Three questions to ask the couple to work on before they come to the first session:
- What would the relationship look like if it were working well?
- What are doing right now to prevent that?
- What do you imagine you could do differently?
(From the supervision workshop with Maya Kollman)
In my view, personal (i.e. “love”) relationships, as any other form of social relationship, is based on joint endeavours. The more joint endeavours there are, the stronger the relationsihp is. First signs of cracks in a relationship is the drop in the quantum of things done together – parties tend to spend less time together and more time focussed doing their “own things”. Key to re-building the relationship would then be the increase in the amount of time spent doing common things – be it as simple as walking a dog or weeding the garden, or as complex as running a business. Because when children remain the only joint endeavour, the relationship is virtually all but gone.
These are very similar to the questions I ask of couples:
1. What is the relationship you want?
2. What would need to change for you to have that relationship?
3. Are you willing to do the work to have it?
Thanks Zoran & Cheryl!
Cheryl, I like yours. Amazing how one could tweak this, every nuance has an impact.
“What are doing right now to prevent that? ” might lead to a focus on the negative.
How about: What are you already doing to create that?
The main point about these three questions is that I as each partner *separately* *before* they come so there is already a focus on no blame and a warm-up to work.