Coaching practices for How to Convince My Wife That My Best Friend and I Are Just Friends
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Convince My Wife That My Best Friend and I Are Just Friends, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’m facing a real decision and some part of me already knows what the honest answer is
- Things have gone cool and stiff with someone and we’re both just frozen, neither willing to make the first move or have the awkward talk
- If a friend brought me this exact dilemma I’d know in two seconds what they should do, but stuck inside my own version I just go in circles
- I’ve never even properly introduced myself to the neighbor across the hall or the coworker at the next desk
- My partner sided with their family over me again, or didn’t back me up in front of others, and I’m left unsure whether they’ll actually put us first when it counts
Practices that may help
- Advise yourself as you would a friend
Ask what you would tell a friend in exactly your situation — then take your own advice.
Self-Distancing: Thinking Clearly About Your Own Problems - Use a small ask to repair a strained relationship
In a cool or conflicted relationship, asking for a small favor can reset the dynamic more effectively than doing one.
The Ben Franklin Effect, Made Practical - Give yourself advice as if advising a close friend
Describe your problem as if a close friend brought it to you — then write the advice you would give them.
Self-Distancing Journaling - Invest in the people physically nearest you
Your immediate neighbors, officemates, and classmates are your highest-ROI friendship investments — propinquity is already working.
The Propinquity Effect (Leon Festinger) - Create and protect the couple bubble
Agree that you each put the relationship above any third party, including family of origin.
Secure-Functioning Relationships - Explicitly asking your partner to treat you as your ideal self
Name one quality of your ideal self and ask your partner to treat you as if you already have it.
The Michelangelo Phenomenon: How Partners Sculpt Each Other - Share information to unlock value
Reveal interests (not your bottom line) so both sides can find the better deal.
Win-Win Thinking: Expanding the Pie - Give regular assurances of commitment
Explicitly remind your partner of your love, commitment, and investment in the relationship.
Relationship Maintenance Behaviors - Cultivating complicity: shared secret aliveness
Build a private world of in-jokes, gestures, and references that only you two share.
Mating in Captivity: Sustaining Desire in Long-Term Relationships - Invest in shared social networks
Spend time with people who affirm and are connected to both of you as a couple.
Relationship Maintenance Behaviors
Related concerns
- Relationship With A Friends Ex Girlfriend
Describe your problem as if a close friend brought it to you — then write the advice you would give them.
Give yourself advice as if advising a close friend
- Approach A Coworker Friend About Being Nicer To His Friends
Your immediate neighbors, officemates, and classmates are your highest-ROI friendship investments — propinquity is already working.
Invest in the people physically nearest you
- Asking My Friend Out Even Though I Have A Girlfriend
Ask what you would tell a friend in exactly your situation — then take your own advice.
Advise yourself as you would a friend
- Dealing With A Friend Trying To Get Me A Girlfriend
Describe your problem as if a close friend brought it to you — then write the advice you would give them.
- How To Approach Asking A Longtime Friend Out
Multiple small favors over time create a deeper liking pattern than a single large ask.
Build a pattern of small asks rather than one large one
- Approval Seeking In Relationships
Gradually replace the need for your partner’s approval with the ability to hold your own self-regard.
Moving from other-validation to self-validation
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