The only trick to give you a permanent relationship in harmony with your wife
Sitting at the dining room table one night in 2012, listening to my housemate and his girlfriend reminisce about an incident that had transformed their relationship, I realized that men are tragically wrong about women, or perhaps less wrong and worse equipped.
On the other side of the table was the effusive couple giving a finely tuned and now highly synchronized interpretation of their story. Like a flash, her story taught me something. It led me to understand how to establish and maintain a harmonious relationship with amazing ease.
Two weeks prior, their relationship had been on the rocks. Mark and Lisa really liked each other and got along, but a series of failures to understand what was important to each other had left them wondering if they could take their relationship further. Things came to a head during a long weekend trip Mark had planned to New York (with one of his less desirable friends). Knowing that he would try to stop her from going through with it, Mark only told Lisa days before he left.
Upset that he would manage to make this trip not only without her, but with the one friend of hers that she truly detested, their relationship was on the verge of breaking up. It was in defiance, however. She was left behind wondering if the nine months of their relationship were over. That’s how it was, until she came back. She received a phone call at work from her informing her that she had a visitor at the front desk two days before Mark returned from his five-day trip. She went downstairs, fearing the surprise appearance of a customer. Instead, she saw a familiar flash of hair through the meeting room window, and there he was with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, arms outstretched.
Mark had had a revelation while in New York, about his friend and his relationship with Lisa. Realizing who he really cared about, Mark acted decisively and bought a flight home. Of course, there were tears, lots of tears. After all the happy questions and silly reconciliations, Mark left, leaving Lisa to explain all the commotion to her envious colleagues, who (so the story goes) chimed in with the same internal monologue; ‘My boyfriend would never do that for me.’
That was the turning point in their relationship, the moment when all the petty bickering and posturing faded away.
As I sat at the table listening to the story, I thought, as only a man can, ‘That’s a lot of brownie points!’ That expression had always seemed creepy before, but, as she watched a gleam of satisfaction emanate from Lisa as she spoke, it began to dawn on her. It was weeks, months before she really fell into her place, but she soon did, and she had learned an explosive voodoo-style system for relationship management. Women were no longer creatures of inexplicable whims and emotional tourettes. She Now she could tame the tiger and manage the harmony of the relationship as if she used a light dimmer!
I call it Goodwill Bank, and since then I’ve gotten the best interest rates of my life!
So what is it? It’s a system that’s easy to understand, easy to apply, and like magic, it works!
Think of your girlfriend like a car full of gas (positive relationship credits). Cars don’t run well without fuel, and neither does your relationship. So the trick is to spot when you’re running a little low on credits (men usually only act after the damage is done) and do something about it before the car starts to choke. Don’t be proud, don’t think, ‘well, it’s not broken yet, so…’, make a gesture of love, understanding or care to keep her recharged and whenever problems arise, she’ll think ‘Yes. her, she annoyed me her, but she bought me that sugar loaf that I love earlier today when she was coming home from work.’
Mark had made a large investment in the bank and the result was this; for a long time after (years) whenever they came to argue, she always offset her own annoyance with the memory of when he came back from New York to show her love for her. This was a great gesture, but to achieve the exact same results, all you have to do is make sure you build and maintain your credit level at Goodwill Bank, you can do it with small, low-effort gestures. That’s all. It sounds so simple, and it is, but the end result is a game changer.
Women may be from Venus and men from Mars, but the Bench of Goodwill technique has proven to be an equalizer of cosmic proportions. I hope it does for you too!