Couples - Russell Wilkie, MA, LMFT

CouplesRussell Wilkie, MFT — Psychotherapist2024-10-28T13:59:02+00:00

How to Get the Most Out of Couples Therapy*

Improving your reactions to your partner is paramount. It takes effort from both partners on most issues to create a significant shift. For example: if I need to learn to be a better listener then it’s probable that my partner needs to learn to be a better speaker.

Good goals of couple’s therapy:

Create a vision for how you aspire to be in the relationship, instead of wishing your partner would change,
Increase your self-knowledge, knowledge about your partner and your interactions,
Learn what core issues/wounds make your partner go off the rails and learn to intervene immediately with something soothing,
Understand your blocks to personal growth and persist in looking for more,
Collaborate on solving things as a team,
Learn new patterns of interaction, practice them frequently and seek mastery of them,
Review all the above regularly.

My main role is to help you improve the way you respond to your partner.

Your main role is to learn to respond differently to your partner while not jeopardizing your core values.

With online therapy (or tele-health) it is a bit more difficult for me to see your reactions to one another, so you may need to try even harder to work on not being reactive, and I may request that you be on the same camera and be looking at one another, and/or need to adjust the camera angle.

You can’t change your partner, though many of us spin our wheels trying. The only thing you can control in a relationship is yourself, so the most effective way to improve your relationship is to change yourself. Usually, this means reducing your emotional reactivity to your partner and seeking emotional calmness during an upset. Most couples blame their partner for the relationship struggles, which is unproductive. The best place to look for improvement is inside yourself.

Many couples use a business model in their relationship. A business model of relationships and communication works fine for getting along and accomplishing tasks in the workplace, or scheduling things with children, etc., but it is largely ineffective in intimate relationships. The one exception, and it is a large exception, is that you need to remain calm under pressure in both business and intimate relationships. Other than remaining calm, a different set of communication styles and behaviors is needed in an intimate relationship.

Ways of being with your partner that are helpful:

Identify the unmet wants and needs of your partner and yourself and help one another meet them, creating more love to share and more satisfaction,
Speak from your heart,
Listen in a way that helps your partner be heard,
Share your internal experience in a way that can be heard,
Be curious, instead of furious.

Some common areas to focus on in couple’s therapy are:

Communication (sending/speaking and receiving/listening),
Conflict management and reduction of emotional intensity,
Becoming more transparent and helping your partner be more transparent by increasing your curiosity–ask questions, instead of making statements about your partner,
Create a future and vision for how you want the relationship to be,
Create a future and vision for how you want your individual life to be (many people need more non-couple time as they are too wrapped up in the relationship being a huge life focus),
Identify how you are when you are at your best and work toward being there more often,
Build goodwill toward one another through acts of kindness.

Reducing conflicts and working out differences in the relationship is very important; however, it’s also necessary to improve on the good things in the relationship. Too much focus on negativity in therapy and in the relationship makes it so you don’t want to do the necessary work, let alone come back to my office. Working on some positives in the relationship builds connection and instills hope.

Important requirements for couples therapy:

Have an agenda for each therapy session. Starting a therapy session with the fight of the week usually ends up being reactive and unproductive, creating more conflict. Instead, begin the session with a plan to steer it toward your more global relationship goals. Drive the session toward how you aspire to be when you are at your best. Agree, as a team, that you both understand an ineffective pattern and ask me for help in changing it. Please note that being agenda-driven is the opposite approach taken in most individual psychotherapies.
Time commitment. You need time together to plan, engage and experiment with different approaches. You need time to work on conflict reduction and intimacy building.
Letting go of emotional comfort. Therapy is about experimenting and taking risks and it can be scary. For example, if you usually go with the flow and acquiesce, then it will be a stretch for you to begin speaking up for your wants and needs. If you tend to be overbearing, then you will need to quiet down, listen and be curious instead of pushing.
Remaining conscious. Most of us become unconscious and repeat old patterns from our families of origin or get emotionally reactive, particularly when under stress. Resist the temptation. When in conflict or when building a new pattern, slow down and remain aware of what is bubbling up inside of you.
Self-confrontation versus other-confrontation. We spend too much time and energy focusing on what the other person is doing or not doing. We confront them and challenge them and pressure them and whine at them and get passive-aggressive with them. These things create more conflict. Confront yourself instead. Look inside yourself for what you can do to be an excellent person and change how you are and how you behave.

