I was recently asked a question, a friend’s long term relationship was going downhill fast, should he use reverse psychology to save it?

Reverse Psychology in relationships is the deliberate manipulation of someone who is required to act the opposite to what is suggested to them.  If you think about it we have been using reverse psychology since we were children.  ’I bet you can’t jump across that stream,I wouldn’t want to to do it.” When it was exactly what you wanted your hapless friend to do.

As parents we use reverse psychology to get our children to eat their food, or do something they do not want to do. In fact we use reverse psychology throughout our lives to manipulate people to comply with our true intentions.

My friend wanted to tell his partner that he knew he needed to change as he realized he was taking her for granted and needed to grow up as he was immature in handling their relationship.  These points were all the things he had grown to dislike about her.  He had hoped she would recognize these were her faults and so make an effort to change.

I checked out several blog comments on various sites dealing with reverse psychology in relationships and discovered many people think it is underhand, cheating, and would eventually backfire on you if the person you are attempting to ‘hoodwink’ is doing the same to you.

I told my friend not to bother with this reverse psychology stuff.  I had noted that he could see no wrong in his behaviour and attitude to the relationship.  Apparently his partner had been fine until a few months ago when she started to change, maybe she actually had a problem with him!

So a few days ago he had a heart to heart with his partner, added by a few glasses of wine, they both loosened up enough to tell each other how they were feeling.  My friend had not noticed that he had slowly withdrawn from talking and listening to his girlfriend’s concerns, and she was allowing the relationship to cool because of indifference.

The heart to heart had proved a shock to them both, as they did care about each other but both had become complacent and the relationship stale.

They are now spending a long weekend away together to refresh their relationship.  They didn’t need reverse psychology, just some common sense communication and a glass or two of wine.