Scientifically Proven Steps to Building a Better Relationship

1. Dance with the one you brought. Remember, you chose this person "for better or for worse, during good times and bad..." This difficult time may pass, but with a sense of determination and communication on both sides.
2. Recognize that everyone is flawed...including you! We are all human and we chose our partners with the understanding that they too are imperfect.  Understanding these imperfections may allow us to forgive ourselves for our own, leading to greater self compassion and compassion in the relationship. Learning to accept your partner's limitations with tenderness is the opening to a true love.
3. Let your partner know how blessed you are. Love is a gift which your partner is giving! This often goes out the window with resentments. If we can begin to access the lovingkindess that is within us and actually begin to do loving gestures, this can be a powerful path toward forgiveness and happiness in a relationship.
4. To know them is to love them. Try to see your lover's flaws and failures with loving eyes. When we begin this path of commitment it's with the understanding that we will be forgiving. Sometimes we get caught up in only seeing our partner's flaws, but we also need to acknowledge their good intentions. We all have flaws and failures and treating our own and our lover's flaws with love can be enormously helpful in healing. If you disagree, with forgiveness, you disagree as friends, not enemies.
5. Accept what you can't change and grieve your loss. It's important to be able to discern when we cannot change another person or what happened in the past. However, we can change ourselves. One thing we know is that when we change, it changes the dynamic of the relationship and things begin to shift in the relationship. We can go from anger to understanding. We begin to stop dwelling on wounds from the past and begin to engage a more present-moment focus, opening up to possibilities in the marriage.
6. Choose to recommit. Life becomes routine and sometimes we need to remind ourselves of what we started out with, a commitment. It can help that this is a daily reminder. If it's a good relationship, it's worth the effort. Even in the midst of some major challenges, we can choose to dance with our partners on a daily basis. Forgiveness depends on this recommitment.
7. Please give yourself a break. We are often so hard on ourselves and our partners. Sometimes we just need to step back and see the bigger picture that we are all imperfect and flawed. What would it be like to begin treating ourselves and our partners with more kindness? Life can be hectic and traumatizing enough, we could all benefit from a bit more forgiveness. 

Post from mentalhelp.net

          7 STAGES OF FORGIVENESS

1. Recognition – a belief that an offense has occurred. Recognition doesn’t always happen immediately. Sometimes it occurs only after a victim has reflected on what happened or following a period of denial.

2. Response – an experience of at least one intense, negative emotion such as anger, hurt, shame, etc. What emotion a person experiences varies with their usual response style and the nature of the offense.

3. Re-evaluate – a re-evaluation of the meaning of the offense and one’s relationship with the offender. In order to keep the relationship, the offended party looks for explanations such as mitigating circumstances, excuses, and his or her own role in the process, and tries to recall past happy memories.

4. Reframing – the hurtful offense is defined differently. Whatever positive feelings were generated during the evaluation phase are contrasted with the bad feelings. To resolve this conflict, the person now tries to change the way he or she views the offense and the offender. By changing his or her beliefs about what happened or about the offender, the person reduces the intensity of his or her bad feelings.

5. Reduction – a softening of bad feelings about the offense and toward the offender. There is some ill will, but the person tries to set aside some or most of the negative feelings to re-establish the relationship.

6. Restoration – a partial restoration of the relationship. The primary purpose of forgiveness is an attempt to restore the relationship in some form. At this point a meaningful dialogue may lead to apologies and/or restitution along with a renegotiation of the relationship.

7. Release – bad feelings surrounding the offense have dissipated. The relationship is fully restored and can grow to new levels. This means valuing and trusting the offender enough to risk being hurt again.

DIFFRENT KINDS OF FORGIVENESS

 

Detached forgiveness. The bad feelings are gone, but there is no reaffirming of the relationship. People forgive in this way when they realize their negative emotions are sapping their own energy and preventing them from moving on to more positive pursuits.
This is self-protective. This type of forgiveness happens when the offender has not apologized or made restitution, when the original relationship was not close, or when the victim believes the offender cannot be trusted.
Limited forgiveness. Both positive and negative feelings exist toward the offender. Forgiveness is limited because it interferes with the growth and intimacy of the relationship. The hurt party is careful, cautious and looks at things differently since the offense occurred.
During times of stress, bad feelings about the past surface. Limited forgiveness happens when a person is unsure about the offender’s actual ability to change or when the offense has profoundly disrupted the relationship.
It is appropriate to remain angry or hurt; especially when the offender is unlikely to change. Bad feelings are held onto as reminders to be careful.
Quasi-forgiveness. Forgiveness is given out of a sense of guilt, duty or low-self-esteem. The relationship is partially restored even though the intensity of the bad feelings remains. This often happens when the offender is in a position of power over the person offended.
Resentments also persist when forgiveness is granted too quickly without the offender having done his or her part to earn forgiveness.
Full forgiveness. There is a total absence of ill will and a full restoration of the relationship. This type of forgiveness occurs when the emotional investment is valued and the relationship is allowed to move forward unrestrained.
There is a willingness to be vulnerable and trust that the other person will not exploit this vulnerability. The offender has to be repentant and has proven by his or her subsequent actions that he or she is now reliable.
This takes time, depending on the gravity of the offense. To completely restore the relationship, trust also becomes a factor. Trust is earned. Trust won’t occur until the offender has done his or her part to show that true change has occurred.
Whose problem is it, anyway? People often get stuck with bad feelings and need help to forgive. They have to let go of their anger or hurt. Until they do, they hold back, and their relationships can’t grow and flourish.
The offender may have done everything possible in terms of remorse, apologies, restitution to the extent possible, and demonstrated by his or her actions that true change has occurred.
When a victim holds on tenaciously to aggrieved feelings and refuses to re-evaluate the offense or the offender, the lack of forgiveness becomes a greater problem than the original offense.
Post from val farm clinic