[Book] The Relationship Handbook: A Simple Guide to Satisfying Relationships — George Pransky

TL;DR. Feelings stem from thoughts. Choose to emphasize thoughts that give you the most enjoyment out of life.

Warning. The book goes to the far extreme of “positive thoughts and love can conquer everything”. This is a collectin of mental tools for someone to extract more enjoyment out of a healthy relationship, but can be dangerous for less functional relationships.

Notable quotes

Feelings, thoughts, truth. When we realize that emotions are just more thoughts , they lose their power to distort our lives and distress us . Like other thoughts , they will pass . When we stop thinking them , they die .

Relationship. He suggested we stop trying to analyze and “ work on ” the relationship and concentrate on enjoying each other . … I thought to myself , if we don’t argue or talk about “ important issues , ” what would we do with our time ? We found we spent the extra time having fun and fooling around .

• Ironically , a focus on problems is the number one relationship killer . It lowers your spirits and makes things look worse than they really are .

Emotions are a quality — control device that measures the quality of our thinking . They tell us whether or not we are viewing life dispassionately — and how sound our judgment is .

• People often defend holding on to their anger because they think that if they are feeling really strongly about something , then they must be right . In reality , strong feelings just mean a person is having a strong thought , nothing more .

Others’ bad mood: Focus on them. To feel resentment , you look for malice and notice how incidents affect you . To feel compassion you notice the pain that motivated negative behavior .

Changing your partner. In case you haven’t noticed , people resist others “ working on ” them . To help your partner change , you need permission — freely given without pressure or threat . With permission you become a team working under the “ changee’s ” direction .

Understanding depersonalizes the event , transferring it from the “ this is what happens to me ” category to just another example of what happens in life .

Commitment. Commitment is a stance toward life , a predisposition to get the most out of each experience by dismissing thoughts and reactions that detract from its value .

• Commitment to other people means seeing each person in the best possible light . To do this , we dismiss personal emotional reactions that might lessen enjoyment of others .

Applicable to me

Commit to fully enjoying the experience with someone / an event. Diminish experiences that detract from this enjoyment. ** Unless, you felt your core values are challenged. Otherwise, drop the issue.

Negative thoughts — be amused. When encountering a negative thought / emotion, (1) Dismiss it, you don’t have to act on it. Feelings stem from thoughts, and they don’t always mean anything important or real. Depersonalize: Think not about how it affects you, but the motivation of the actor. Understand it’s all normal human interaction. We all have our moments. Be amused. (2) or if very important, warn the partner about the low mood.

Changing a partner’s habit. Apply for permission. Drop if partner is defensive.

On disagreement. [Grateful, Amused, Delighted] that we can learn from each other. Talk about values, not the specifics first.

More quotes here.