All day and every day we're engaging in relationships, whether at work, among family and friends, or at social events. Of all these relationships, one stands out above all others. This book is about that special interaction called the Intimate–Marital (IM) relationship.
First, ask yourself . . .
Are my partner and I engaged in continual arguments with no resolution in sight?
Are work, friends and extended family interfering in my I-M relationship?
Is decision-making a constant irritant in our relationship?,
Are my partner and I realizing that we have less in common than before?
Am I beginning to question whether or not I want to stay in my present relationship?
If you answered yes to any of these question, then this book is for you.
And it's about everybody
The purpose of the IM relationship is to satisfy a couple's needs .
The couple can be of the same sex or not, and may be married, living together, or simply dating.
The only requirement is that they subscribe to the mutual and exclusive conditions involved in the IM relationship.
So, how do problems get started?
When a couple enters an IM relationship, each individual brings a set of expectations about how the other should behave. The expectations serve as guidelines or rules and, when the actions of one person conflict with the expectations of the other, problems arise.
So, when attempting to correct problems in the IM relationship, you have to include all three sources of the problem—namely, the two partners and the relationship—in searching for the solution.
This book does just that and identifies and suggests corrections for the problems that arise in IM relationships.
The Four Factors
Over the years, when dealing with couples who were having problems with their relationship, whenever Dr Houle asked, "what can your spouse do to make the relationship better?", he was amazed at the responses he got. People immediately began to offer solutions about how their spouse should behave.
It was as if they knew, intuitively, that it was behavior that was the problem.
Within every Intimate-Marital relationship, there are certain factors operating which affect the behavior of the people in that relationship.
There are four of these factors which Dr. Houle calls Primacy, Power, Interest and Purpose.
These factors are are made up of the expectations each person has of the other person in terms of how they should act while in that relationship and all it takes is for one person to violate these expectations (or "rules of the road" of the relationship) and problems will happen.
To learn more about the Primacy factor click here.
To learn more about the Power factor click here.
To learn more about the Interest factor click here.
To learn more about the Purpose factor click here.
