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Abstract

begin with. Yet it’s not unusual to fight for control.</p><p id="d9a5">You shouldn’t need to win.</p><p id="83ba">The people we love are more important than being right.</p><h2 id="daf0">3. I hurt you and I would never want to do that</h2><p id="9340"><i>We hurt one another yet often refuse to acknowledge that.</i></p><p id="ce35">Instead of arguing, sometimes it’s better to acknowledge the pain of the one you love. Stop fighting, stop defending yourself, and just say, “I hurt you and I would never want to do that.”</p><p id="a281">This is someone you love.</p><p id="3fd5">Winning is less important than apologizing.</p><p id="bbaf">Especially when you hurt someone by trying to convince them they shouldn’t want what they want. A birthday or holiday isn’t the time to punish someone and show them you’re in control. It’s okay if they grew up with a birthday cake and a present. Stop talking them out of it.</p><h2 id="a26a">4. I shouldn’t have said that</h2><p id="5b20"><i>Nothing makes us say things we don’t mean more than anguished love.</i></p><p id="f91e">It’s a terrible thing to hurt the people we love. But we all do it. We are human. We say the kind of terrible things even four walls shouldn’t hear.</p><p id="0f3b">But it’s less about these emotional transgressions.</p><p id="f9f7">And more about making things right.</p><p id="6178">We can’t take back our worst moments. But we can correct them. We can tell the person we love we shouldn’t have said that. We didn’t mean the ugliness. It was a weak moment every relationship knows.</p><h2 id="06b9">5. Can I help you?</h2><p id="806e"><i>We need to ask one another if we are needed.</i></p><p id="5dad">The longer we are in a relationship the more we begin a world of parallel play. We live together but we don’t necessarily interact with one another.</p><p id="aa0c">We watch our spouses take on many things.</p><p id="6bc2">And we let them.</p><p id="15bc">Instead of saying, “Can I help you?” making our spouse feel supported. It’s okay to need support, a ride, a meal made, or anything else. Relationships involve two people. We aren’t meant to be in this alone.</p><h2 id="988e">6. How are you?</h2><p id="fa0e"><i>This is another incredibly simplistic question.</i></p><p id="5968">But it’s a form of respect.</p><p id="06fb">It’s a self-check. I care enough about you to know how you are feeling today. To know how you are feeling at this moment. To know if you okay? To know if you need me? If you need a break.</p><p id="18df">If you need absolutely anything.</p><p id="e69c">I am here.</p><h2 id="3d4d">7. I love you</h2><p id="c02c"><i>How often do you tell the one you love, “I love you.”</i></p><p id="bb1c">Love sustains us. It’s like breathing. It’s the reason we walk, we talk, and we breathe. It’s the energy within us.</p><p id="a239">Three words with numerically endless meanings.</p><p id="0384">The frequency of these three words can save a relationship.</p><h2 id="a8e6">8. Thank you</h2><p id="eb46"><i>Thank you is an obvious expression of appreciation.</i></p><p id="264a">No one deserves this more than the one we love.</p><p id="f290">This person loves us. This person waits for us. This person believes in us. This person supports us. This person cheers for us. This person is our person.</p><p id="dce6">But how often do we say thank you for all that you do?</p><p id="56fc">Thank you for being my person. Thank you for making me feel loved. Thank you for being my world. Thank you for supporting all that I do.</p><h2 id="1fbd">9. Do I make you feel loved?</h2><p id="f5de"><i>This is an underrated, undervalued, and underestimated question.</i></p><p id="a787">Surprisingly, no one asks this simple question.</p><p id="18cb">But everyone should. It is emotionally explosive. It’s telling. Are you in a relationship where you feel like you can conquer the world because you feel loved?</p><p id="d5d7">Or are you withering because you don’t feel loved at all?</p><p id="2f03">Or even without asking this question,

