Are you behaviourally fit for your partner?

1 Identify clearly the behaviour you need to change or shape. It’s not enough to recognise, for instance, that: ‘I’m not good with money.’ It’s more helpful to recognise specific instances when you demonstrate this behaviour, like ‘I don’t have a budget’ or ‘I can’t save because I don’t keep track of my expenses’ or ‘I’m not clear about investment strategies.’ It’s easier to find a solution when you know exactly what you’re dealing with and what the causes are.

2 Reduce the behaviour to something you can recognise and measure. Why do you behave this way? What sparks off this reaction in you? For example, ‘I’m super critical of my children when they do XYZ, because I’m afraid my new partner will be turned off.’ (Or because that’s what I heard my own father say and I’m just repeating the pattern without question). Well, maybe it is time to question! If the answer is ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this’, the next step is to make an educated guess—could it be this—could it be that…? The more you question and find answers, the more you’ll understand yourself, and future issues won’t be such a mystery. Nor will they have such a hold on you.

Here’s an example to illustrate how our subconscious anxieties can drive our behaviour, which is why it’s often so difficult to change. One of my clients describes herself as ‘very expressive and passionate’. Because her partner finds her aggressive, she has recognised she needs to change her behaviour when she’s angry. Amongst the first issues we looked at was her level of assertiveness. Was she exploding because she was unable to express her needs in small ways, so frustration built up like a pressure cooker? No, as it turns out, she was well able to make requests and set boundaries. Ok, so we don’t need to learn assertiveness.

A little more exploration revealed that since early childhood, she had been told she as exactly like a very unpleasant aunt. She was convinced her personality and behaviour was identical and was terrified: ‘If I’m like this now, I’ll be even more like her in ten years—I don’t want to be her!’ Her anxiety was fuelling her tension, which in turn increased her outbursts.

Aside from learning various strategies to control those outbursts, she needed to re-evaluate the ways in which she was totally different from her aunt. Once she identified the specific behaviour she didn’t like, she was able to reassure herself that she was, indeed, quite unlike her aunt in many ways. That reduced a good deal of her tension. For the remaining similarities, we developed methods to help her deal more constructively with the behaviours she chose to change. Change then becomes easy to measure—you’re either doing it, or you’re not. Or at least you can see you’ve made a few improvements!