A 7-day challenge you should try

Last week my wife introduced me to a couple she had become friends with recently. We met for a coffee down at the beach. It turned out he ran marathons and in 2010 he had completed the London Marathon. I asked him what time he had done it in. He said “5 hours”. The moment he said it his wife lent in , put her hand on his forearm, and said “darling it was 5 hours and 9 minutes”.

I said nothing but couldn’t help but wonder what on earth could have made her say such a thing. Had they just had an argument earlier and she deliberately wanted to humiliate him? Did she think I actually cared what time he ran? Was it simply part of her character to insist upon precise factual accuracy on even the most trivial things?

Or maybe she just wasn’t thinking. And that to my mind is the worst of the possibilities. All too often I see couples fall into the trap of no longer thinking about how they treat their partner. They are then stunned when in counselling ,or elsewhere, it is revealed to them that their partners feel unloved and constantly got at. Or as I call it they feel stuck in the nightmare of the ‘3Cs’ – the situation where your partner only ever communicates with you to either Criticize, Contradict or Correct you.

With all the pressures of day to day life it is easy to fall into this destructive pattern of behaviour – you just settle into a bickering resentful relationship that neither side enjoys. Unfortunately it can be difficult to break out of the rut once you’re in it.

To break this cycle I recommend my 7-Day challenge. This involves quietly deciding (without telling your partner) to set aside one week where on every day for seven days in a row you will say one genuinely nice thing to your husband/wife/partner. You have to do this with no conditions. However hard you may find it you must say one nice thing.

Genuinely and without strings. Even if it is something as simple as “thank you for walking the dog darling I really appreciate it”. Do it even if you know he/she wanted to walk the dog anyway and had irritated you earlier in the day.

In my experience just one week of this unilateral action never fails to create a virtuous circle where you both start being nicer and kinder to each other over the longer term.

To those people who say “I don’t see why should I have to be the one to be nice” I can only shake my head and wonder how much you really value your relationship if saying 7 nice things in a week is too big an ask. I mean come on - if it doesn’t work for you you can always go back to a whole lifetime of the 3Cs at week’s end.

Nigel Marsh is best known for his creative pursuits. As well as the author of three books – Fat, Forty and Fired, Overworked and Underlaid and Fit, Fifty and Fired-Up – he is also the co-founder of Earth Hour and the founder of the upcoming Sydney Skinny. His first book is currently being developed into a major TV series in America by the creators of ‘Two and a Half Men’. You can buy his books here

How do you handle conflict in your relationship? Would you commit to taking this challenge?