Inherent conflicts that emerge in therapy:

Time together vs. time apart: A relationship takes time and nurturing. This can conflict with alone-time, family-time and work-time. You need time together to work through issues, to build connection and try out new ways of being together.
Focus vs. unconscious: It takes a great deal of focus to continue improving and using new skills and styles together. It’s easy to be lazy and become unconscious and not practice new skills or abilities.
Comfort vs. risk: Doings things differently will most likely feel risky. Acknowledge the fear and reach for the possibility of growth.

Can my relationship be saved?

At its greatest success, therapy helps all your dreams come true… Therapy is never at its greatest success. ☺

Seriously… a good definition of therapy is difficult. My real-life experience is that if someone helps me, then it’s therapeutic. If I don’t have a sense of gain from a therapeutic event, then I have the wrong person. If I see a massage-therapist and my body is not soothed by the session, I won’t go back. Psychotherapy is no different.

To “save” a relationship, both people must be committed to a win-win and be willing and able to look inside themselves for the causes and the struggles in a relationship. You can’t take the other person’s personality-inventory, analyze them and then change them. You can only change yourself. If you want to increase your chance of success in relationships, then work on these sentence completions with as much depth and breadth as you can muster.

If my relationship were to improve, my contribution would be…
Quirks about me that would make that difficult are…

Dig down deep on those two sentences.

Finally, don’t treat your relationship like a triple-heart bypass, where you forgot to notice your bad cholesterol for years. By that, I mean, don’t wait until the relationship is about to die and then ask a therapist if the relationship can be saved. Instead, work on those sentence completions regularly from the very first day of a relationship. Don’t have a heart attack and keep eating poorly and avoiding exercise. Improve your relationship at the first sign of struggle.

*Adapted from How to Get the Most from your Couples Therapy by
Ellyn Bader, Ph.D. and Peter Pearson, Ph.D., March 30, 2004, 23:24, from www.CouplesInstitute.com

Click to print a PDF copy of the How to get the Most Out of Couples Therapy page.

