The Five Winning Strategies for Real Connection
Relationships often get stuck—not because we don’t care, but because we don’t know what to do when our needs clash or our wounds get activated. Terry Real, the founder of Relational Life Therapy, teaches that most of us fall into patterns he calls The Five Losing Strategies—habits that feel self-protective in the moment but ultimately sabotage intimacy.
Let’s start there.
A Quick Revisit: The Five Losing Strategies
You might recognize yourself in one (or more) of these:
Needing to be Right – Winning the argument becomes more important than understanding your partner.
Controlling – You manage the relationship (and your partner) through force, logic, or manipulation to avoid feeling powerless.
Unbridled Self-Expression – You dump your every thought or feeling in the name of "honesty" without regard for impact.
Retaliation – You hurt back when you feel hurt, often through sarcasm, withholding, or passive aggression.
Withdrawal – You shut down or remove yourself emotionally or physically when things get hard.
Each of these may offer temporary relief or power, but they cost us connection. They’re instinctive but ineffective. Real intimacy requires something more skillful—and more courageous.
The Five Winning Strategies: How to Move Toward Repair
Terry Real’s Five Winning Strategies are tools for repair, reconnection, and real love. They help us shift from being adversaries to being allies.
1. Shifting from Complaint to Request
Instead of saying, “You never listen to me,” try, “Can you put your phone down when I’m talking? I’d really appreciate your full attention.”
This strategy is about moving out of blame and into vulnerability. A complaint pushes your partner away; a request opens the door to possibility. It's the difference between being right and being effective. Dare to rock the boat and ask for what you need.
2. Speaking Up with Love
This means expressing what’s true for you while staying connected to your partner. It’s the opposite of unbridled self-expression—it’s bridled, thoughtful, and relational.
You don’t have to choose between silence and explosion. There’s a third way: saying what’s real with both honesty and kindness. Speaking with love doesn’t mean sugarcoating. It means remembering your goal is connection, not victory.
3. Responding Generously
When your partner is upset, it’s easy to get defensive or to make it about you. But this strategy asks: What’s the generous interpretation here? What does my partner need right now?
Generosity isn’t martyrdom—it’s an active choice to soften, to assume the best, and to stay in the game. When both people practice this, you create a climate of trust instead of reactivity.
4. Empowering Each Other
A strong relationship is one where both people feel seen, supported, and empowered. That means rooting for your partner’s growth—not controlling or fixing them, but championing them.
Ask: What helps my partner feel stronger? How can we support each other as a team rather than compete or compare?
5. Cherishing
This is the heart of relational mindfulness. It’s about actively appreciating your partner—not just in grand gestures, but in the daily, ordinary ways. It’s choosing to see them with warm eyes.
We’re often quick to scan for what’s wrong. Cherishing is scanning for what’s right—and saying it out loud. Love thrives in the soil of gratitude.
We get more of what we cherish.
Final Thoughts: Love as a Practice
Healthy relationships don’t come from avoiding conflict—they come from learning how to repair when things go wrong. The Five Winning Strategies are not quick fixes or manipulations. They’re practices—habits of relating that help us become the partners we want to be.
And yes, they take effort. But they’re worth it.
Real intimacy isn’t about avoiding discomfort. It’s about walking through it together, with skill and compassion. That’s how love grows up.
Want to go deeper?
If this resonates, check out Terry Real’s book “Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship”—a game-changer in how we think about intimacy, conflict, and repair.
And if you're looking for personalized support, I work with couples to implement these tools in real time. You can reach out here.