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2 of the Best Kept Secrets for Improving Your Relationships

Mary Beth Hazeldine
5 min readMar 10, 2022
Photo by Justin Follis on Unsplash

When I was training as a coach, two of the most incredible insights I had were about the nature of relationships. One of them had to do with how arguments or disagreements can become exaggerated, and the other was about getting someone else to change their behavior. I’d like to share both of those insights with you in this article.

There are 4 people in any relationship.

I think we all know that relationships are a two-way street. That’s precisely what makes them “difficult” at times! We can’t control what the other person says or does, so the “relationship” has a two-person dynamic.

However, what if I told you that in any 2-person relationship, there’s actually a party of 4. Who are the other two people?

Let me explain.

I am married to Nick, so the two of us (real people) are in the relationship. In addition, there is the Nick in my head (person #3) I often have an internal dialogue with, and there is the Mary Beth in my husband’s head (person #4) with whom he often speaks.

The other day, Nick went grocery shopping. While he was out, I got a little overwhelmed by everything I had on my plate. My “To-Do List” was a mile long. In addition to my work responsibilities, I also had household…

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Mary Beth Hazeldine
Mary Beth Hazeldine

Written by Mary Beth Hazeldine

Chief Inspiration Officer, Spiritual Psychologist, Hypnotherapist, Writer, Chef, Dog Lover, Line Dancer, Ex-Banker, MBA— marybeth@marybethhazeldine.com

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