5 Tips for Loving Someone Well
In today's episode, I'm sharing 5 tips on how to love someone well. So often, we think we are being loving towards someone - when really, we are pursuing our own agenda of loving them with strings attached.
We love in order to get something in return, and then feel secretly resentful when things don't go our way. So instead, I'm sharing how to love someone in a way that feels pure and open-hearted.
WHAT WE’LL COVER:
the importance of gratitude
voicing appreciation and recognition of someone's contribution
how to accept someone rather than control or change them
taking responsibility for your own happiness
staying curious about your partner's inner world
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
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You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship Coach Stephanie Rigg, and I'm really glad you're here. You hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm going to be talking about how to love someone well, sharing five tips for you to be more loving and open hearted in your relationships.
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And I think that this one, while primarily geared towards romantic relationships, as I reflect in this moment, as I'm saying, and I think that most of what I'm going to share could equally apply to other relationships. Really focusing on how can I love in a way that is pure and open hearted rather than think what some of us do without even realising it, is we love with conditions and strings attached. We love to try and get something in return. We love in a way that is inherently self protective or self interested, particularly if we have a lot of fear around love and relationships. And while that's not our fault, and that is why doing this work is so important, because oftentimes we don't even know that we're doing it, I think it is our responsibility, and it's certainly in our best interest and in the interests of having really beautiful, loving, healthy relationships to reflect on how we're loving people and how we could love people better.
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So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, just a couple of quick announcements. A reminder again, I know I've mentioned it a few times recently, but I am accepting applications for Homecoming, which is my intimate six month small group mastermind programme. We meet every week on Zoom for 90 minutes and we explore everything under the sun that you could imagine. This is the most intimate way to work with me.
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So if you've ever wondered what it would be like to work directly with me and you are on a journey of growth and transformation, and you are being called to embark upon that journey with a little more support. And community, then Homecoming is a really beautiful place for you and I would love to receive your application, which you can find via the link in the Show Notes. And all the information is on my website, which again, is linked in the Show Notes. Second quick announcement before we dive into today's conversation is just to share the featured review. This was quite a long one, so I've trimmed it down a little, but it said I was introduced to this show back at the beginning of February as a suggested interest under relationships and attachment styles.
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I honestly wish I'd found it sooner. Her short to the point shows really helped me identify what I was doing wrong and how I can fix the problem. Just by working with my nervous system and learning how to communicate my needs and wants without the push and pull that I'm used to. I'm signing up for her Higher Love course very soon because I'm ready to make the change in love myself for my next relationship. Thank you, Steph, for changing my world.
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Please keep it real and I'll be a listener for life. Thank you so much for that lovely review and I'm so pleased that you found some solace in the show and I hope to see you inside my Higher Love course, which, for anyone listening who doesn't know, is my breakup course. So thank you for that review. And if that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my Master classes as a way to say thank you. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around how to love someone well.
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And as I said, I'm going to be sharing five tips for this. Okay? So the first tip is remind yourself every day what you love about them. So I think that for all of us, it's easy to become trained to spot the negatives, to always be focused on what could be improved, on what could be better, on where things are feeling a little out of sync, where we've gotten lazy, where we've gotten complacent, where our needs are not being met. Maybe focusing on the ways in which our partner annoys us.
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I think because those things tend to stir up big emotions, things like anger and frustration and resentment and irritation. Those emotions tend to take up a lot of real estate inside us. And so it's easy to tip the scales in favour of always feeling that way or always focusing on what's wrong, what's missing, what is lacking. And against that backdrop, we can pretty easily lose sight of what we love about this person that we're in relationship with. We can see the negative side, the underbelly side of all of the traits that we initially loved about them.
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I've spoken about this on the show before, but it's quite remarkable how quickly we are to see an aspect of our partner that we once loved and were drawn to as a negative. An example might be that you are drawn to your partner's charisma and Vivaciousness in the beginning, and then a year or two or more down the track, you find that irritating and you wish that they would sit down and be quiet. You wish that they could be more relaxed and easygoing. Or you might be really drawn to the fact that your partner is disciplined and structured, but then you might find it irritating that they're not more spontaneous or that they seem uptight. Right?
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We take these things that we once loved and that we probably still do love, but we focus on the aspects of it that feel imperfect. So as much as it's easy to do that. And I think it's somewhat natural to spot imperfections, particularly again if we do tend more towards insecure attachment patterns at either end of the spectrum. I don't think it does very much to support the health of our relationships and it doesn't really feel good either. I think that there is so much to support the importance of gratitude and reminding ourselves daily what we are grateful for in our partner and what we love about them.
