Are you feeling distance and loneliness from your partner?

One of the surprises for couples is that they have to work at their marriage and the connection that they have to their spouse. In today’s busy society with many distractions … from work and family to recreation and commitments with community, church, friendships, computers, etc. it is very easy to forget … or feel like there is not enough time to nurture the marriage. It is too easy to grow apart and feel distant from each other, and lonely for each other.

This is one of the main reasons that the divorce rate is so high in marriages where there are young children … careers and childcare overtake couple time and the marriage suffers as the adults do not nurture each other and their relationship. When couples grow distant from each other, they each often turn their time and attention, have their needs filled by, other people or other things. The territory then becomes fertile ground for affairs to develop.

John Gottman (Marital Therapy: A Research-Based Approach, John Gottman, PhD) noted that, in follow-up research, those marriages that were able to sustain changes made in counseling, are also ones who had the “Magic 5” hours of connection each week. This includes having 6 second kisses when you begin and end the day and telling each other 1 interesting thing that happened during the day. Finding 40 minutes each day to talk about what happened during the day (catching up with each other’s lives), finding 5 minutes a day … every day … to kiss, hold and touch each other, 5 minutes a day just to talk about what they like, appreciate and admire about each other and one 2-hour date each week.

What Makes It So Hard To Remain Faithful To Your Spouse?

The causes of infidelity are complicated and can happen in good marriages as well as struggling ones.

Many affairs develop in marriages where couples have drifted apart because they have avoided conflict and resolving problems, are fearful of intimacy or have just not tended to the necessary feeding that a marital relationship requires. They can also occur when one person is depressed, unhappy in the marriage or within a social group where affairs are condoned. Affairs may happen at transition times in marriages, sometimes called “mid-life crises,” which are often opportunities for individuals to take stock of their life and evaluate what is “missing” and then look to others to fill that space.

In healthy marriages, it can take someone by surprise when feelings for another person develop, generally with a co-worker, neighbor or a friend that someone sees regularly and with whom a friendship develops into more as stories, experiences and life events are shared.

Multiple affairs generally indicate some personal problems with the person having affairs. Some are addicted to love, sex or self-affirmation. Often there is a family history of affairs often by the same sex parent and it is a “tradition“ accepted within the family. With some, there is a feeling of entitlement with little regard for the spouse’s feelings.

Emotional affairs may not involve a sexual relationship (intercourse); however they do involve secrecy from the spouse and sharing of intimate details in each other’s lives and can be as destructive, often even more so, than sexual affairs. Women are more likely to have emotional affairs, men are more likely to have sexual affairs.

Internet affairs are becoming more and more common. With today’s technology and easy access to others with similar interests or problems … as well as the opportunity to see “what is out there” in the single world, people can become emotionally open to another in ways that distance them from their spouse and the marriage.

Ideas About Dating

Are you ready to begin dating … either for the first time or after divorce or the death of your spouse? How do you begin? What do you look for in a dating partner? Here are some ideas to ponder.

1. Think about some couples that you know who have healthy relationships. Observe them and talk with them about what they are doing in their relationship that makes it so good.
Ask them about how they decided that they found the “right” person.
Ask them how they handle disagreements.
Look for signs of nurturing and affection.
2. Think about dating as a sport or social activity. Enjoy opportunities to meet others of the opposite sex rather than looking for a marriage partner.
3. Look at yourself to determine what kind of a person you are and what qualities you want in someone with whom you might spend lots of time.
4. Always make yourself available by being friendly, making eye contact, saying hello.
5. Do not go to bed with or get exclusive with anyone for at least a month. You need time to really get to know someone. Going slowly is much better.

Holidays: His Family, Her Family

When couples come together and begin their new family, they often struggle with how to develop their own traditions while fitting in with the traditions for the family of each. Many couples report that they are exhausted when they try to fit in all of the many traditions from both families. This is often compounded when there is tension within the family or between the new spouse and the in-laws.

Carol and Ed really struggled with this for many years. Carol was angry about the treatment that Ed received from his parents while he was growing up and she did not understand at all how he could continue to even have a relationship with them. Ed felt that Carol was too hard on his family and thought that she should put up with the way his parents continued to treat him … and Carol and their children. Ed said that was just “their way” and Carol should find ways to overlook it for the few days that they spent with his family … the grandparents of his children.