Options

can you answer it? When someone won’t pick you up from surgery you have your answer. There’s absolutely nothing about that that will make you feel remotely loved.</p><h2 id="3c87">10. I’m sorry</h2><p id="a074"><i>This too rates in the simplicity department.</i></p><p id="7eea">A simple surrender to the one we love.</p><p id="94a3">Why wouldn’t you want to tell the one you love most you are sorry for hurting them in any way? This should be the last human being you should want to inflict any degree of pain on.</p><p id="1ea4">But you get caught in a battle for control.</p><p id="23da">It seems satisfying in the short term but it will sacrifice your relationship…</p><p id="37d0">In the long term.</p><p id="31be"><b>Love feels complicated.</b></p><p id="ca4b">But in reality, it ‘becomes’ complicated the longer we are together. We go from being in love and best friends to vying for control. was a violent salt fest.</p><p id="a39c"><b>Follow </b>my quotes on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/colleenorme/">Instagram</a> or me on <a href="https://twitter.com/ColleenOrme">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/colleen-orme-7773015/">LinkedIn</a> or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/colleensheehyorme">Facebook</a></p><p id="8269"><i>If you would like to read more of my stories and support me as a writer, consider signing up to <a href="https://colleenorme.medium.com/membership">become a Medium member.</a> For just $5 a month, you will get unlimited access to Medium.</i></p><div id="c841" class="link-block"> <a href="https://colleenorme.medium.com/i-thought-i-was-marrying-a-man-confident-enough-to-love-me-4177c81ea3ef"> <div> <div> <h2>I Thought I Was Marrying a Man Confident Enough to Love Me</h2> <div><h3>It turns out he was even confident enough to divorce me</h3></div> <div><p>colleenorme.medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*gM_AzLJJ-EtHp0OvKrBCMA.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="6707" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/10-powerful-quotes-i-tell-my-children-about-relationships-786a6b170aa1"> <div> <div> <h2>10 Powerful Quotes I Tell My Children About Relationships</h2> <div><h3>A Mother’s view on love and self-love</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*oLsf7YO4AdF-8YIGvlz62A.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="8d50" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-mothers-day-i-couldn-t-stop-laughing-ff4e476342b1"> <div> <div> <h2>The Mother’s Day I Couldn’t Stop Laughing</h2> <div><h3>What my husband left church that day to do</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*Zm_g7oXWSWE8nfHkQIoGmw.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="a6b7" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/i-am-the-mother-of-boys-f5665317c982"> <div> <div> <h2>I Am the Mother of Boys</h2> <div><h3>Why you shouldn’t ask if I miss having a daughter</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*JMKezue3Twev_ooFSKsWZQ.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

10 Simple Phrases That Will Save Your Relationship

And resolve otherwise unwanted conflict

When we were dating, my husband never said, “Colleen, you’re never going to win.”

If he had, I wouldn’t have married him.

Back then, he seemed like the easiest guy in the world.

He never said, “Colleen you don’t need that Starbucks. Why isn’t cheaper coffee good enough for you? You’re such high maintenance.”

He didn’t say, “You’re ridiculous. You make too big a deal of everything. Why do you need a birthday cake and present anyway?”

He didn’t say, “You shouldn’t ask me to drive you to surgery. I’m a busy man. I don’t know what to tell you even if they are putting you under anesthesia. You need to find your own ride home.”

He didn’t say, “I didn’t do anything wrong. I have nothing to apologize for. You’re too sensitive.”

He didn’t say, “I’m a big boy. You’re a big girl. I don’t ask anything of you. You shouldn’t ask anything of me.”

Dating and marriage can be polar opposites.

A form of emotional bait and switch.

If only they warned us.

My husband was the greatest guy in the world. Until I married him. It was a shock. It was confusing. I pledged my life to one man. I ended up with a completely different one.

The guy I dated made me happy.

He was a charmer who made me laugh.

I married a man who made me cry. I wasn’t sure where he came from. It wasn’t a whimpering tear-soaked whisper. It was devastating. It was catastrophic.

It was a violent salt fest.

One that took my eyes weeks to recover from.

I’ve spent the past decade in the counseling and research of love and relationships. The comments above forced me in that direction. I walked away from my marketing profession to confront an emotional product.

Love.

I didn’t believe love was that complicated.

Yet it was.

Because after the infancy of relationships we try to convince the other person they are wrong for thinking the way they do. We need them to be like us. We need to think alike. We see conflict resolution as surrendering to a spouse’s win.

We become less ‘us.’

More a party of one.

