Better Relationships and Effective Communication
By Lorna, 19 March 2006

Taken from the online Library

Seven Guidelines for Great Relationships and Better Communication

1. Accept your partner 'as is.' Avoid blaming. Determine that you are in your relationship
to enjoy yourself, not to try to fix, reform, or straighten out your partner. Be responsible
for your own feelings. Allow yourself to influence your partner, but do not demand that
he or she must change. Also, give her or him the freedom to influence you. Yes, to
persuade and inform you.

2. Express appreciation frequently. Avoid steady criticism. Acknowledge your partner
often for small things. Find, discover, or even create things you really value about your
partner. Say them. Honesty is important here. Avoid the main relationship 'killer' -
frequent criticism of your partner.

3. Communicate from integrity. Be honest regarding beliefs and evidence that conflict
with your own views of what is happening. When your partner is right, admit it. Be both
honest and tactful. Allow different perceptions to exist. Agree to stop penalizing each
other for your honesty as you now often may do. Agree that both of you will be honest
and let the other 'get away' with honesty.

4. Share and explore differences with your partner. Explore disagreements with your
partner to move toward a higher resolution that accepts parts of both your views. Or, to
agree to disagree. Additionally, be ready to compromise without pretending that you
agree when you really don't agree.

5. Support your partner's goals. Don't surrender your own integrity and your own
important desires and views, but go as far as you honestly can to support your partner
even when you clearly disagree.

6. Give your partner the right to be wrong. Respect both of your rights to be fallible
humans- your inalienable right to make mistakes and to learn from your own
experiences and errors. Don't honor only your own right to be an error-prone human!

7. Reconsider your wants as goals that you may achieve later. (This is a guideline that
enables you to work properly with the other six guidelines.) When you don't get what
you want or desire, remind yourself that you don't have to get what you want, now or
ever!

Note: Choose to practice the Seven Guidelines as a unilateral commitment regardless
of what your partner does or doesn't do. Each time you have not succeeded, look to
discover a mistake you may have made. You also may have something significant to
learn about your way of talking or listening.

Tips for Learning and Using the Guidelines

To start you off, here are three simple tips:

Tip #1: Learn 'by littles.' Take one small bite size piece to 'master' at a time. Don't
overload yourself by trying to learn these Seven Guidelines all at once.

Tip #2: Test our assertions, one at a time. Test our claims to prove to you that the
Seven Guidelines are valid. Or to prove them false. Be willing to rework our guidelines
to make them more understandable or workable for yourself.

Tip #3: Make continuing small improvements in your understanding or use of the Seven
Guidelines every week. Aim for improvement, not for perfection. Persist!

Taken from the book, Making Intimate Connections, 7 Guidelines for Great
Relationships and Better Communication by Dr. Albert Ellis and Ted Crawford