Relationship Tune-up

Essential Relationship Skills -- Learn Patience

The Importance of Developing Frustration Tolerance

Frustration tolerance (FT) is a skill you (and your partner) need if you want a healthy, fulfilling relationship.  FT is the ability to deal with any experience that does not work out in your favor and therefore triggers strong feelings. Just think of the young child at Toys R Us who starts screaming and collapses to the floor when his parents refuse to buy him the latest toy. This is an example of someone with no FT.

We all have to learn to deal with frustrating situations--this is a hallmark of maturity. Some of us are better at this than others.

While any marriage or your relationship is likely to feel harmonious and effortless at times, you've probably noticed that relationships are hard work-- poor FT skills can damage your relationship over time, and effective FT skills will go a long way in helping you do the meaningful work that all relationships need.

Teach Yourself Patience

Relationship challenges require considerable emotional skill on your part--in particular, patience. FT skills lead to patience. Telling an impatient person to "be patient" is often futile if they've never learned the skills that lead to patience.

Patience doesn't have to be something mysterious.  It is a learned skill (learned from your caregivers and family). This is good news because you're never too old to improve your Frustration Tolerance skills.

Today we will briefly examine one way to improve your FT

Lying to your partner

The Little White Lie that grew

I lied to my wife the other day--something I don't typically do (and didn't feel good about doing). And there was absolutely no reason to lie.  I was planning to vote in the local primary after I got home from work, but I wasn't feeling well so I decided not to head back out in the rain, even for my civic duty.

When she got home later, she casually asked me if I voted and for some reason I said "yes." She knows me really well and could tell I was lying. But here's the really interesting thing: as she continued to ask me about voting (she wanted to see how deep a hole I would dig for myself), I felt the need to lie further in order to avoid the initial embarrassment of having lied in the first place. Despite the fact that my wife is very even-tempered and doesn't often "get mad" at me, I felt like a little kid about to get in trouble.

Of course she trapped me (she cleverly asked what I thought about the new voting system and, because I didn't realize anything had changed since the last time I had voted). After several painful, squirmy minutes I "admitted" that I didn't vote. She asked me a valid question, one I later reflected on: why did I feel the need to lie in the first place? 

What seemed to happen is that once I lied, the motivation to cover-up the initial lie created layers of other lies. The motivation for subsequent cover-up lies isn't necessarily the same as the motivation behind the original lie. Lying can snowball out of control.

Let's look at some of the common reasons why lying can creep into your relationship:

Relationship quote for February 2008

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. 

~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

Relationship Advice: Make a small change and set the stage for a great day

Quick Tip:

If you want to improve your relationship, think small: Pick one tiny behavior that you've been wanting to change about yourself (or a behavior that drives your partner up a wall) and commit to changing it. I know, easier said than done. But if it's a small change--something that wouldn't take a lot of effort--you can definitely succeed. And don't kid yourself, small changes add up to big differences.

I've seen this first-hand in my work with couples. The key is persistence. Many people make the following mistake: they identify a behavior that they want to add or subtract from the relationship, such as adding the behavior of holding hands more often, and they do this for several days. And then they wait and observe. What are they looking for?