Relevant Posts

Infidelity

Some up-front advice: If it was a sexual relationship, do not ask for, or share, explicit, sexual X- rated details. It burns a movie image into the brain and can be very difficult to remove. If you’ve already heard the details and are stuck with disturbing images, it may make sense to try some Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy… Also, you need to have a conversation about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) right away… We can spend time analyzing, being angry or in pain about the type of affair: emotional, physical (or about how physical it was). Or we can look at the meaning or symbolism. Why did this happen? How did this happen? Why didn’t I see it coming? What led up to it? What caused it? Was this a way of getting out of a relationship with me? Or we can look at the effect: betrayal, broken trust, breaking up a family. Why me? Can I ever trust again? All of these are about me, the “victim.” Or, we can look at discovering why a person would leave the relationship and start a new one without moving out of the house first… Many people think an affair is about sex. It usually isn’t. Affairs don’t often happen because of sexual boredom. They sometimes happen because people are no longer attached/bonded to their partner. They don’t feel special anymore. When someone comes into their life and makes them feel special, it wakes up a deep desire and memory of “that” feeling. People can feel lonely in their current relationship. It may be hard to grasp that a person in a relationship can be lonely, but without a solid emotional attachment to a partner, it becomes easier to wander. All it takes is a smile from someone at the office and you feel good; like you haven’t in a long time. You imagine what it would be like to matter to someone again and you’re off and running toward an infidelity. We are a species that needs attachment/connection/bonding. For years, we’ve had scientific evidence that infants need it (Bowlby). It turns out that adults do to. Our need for attachment is why we pursue relationships at all. It’s when the attachment becomes damaged that we may go find it somewhere else… I’ve heard many people argue that men are not meant for monogamy because they stray, and they are biologically built to spread their seed. The truth is that more women wander than is believed, but men can wander for “reasons” related to sex. Men tend to get their attachment needs met through sex. Women get a fair amount of their attachment needs met from girlfriends and family. Most men I’ve worked with have the aspects involved in attachment all twisted up and fused together; mainly because they aren’t taught very well about emotions and connections. When a man fuses 1) attachment, 2) love, 3) sex and 4) intimacy together and then one of those is off a bit, he will typically think the entire relationship is dying. So, one goal of therapy is to work toward separation of those four things above, on both emotional and intellectual levels, and learn that one of the four can be low, and that the others are fine, and the relationship is not dead, and improvement is possible. Talking about an infidelity must be done carefully. The speaker needs to talk slowly, be kind, empathetic and compassionate about the effect on the listener. The listener must be curious, and listen carefully, without getting highly emotionally reactive. If one person gets heated, that person needs to take a time-out. You need to breathe, slow down, and express emotion gently. Why can’t a person speak the unhappiness or disconnect when it’s first noticed? A person could just say, “I wanted you to know that I fantasized about someone else today. I think that means something about our lack of connection or something, and I think we need to talk about this..” That is precisely how communication should be. We need to be fearless when we are communicating in our most intimate relationships. Many couples therapy sessions begin right here… “Not every infidelity is a symptom of a problem in a relationship. Sometimes it has to do with other longings that are much more existential. Sometimes you go elsewhere not because you are not liking the one you are with; you are not liking the person you have become.” –Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity A brief list of other infidelities taken from “The Free Online Articles, Brochures and Guidelines” are at http:///www.ZurInstitute.com/ OFER ZUR, PH.D. Director, ZUR INSTITUTE E-Mail: info@ZurInstitute.com © 2012 Zur Institute: 1. Conflict Avoidance: People who go to any length to avoid any and all marital conflict may resort to affairs. 2. Intimacy Avoidance: “Intimacy avoiders” are reluctant to be intimately close and use the affair to keep themselves at an emotional distance from their spouse. 3. Individual (Existential or Developmental): Mid-life crisis, fear of growing old, the empty nest, depression and a sense of emptiness or a void are factors that can fuel an affair. 4. Sexual Addiction: Sex addicts compulsively display poor impulse control. They use sex over and over again to numb inner pain and/or a sense of emptiness. 5. Accidental-Brief Affairs: This type of one-night stand affair “just happens,” when a person is in the right (wrong) place at the right time. Curiosity, pity, drunkenness and even politeness may lead to such affairs. 6. Philandering: Some individuals are insecure and constantly need to “score,” conquer or receive affirmation about themselves. Narcissistic and impulsive individuals may be especially prone to marital infidelity. 7. Retribution: Sometimes one partner wants to “get back” at the other partner by having an affair. This may be payback for withholding money, love, emotion or any other perceived wrongdoing. 8. Unsatisfactory Marriage: This kind of affair is the result of a bad relationship in regard to communication, intimacy, support or sexuality. 9. …
An Experiment with Honesty, Truth and Trust

