6 Ways to Bring Your Best Self to Your Relationship

Kristin Davin

Kristin Davin, Psychologist

Expertise: Psychologist

Dr. Kristin Davin, PsyD is a licensed psychologist with more than two decades of experience helping individuals and couples navigate relationship challenges and create meaningful,... Read more

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Updated: 23 Oct, 2022

Table of Contents

Own your own stuff—identify your challenges, take steps to change, and move toward a more empowered marriage.
Improve your emotional intelligence—develop self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship skills to calm, connect, and grow together.
Remain curious and communicate with care—practice soft starts, turn toward your partner, listen actively, be present, and keep growing together.

Through the years of providing counseling to couples before or during a marriage, my approach has continued to evolve. Yes, we address a couple’s struggles and challenges by helping each person in the relationship bring more skin to the game, show up more, and make individual changes to improve the relationship.

You can sidestep the challenges, but they will continue to take up more of your energy and will get you nowhere. And this just leaves you feeling stuck. And, honestly who wants to be stuck?

The days of ‘if, then’ (if my partner does this, then I will do that) have taken a back seat to demand more from people to live their best life, be authentic, and take the necessary steps to bring their best self to their marriage.

Because doesn’t it get exhausting waiting for the other person to change? Wouldn’t you want to take the steps YOU need to make to feel better about yourself and demand more from your marriage or relationship believe so?

1. Own your own stuff

Simply identify your challenges, your issues, and take stock of what you need to change. We all have something to change. Own it, tackle it, and take the necessary steps to move you down a new path.

A path that empowers you and holds you accountable to yourself and to your marriage.

Don’t walk away from your challenges, run towards them. Embrace them and know this is the way to living a fulfilled life.

2. Improve your emotional intelligence (EQ)

EQ is being able to manage your own emotions and express how you feel to another person without exploding. It’s become critical in relationships – both at work and at home. EQ comprises four components:

Self-awareness- Your ability to be self-aware of how you are thinking, reacting, feeling, and behaving in the moment and long term.
Self-management- Your ability to manage yourself is dependent on self-awareness and your ability to utilize your awareness of your emotions and stay flexible to direct your behavior positively.
Social awareness- Your ability to be perceptive of another person’s emotions and understand what’s going on with them. Being tuned in and not tuned out.
Relationship management- This combination of self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness to improve relationship interactions.

3. Identify your triggers

We all have triggers. So please don’t be the person that falsely believes they are exempt of this. What are they? Why do you have them? Where do they come from? When was the time that you experienced these triggers differently? Did someone or something bring them back into your life? If so, what will you do to work through them?

4. Up your ability to communicate

It’s important to listen, validate, and clarify in a relationship

Yes, more easily said than done, but it can be accomplished. A few quick skills to implement in your life:

Start with a soft startup. Ask, is this a good time to talk or would another time work better?
Turn toward your partner. When your partner is reaching out for ‘bids’ (John Gottman), then turn towards them even if at the moment you are not in the mood. This will turn up the connection between both of you.’
Take a timeout. Feeling overwhelmed? Ask for a timeout (short period of time) to regroup or calm yourself down. However, make a commitment to return to the conversation.
Listen and hear. Yes, we all listen but are we actually hearing our partner or are we just waiting for them to stop talking so we can talk about we feel.

It’s important to listen, validate, and clarify. You would be surprised how just repeating back what someone has said, makes us realize that we weren’t really listening.

Be present. Turn the tv off, put your phone down, close your computer. Besides, when did those things become more important than the person sitting across from asking us for attention? I have no doubt that Facebook or Instagram can wait (yes, a little snarky, but it’s the truth).

5. Remain curious

Being curious is key to a long-lasting and healthy relationship

Remember back in the early days of dating, how much fun it was to learn about the person that would eventually become your spouse or your partner? Where did those days go? Do you still ask them about their day? Their interests? Their hobbies? Do you still talk about the fun and exciting things you can do together? Are you a curious person and do you remain curious about your partner or spouse? This is key to a long-lasting and healthy relationship.

6. Demand more

This is a mean, but a way that promotes health and well-being, growing together, helping one another reach your full potential, and not settling.

Learning and recognizing that each person continues to have the capacity to continue to evolve and become their best person.

Demanding more isn’t setting high expectations that cannot be met, but just working towards giving a little bit more than before.

Relationships thrive when they each person shows up with intention, attention, and being present. Do you want to be your best person not just for yourself but for your relationship?

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Kristin Davin Psychologist

Dr. Kristin Davin, PsyD is a licensed psychologist with more than two decades of experience helping individuals and couples navigate relationship challenges and create meaningful, lasting change. Her areas of expertise include codependency, emotionally immature parents and partners, attachment wounds,... Read more family-of-origin issues, boundaries, people-pleasing, self-trust, and emotional healing. As the founder of Reflections From Across the Couch, Dr. Davin combines psychological insight with practical strategies through therapy, educational articles, interactive workbooks, and guided journals. Her approach is compassionate, evidence-based, and focused on helping people understand why unhealthy relationship patterns develop—and, more importantly, how to change them. Whether someone is healing from childhood experiences, rebuilding after a difficult relationship, or learning to create healthier boundaries, Dr. Davin's goal is to provide practical tools that foster greater self-awareness, emotional resilience, and authentic connection. Read less

(Kristin Davin is also listed in Best Marriage Therapists in Jersey City)