to understand the hole better.
• Building a team of specialists who have expertise in working on the hole you are struggling with.
• Going online and search for solutions. There are many articles and blogs you can find with people who have similar issues.

• Finding books to help. Numerous books have been written about every hole mentioned above and many wonderful ideas can be found to help you through the difficulty.

• Changing what you can

• Accepting what you cannot change

4. Keep talking
Keep talking with your partner about the part you are working on. Keep holding discussions.