100% honesty is an excellent goal, but it can be difficult to maintain because of our very human anxiety (or fear) of telling the truth. In all relationships, dishonesty and withholding the truth usually adds bricks to the wall between your loved ones and you, preventing deep intimacy. As a therapist, I regularly see clients struggle with the issue of honesty, anywhere from saying niceties to hiding an affair. Even saying you are fine to someone during the day may very well be a form of lying. When we look at how honest we are in our lives, inevitably, questions arise for us. Let’s look at the couple that I’ll call Gary and Liz. Gary struggles with many questions on a regular basis as he attempts to appease Liz by withholding his truth: How much to tell? When to tell? What not to tell? Is it OK to ask for what I want? How honest should I, or can I be? Should I tell her I don’t like that dress on her, just ignore it, or compliment her to reduce conflict? Then there is the “big” lie – hiding his affair. Unfortunately, covering over something as damaging as an affair gets its start with the “little white lies” that he believes are OK. Have you heard the term “a little white lie?” What does it mean to you? Does it mean that the lie is so small it won’t hurt anyone? From Forest Gump: “That’s what’s left after me saying, ‘When I was in China on the all-American Ping-Pong team, I just loved playing Ping-Pong with my Flex-O-Lite Ping-Pong paddle.’ which everybody knows isn’t true, but Mama said it was just a little white lie, so it wasn’t hurting nobody.” Just so you know, I love Forrest Gump, I just noticed the lie and use it to point out what it does. Does holding back the truth mean the truth will never be known? Is it just a little white lie if Gary tells Liz that her dress looks great when he doesn’t really think so? Let’s look at lies along a continuum like this: White – Light gray – Dark gray – Black White: Gary says, “I don’t care which movie we go to.” Problem: He might have a preference, but he tends to say things don’t matter because he wants Liz to get what she wants, usually to avoid conflict or be nice. Unfortunately, Liz is not getting the real deal – Gary’s authentic self. Eventually Gary’s truth will, likely, emerge in some other more serious issues. He is laying the foundation for a brick wall between them that prevents intimacy. Light Gray: Gary says, “That dress looks fine on you.” Problem: He says this to reduce conflict or because he thinks Liz will feel good. Unfortunately, he’s added another brick in the wall that prevents intimacy. If he does this too many times, then he builds a large list of things he actually doesn’t like about or with Liz. These will go into his “resentment box.” In a time of crisis or conflict, he will probably dump the entire box of resentments over Liz’s head by bringing up seemingly unrelated issues and past hurts. This is why withholding the full truth can become poison and why many couples argue a lot about unimportant and unrelated issues. Dark Gray: Gary says, “I wouldn’t think of having an affair with her.” Problem: This one can be tricky if Gary deludes himself by denying that he isn’t interested in another woman simply because he thinks he shouldn’t be. But if he really thought deeply about this, he might very well come to see that he is interested in another woman (even if mildly) or feeling something for this other woman and Liz is picking up on those feelings. Fear of conflict is the cause of this type of dishonesty, yet Gary actually has no way of knowing what the outcome would be if he were honest with Liz. Maybe if he were honest from the beginning, then the insecurity between them could be dealt with instead of being an ongoing issue. Black: Gary says, “I am not having an affair.” Problem: This is the poison that destroys. If he is discovered in such a lie then it will clearly be seen as a betrayal by Liz and will create havoc because it is so clearly a deception – that is, an intentional deception. All of the above levels of dishonesty result in us not being fully in a relationship – not deeply and intimately connected. How intimate of a relationship can I have if it is based on false assumptions and lies about my true nature, my authentic self or my assumptions about who you appear to be? If I don’t state my wants or opinions or preferences, then who is the other person really having a relationship with? A process like this is typically the one we go through when we first begin dating someone. We get along fabulously and look for all of the ways we match, but deny or withhold the mismatches that we see. We end up bending our true-self so far in the other person’s direction and presenting ourselves as what we think the other person wants, that we are not being true to ourselves or honest with the other person. Later the other person says, “You’re not the person I thought you were,” or “You were so different when we started dating” – sadly, a very common thing I hear in my office. Some people believe the other person has changed, but I believe they are finally being honest. People sometimes refer to this as the end of the honeymoon period. If you would like to strive for more honesty and try to get to the ideal of 100% honesty, then try the experiment below. You can use this as an inventory of honesty for yourself to see how you’re doing over time, or you can use it as a checklist …
Unhealthy Bonding