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I think that that is a really powerful practise not only for upgrading our own energy, but certainly in loving our partner better. So remind yourself every day what you love about them and train yourself to see that rather than to see all of the things that are wrong or imperfect or need work. Okay, the next one, which is in a similar vein, is make sure that you give appreciation and admiration compliments freely. Okay? So while the first one is focused more on for your own sake, remind yourself why you love this person and why you've chosen them.
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This next one is really make sure that you voice those things. Create a climate of gratitude and appreciation as between you. I think that sometimes when we get into a bit of a funky place in our relationship and it can either be because there's tension or it can be just a complacency thing, we get a little bit lazy about being loving actively towards our partner. But we can stop doing this, we can stop thanking them for doing things, we can stop appreciating things, we can stop expressing gratitude. And sometimes, as I said, that's an oversight and other times it's withholding.
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Sometimes we feel like we shouldn't have to avoid appreciation for things that are everyday tasks. If your partner does some sort of active service around the house that you consider to be just a basic part of living in a household, there's that whole thing of why should I have to praise them for doing basic jobs? And I think that we've just got to really ask ourselves what we're trying to win there by holding onto that mentality, by withholding appreciation from someone and whether that's creating a climate that we really want to live in in our relationships. I think that when we notice ourselves in that place of point scoring or competitiveness, it's just not nice, it's not loving, it's not open hearted, and it's actually not going to get us what we want or need. Oftentimes in doing that, we are trying to protect ourselves and we're trying to ironically, probably get more appreciation for the things that we contribute that we don't feel seen and valued for.
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But creating this culture of hostility or withholding in your relationship is not the way to get your own needs met in that regard. And I think that again, it goes back to what I said in the introduction. We're not giving compliments to receive compliments. We're not giving appreciation to receive appreciation. Because if we're doing that, we are manipulating as much as we might not want to see it that way, but if you are only giving to receive, then you are not truly giving from a generous and open hearted place.
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And I think that that's an important thing to remind ourselves. It costs us nothing to be open hearted and loving and voice appreciation for someone. And it costs us a lot to do the converse, which is to cultivate a climate and culture of bitterness and resentment and point scoring in our relationship that is not fertile soil for love to grow. So reflect if you do find yourself going to that pattern of why should I have to? I don't know what that is really accomplishing for you.
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And it's a good one to sit with and ask yourself is this how I want to be in relationship? And is this really getting me any closer to the kind of loving relationship that I so deeply desire? Okay, the next tip for loving someone well is don't make them responsible for your happiness and your fulfilment, okay? Because when you do, whether you do this consciously or not, you will end up blaming them every time you aren't happy or fulfilled, whenever you feel down or whenever you feel anxious or like all of your needs aren't being met or life isn't exactly as you thought it would be. It's easy to blame them.
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It's easy to deflect and shirk responsibility for the way that we're showing up in our lives when we have tacitly made our partner responsible for our happiness. So it's so important in loving someone well. And I realise it might not seem like this is an act of love towards them, but one of the most loving things you can do in a relationship is to take responsibility for your own joy and fill your own cup and then enjoy the way that you're able to share in the overflow together. So when you make that your primary responsibility to create happiness and joy and pleasure and love, then you're able to invite them into that without relying on them or only experiencing happiness and fulfilment via them, which is a lot of pressure on them. And ultimately it's pressure on them to do something which they can't do because your happiness is not within their control.
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So it's kind of an illusion that you can both get stuck in and you can end up blaming them and they can end up feeling like a failure for not doing something that they were never able to do. So I think that the more we can be self responsible insofar as our happiness is concerned and certainly not fall into these patterns of I would do X-Y-Z thing if it weren't for them stopping me. Just fact cheque that for yourself. Because that can be a really good protective story that we can tell ourselves that someone else is stopping us from living the life that we want or someone else is preventing us from having the experiences or feelings or just being the way we would like to be in the world. Okay?
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So just cheque on those stories because they're very often untrue and they're almost always quite disempowering. So don't make them responsible for your happiness. And I should say just as a disclaimer there I'm by no means saying that you can't expect a partner to meet needs, that you can't expect a partner to contribute to your happiness. But there is a big difference between contributing to happiness and enhancing happiness and them being the sole source of happiness and that being their responsibility to make you happy. The latter is unrealistic and unhealthy.
