Do You Have 'Triple A'?

“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.” C. S. Lewis

While it may be a good idea to have a membership for roadside assistance, it is just as important – if not more so – to have relationship triple A: Attention, Affection, and Appreciation.

Attention: You probably are with your partner because of the amount of attention they focused on you when you first met. I have been in relationships, perhaps just because of the amount of attention the fellow paid to me. I am not suggesting you be a stalker, but people like attention.

It is easy when you are so wildly in love to pay lots of attention to your partner. It is exactly what this infatuation stage and its requisite hormones are about, bonding you to each other. The trick is that real life sets in after the honeymoon phase and the attention starts to get used for other things: a big project at work, the freezer needs to be defrosted, etc... We start to take our partner for granted as someone who will always be there. No more date nights, no more sweet notes on the bathroom mirror, no more holding their hand everywhere we go.

Attention doesn’t have to take a lot of time. We certainly waste enough time checking our email, social media updates, and watching television. Attention requires really listening. We develop the bad habit of listening to respond or only half paying attention. We focus our attention on what is important to us, so if it isn’t on your partner, it is easy to see why they feel unloved.

Affection: Babies in orphanages that are never hugged, cuddled, or touched stop growing and in extreme cases die. Virginia Satir, a therapist said, “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” Hugs and touch has been shown to reduce stress, protect against illness, and reduce pain. Hugs of at least twenty seconds cause oxytocin to be released which enhances our bond. It is easy to understand, then, why showing our partner affection is important to not only maintain, but deepen our connection.

Women in long-term relationships often complain that every touch leads to sex, so they will avoid so much as hand holding because they aren’t in the mood for where it will lead. They want the affection, the hand holding, a kiss, a back rub, without the expectation they think it will entail. Affection, or non-sexual touch, needs to be a part of every couples’ day to day repertoire.

Appreciation: We all want to know when we’ve done a good job. It not only lets us know that we have done it right, but also makes us more likely to do it again. Like the other two, showing appreciation likely happened a lot while we were first together, but dwindles with time.

A website, hartcoachingacademy.com, states that appreciation is a huge driving factor for men in particular. “Opportunities that yield appreciation are where he will head first.” While I have no really hard information that men have a higher need for appreciation, if anyone, man or woman, is taken for granted they are more likely to find other outlets to fulfill their needs.

The need in relation to the three A’s may play a different role depending on your Love Language. Quality time is certainly going to require more actual time than receiving gifts, but all of the five require you to give thought and time to your partner. Those whose language is Words of Affirmation will need more appreciation than others, but make no mistake, we all need it.

None of these things has to require a lot of time. Let me give you five ideas that require less than a minute: Kissing your partner goodbye in the morning. Texting to say you are thinking about them. Saying they look really good. Telling them you appreciate how hard they work. Really listening when they talk.

Our relationship with our primary partner is likely the most important connection we will have in our adult life and yet we sometimes take it for granted. These should be as much of a daily ritual as brushing your teeth if you want a healthy relationship. If you find yourself in the weeds however, all you need to get back headed in the right direction is a little AAA.

Which of the Four Psychological Needs is Most Prevalent for You?

    People have four psychological needs. They are: getting something done, getting something
    right, getting along, or getting attention. Which is most prevalent for each of you?

Rick Brinkman and Rick Kirschner’s work was intended for use in business situations to deal with difficult people, but this information is helpful in all relationships. There are four main drivers of behaviour, these researchers found, in relation to how we get along with others. Of these four, two are task-driven – getting something done and getting something right. The others are people-driven – getting along and getting attention.

We can all probably name someone who falls under the category of getting attention. They make sure they are hard to miss. The drama queen, the one-upper, the hero.

The person whose psychological need is to get along is the person you turn to for comfort. They are the person that comes to work with fresh baked brownies, is the peace maker, and a shoulder to cry on.

On the day we want to move, everyone hopes that among their friends they have someone who primarily wants to get something done. They will work hard and stay to the end because they hate to leave a task half finished.

While the owner of a company would want employees who want to get things done, he probably hopes they also have a lot of the ‘get something right’ as a strong attribute. Especially if it is a job where the small details really matter. You certainly would want your lawyer to be a person who gets something right.

No one is all one, possessing nothing of the rest; rather, we are points on the spectrum. Someone who is ‘wants to get along’ may find that a way to do this is to ‘get things done’. What these researchers found was that under duress, one of the four is our default and is expressed most significantly.

What is a negative of knowing someone who is looking to get attention? They may not be someone you want at your wedding, when you want the day to be about you. They show up in an outfit more befitting a hooker on the arm of a biker. In a relationship, you may find it exhausting to always have to praise them or always take the subordinate role. When their need is unmet, they will make sure they are hard to ignore because even negative attention is attention. Alternately, they will find a person who will give them attention.

A relationship with someone who strives to get along might seem comforting, especially if you are someone who had many needs unfulfilled in your childhood. Down the road, though, you might want to shake them and say, “Tell me what you really think! Fight with me!” Their sacrificing may leave you making all the decisions and them burnt out as they never see to their own needs.

Someone who gets something done will mean you can spend Saturday in the hammock while they mow the lawn and clean the house. If things are not being achieved, they may become controlling and take over the project. If the goal is just to check the item off the to-do list, will they cut corners? They tend to speed up to reach their goal and, in doing so, make mistakes. Will you be okay if your lawn looks like it was mowed by a gorilla?

If someone always needs to get it right, it is a good thing if they are working on legal documents, but not if they are cooking the turkey for Easter dinner with the in-laws. Will the perfectionism become an obsession? Will this person work slowly and never think it is good enough? Will they even begin because they are so focused on the details that they never take action?

What will a fight look like between someone whose default is get it done and the other a get it done right? Spring cleaning the garage might mean the finisher is throwing items into bins that the perfectionist bought to categorize items. The perfectionist is getting angry that they aren’t putting enough thought into what goes into what bin or placing them in carefully. The finisher just wants to grab a cooler and go sit by the pool because it is good enough.

What about two people who only want to get along? Every conversation will contain this phrase: ‘I don’t know, what do you want?’ There will be an endless cycle of inaction because they do not want the other to be unhappy. In the end, nothing is achieved because no one will say what they actually want. Maybe they do not even know what they really want.

These are our go-to behaviours when we are under pressure. Knowing our beloved’s primary intent means that when the shit hits the fan and they are feeling threatened, we will know what behaviours we will see and can tailor our response to help them feel balanced again. Afterwards, a discussion can be had about how we ended up there and plan for the future.