Written on February 16, 2012 by Val
When we asked long married couples for the secret to a happy marriage, we got different answers from just about everyone. People didn’t simply give different answers, they gave opposing ones – some thought that time together was most important, others said time apart, some thought talking through problems was key and others said not talking things over too much at all was the answer. As a result I have come to the conclusion that there really is no secret formula to a happy relationship after all; there are simply certain things that work for some people (and hopefully they match with their partner’s desires) and certain things that work for others.
That’s why I have also come to believe that the best secret for the success of marriage as a whole is to change our mindset as a whole – become more creative in our thinking and realize that marriages and relationships shouldn’t be forced into a one-size-fits-all box (or for that matter forced on us as a concept at all). Marriage has always been evolving; we should be embracing that evolution instead of holding onto an outdated notion of what marriage ‘should’ look like. Shouldn’t marriage and relationships be able to look any way two individuals (of any gender) want them to?
As more and more people start to think about marriage and really evaluate its merits and imperfections, fewer people may end up finding a reason to marry in the first place but, on the other hand, if we all really give marriage the careful consideration it deserves without assuming it’s simply a given in life or simply looks a particular way, then those who end up married are going to have stronger unions. This seems like a positive thing for all.
Oh and also…try and choose a right person to begin with and be sure to view marriage just like life – as a journey and not a destination!
-Article by the Gottman Institute, www.gottman.com
Posted in Healthy Relationships
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Written on February 9, 2012 by Val
Answer Yes or No and keep track on a sheet of paper to sum up your final score at the end!
1. I can name my partner’s best friends.
2. I know what stresses my partner is currently facing.
3. I know the names of some of the people who have been irritating my partner lately.
4. I can tell you some of my partner’s life dreams.
5. I can tell you about my partner’s basic philosophy of life.
6. I can list the relatives my partner likes the least.
7. I feel that my partner knows me pretty well.
8. When we are apart, I often think fondly of my partner.
9. I often touch or kiss my partner affectionately.
10. My partner really respects me.
11. There is fire and passion in this relationship.
12. Romance is definitely still part of our relationship.
13. My partner appreciates the things I do in this relationship.
14. My partner generally likes my personality.
15. Our sex life is mostly satisfying.
16. At the end of the day my partner is glad to see me.
17. My partner is one of my best friends.
18. We just love talking to each other.
19. There is lots of give and take (both people have influence) in our
discussions.
20. My partner listens respectfully, even when we disagree.
21. My partner is usually a great help as a problem solver.
22. We generally mesh well on basic values and goals in life.
Your score:
15 or more yes answers: You have a lot of strength in your relationship. Congratulations!
8 to 14: This is a pivotal time in your relationship. There are many strengths you can build upon but there are also some weaknesses that need your attention.
7 or fewer: Your relationship may be in serious trouble. Check out our blog for more information on how to strengthen your relationship!
-Quiz by the Gottman Institute, www.gottman.com
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Written on February 1, 2012 by Val
Prioritize Relationships was conceived several years ago soon after I met the man who would become my second husband. What was I going to need to do differently this time to make love last? Could this relationship really have a ‘happily ever after’ ending? So began the journey of discovering how to maintain a “fit” and “fun” relationship that could weather life’s ups and downs.
I have now lived in my “new way of doing a relationship” for seven years. Even though I wished I could have given my children the gift of observing a strong, loving relationship earlier, I think they have benefited from what I have shared with them and modeled for them over the last few years.
I thought I did divorce well all these years ago now; but my daughters taught me that there is no such thing, really. My daughter once told me that she wants to be able to break the cycle of divorce that exists not only in our extended family, but also in so many families everywhere. Her honesty and insight inspired me. I realized that couples don’t begin a relationship with the idea that it will fail and it’s not that they’re not interested in making it work, they just don’t know how and they don’t have the tools.
This realization was the start of Prioritize Relationships. Prioritize Relationships is about giving people the tools to work on creating a healthy, vibrant relationship. I know what you may be thinking. Work? I work all day! The wonderful news is that “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.”
