How can you protect yourself against divorce?

I got divorced in 1993. It was difficult in many ways. I met a new woman six months later. She seemed promising. After a month or so, I mentioned that I was working with a personality test – the core of my HumanGuide concept. So I asked her if she would be willing to take the test so that neither of us would have to go through another divorce. She agreed. The prognosis for our personalities was good, i.e., our strengths were similar; of the eight factors in the underlying theory, three were the same. Two were complementary. Both my experience since 1975 and research have the opinion that you should have several similar factors for the prognosis to be good for a long-term relationship.

When we had been together for a year, we read about a sect in northern Italy. In it, people “got married” every year. This meant that each person had a designated partner who, on the anniversary, would ask the question: Do you want to be married to X for another year? We thought it was a good idea, so...

Our method is a little different. We call it the YearTalk. It involves answering these questions

• What has been fun over the past year?
• What has been difficult over the past year?
• What is your long-term vision for yourself?
• What do you hope will happen in the next year?

The idea is to start with something positive, because then it feels easier to “list” the negative things. This also gives a more balanced picture.

The difficult things can be something recurring with your partner, but also things like illness, failures, death, etc.

The vision is there to help you clarify for yourself what direction you want to take. This is, of course, valuable for your partner to know. If you are both heading in radically different directions, you have a challenge that needs to be addressed. It is also good for your partner to know your direction, as this makes it easier for them to understand your priorities.

When it comes to hopes for the next year, the question is there to clarify what your direction means in practice. Concrete and down-to-earth. This also makes it easier to follow up.

This year, we had the conversation for the 31st time. It is just as valuable. It can feel a little nerve-wracking, especially if something negative comes up about yourself. We humans are very prone to focusing on the negative, so it's good that three questions are positive and only one is negative.

When we had the annual review for the second time, I wondered: Is this useful? Is it too much of a method?

The YearTalk has been just as valuable every time. The fact that it is based on a method. A procedure. That's good, because it makes it more certain that it will be done. Not always on the anniversary for practical reasons, but around that time.

The third time, we decided to check what had happened since the first and second conversations, as we had saved our “A4 sheets” with the answers in a folder. It was good that we did that, because a lot of what we had hoped for had actually happened. Our conversation strengthened our determination, which is good, because there are so many things competing for your time.

Now it's a given that we'll have our YearTalk. This year, for example, it was a bit special because I had been seriously ill. Three weeks in the hospital in April. Now I'm almost completely recovered. It's been a big strain on everyone, which was important to talk about. Of course, we had done so on an ongoing basis, but in our talk we brought up the most important things.

A big benefit of the conversation is that any emerging dissatisfaction comes up in time, so you can nip it in the bud... Otherwise, you might be surprised in five years when your partner wants a divorce. That can be difficult to deal with in a good way.

In fact, even single can benefit from having an “annual review with themselves,” as it makes it easier to set a course for the next year. You become clearer about what you like and don't like. It also makes it easier to both seek and choose a partner with a good prognosis ;-) Remember that your partner should have a similar personality. Are you clear about your own? Here you can benefit from taking the HumanGuide test, which will give you a clearer picture of your personality. One of the advantages of our test is that the underlying theory consists of eight basic dimensions, so the results are more nuanced. This allows you to draw better conclusions.

If you are already in a relationship, it can be very useful for both of you to take the test. This will give you a clearer picture of your personal chemistry and make it much easier to understand each other's personalities. As a bonus, you will gain a good vocabulary for talking about personality. The test includes access to the web app your.humanguide.se, which offers a lot of support. You can also use it to find out how well you match your current job or another job you have been offered.

More details about the YearTalk here

https://www.humanguide.org/en/free-knowledge/for-private-use

How can you benefit from these ideas?

Good luck,

Rolf