Gelisim News

Nowadays the effort to remain love fresh has become one of the most important parts of relationships. Even so, many couples begins to worry about what if their relationship comes to an end when they sense coldness between them. The conventional effort to save relationship appears as the marriage decision, having a baby with the thought of spicing the affair or having a pet. At this point, Psychiatrist Onur Okan Demirci gave seven suggestions to make relationships healthy and to keep love alive.

ACT IN OBJECTIVE AND FAIR MANNER

Psychiatrist Dr Onur Okan Demirci, an academic member from Istanbul Gelisim University says that some couples may feel as if they are being judged by their spouses, and adds “Such a feeling will automatically leads to defensive behaviour. Problems such as extreme sensitivity, susceptibility, introversion, fear of being judged, and thinking that they cannot speak everything will arise. If you want to keep your communication alive, you should avoid judgmental speech, gestures and behaviors.

EMBODY REQUESTS

Stating that couples often complain that they do not receive attention from each other, Psychiatrist Demirci says that in order to solve this problem, it may be necessary to embody the interest which is an abstract and quite broad concept. For example, a spouse may define interest as a periodic curiosity and search for himself / herself during periods of absence. The other spouse who doesn't know that buys flowers by thinking that it is caring itself, however, if this is not in the concept of interest of his/her spouse, s/he will say that her/his partner is not interested in herself/himself and the other spouse will reject because he/she buy flowers. Therefore, when spouses talk about abstract concepts such as ‘interest’, ‘love’ and ‘passion’ to each other, it can be a relationship-saving situation to define what they mean to them.
 
TO BE ABLE TO RESPECT THE SENSITIVE PARTS

“We are all human beings and of course we can have parts that we are sensitive to, that we do not want to be touched or criticized. We feel quite uncomfortable when other people are voicing or criticizing issues that we are not yet ready to share, confront or solve” Psychiatrist Demirci declares and adds “Spouses can avoid quickly aging their love when they respect each other for their sensitive points and do not use it as a weapon.

SELF SACRIFICE

Psychiatrist Demirci expresses that one of the keeping love alive conditions is to present love and self sacrifice mutually to each other. He suggests that sacrifice does not have to be realized for a big situation. Small altruistic behavior will keep the other partners excitement warm. Don't sacrifice yourself for your relationship, but sacrifice for the little needs of your loved one.
 
TO BE ABLE TO RESPECT EACH OTHER’S THOUGHTS AND AVOID CHANGING THEM

Emphasizing that the effort to change their partner ignoring their ideas is one of the most frequent problem, Psychiatrist Demirci announces that imagine that you have a shopping list. In order to get the things on the list, you can either go to a supermarket with all the products on the list or wait for the products that are not in a supermarket. Relationships are similar to this. Either you find a relationship that suits your wishes and expectations, or you expect someone to change to meet your expectations, or you try to change it. The most dangerous of these is trying to change the person you are having an affair with. This effort may show that you do not respect her/his personality and thoughts, and your partner can now decide not to share his thoughts with you. For a healthy communication and a lively love, you may consider giving up the effort to change and try to understand your partner.

BEING FLEXIBLE

Psychiatrist Demirci continues his suggestions and says:

Whatever you experience in your relationship, be sure to develop your ability to look at situations from different perspectives before making a definitive judgment. For instance, your partner may have met a friend you don't like, and you may be having trouble because s/he didn't tell you. Before questioning how they see their friend when they know you don't want them to see her/him? You need to think about why s/he is hesitant to tell you. Is s/he afraid of you? Is s/he withdrawn? S/he thinks you can't understand? Does s/he feel unclear? Does s/he realize you're not flexible? Remember that you are not a judge in your relationships, you are sitting in the defendant's seat at least as much as your spouse.

AVOID THINKING THAT YOU HAVE GIVEN EVERYTHING FOR YOUR RELATIONSHIP

Stating ‘to avoid exerting oneself too much is a key for a healthy relationship’, Psychiatrist Demirci mentions about a Turkish idiom to use your hair as a broom and adds: “If you see yourself as a broom in this context and that makes your partner dirt, which you want to clean in a broom disguise. If we talk about two persons in a relationship, the effort to keep the relationship well would be at most 50% for every person in that relationship. One person can only give one hundred percent for herself/himself, but s/he can only give the half of it in a mutual life for two. Do whatever you do except pretending that you give full to a relationship that you can only give 50%. Otherwise, that means a personal effort, not a relationship. You  make a full effort in a test, not in your relationship. Or else, you cannot help yourself feelling like a broom.

ANGER TRAINING AND SHOW EMPATHY

Stating to show empathy is the most important issue, Psychiatrist Demirci explains that the concept of empathy, contrary to popular belief, is not to be able to put yourself in the place of the other side, but to try to understand the mood in which the person’s face and the gestures. “Instead of being angry with your partner's behavior, first try to interpret her/his gestures and behaviors. See how these comments make you feel and share your findings with your partner. Remember that uncontrolled anger and rage raised by the person in front of us is not caused by her/him, but because it touches problems that we cannot face. If your relationship is damaged by these circumstances, you can get professional help. One of the things that keeps love alive is that couples try to help themselves together or separately.”