In this post, I discuss the second fundamental principle of a successful marriage.
II. What is the Basic Relationship Rule and how do you apply it to strengthen your marriage?
The Basic Relationship Rule states:
Everyone always does the best they can (in their relationships) given their Psychological State, their Model of the world and their Skill Sets.
The Basic Relationship Rule serves two purposes:
On the one hand, it provides you with a guide to understand your partner (the focus of the first principle).
Secondly, it highlights the three elements which underly and give rise to your partner’s (and your own) actions. Understanding and shedding light on your partner’s Psychological State, their Model of the World and their Skill sets provide you with an opportunity to better relate to them and, if the situation presents itself, help them make some changes that will benefit them, you and your marriage.
Let’s dive a bit deeper.
There are six elements to the “rule”…
- It applies to everyone.
- It is always operative.
- It states that our “best” is situational and based on three factors.
- The first factor is our Psychological State.
- The second factor is our Model of the World
- The third factor is our Skill Sets.
Elements #1 and #2
Elements #1 and #2 emphasize that, whenever we engage in an interaction that is important us, the Basic Relationship Rule can be used to understand the actions we (and our partners) are taking.
Hence, it applies to everyone in all “critical”situations.
Element #3
Element #3 is, perhaps, the most difficult to accept.
The issue here is that it doesn’t seem reasonable that one’s inappropriate behavior is the best possible action in the situation.
WELL, IN FACT, IT ISN’T THE BEST POSSIBLE!
It is the best we can do in the situation.
Think about it for a minute.
In any important interaction, why would you do anything less than the optimum you can do to deal with the situation that you are facing.
If you are fully engaged in doing what you believe you need to do to impact the situation in which you find yourself, then this is your best, in that situation.
The same is true for the other person in your interaction.
While, clearly what they’ve doneit is not the best possible, it is the best action available to them (or the best they can do) in that situation.
Which, then, begs the question……
If it is not the best possible, and you (or they) are motivated to do whatever is needed to deal with the situation, then something must be impacting or impeding what you are doing that makes it less than optimum.
Yes!
And this takes us to Elements #4, #5 and #6 each of which sets limits on and give rise to the actions you are taking.
Element #4
Your Psychological State refers to any strong emotions such as sadness, anxiety, or anger which might impact how you (or they) interact with others.
Your emotional state is determined by how you are interpreting the situation in which you find yourself. The message of the emotion informs you of your interpretations. Or it informs you of how they are viewing their interaction with you.
If you are angry, you are viewing the situation as involving a threat you need to go to war to resolve.
If you are anxious, you are viewing the situation as involving a possible future threat which needs to be resolved or avoided.
If you are sad, your are viewing the situation as involving a loss from which you need to remove yourself so that you can heal.
Think of your Psychological State as a filter through which you are viewing your situation.
The issue with your Psychological State is that you may not realize that you are viewing the World through this filter.
Element #5
Your “Model of the World” is the lens through which you are viewing, interpreting, making sense of, and deciding what to do in your current situation.
Your Model develops over time and includes (among other things):
- your self-image
- your past experiences with similar interactions
- how you view your partner and interpret what they do/say
- what you assume (or expect) to be true about the situation
- your goals
The “rightness” or “wrongness” of your Model is not an issue here.
The extent to which your Model helps, or hinders, you in your interactions with your partner to resolve the conflict is the critical point.
If you put on a pair of reading glasses, everything you look at beyond your book is blurred. The glasses are blurring your vision. Your Model of the World can also blur (or distort) what you are looking at and the interpretations you make.
This is a link to a previous post in which I discuss the concept of one’s “Model” in more detail.
Element #6
One’s skill sets are the abilities each individual in the relationship brings to the situation that they can access when they need to decide what they will do to “move the relationship forward”.
These skill sets include..
- how they handle emotions (emotional intelligence skills)
- their level of self-control (intrapersonal skills),
- how they interact with others (interpersonal skills)
- how they analyze a given situation (critical thinking skills)
- how they approach solving problems (problem solving skills)
- how they communicate with others (communication skills)
- how they deal with perceived risk (risk management skills)
Your skill sets are the behaviors you have learned over your life span to deal with different types of situations. Skill sets are influenced by different environments including family, work, school, the military and so forth and become habitual over time through practice.
If your skill sets are not adequate to handle what is going on, you will do things that may be inappropriate, ineffective, or even damaging to your efforts to resolve the conflict.
Think about North Korea for a moment. This country believes it has very few “skill sets” which allow it to interact with the rest of the world. It does have nuclear weapons. Consequently, everything it does is filtered through the lens of threatening nuclear annihilation.
The bottom line is this..
In working to understand, maintain, or strengthen your marriage, start by implementing the two fundamental principles that underlie all relationships.
Once you have done this, the specific “techniques” advocated in the lists various sites offer on the internet will make more sense and become more relevant.
Oh, and by the way, these same principles apply at work, as a volunteer or dealing with “support people”.