I’d like to borrow the saying of Phoenix’s own Queen of Clean, an expert in how to maintain, clean, and care for all one’s possessions. She says, “I’ve done the research so you don’t have to.”
Prioritize Relationships is about sharing the resources and the tools that I have researched to maintain and nurture your relationship with your significant other; the love of your life. If you choose to have children, your strong relationship will be the most important gift you can give them.
One of the biggest misconceptions about relationships is that they will take care of themselves. Love does not conquer all. Love is a verb. It requires actions to be maintained. We wouldn’t dream of not maintaining our cars, homes, yards, and work and personal friendships. But we are so often guilty of not showing up every day in our relationship with our partner, for our partner. We at Prioritize Relationships hope to share tools with families that make it easier to communicate with each other, but also remember the importance of daily connections.
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Written on January 22, 2012 by Val
Each month I pull a topic from my What’s Your Take? conversation prompts to inspire my own personal work towards maintaining healthy relationships. Since it is a new year, I start tossing around ideas like resolve, resolution, new beginnings, fresh starts, looking ahead, and moving forward. As it usually does, the topic I pulled allowed me to identify an area of my life I’m resolving to improve.
My resolution for myself is to improve how I operate in my work environment. While this resolution appears to be focused on professional versus personal relationships, I have found that the two influence one another. Another way to word my resolution: improve how I operate in my work environment to more positively influence how I operate in my home environment.
Like most people, I tend to bring what’s happening in my work environment home with me. Whatever the mood or tone I leave work with tends to be the one my husband is greeted with. He’s tried on several occasions to talk to me about work-life balance. His point is that it is not only about the amount of time we spend together, but also the quality of that time. So in order to improve my priority relationship, I need to improve my work relationships.
For example: When I’m at home, I always want my husband and I to be direct with one another. When I’m at work, I find that’s harder to do. I tend to bring passive-aggressive feelings or stress home with me. So, I’ve resolved to be more direct at work. This has allowed me to deal with issues that are bothering me in a much more positive way, ironically, just like I do at home. I believe that much of the discomfort created at home has been due to not taking more responsibility for what was happening at work. Dealing with work issues in a more direct manner at work will free me up more at home.
Balance is not the quantity of time we spend in one environment or another, but the quality of time. If we can take good care of each relationship in each environment, then there is an increased likelihood of the good spilling from one relationship environment to the others.
I thank my husband for once again being the sounding board in our home in order to promote peace and balance. I am proud of myself for allowing him to influence me to be a better, more positive partner that steps in the door after work every day.
Maintaining direct and positive relationships in one environment enables one to move positively forward in another environment.
Isn’t this a wonderful way to start the new year?
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Written on December 6, 2011 by Val
The giving season is here! When you are in a relationship, gifts are more than a one-time purchase. You’ve heard of The Fruit of the Month Club and The Wine of the Month Club. What about taking this idea a step further and embrace (or institute) A Loving Gift of the Month Club, given to your partner as a holiday gift. Each month, on the anniversary of its receipt, the giver asks the recipient what they would want to be given that can’t be purchased in a store. Some ideas include, but are certainly not limited to:
♥ Back rub
♥ Massage
♥ Long walk or hike together
♥ Babysitting the kids so that the recipient can have a day/evening to him/her self
♥ Dancing to candlelight
♥ Making a gourmet meal together
♥ Picnic
♥ Sunday drive to a place they’ve not been before
♥ Going to the zoo
♥ Being in bed together all day
♥ If the suggested idea involves planning, a date for the preferred activity could be marked on the calendar prior to the following month’s holiday anniversary.
This is going to be my husband’s present this year. Perhaps it will become such a hit at our house that we will each be receiving this gift next year. This might not be a bad idea for other family members or for the person who has everything.
I can’t think of a more wonderful gift than the gift of time and doing something that our loved one really wants from us or to do with us. Anticipation is a powerful love “hormone.” These monthly gifts could be just what is needed to keep the spice and variety of love alive. Enjoy! Have a happy safe Holiday Season!!