Here are some key concepts from psychotherapy that often play out with our partner. The goal is to assess if you are standing alone or if you are bonded together in an unhealthy way. Term: Fusion. This is the experience we have when we feel intensely, deeply connected to our partner. It looks like the Hollywood version of romantic love, where we can read each other’s minds and don’t even need to speak to get what we want and need. Problem: We do not read minds. We are so deeply bonded that we lose ourselves. We give up our friends and our hobbies in the quest to feel close. We become dependent. We are no longer able to stand alone within ourselves and to experience life as we did prior to the relationship. We live vicariously through our partner. We look for validation from them (other-esteem, as Pia Mellody calls it, instead of self-esteem). We can’t live without our partner. Term: Enmeshment. This is related to codependency and fusion. A decent metaphor is to imagine your partner and you caught in a fishing net — in a “mesh.” Problem: A newborn is enmeshed with its mother; it does not know where it ends, and its mother begins. If you are an adult in this situation, you are at the mercy of your partner’s choices and feelings. When your partner feels sad, you feel sad. There is no differentiation between the two of you. If you always follow your partner’s lead, then you cease to exist as an individual. You can’t tolerate them experiencing discomfort, because, if they do, so do you. Term: Differentiation. This is the opposite of fusion and enmeshment. It allows us to stand alone. It allows us to get support, but not need support – an especially important issue for many couples, because fusion plays out as smothering, clingy, or needy. Problem: None. You can make decisions and act on impulses and have friends and do things separately from your partner and not feel anxious about your choices and your partner can do the same. Therapists call this “healthy.” I explain these things to clients because I repeatedly see people lose themselves when they start a new relationship. It is healthy to remain an individual and be in a relationship, but not to be a relationship. Too many control issues surface when you are too deeply enmeshed like that. When the honeymoon phase wears off you end up dependent and clingy. If the relationship ends, you end up without the ability to act in your own best interest. Some people end up spiteful and angry at the end of a relationship as a one method of breaking the connection and of finding their individuality again. If you are bonded in an unhealthy way with your partner you can begin to differentiate, to find your It feels delightful to be deeply connected, but you must also be willing and able to be separate and strong and an individual. If you do, you have a better chance of avoiding the pitfalls above. And, it is never to late…individuality again by getting your pre-relationship life back. I suggest that you go back to the friends and the hobbies and the individual things you used to do. Click to download a PDF of Unhealthy Bonding by Russell Wilkie.
Tell Me About…

Here is a specific listening style that can help you reduce conflict. The goal is to get out of the trap of defensiveness, trying to win, trying to be right, or trying to hammer your point home, when you could be listening instead. When you listen without your personal agenda getting in the way of the one who is speaking, many wonderful things can happen: The speaker is not interrupted. The speaker gets some relief from their pent-up feelings. The speaker experiences you as a good, amateur therapist. The speaker does not ramble on and on and repeat the same complaint over and over. The speaker does not emotionally escalate. The speaker sees you as a collaborator in their process instead of the enemy. Image your partner says, “I felt angry when you didn’t keep your agreement with me, and I’d like you to keep your agreements.” You have a pretty open-ended range of choices that you could respond with. Unfortunately, people usually make it about themselves and escalate the conflict by saying something defensive like, “It’s not my fault,” or something diverting, like, “You don’t keep your agreements either,” or a long explanation about what, when, why or how it happened. Don’t do that. Instead, stop. Breathe. Get a hold of yourself instead. You didn’t have a problem until the message was delivered, so you can wait until the message deliverer is understood before you share your reaction to what they said. It takes strength to lean into the wind. Step outside of yourself or the relationship for a moment and just listen. When a child falls and skins their knee, we don’t tell them they are clumsy or not paying attention or stupid for not tying their shoe laces. We give them comfort and relief and then, later that day, suggest they keep their shoes tied. The shoe tying suggestion isn’t going to be heard when the child is emotional anyway. You partner isn’t any different. So, with your partner, what you need to do is approach them with the heart and mind of a child. That is, as Pete Pearson, PhD would say, “Be curious instead of furious.” Say this instead: “Tell me about…” What this does is shift the energy away from your response of potential escalation and puts it where it belongs–with the speaker who has the problem. Give the speaker the spotlight. Solve their issue or problem or concern first. For the example above, you could say, “Tell me about your anger,” or “Tell me about the agreement,” or “Tell me about why it’s so upsetting,” or even just, “Tell me more…” Do not jump up on stage, elbow them out the spotlight and steal their spotlight for yourself. You will get a very different response from someone who believes you are interested in their pain and are willing to collaborate on their internal search and desire for relief. They may tell you about a related early childhood wound, or about a past relationship, or they may tell you more about you, giving you a chance to change and grow into a better partner. There are so many upsides to this that most couples are very glad they adopted it. Click to download a copy of Tell Me About…
What is Your Purpose as a Couple?