Here are some suggestions for Ed and Carol, and for other couples who face this same dilemma.
Be sure to establish rituals that are only for your family.
Find ways to incorporate extended family in some ways. Having extended families involved helps children … and their families … have a sense of family history and connectedness.
Be very kind to yourselves and make sure that there is some time for rest and recovery. The holidays are meant to be enjoyed, not “survived”.
If one adult in the family wants to maintain a connection to his or her own family, it is important to try to support it, even if you do not like or understand your spouse’s family. Be sure to talk and plan for this time in order to make it easiest for all involved. Open, honest and respectful communication between both spouses can help to ease the pain. Maybe the communication can also include the in-laws, maybe it cannot. Talk with each other about how, or even if, to involve them in the conversation.

Ed and Carol made the decision to travel to Ed’s home town for 2 days over the holidays. Ed agreed that the family could stay at a nearby hotel and Carol agreed to find ways to be with her in-laws for the afternoon and an evening meal. The couple talked a long time about what were tolerable treatment by Ed’s parents and what needed to be dealt with directly. Both agreed that they would try to stay near each other and Ed would be the one who would take the stand if his parents were disrespectful to Carol or the children.

Both agreed that this was a “work in progress”. There would most likely be things that would happen or be said that they would view differently. They agreed to find a private and calm time to talk about them. Both Ed and Carol agreed that they each felt that protecting their marriage and their family was the most important thing and Carol understood that her husband also wanted a relationship with his parents and for his children to become familiar with this part of their heritage.

What experience do you have with these situations? What are your biggest struggles? What have you found that works?

Tip of the Week, November 26, 2007

Holiday Presents
Holiday shopping is in full force. Many face the dilemma of what to buy. Often people think about what they want the other person to have, and not what they think that the other person would want. I have heard of many gift disasters … from pets to camping equipment to living room furniture. The giver bought what they wanted to have themselves rather than really thinking about the needs or desires of the recipient.

The recipient of the gift often feels hurt and disappointed because they believe that their wishes were not heard or were discounted and that the giver thought more about themselves than the recipient. The best gifts come from really listening to your loved one, thinking about them and their interests.

It is perfectly okay to ask someone for suggestions. Gifts do not need to be surprises. It is also okay to ask for suggestions from another who might know what they would like to have. The thoughtfulness is the most important aspect of the gift … and sending the message that the recipient is very important … and that you have heard them, thought long and hard about them … and picked the present because of what you think would really please them.

Repair Damage When You Are Having A Disagreement

When couples have a disagreement, it can be very costly to the relationship. Those in healthy relationships will have a lot of good will and positive sentiments about their partner and so, will find lots of ways to compromise, respect differences and let go of the argument soon after it is over.

John Gottman has noted the frequency of repair attempts during a disagreement in couples with healthy relationships. They generally interact as if getting along is more important than winning a point, so you hear lots of comments like: “I hope that when I say this, it does not hurt your feelings” or “I love you and do not want our differences to cause problems.” or “Let me see if I understand your point.” There is also a lot of humor, loving and playful touch, sometimes distraction, if tension mounts. The distraction might be something like a joke, a short story about a child or friend, an offer for coffee, anything to break the tension before returning to the subject on the table.

Bill and Sarah were excellent with disagreements. Her humor was wonderful and she could easily crack a joke whenever things got tense between she and Bill. The good thing about her humor; however, is that she never got ugly or disrespectful and Bill, who also had a good sense of humor was able to enjoy her wit. Bill’s contributions to supporting the discussion when things were tense was to gently say to her things like, “Sarah, I do not think that you are really hearing me.” … Or “You may not have meant to say that in an ugly way, however, that is not how I heard it. Can you say it differently?” While they did continue to have differences, and sometimes hurt each other or made each other mad, they had a good relationship … and the commitment to find ways to get past their disagreements quickly. They also had an idea about each other and their relationship that promoted their belief that no argument was worth serious damage to the marriage. If you would ask them about the disagreement a few days later, often they could not even recall much about it … and would say things like … “no big deal”.

Step-Families

Step-families come together when two people marry or commit and one of both of them have children from another relationship. Some call these “blended families”; however, that is often inaccurate as some families never truly “blend”, they just learn ways to get along with each other respectfully.

These families come together because the adults fall in love with each other, but it is not a choice for the other family members which, in itself, may cause dilemmas. The adults who fall in love expect others to embrace this new unit lovingly and may be discouraged, frustrated, even angry when that does not happen. Children, if their other parent is still alive, may continue to harbor wishes that their parents will get back together and this new marriage may cause another round of feelings of grief and loss. Parents and other family members of the new relationship may still have a connection to former spouses, may disapprove of their child’s choices and changes and may have difficulty in welcoming the new member into the family.

In step-families there are also “insider” and “outsider” positions. Finding ways to navigate this new terrain requires skill, patience, kindness and grit. Step-families often have questions about time as a nuclear family vs. time with the step-family, how to handle issues of authority and discipline and how to handle differences with the “other” family.

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