Out of the Box Dates Welcomes You!

Looking for a guarantee – on the rosy relationship path?

The truth is, you cannot anticipate possible shocks to the relationship.  You cannot control the free will of your partner.  In essense, the future is unknowable. 

 Nevertheless, you feel compelled to make decisions, even take action, to achieve your rosy picture.  But your understanding of what could become a relationship issue is incomplete and your picture of the future is fuzzy.  What are your choices when you’re confronted with relationship uncertainty?

You might assume all you need to do is some mental preparation:  a thoughtful (or obsessive!) list of scenarios that could happen in the relationship and then thinking through how you will respond to each of these possible scenarios.  (Raise your hand if you have done that in the middle of the night!!) Name your worst fear, right?!

Can you prepare yourself for the bumps in your relationship?  Are there steps you can take that willl decrease any surprises?  The problem is that when you are in a relationship, no doubt complex, this kind of planning, intended to reduce your uncertainty, can actually increase your risk of failure.

As you invest time and resources into imagining the unknowable, opportunities sweep right past you.  As you strive to control the uncontrollable, you miss weak signals that hint at winning strategies.  As you plan for an unpredictable future, you are helpless in response to the present.

 There is a concept, called Adaptive Action that is based on the idea that you can’t wait to know before you act, because you can’t know until you act. (From The Social Psychology of Organizing  - ok, maybe not your typical relationship handbook, but some good points apply!)

Adaptive action involves three simple questions:  “What?”  “So what?”  And “Now What?”  

What is going on?  What patterns do you see in your relationship?  What seems to be constant, and what is changing? 

 So what does it mean?  What do you think the implications are of what you observed?  Are there unusual conditions shaping the patterns you observe, or rather not unusual, but perhaps slowly changing the “pattern” that you would prefer in your relationship?  Perhaps there are several interpretations – be open.  Then think of a few options for what you would change.

Now, what will you do to shift the pattern?  What are pros and cons of your options?  What is within your ability, your influence?  How will you know whether the action you might choose is successful?  And consider, when will you revisit your observations and options, and continue with adaptive action?

Sound easy? The challenge comes when day-to-day life distracts, or when your desire to predict and control distorts your views. But the positive results from organizing your stressful or worrisome thoughts into productive adaptive action will make your approach more agile, and help you deal with the uncertainty that sometimes comes with complex relationships. 

Relationship Shockers can always happen. But with an adaptive action approach, really looking at the paths and patterns of the relationship in the “now”, you can make a difference in affecting the changes in a realistic way.  You may find a healthy path replaces a rosy path — an A+ romantic idea!