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The former is what we're aiming for but the former does require that you are first and foremost taking that on as your responsibility and your duty to yourself. Okay? So the next tip I want to offer you is notice where you try to control and change them even if it's so subtle. Notice where you do not accept them for who and how they are. Okay?
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One of the most beautiful gifts, one of the most pure acts of love that you can give to someone is to accept them the way they are. Now, if you are more anxious in your attachment then you might really struggle with this because as much as you probably attach to someone very intensely and you hold on to them for dear life and it's not like you are criticising them with a view to ending the relationship and leaving them. You criticise them with a view to moulding them into some version of themselves that would make you feel more comfortable and that is not loving. Okay? It's really really self serving.
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And I don't say that in a judgmental way because god knows I've been guilty of this. But it is something that we have to watch in ourselves, this tendency to want to change someone, to think that we know better than they do, to think that our way is superior to their way, to think that if only they change X-Y-Z thing, then our relationship would be good, and then we'd be happy together. Then we'd be fulfilled. Then we'd be satisfied again. This is a hamster wheel that's really hard to get off once we're on it.
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So notice can I just accept my partner as they are today? And if the answer is no, you're not able to accept them. If you only love them with strings attached or with conditions or with control or you only love some hypothetical potential version of them that you've conjured up. In your mind and that you are squirrelling away at to try and mould them into, then query what it is that you're doing in relationship with them because it doesn't sound like love. So if you want to love someone well try accepting them as they are.
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And try trusting that accepting someone as they are and loving them fully is so much more likely to inspire positive changes and shifts and transformation, but that you may need to release the grip and let go of the reins on what that looks like and how that happens. Because trying to turn someone into who we want them to be is selfish. It's not loving. That's a hard truth, but I think it's an important one to hear. And as I said, no judgement when I say that, because I have absolutely been guilty of it.
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The last tip that I want to give you for loving someone well is remain endlessly curious about who they are today and who they are becoming. It's so easy to get complacent and to think that we know everything there is to know about our partner. But the truth is, you probably haven't even scratched the surface because we are all so brilliantly, messy and complex. There was a conversation in Homecoming, My Mastermind yesterday, which was so beautiful, and it was that one of the women had finally understood what it felt like to view her partner as a whole person, as a whole, complete person that wasn't about her. And I think that that might sound funny, but reflect on it.
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How often do you see your partner as their own person? In the same way that you see yourself, in the same way that you know yourself to have a million different thoughts every day and fears and insecurities and dreams and hopes? Your partner has all of that too. And there's a good chance that you might know some of it, but you probably don't know all of it. So try to remain curious about them.
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Try to remain curious in getting to know them a layer deeper, in finding things out about them, in learning from them, because they have so much to teach you that you probably haven't even scratched the surface of yet. We are all forever unfolding and growing and changing. So even if you've been together for a very long time, the person that you're in relationship with today is not the same person that you are in relationship with a year ago or five years ago or ten years ago. So can you be curious about who they are today and who they might become tomorrow or a year from now? Think that we can get a little bit cocky and think that we've read the book cover to cover, but it's good to remind ourselves that the book is still being written.
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So it's nice to remain interested in the mystery of who our partner is, rather than assuming that there's nothing left to learn. And I think that that really does help, not only with loving someone, but with keeping that excitement in your relationship, with keeping connection and spark and aliveness. Because there is always this new growth. If we are courageous enough to look for it. Okay, so that was five tips for loving someone.
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Well, to quickly recap, that was remind yourself every day what you love about your partner. Give your appreciation and your admiration freely. Don't point score, don't withhold. Don't play tit for tat on compliments or words of affirmation. Nothing good comes of that.
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Don't make them responsible for your happiness and fulfilment. Make that your commitment to yourself and then enjoy the spoils of it with your partner. Notice where you try to control and change them and see if instead you could accept them fully and trust that good things will flow from that place of acceptance and remain endlessly curious about who they are today and who they are becoming. If you've enjoyed this episode, as always, I'm so grateful for those of you who leave ratings and reviews. We've got almost 2005 star reviews on Spotify, which is pretty amazing.
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You can also leave a comment on Spotify under the episode. There's a little Q and A box, so you can leave a specific episode comment if you feel called to when you're listening on Spotify. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me, guys. As always, I will see you next time. Take care.
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Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.