When I was asked to create my personal mission statement, I decided I didn’t like the phrase “mission statement.” What I wanted was a “life purpose.” I don’t like being on a mission. It conjures up negatives for me like being forced and directed and it sounds like plans and goals and targets. Yuk! What I wanted was a life purpose that is true to the centralness of my being. Personally, my life purpose is to be the best person I can be and be in service to others. As I do that, my choices and actions flow from my center and are often effortless. As I do that, nothing is a “have to” or a “should.” I take care of others and myself and I experience great satisfaction and fulfillment. When I meet with couples, I often ask them what their vision is together as I try to get at their life purpose. Some couples, for example, have decided to raise a child together, but what is the purpose and vision and style of that upbringing? Through the years I’ve witnessed the most common struggles for couples being around money, parenting and sex. All of these are so complex and have so many issues and history attached to them that most couples struggle with at least one of them. If your life purpose is to be, for example, a loving, spontaneous, passionate and vulnerable person, and you live it fully and your couple vision and purpose together is the same and you live that too, then imagine how the three most common struggles would melt away… You would be able to express your vulnerability about money, parenting and sex. You would be loving with each other about money, parenting and sex. You would be passionate about them. You would be spontaneous about them. You would be these ways to friends and family and your children. All of this would flow from the center of your being and the two of you would agree that these are your highest ideals and you would live it together (and the little conflicts between you would seem insignificant). To agree with your ideals is the greatest gift you can give each other, and then to the rest of your relationships. I encourage you to spend time looking at your life purpose, and your partner’s life purpose, and get yourselves in alignment, by understanding the ultimate life purpose you have as a couple. When you are mindful and focused, and you choose your actions from the clarity of a life purpose together, then the conflicts melt away. Please give it a try. Most couples say that the little arguments become insignificant enough that they can laugh them off. When in doubt, ask yourselves if anyone will remember this argument in ten years anyway? Click to download a copy of What is Your Purpose as a Couple?
7/7/07 Reprint of a Wave Magazine Article

7/7/07 Reprint of a Wave Magazine Article Reprinted from The Wave Magazine, January 10-23, 2007 Page 27. 7/7/07 Couples hope their lucky wedding date will bring lasting marriages. Despite Census Bureau reports that the United States has experienced three-and-a-half decades of divorce rates reaching 50 percent or higher, some soon-to-be-married couples are feeling lucky this year. Couples are flocking to banquet halls, limousine renters, and other wedding services to book Saturday, July 7, 2007 — a date that’s emerged as more-or-less perfect for nuptials: easy to remember; lucky like a jackpot; fun to discuss at parties. “I had at least 50 brides request it,” says Geraldine Mercante, manager at Willow Heights Mansion in Morgan Hill. “It was definitely the most popular date on our schedule, and I could’ve booked it 50 times over.” The trend is growing to weird proportions. Some wannabe brides are booking 7/7/07 without telling their respective boyfriends; others are booking the date while single. “I booked our venue without [my future husband’s] knowledge, before we even got engaged,” says Helen, who posted a message on Craigslist’s San Francisco Wedding forum, and asked to remain anonymous. “He laughs about it now, but he was pissed when he first found out.” “Southern girls do this all the time,” said another Craigslist poster. “It’s so weird — they’ll book the prime spots, even when they aren’t dating someone. It’s really sick and if I was one of those guys I’d run.” “Yeah, that sounds about right,” said Mark Owens, a salesman spotted at C & J’s Sports Bar in Santa Clara. “I don’t ‘t think I could deal with that.” Mark’s single and straight, but he says not communicating with a significant other about his or her own marriage is “just dishonest and mean.” He continues: “Hearing stuff like that makes me never want to get married.” Not everyone agrees, though. Allison Rachel, from San Francisco, doesn’t think presupposing an engagement is bad. “Hey, if you’re pretty sure [the marriage proposal is] coming, and you think you can get that date, why the hell not? It’s not like you’re killing someone. You’re just taking the day you want.” Russell Wilkie, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, has a different take. “No matter how lucky the calendar date of a wedding is, the potential spouse would be unlucky to wed a partner who would make such an important life decision without discussion.” Wilkie is President of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and an associate of the Couples Institute of Menlo Park. He has a private practice in Campbell, where he specializes in helping couples fight fairly. “The basis of a strong marriage is open and honest communication and working collaboratively on life decisions. The hidden agenda created by an unknown deadline is sure to create havoc in a relationship. If you want the 7/7/07 date, then you should ask.” Click to download a copy of 7-7-07 Reprint of a Wave Magazine Article.
Don’t Drift Apart — Pursue, Pursue, Pursue

