Anastasia's Superpower

My wife's self-awareness is the main reason I proposed after a month. Here is how that one quality settles 99% of conflicts in a couple.

Anastasia’s superpower is self-awareness.

It is one of the main reasons I chose her and proposed after just one month of dating.

Anastasia can track her own state and manage it. She works to keep her emotions in check and to speak honestly about what she feels, even when it may be unpleasant for me in the moment.

When you are in a relationship with a person that self-aware, 99% of disagreements and conflicts get resolved in a calm conversation.

Anastasia genuinely wants to hear what I am saying, rather than waiting for me to stop talking so she can lay out her own arguments and point of view. When someone truly wants to hear and understand you, you start doing the same in return.

Sometimes I can be careless with words and say something I shouldn’t. I see the faintest flicker of irritation cross her face, but her emotional intelligence lets her smooth the sharp edges instead of sharpening them further. She can forgive me quickly and let an unpleasant situation go.

Throughout all the years of our marriage I kept telling her that she could pass this “superpower” on to other people and work with women as a counsellor. That hiding an ability like that is a crime, while magicians, wizards and esoterics fill people’s heads with nonsense on social media.

Anastasia decided to start counselling only after she began training as a therapist at the Kyiv Gestalt University — an institute in Kyiv that trains psychotherapists.

Now her calendar is steadily filling up with online sessions.

She is not just telling people the right things about relationships, self-esteem and psychology that she read somewhere in a book. She works on herself deeply and puts every one of those principles into our own relationship.

That is the reason why, after 5 years of living side by side at home (the covid years, the war, working remotely 90% of the time), I still want to come home to her exactly as much as I did in the first months of our marriage.

Anastasia knows how to create an atmosphere of love and acceptance where you feel genuinely good as a man. And any person gravitates towards the place where they are welcome, loved and respected.

Another very good effect of her self-awareness is that Anastasia has no pride. She is ready to learn new things, to revise her point of view, to hear uncomfortable feedback, to change and to grow. A happy relationship with me matters to her far more than being right — let alone being fair.

In 5 years of marriage I have never once heard Anastasia raise her voice at me.

Now her self-awareness is not only building our relationship, but also — through her sessions — helping other families. And that is wonderful.

Of course, we both have our flaws and we are working on them. We don’t always hear each other the first time. Sometimes we take a pause in the middle of a difficult conversation if we feel we are going in circles and not understanding each other.

There are many mistakes I have made in our relationship, and I will write about them in future posts.

So what is the “superpower” of the person you love? What do you love your husband or wife for?