Terry Real’s 5 Winning Strategies for a Stronger Relationship
What makes some couples able to navigate conflict, disappointment, and differences while still remaining connected?
In Relational Life Therapy (RLT), developed by therapist Terry Real, healthy relationships require more than love. They require relational skills—the ability to communicate honestly, listen openly, respond thoughtfully, and intentionally care for the connection between you.
RLT identifies five “winning strategies” that help couples move away from destructive patterns and toward greater connection:
- Advocate for yourself
- Speak to make things better
- Listen to understand
- Respond with generosity
- Cherish what you have
These strategies can sound straightforward. The challenge is practicing them when we are hurt, angry, defensive, disappointed, or afraid.
1. Advocate for Yourself
Healthy relationships require honesty, and honesty sometimes requires being willing to rock the boat. Many people avoid advocating for themselves because they are afraid of conflict. They minimize their feelings, keep quiet about what bothers them, accommodate their partner, or hope their partner will eventually recognize what they need.But avoiding conflict does not necessarily create harmony. Often, it creates resentment.
Advocating for yourself means being able to say:
This is what I feel.
This is what I need.
This is what matters to me.
It also requires vulnerability. Your partner may disagree with you. They may be disappointed. You may hear no. You may even discover that you were wrong. The goal isn’t to always get your way. It is to bring your authentic thoughts, feelings, needs, and limits into the relationship rather than expecting your partner to guess them.
Healthy couples recognize that periods of disharmony are inevitable. What gives them security is not the absence of conflict, but confidence in their ability to repair after conflict. Sometimes, creating greater harmony requires being willing to risk a little temporary disharmony.
2. Speak to Make Things Better
When we’re hurt, it is easy to tell our partner everything they have done wrong.
“You never listen to me.”
“You don’t care about spending time together.”
“I have to do everything around here.”
The problem is that criticism usually produces defensiveness rather than change. Speaking to make things better means shifting from complaints about the past toward clear requests for the future.
Instead of:
“You never make time for me.”
Try:
“I’d really like us to have one evening this week where we put our phones away and spend some time together.”
Before beginning a difficult conversation, ask yourself:
What am I hoping will be different when this conversation is over?
Then communicate that as clearly and directly as possible.
3. Listen to Understand
Listening is easy when we agree. It becomes much harder when our partner is telling us something we don’t want to hear. When we feel criticized, many of us stop listening to understand and start listening to defend ourselves. While our partner is still speaking, we are already preparing our response:
“That’s not what happened.”
“What about what you did?”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“That’s completely unfair.”
At that point, we aren’t really listening anymore. Listening to understand requires temporarily putting your own perspective aside and becoming curious about your partner’s experience. The goal isn’t necessarily to determine who has the objectively correct version of events.
The goal is connection.
You can understand your partner’s experience without agreeing with every detail of their interpretation.
You might say:
“I can understand why you felt alone in that moment.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean:
“You are right and I am wrong.”
It means:
“Your experience matters to me, and I’m willing to understand it.”
This type of listening requires us to resist the urge to defend, correct, interrupt, explain, or immediately turn the conversation back toward ourselves.
Sometimes one of the most powerful things we can give our partner is the experience of being fully heard.
4. Respond With Generosity
Relationships become difficult when every disagreement has to have a winner and a loser. If the goal is to prove that you’re right, make your partner admit they’re wrong, or ensure that you don’t “give in,” you may win the argument while losing connection.
Responding with generosity means shifting from:
“What’s best for me?”
to:
“What’s best for us?”
This does not mean abandoning your needs, tolerating harmful behaviour, or endlessly accommodating your partner. It means recognizing that the way you behave within your relationship affects the emotional environment you both live in.
Criticism often creates defensiveness.
Anger can create distance.
Distance can create pursuit.
Control can create resistance.
One person’s stance invites a stance from the other person, and soon the couple is caught in a familiar dance. RLT teaches the idea of relational jujitsu—instead of meeting your partner’s dysfunctional response with one of your own, you deliberately choose a healthier stance.
If your partner becomes defensive, you might become curious rather than attacking harder. If they make a reasonable complaint badly, you might respond to the legitimate concern underneath their delivery rather than immediately fighting about their tone. If they take responsibility, you might allow that accountability to matter rather than using the opportunity to remind them of every previous mistake.
You don’t have to match your partner’s worst moment.
Responding differently can interrupt an entire relationship pattern.
5. Cherish What You Have
When couples are struggling, their attention often becomes organized around what is missing.
What their partner doesn’t do.
What hasn’t changed.
What they didn’t say.
What they forgot.
What still isn’t enough.
Over time, partners can become so focused on what is wrong that they stop noticing what is right. Cherishing what you have means intentionally noticing, acknowledging, and responding to what your partner is bringing to the relationship.
It can be as simple as:
“Thank you for doing that.”
“I noticed you handled that differently.”
“I appreciate you checking in with me.”
“I really enjoyed being with you tonight.”
“I can see that you’re trying.”
This becomes particularly important when you’ve been asking your partner to change. Imagine asking your partner repeatedly to become more affectionate. Eventually, they begin making an effort—but because you’re still hurt about all the years they weren’t affectionate, you barely acknowledge it. Your hurt may be understandable. But if change is happening, there eventually needs to be room for that change to be recognized.
When your partner gives you some of what you’ve been asking for, allow yourself to notice it.
Cherishing is ultimately an intentional practice. It is choosing to notice what is present instead of exclusively focusing on what is absent. It is acknowledging effort. It is expressing appreciation. And it is reminding the person you love that, even in the middle of ordinary life, they still matter to you.
Practicing the Five Winning Strategies
The five winning strategies offer couples a practical question to bring into everyday interactions:
What would it look like to behave relationally right now?
Can I advocate for myself without attacking?
Can I communicate what I want rather than only describing what I dislike?
Can I listen long enough to understand my partner before defending myself?
Can I respond in a way that is good for both of us?
Can I notice and appreciate what my partner is getting right?
No couple will do these things perfectly.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is to recognize when you have fallen into an old pattern and become increasingly skilled at finding your way back to connection.
At Reflection Centre, we incorporate relational approaches to help couples recognize the patterns keeping them stuck and develop practical skills for healthier communication, conflict, intimacy, and connection toward greater intimacy and connection
