Jed and Amanda had been together for 18 years when he started looking for tools to improve their communication. Two busy schedules, full-time jobs, and 3 kids were taking all their time and energy, and at the end of the day, it was hard to remember to prioritize their relationship…
I think the most important thing for me is that it helps you set smart, achievable goals. It’s not like “Hey change everything about you,” it’s really realistic and easy to do. It takes just 5-10 minutes a day, which helps me get in the habit of improving my relationship, and it reminds me to always keep it top of mind.
One of my favorite lessons is the 5-5-5 technique because I’m more of a peaceful, go with the flow type of person, and Amanda’s a little more engaged and anxious so I’ll often ask her: “Is that really important?” But the important thing is that it is to her, and I now have better tools for understanding her thinking.
The way I use Relish in my everyday life is like if something just happened, say we butted heads or got in an argument, there aren’t a lot of things that can help me in the moment. I’m thinking a million things, like ‘Did I miss something? Can we fix it?’ and then it’ll hit me: Oh wow there was something I read on Relish a couple weeks ago and that will help me out in this situation. Just having the library of resources to look back on is a huge advantage. Having that everyday kind of reminder is the same as seeing a number on the scale if you’re trying to lose weight: it keeps it top of mind, it holds you accountable, and it gives you easy, customized ways to keep moving towards your goal.
It takes just 5-10 minutes a day, which helps me get in the habit of improving my relationship, and it reminds me to always keep it top of mind.
Every time my phone pops up with a notification from Relish it will say something along the lines of “What can you do for Amanda today?” or “Here’s how to help out your relationship today.” Just seeing them gets me back on track. We’ve been doing counselling and now we only go for maintenance or as things come up. Since we stopped going as often I was looking for a way to stay connected and be intentional about our relationship. It’s not like there are big Eureka moments – it’s more like every day we put down another brick… and pretty soon we’ve got a pretty sweet house.