10 Simple Phrases That Will Save Your Relationship

1. If it matters to you it matters to me

It’s a simple phrase but it speaks volumes.

You aren’t talking the one you love, out of what is important to them. You are allowing them to be who they are. It’s okay. It’s not disparaging. It’s not insulting.

They are allowed to be who they are and like what they like.

They aren’t wrong. They aren’t misguided. We all like some of the same things and we like different things. It’s okay.

Some people love Starbucks coffee, some love cheaper coffee. One isn’t right and one isn’t wrong.

2. I was wrong

I was wrong feels threatening to admit, even worse to say.

It takes great confidence to admit you’re wrong.

It’s exhausting to fight to win an argument. It’s even more exhausting when you recognize you weren’t right, to begin with. Yet it’s not unusual to fight for control.

You shouldn’t need to win.

The people we love are more important than being right.

3. I hurt you and I would never want to do that

We hurt one another yet often refuse to acknowledge that.

Instead of arguing, sometimes it’s better to acknowledge the pain of the one you love. Stop fighting, stop defending yourself, and just say, “I hurt you and I would never want to do that.”

This is someone you love.

Winning is less important than apologizing.

Especially when you hurt someone by trying to convince them they shouldn’t want what they want. A birthday or holiday isn’t the time to punish someone and show them you’re in control. It’s okay if they grew up with a birthday cake and a present. Stop talking them out of it.

4. I shouldn’t have said that

Nothing makes us say things we don’t mean more than anguished love.

It’s a terrible thing to hurt the people we love. But we all do it. We are human. We say the kind of terrible things even four walls shouldn’t hear.

But it’s less about these emotional transgressions.

And more about making things right.

We can’t take back our worst moments. But we can correct them. We can tell the person we love we shouldn’t have said that. We didn’t mean the ugliness. It was a weak moment every relationship knows.

5. Can I help you?

We need to ask one another if we are needed.

The longer we are in a relationship the more we begin a world of parallel play. We live together but we don’t necessarily interact with one another.

We watch our spouses take on many things.

And we let them.

Instead of saying, “Can I help you?” making our spouse feel supported. It’s okay to need support, a ride, a meal made, or anything else. Relationships involve two people. We aren’t meant to be in this alone.

6. How are you?

This is another incredibly simplistic question.

But it’s a form of respect.

It’s a self-check. I care enough about you to know how you are feeling today. To know how you are feeling at this moment. To know if you okay? To know if you need me? If you need a break.

If you need absolutely anything.

I am here.

7. I love you

How often do you tell the one you love, “I love you.”

Love sustains us. It’s like breathing. It’s the reason we walk, we talk, and we breathe. It’s the energy within us.

Three words with numerically endless meanings.

The frequency of these three words can save a relationship.

8. Thank you

Thank you is an obvious expression of appreciation.

No one deserves this more than the one we love.

This person loves us. This person waits for us. This person believes in us. This person supports us. This person cheers for us. This person is our person.

But how often do we say thank you for all that you do?

Thank you for being my person. Thank you for making me feel loved. Thank you for being my world. Thank you for supporting all that I do.

9. Do I make you feel loved?

This is an underrated, undervalued, and underestimated question.

Surprisingly, no one asks this simple question.

But everyone should. It is emotionally explosive. It’s telling. Are you in a relationship where you feel like you can conquer the world because you feel loved?

Or are you withering because you don’t feel loved at all?

Or even without asking this question, can you answer it? When someone won’t pick you up from surgery you have your answer. There’s absolutely nothing about that that will make you feel remotely loved.

10. I’m sorry

This too rates in the simplicity department.

A simple surrender to the one we love.

Why wouldn’t you want to tell the one you love most you are sorry for hurting them in any way? This should be the last human being you should want to inflict any degree of pain on.

But you get caught in a battle for control.

It seems satisfying in the short term but it will sacrifice your relationship…

In the long term.

Love feels complicated.

But in reality, it ‘becomes’ complicated the longer we are together. We go from being in love and best friends to vying for control. was a violent salt fest.

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If you would like to read more of my stories and support me as a writer, consider signing up to become a Medium member. For just $5 a month, you will get unlimited access to Medium.