It really can’t be said enough that one of the main factors in successful relationships is acceptance. I’m not referring to accepting that the other person is flawed and “Nebach, I have to deal with them,” but, “He has his flaws, and I have mine. I choose to look at his good points.”
Of course we all have our flaws, and most of the time, no one knows them better than our spouses. That’s why if we focus on those flaws, the spouse will internalize the criticism and it will be that much harder to change the message if later on, we decide that we want to give a compliment or well-earned praise and the spouse just won’t believe it’s genuine because they are so used to being put down.
We can see this at work when children move up a grade in school and suddenly they start getting much better or worse report cards. It’s rare for a child to suddenly change for the better or worse — more often, it’s the new teacher’s perception of them which makes all the difference.
It can also be the parents who are guilty of seeing and stressing only the flaws in their children and ignoring or being totally ignorant of their good points. Sometimes, a parent will even confide in me how worried they are about their child: “How will he find a good shidduch? And even if he does get married, how will he get along with his wife?”
In such cases, I usually ask the parent, “Doesn’t he have any friends?” and the parent admits that yes, of course he does... Then I gently introduce the idea that perhaps these friends see qualities in the son that they somehow missed, and that it could be a good idea to look for them.
