Building Strong Relationships Through Investment, Emotional Intelligence, Transparency_ Psychologist

All right, and our next segment is on relationships. Let's get some tips on how to have healthy communication with others. And is there a way to connect with friends and partners in an easygoing way? Carla Marie Manley, a psychologist and relationship expert, told me three steps to do just that. She also has some words of caution, giving advice on how to grow without unrealistic expectations. Here's our chat. One of the most important tips for a healthy relationship is to be invested in the relationship. Now, that may sound like a normal platform in relationships to really be invested, but a lot of times, couples believe that they don't need to work in a relationship, that after the dating period, it should be just smooth sailing. But in my fourth book, The Joy of Imperfect Love, I really talk about the important foundations for healthy relationships. One is investment, being truly committed, carving out time every day for face-to-face conversation, for joyful times together. Another really important piece is emotional intelligence, and we often hear about that in the business world. But really, if you just boil it down and get granular with it, we can see that emotional intelligence means that we lean into our partners. We listen, we don't try to fix, and we really attune to their needs. And it's not a one-way street. They attune back to us. And then another really important piece is transparency. If we don't have transparency, honesty, integrity in a relationship, we can't have the trust and the safety that are critical for healthy, intimate relationships. And the beauty of these pieces is that they form the foundation of any healthy relationship, whether it's romantic relationship, friendship, business relationship, parent-child relationship. We can all bring these elements into our relationships. And my last piece is imperfection. We often expect perfection from ourselves and from our partners, from our kids, from our friends, and we want to have more grace for ourselves, for others. And when we make a mistake, as we will, because we're all ever-evolving human beings, we want to be able to say, hey, I apologize, and this is what I'm going to do next time. This is what I'll do differently in the future. So it becomes really an evolution of the self and the relationships in a healthy, back-and-forth way. Well, you talk about the amount of hard work that goes into building a strong relationship and also perfectionism. Perfectionists can be high achievers sometimes, and they do put in a lot of effort, but is there a way that perfectionism can interfere with a harmonious relationship? And how can we change that? Perfectionism is one of the most toxic elements in relationships, because when we are high achievers, we expect perfection from ourselves, and we expect perfection from those around us. And social media really makes this the norm, because we see so many perfect images and snapshots of perfect relationships. But nothing in life is perfect, and we can strive to be great and wonderful in our relationships and to expect people to be their best selves with us, but we, again, also need to be able to allow room for natural human imperfections and that growth that is a constant element of every relationship. And Marriage.com says that communication and compromise are central to an authentic partnership, and that would just mean that if you're a perfectionist, you might have to just move past some of those lofty goals of perfection sometimes in order to achieve that. Carla Marie Manley, psychologist and relationship expert, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.