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How ACT Can Improve Your Relationships by Focusing on What Matters
When relationships feel strained, it’s tempting to focus on fixing the other person—or escaping the discomfort altogether. We want our partners to stop triggering us, our friends to validate us, or our family members to finally see things our way. But what if improving your relationships had more to do with clarifying your values and learning to tolerate discomfort, than with changing anyone else?
At Bydand Therapy, we help clients use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to create meaningful changes in their relationships by focusing on what actually matters—your values, your awareness, and your choices.
Let’s take a deeper look at how ACT works and why it can transform the way you relate to others.
Why Relationships Get Off Track
So often, relationships start going sideways not because people are inherently bad or incompatible, but because of how they respond to difficult emotions.
We’re wired to avoid pain. And relationships—no matter how loving—bring up plenty of it. Misunderstandings, rejection, jealousy, disappointment, fear of abandonment… These emotions can make even the most well-intentioned person lash out, shut down, or try to control the other.
Here are some common ways we try to protect ourselves in relationships:
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Avoiding vulnerable conversations
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Criticizing or blaming when we feel hurt
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Silently resenting instead of expressing our needs
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Rehearsing past arguments and future confrontations in our minds
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Trying to fix, rescue, or manage others so we don’t have to feel helpless
These strategies are natural, but they often move us further away from the connection we crave. ACT offers a path back—not by changing others, but by changing how we show up.
ACT Shifts the Focus: From Control to Connection
ACT doesn’t ask you to suppress how you feel or pretend that everything is okay. In fact, one of ACT’s core principles is that trying to get rid of uncomfortable feelings often makes things worse.
Instead, ACT helps you build psychological flexibility: the ability to stay present, open, and connected to your values—even in the face of emotional pain. From this place, you can choose behaviors that move you closer to connection, instead of defaulting to habits that create more distance.
Here’s how the main elements of ACT apply to relationships:
1. Values Clarification
What kind of partner, friend, sibling, or parent do you want to be? What do you stand for in relationships?
ACT encourages you to identify your core relationship values—such as compassion, honesty, patience, loyalty, or playfulness. These values act like a compass. Even in the midst of a heated argument, you can ask yourself, What kind of person do I want to be right now?
When you anchor your behavior in your values instead of your moods, you create more stability and trust in your relationships. You’re less likely to say something you regret, and more likely to respond in a way that fosters growth—even when it’s hard.
2. Present-Moment Awareness
ACT teaches mindfulness not as a spiritual practice, but as a practical tool. When you’re fully present, you’re more likely to hear what your partner is actually saying rather than reacting to the story in your head. You notice the tone of your voice, the tension in your body, and the impulse to interrupt or withdraw.
This kind of awareness helps slow down interactions so you can respond with intention rather than habit. It’s the difference between snapping back with a sarcastic comment and taking a breath before saying something true.
3. Acceptance of Emotions
Relationships are emotional, and that’s not a problem—it’s part of what makes them meaningful. But when we try to avoid feeling things like hurt, fear, or anger, we often resort to damaging behaviors like shutting down, exploding, or manipulating.
ACT helps you make space for these emotions without letting them take the wheel. You learn that you can feel discomfort and still act in alignment with your values. You don’t have to wait until you feel calm to communicate clearly. You don’t have to avoid tough conversations just because they make your chest tight.
4. Cognitive Defusion
This is a fancy term for learning to step back from your thoughts. In ACT, you don’t try to argue with your thoughts or force yourself to be more “positive.” Instead, you learn to see thoughts for what they are: passing mental events, not absolute truths.
For example, when your brain says, “They don’t care about me” or “This always happens,” ACT teaches you how to notice that thought, label it, and keep behaving according to your values.
Cognitive defusion can stop spirals in their tracks. Instead of ruminating or escalating, you come back to the moment and choose your next move.
5. Committed Action
Values aren’t just ideas—they require action. ACT emphasizes small, meaningful steps that embody your values in real time.
For example:
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If your value is honesty, that might mean saying something vulnerable even if your voice shakes.
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If your value is love, that might mean offering a kind word even when you’re irritated.
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If your value is respect, that might mean walking away from a toxic interaction, not to punish, but to preserve dignity—for both of you.
Committed action doesn’t require perfection—it requires persistence. It’s about choosing, again and again, to show up as the person you want to be.
ACT Helps You Relate from a Place of Intention
Most of us have been trained to react—to our emotions, our thoughts, or other people’s behavior. ACT helps you develop the flexibility to choose your response instead. That choice is where real freedom lives.
Imagine a relationship where you’re no longer trapped by old patterns, where you can say what matters without being consumed by fear, and where you can allow space for others to be imperfect without losing your own grounding.
This is what ACT can offer—not quick fixes or guarantees, but a sustainable way of relating that honors both yourself and others.
Final Thoughts: From Struggle to Strength
Relationships are hard—but not because you’re broken or unlovable. Often, the biggest barrier to closeness is the belief that everything must feel good or go smoothly for the relationship to be “right.”
ACT reframes that. It teaches that discomfort is not a signal to run, but an invitation to grow.
By learning to stay present, anchor in your values, and move through discomfort with purpose, your relationships can become more spacious, resilient, and meaningful.
Ready to Get Started?
At Bydand Therapy, we specialize in using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help individuals and couples reconnect with what truly matters in their relationships. Whether you’re navigating conflict, struggling to communicate, or simply want to grow closer to someone important to you, ACT provides a powerful roadmap.
If you live in Wyoming or California and are looking for support, we offer convenient telehealth therapy sessions that can meet you right where you are.
If you live outside the U.S., we also offer international coaching rooted in Bowen Family Systems and ACT principles to help you improve your emotional presence and relationship functioning.
Reach out today for a free 15-minute consultation. Let’s work together to bring clarity, purpose, and connection back into your relationships—starting with the most important one: your relationship with yourself.