Small Things Often
What You Do and Say Every Day Matters
Respect always; Repair Often
Remember to keep the happy in your ever-afters!
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Written on November 11, 2011 by Val
Love is a verb. A friend of mine recently lost her husband after he succumbed to a myriad of medical issues. My first thought after learning that he had died was how lucky we had all been to have witnessed their love story over the many years that they were married. They were always there for each other; laughing, traveling, and truly enjoying each others’ company. The example of how to cherish and appreciate those you love while they are living will be their legacy as a couple.
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Written on October 12, 2011 by Val
I just pulled Movies from my What’s Your Take?® topic sticks. This was a serendipitous selection, as my husband and I just attended the first of eight movies we’ll be seeing at the Scottsdale International Film Festival, now in its 11th year. Last night’s opening film was Like Crazy, which opens to the general public in November. This film is worth watching on many levels. Paramount Pictures saw its uniqueness and picked up the film after it was first shown at Sundance, where it also won the Grand Jury prize.
In the movie, the lovers’ future is compromised by the necessity of a long-distance romance and the choices each individual makes in light of that roadblock. Complications include needs and expectations left unspoken. By the end of the movie, there is a lot of water under the bridge and the audience is left to decide the fate of the relationship.
Two of the many things that made this film special were the way in which it had been filmed and edited. Like Crazy was filmed over a one-month period using a consumer-friendly camera. Most of the 55 hours of footage were largely improvisational acting on the part of the actors. Incredibly, the final show runs just under two hours.
What occurred to me is…aren’t all of our relationships improvised? None of us have a script to live life by.
We festival-goers were treated to a post-film discussion involving Crazy’s two main characters. This movie sparked a fairly intense discussion inside the theater and many couples could be heard continuing the discussion in parking lot. It was clear that many people in the theater identified with the themes in this film.
The movie and my experience afterward are reminders that each person needs to take responsibility for expressing his/her wants and needs in order to draw closer to one another.
Distance in relationships doesn’t have to be made up of miles. In an improvisational relationship, you could be complacently distancing one another with too much silence.
None of us are immune to complacency and it helps to be reminded of it now and then.
Small things often.
What you do and say every day matters.
Respect always; repair often.
Keep the happy in your ever-afters!
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Written on August 24, 2011 by Val
As many of you know one of my favorite tools is the What’s Your Take® relationship discussion topics. My husband and I have made a regular habit of using these conversation starters. Now, I am also using this tool as inspiration for my blog.
Today I pulled the topic Secrets. Secrets make me think of something that happened in my own family recently. My daughter and her husband married young. They have been growing up and loving each other for six years. Their relationship has weathered some rocky times and wonderfully joyful times. Recently, they’ve been going through some challenges that all marriages experience, a winter of their marriage.
They recently came for a visit. Since they have been home, one could feel tension in the air. Yesterday, while my daughter was helping me rid my closet of What Not to Wear outfits, I took advantage of our precious private time to talk about the secret. At first she was reticent to disclose her feelings as to how things were going. I reminded her that the whole reason that I started Prioritize Relationships was to prevent other people having to experience costly mistakes and that I would never forgive myself if I didn’t step in and say something sooner rather than later, because I love them.
I sensed that my daughter was in a place where she was willing to give up rather than fight for her marriage. I told her that first and foremost she needed to take the D (divorce) word off the table now and forever more. I told her my listening was not about taking sides, but rather about offering suggestions as to how they could each repair some of the tears in the fabric of their marriage.
Ironically, when my daughter and I were in the midst of our conversation, her husband asked her to come outside to talk with him. It always amazes me, when someone is ready to talk how opportunities seem to appear. I spoke with her later and she told me that during their talk they put a lot of their feelings on the table and were able to move forward on several pressing issues. The couple that I went to dinner with later that night was a couple transformed; happy to be together – the veil of unhappiness was gone. Things to work on, yes, but that is a marriage moving forward.