Apart from the difficult and obvious issues of deep wounds and intense fighting, I’ve seen, over and over, how couples can just drift apart over time from lack of relationship nurturing. It takes energy and time to keep the love present. Couples stop showing the love. They stop tending the relationship garden and stop pulling weeds or adding fertilizer and water. They stop expressing caring in unique ways—novel ways. They stop focusing on one another. They stop spending time together because of full and busy lives—and children. The pain we feel in response to the negative behavior of another can quickly build resentments. I’ve written a lot about the resentment bricks that become walls between us. One of the ways that these bricks get laid is simple neglect. A lot of this happens from the ending of the honeymoon phase. Part of what makes the relationship so amazing in the beginning is the experience we have of being special—being pursued by the other (through love letters or flowers or special dates or planning a future together). Once we’ve “captured” or “hooked” someone, we relax in our pursuit. As a person reduces their pursuit, the other feels the change and begins to imagine there is less love coming their way (whether it’s true or not). We all enjoy being pursued and noticed and special and loved. If our partner is off working sixty-hours a week, it’s difficult to get what we want from them in terms of focus and time. This is when some types of affairs occur. If another person shows interest in us and we feel that warmth inside that happens when we are pursued, we will be drawn in that direction. How do we stop that from happening? To put it quite simplistically, you want to be sure that your partner is continuing to feel special. You can increase the odds that they won’t wander off by loving them, pursuing them and appreciating them. The Internet is full of romance ideas. There are books galore about it too — workshops as well. And in a plug for my friends Emmett and Denise Culley, I have personally taken their weekend course entitled “Relationships 123.” It is about pursuit, romance, appreciation and a lot of other amazing things – things I suggest every couple do to make sure you are sending the message of love and pursuit. So, I’m suggesting that you find the time to regularly do something special and unique for your partner to make sure they are pursued and feel special. For almost every couple I work with, this is the first step to rekindling the romance and the intimacy. Click to download a copy of Don’t Drift Apart- Pursue, Pursue, Pursue.
Sailing Into The Conflict

Let’s use the analogy of a storm at sea as the same as relationship conflict. I don’t sail, but I have played some computer games about sailing. When I see the storm out at sea I have several options: 1) lower my sails and wait and see what happens, 2) Turn tail and sail back to home port, 3) cautiously sail into the storm, risking getting bashed, 4) recklessly sail into the storm and be at great risk 5) spend significant time tacking around the storm and risk getting bashed anyway. When we anticipate conflict with our partner, we have a lot of options about how to proceed… Lowering my sail is what I call “passive avoidance.” I may wait for the issue to go away. I may wait for my partner to take an action that will resolve things. Some reasons I may wait include fear, anticipation or paralysis. The problem is, my hopes and wishes may not come true and the storm may chase me down anyway. And, later when the issue comes to light, I may be judged as cowardly. Returning to port is what I call “active avoidance.” It has the same problems as above. Spending time going around the issue has the same problem as the above and it may result in additional work and frustration. It may also be seen later as a very manipulative or slippery way of avoiding something. You can see where I’m going… If I sail into the storm with caution, I have a chance of getting through it with my eyes open, sails working and my crew with me. With couples in my office, I see hundreds of reasons why an individual won’t sail into the storm. I imagine you became aware of some of yours as you read this. The most common one I hear is about the history of how things went bad when someone tried to talk about a difficult issue and then the belief that it won’t go well the next time either. This results in distance, lack of intimacy, and ultimately, dishonesty, by virtue of withholding. This is, of course, just fear at work. When we do couples therapy and improve communication and experience some small gains in my office, it becomes easier to risk outside of the office. If things do go poorly, we talk about it at the next therapy session and look at where it went wrong. It’s this trial and error (with guidance and focused awareness) that creates lasting change. I see couples weather much more severe storms than they ever thought they could. When they come out of several experimental storms feeling more intimate, therapy ends very soon after that. Click to download a copy of Sailing Into The Conflict.
Romance Haze

