Couple Support

Change or You Will Lose Sight of Each Other

Eventually what doesn’t change is not seen any more. This is as true for you and your partner as it is for that old couch in the living room. If you want to avoid invisibility, make sure you build regular change into the relationship.

Stare for a long time at a blank wall, and eventually you won’t even see it, unless you deliberately look for some variation in its blankness. On your customary drive to work each day, be the passenger for a change, and you’ll see things you never noticed before. Why? Because the routine is interrupted, and some novelty gets introduced.

The same applies to anything seen or otherwise experienced - including your experience of your partner or your partner’s experience of you.

Unless you believe that somehow the relationship can be healthy when you are basically invisible to each other, you had better pay attention to the potential need in yours and every relationship for novelty.

The culprit here is likely to be routine. Routines exist to save time and energy. They do it by allowing you to do the same thing the same way over and over, without your having to pay attention. Do that to your marriage or other relationship long enough, and, believe me, the 
relationship and your partner will pretty much disappear from awareness.

Here are some suggestions for introducing novelty (change) into the relationship: 1) Every day find something new to share with your partner in the evening. 2) Ask a new question of each other each day. 3) Join each other in new circumstances. E.g., go horseback riding; take a Spanish class together. 4) Turn routines on their heads. E.g., where you always agree, decide this time to disagree. 5) Go on a weekly “surprise outing.” Take turns orchestrating it – each one a surprise activity for the other person or a surprise location.

Want a Successful Marriage? Learn Relationship Skills

Want a Successful Marriage? Learn Relationship Skills

You have no doubt noticed: Serious relationships take a lot of skill. In marriage, or any committed couple relationship, you are dealing  close quarters with someone whose wants and needs can be  challengingly different from your own.

Quite possibly, you and your partner both bring powerful expectations  to the relationship that you will be loved and accepted, heard and  respected, and your needs and wants met – otherwise why get married.  Right?

Two adults with sometimes conflicting wants and needs living in close  quarters: Skills are obviously needed - skills of compromise,  negotiation, understanding, generosity, empathy, respect,  cooperation, plus others of equal weight: the sort they don’t teach  you in school. But you better get them somewhere, if you want the  relationship to succeed.

Unfortunately, several factors work against us paying sufficient  individual attention to the relationship skills that we clearly need.

The first factor is the assumption that many of us carry that the  weight falls on our partner to care for us, more than the other way  around. Unless this assumption is recognized and challenged, we may  not take seriously our own need for skills we plainly don’t have yet.

The second factor is the competitive nature of our couple  relationships. We get angry and resentful about the manner in which  our partner treats us. Seeing ourselves as victim, we see our  partner’s presumed bad intentions toward us as the problem, when what  we really need to do is drop the mutual accusations – and focus on  skills. What don’t we do well? And how can we learn?

Ask for What You Want

Even in the best of relationships, you often have to speak up to get what you want. Want a hug? Ask for it. If, like many people, your operating rule is “I shouldn't have to ask for it; you should know what I need” - be prepared to go without. Even the best of us live in our self-involved bubbles a lot of the time.

The fact that your wants and needs are sometimes missed doesn't mean that your partner doesn't love you - only that he was preoccupied at the wrong moment (or just not one to initiate, as in the case of who always asks for sex. But that's a topic all by itself.)

On the other hand, if your partner is chronically inattentive, if what you need is right there on the surface, not hidden inside yourself somewhere and still not seen, then yes you've got an issue worth talking about with your partner. After all, seeing is an attribute of love. If your partner chronically does not see you, then your “I don't feel loved by you” should be taken seriously by both of you.

But don't simply complain. You risk a defensive argument that is unlikely to bring the changes that you want. Instead talk together about the importance of each of you seeing the other. Perhaps your partner doesn't feel seen either, and you can both make some useful changes.

In the meantime, speak up for what you want, and don't let the fact that you asked for it rob you of enjoying whatever your partner then gives you.

Want a Harmonious Marriage? Then Help Each Other Feel Safe

Is there a single piece of practical advise that, if followed, would save any marriage from disaster? Probably not. But here is one that comes as close as any, in my opinion: Understand and respect the areas in which your partner is vulnerable to fear and the areas in which you, too, are vulnerable to fear. Do your best to keep yourself safe and help your partner to do the same.

When we get married, we bring our fears with us, although they may not be on obvious display until we are well into the marriage and our partner does something that sets us off.

You may see your partner flirt with an attractive someone at a party and suddenly experience the fear of being abandoned. When you want to deliver a legitimate complaint, your partner may experience the fear of being judged and refuse to listen to you.

One partner’s fear-driven behavior typically scares the other partner. Arguments full of accusation and passionate defense that generally follow leave both partners even more afraid than before.

Eventually partners get so wary of each other that the relationship becomes crippled. This unhappy outcome is not inevitable, however. Partners avoid it when they understand and accept their own and each other’s fears and work together to make their relationship a zone of safety, They can then afford to be generous and caring toward each other, because each looks out for the other’s welfare.

What the Couples Counselor Does - Do Yourselves

A fair amount of what even a good couples counselor or coach contributes is basically very simple and doesn’t require a lot of skill. Specifically he doesn’t take sides, and he listens.

The fact that the couples counselor or coach stands outside the action and has no position to promote means that he can understand and empathize with both partners. The fact that he has no position to argue also means that he is free to listen openly and fully.

Because of her position, the counselor or coach picks up all sorts of useful information that is not available to the couple. They are busy advocating for or defending themselves, which means that they are not listening to each other and, therefore, are pretty much fighting blindly.

The counselor or coach knows more and is more effective not because he is inherently wiser or more sensitive than the couple but because, unlike them, he is not imprisoned by a position. He is available to listen and to learn, and can help the couple in ways that they, immersed in their argument, can’t help themselves.

So the couple pays him money for his listening ability, his information, his perspectives and the options for action that he can offer.

Assuming the couple wants to improve their relationship, what can they do? They can continue to see this counselor or coach for a very long time. They can entice her to move in with them (I have had more than one couple ask me to move in!).

Or they can each learn to do what the counselor or coach does. Taking turns, they can step back from the action, set aside their own positions temporarily, make themselves available and, as if they were the coach or counselor, listen deeply to each other, seeking understanding.

Learning how to do all that may be challenging, but it sure beats keeping the counselor or coach around forever. And anyway he or she is not going to move with the two of you and make you well.