We think that we should be able to solve our problems or get over hurdles all by ourselves. We think that we should not intervene in our loved one’s business. Sometimes secrets need to be revealed to (especially) help our loved ones see that they don’t have to give up on their marriage when there are challenges.
I appreciate my daughter allowing me to share this story. And I invite you to share your ideas as well. Sometimes secrets are not just something pulled from the pages of a novel. They are fears that we keep inside. Telling our secrets does not make them worse or make them suddenly real. Often, it simply puts them in perspective.
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Written on August 10, 2011 by Val
Prioritize Relationships was conceived several years ago soon after I met the man who would become my second husband. I wondered what was I going to need to do differently this time to make love last? Could this relationship really have a happily ever after ending? So began the journey of discovering how to maintain a fit and fun relationship that could weather life’s ups and downs.
I have now lived my new way of doing a relationship for seven years. Even though I wished I could have given my children the gift of observing a strong, loving relationship earlier, they have benefitted from what I have shared with them and modeled for them over the last few years.
I thought I did divorce well all these years ago; but my daughters taught me that there is no such thing, really. My daughter once told me that she wants to be able to break the cycle of divorce that exists not only in our extended family, but also in so many families everywhere. Her honesty and insight inspired me. I realized that couples don’t begin a relationship with the idea that it will fail and it’s not that they’re not interested in making it work, they just don’t know how and they don’t have the tools.
This realization was the beginning of Prioritize Relationships. My company is about giving people the tools to work on creating healthy, vibrant relationships. I know what you may be thinking. Work? I work all day! The wonderful news is that, “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.”
I’d like to borrow the saying of Phoenix’s own Queen of Clean, an expert in how to maintain, clean, and care for all one’s possessions. Linda Cobb says, “I’ve done the research so you don’t have to.”
Prioritize Relationships is about sharing the resources and the tools that I have researched to maintain and nurture your relationship with your significant other; the love of your life. If you choose to have children, your strong relationship will be the most important gift you can give them.
One of the biggest misconceptions about relationships is that they will take care of themselves. Love does not conquer all. Love is a verb. It requires actions to be maintained. We wouldn’t dream of not maintaining our cars, homes, yards, and work and personal friendships. But we are so often guilty of not showing up every day in our relationship with our partner, for our partner. We at Prioritize Relationships hope to share tools with families that make it easier to communicate with each other, but also remember the importance of daily connections.
Posted in About Prioritize Relationships, Communication, Fun and Games, Healthy Relationships
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Written on April 11, 2011 by Val
Prioritize Relationships has several great class available in the next few month. If you would like to request a presentation for your group or if you would like to learn more about personalized courses and coaching please contact Val McKinley at val@prioritizerelationships.com.
Bring Home Baby Class Description:
This program prepares and empowers couples to develop and maintain a strong relationship even after the baby arrives. Expanding your family will fundamentally change your relationship. In this class, you’ll see how happy and successful couples lovingly and effectively address these changes. This intimate, fun and interactive workshop provides resources and tools to ensure that your family will continue to grow on a solid foundation of love, happiness and communication.
Participants will:
- Gain increased understanding of the impact of parenting
- Develop a clear plan on how to address those impacts
- Create a personal collection of interactive communication tools to make it fun and easy to communicate with your partner.
All participants will receive a copy of the Transition to Parenthood handbook.
Destination Maternity
Bring Home Baby Class
18560 North Scottsdale Road
Future Classes and One on One Sessions Available!
Start the date night habit!
Email: val@prioritizerelationships.com for more information
http://www.destinationmaternity.com
Parenting Like a Pro
Wednesday, September 14 · 4:30pm - 7:30pm
Paradise Valley Unified School District Community Education Course Parenting Like a Pro, presented by Val McKinley.
If you had to have a license to be a parent, here’s what would be in the study guide. Learn skills that will enable you to create and nurture accountable, resourceful, and respectful children. You’ll leave with tools that make it fun to communicate and stay connected; fun to live in your family!
Email: val@prioritizerelationships.com for more information
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