The early “romance phase” should be renamed the “romance haze.” I’ve heard it described as bliss, enmeshment, as if we are the same person, as if we are one, etc. And, of course, your friends wonder where you went. I once heard a professor say that falling in love was a bit like a psychotic break. Now, I won’t go that far but I will say it can be a bit of an altered state of consciousness. I see people in a fog (haze) as they have the experience of falling in love. And it’s very hard when they are disillusioned after the initial romance phase/haze ends. They end up in shock when the person turns out to be different than originally imagined. And it’s that word “imagined” that’s the key here. We often imagine people to be who we want them to be by seeing the best in them and ignoring what might not be a good fit. At the same time, that person may be putting their best self forward to the point that you don’t get to interact with their true self. It isn’t exactly lying to you, but on a deep level it is misleading, much like your denial of their darker aspects is misleading yourself. You need be on the lookout for your own denial and minimization of who the other really is, as well as making sure the other person is not only putting their best face forward. One way to check yourself is to be mindful enough to notice if there are any fatal flaws, such as uncontrollable anger, substance dependence, etc. You must notice this before you risk moving forward into intimacy and sexuality, because that can put you into the haze when your heart opens. Another safety check is to have friends meet the person and give you direct and honest feedback about what they see. And, finally, be on the lookout for the other person’s authenticity/congruence and for their consistency. Also, check out my blog on Choice Partnering and make sure you are not going down a relationship path with someone that does not meet your minimal criteria. In summary, be mindful, ask yourself about what doesn’t match, ask your friends, check the other person’s authenticity, do varied activities together and meet their family too—be friends first. The goal is to watch out for the haze and be mindful and get multiple sources of feedback. It’s not my intention to have this be a negative or bad experience, just a mindful one, because you can go unconscious and miss things and then go down the intimacy path with the person and end up close to someone who is a bad match and then you have to go through another difficult breakup. Click to download a copy of Romance Haze.
Romance and Connection

I feel sad for so many people in my office because they are so busy and stressed that they don’t go out on dates or pause for even a few, short moments of connection. For years, I’ve been telling couples that they need to go out on regular, romantic dates to de-stress and get connected. I get a lot of questions about this. Typically, this one: “Why go out, if all we do is argue or talk about kids and money?” My short answer is: “Don’t talk about the stressful stuff on a date. Set an intention to be in an optimistic state, just like you set an intention to be calm in my office while we work through things.” Romantic dates with your sweetie are as important as calling your friends and family and spending quality time with them. You must nurture relationships for them to grow. When we do romantic things for our partner, early on in getting to know one another, we are trying to capture their attention (or capture them), letting them know they are important to us. Frequently, after we’ve succeeded, we slow down, or stop the momentum of romance. Why? The answer is scarcity. We put energy and focus into things we don’t have; scarcity drives us. Relationships are no different. When we are first getting to know someone, we find a lot to like about them. When we imagine not being with them or not having the feelings we have when in their presence, we feel the scarcity, so we pursue them. Once we have them in our lives, we no longer feel that scarcity and then we incorrectly assume that we no longer need to show how important they are (of course, they often become really important again when someone at their office starts to flirt with them). We must continue to show interest in our partner. Not the type that asks how their day went, but the sweet, tender interest. Things like: candlelight dinners, running a bath for them, bringing home flowers, writing poetry, etc. The internet is full of ideas that are romantic. Just go searching, because it doesn’t matter what you do, but that you do something. It’s true that it’s the thought that counts here. Just show interest. It conveys love and nurturing and romantic intent. What captured our attention in the beginning was the experience of being special and pursued and this is what keeps things exciting and interesting in the long-term. So, romance is just letting your partner know that they have been in your thoughts throughout the day. Making a sacred time for just the two of you ensures the importance of your relationship. Weekly dates can be like re-affirming your wedding vows. Click to download a copy of Romance and Connection.