What kind of relationship are you creating?

Most relationships are not consciously designed. They develop over time through the way two people speak to one another, handle conflict, show affection, make decisions, respond to hurt and navigate the ordinary pressures of life.

Two people meet, something develops between them, and a relationship gradually takes shape. Over time, life gets added to it. Work, children, money, family, responsibilities, routines, disappointments, successes, losses and change all become part of the relationship.

A healthy relationship is not created by avoiding difficulty, but by becoming more conscious of the patterns, conversations and choices that shape the way two people experience one another.

Somewhere along the way, it can become easy to focus almost entirely on managing the life you have built together and spend much less time thinking about the relationship within it.

We may talk about where we want to live, what we want to earn, where the children should go to school, the next holiday or what needs to happen at work. But couples do not always stop and ask a different question:

What kind of relationship do we actually want to have with one another?

Not simply whether we want to stay together, but how we want it to feel to be together.

Relationships Are Being Created All the Time

Whether we are conscious of it or not, we are continually shaping our relationships.

The way we speak to one another matters. So does the way we respond when we are irritated, disappointed or hurt. The things we make time for, the things we avoid, how affection is expressed, how conflict is handled, how responsibilities are shared and how interested we remain in one another all contribute to the relationship that develops.

This does not mean that a good relationship should be free of disagreement, frustration or difficulty. Two different people will inevitably have different needs, opinions and ways of responding to the world.

The question is what happens between us when those differences emerge.

Do we become defensive?

Do we withdraw?

Do we criticise?

Do we stop talking about things because previous conversations have gone badly?

Do we assume we already know what the other person thinks or feels?

Or have we found ways of remaining curious about one another, even when we disagree?

Over time, repeated interactions become patterns, and those patterns gradually become the experience of the relationship.

Creating a Shared Vision

A relationship vision does not need to be a formal document or a list of lofty promises.

It can begin with an honest conversation.

You might each spend some time considering questions such as:

• What do I value most about our relationship?
• When do I feel closest to you?
• What has become more difficult between us?
• What do I miss?
• What do I think we are doing well?
• What do I want more of between us?
• What do I want less of?
• How would I like us to handle disagreement?
• What helps me feel loved, respected or important to you?
• What do I think you need more of from me?
• What do we want our relationship to feel like a year or several years from now?

The purpose is not to produce identical answers.

In fact, discovering that you see aspects of the relationship differently can be useful. One partner may value more time together while the other feels that there is enough time but wants more emotional openness. One may want more affection, while the other wants to feel more appreciated. One may experience conflict as the main difficulty, while the other experiences the lack of conversation after conflict as the greater problem.

Those differences give you something important to talk about.

A Vision Has to Become Behaviour

It is relatively easy to say that you want a relationship that is loving, connected, respectful or supportive.

The more interesting question is:

What would we actually be doing differently if our relationship felt that way?

If you want greater connection, perhaps that means putting phones away and spending twenty minutes talking at the end of the day.

If you want more affection, perhaps it means becoming more intentional about physical closeness rather than waiting for it to happen spontaneously.

If you want greater respect during conflict, it may mean agreeing that neither person calls the other names, threatens the relationship or walks away without saying when they will return to the conversation.

If you want to feel more like partners, it may require a more honest discussion about responsibilities, parenting, money or the mental load carried by each person.

A shared vision becomes meaningful when it begins to influence ordinary behaviour.

You Are Allowed to Revisit the Relationship

Relationships change because people change.

What worked when you first met may not work in the same way ten or twenty years later. Careers develop. Children arrive and grow up. Parents age. Health changes. Priorities shift. People discover things about themselves that they did not understand when they were younger.

A healthy relationship therefore cannot rely entirely on decisions made years ago.

There are times when it is worth asking:

Who are we now?

And then:

Given who we are now, what kind of relationship do we want to create from here?

That conversation does not need to happen because the relationship is failing.

It can happen precisely because the relationship matters.

When the Conversation Is Difficult

Sometimes couples discover that they want many of the same things but have become stuck in patterns that make it difficult to get there.

The desire may still be for closeness, but conversations quickly turn into arguments. Both people may want to feel understood but have become so accustomed to defending their own position that neither feels heard. There may be old hurt, resentment or mistrust sitting underneath what appears to be an argument about something relatively small.

At other times, one person may have spent much longer thinking about the relationship than the other, and the conversation itself can feel threatening.

This is where relationship counselling can be useful.

It provides a space to slow the interaction down, understand what has developed between you, and begin talking about both the relationship you have now and the relationship you would like to create together.

You do not need to wait for a crisis to have that conversation.

Sometimes one of the most valuable things two people can do for their relationship is simply to stop, look at where they are, and ask one another:

Where would we like to go from here?