3-6-14

Quick confession. As a couples counselor, a married person and a man, I find that to be a huge copout!

There, I said it.

Look, if you got past the first date, chances are near 100% that you know how to connect. So let’s deconstruct what you just said-

Are you really saying that you have given up and do not want to connect? You are done? You are just not that into your partner? Are you saying you are too lazy to try? Are you saying you do not want to do any more work than you have to because you are either depressed or overwhelmed?

Keeping it simple, let’s pretend your relationship ended and you have to go back out there on the market again. What would you do? Do those things with your current partner and watch how well you connect. Yes, you would spend time getting to know one another. You would be eager to spend time together and curious about them. You would want to put on your best face, be entertaining and fun. You would go outside your comfort zone in order to make them happy.

Men would focus on, and highlight, their masculinity, humor and intelligence, earning power and ability to advance. Women would focus on, oh, who am I kidding, I don’t speak for women… What would women focus on to attract the guy they want?

Think about it another way- I cannot connect to the Internet. My wi-fi connection is not good. What should I do? You know the basics, right? You would get up and fix it if you could-plug and unplug your router, call the help desk, try something. In some cases, you might need to get a new router or change your Internet provider.




Yes, I am saying that some people are more responsive to their Internet connect than to their spouses!

It had to be said.




Shoot me some ideas of what women focus on to attract the guy they want so I can spread the word.

  Use the following to guide you before you get into a conflict, once you get into a conflict and for help getting out of conflict.

1. Demonstrate that you can see the other person’s reality and you do not think they are stupid for their perspective.
2. You do not have to change who you are in order to be acceptable. Neither do they.
3. Remember that I do not always see reality clearly, please help me.
4. Is what I have to say helpful, nice, accurate and is this the right time for me to say it?
5. Explain your experience using an “I statement.” Try doing it with loving kindness. Otherwise, it feels like an attack and your partner will likely not hear you.
6. Let your partner know what you need from them in a way that they can accomplish it versus telling them what is wrong with their personality or what you do not want.
7. Trouble communicating? Try this: When you hear your partner speak, really listen. Make sure you understand what they are saying, clarify if you need to. Walk a mile in their shoes and then validate it. You often become allies when you understand what each other needs. Then and only then is it your turn to be the speaker.
8. When you feel your heart approaching 100 beats per minute, take a time out to cool down and think clearly. Let your partner know that you need a break and will come back and talk about it.
9. It is okay to feel anger and to tell your partner that you are angry. Just know that anger is the second emotion and that hurt, fear or vulnerability is likely the underlying emotion. Try expressing that one instead. It is much, much easier to hear and increases your odds of being heard.
10. When you feel defensive, say so and ask for a moment to get perspective and cool down.
11. Do you want to increase your odds of being listened to? Try talking more calmly, using I statements and without accusing your partner. Compassion, respect and being nice really help.
12. Ask yourself-How can we make this conversation better the next time we talk?
13. Tell your partner, “Honey, I need to talk for about five minutes. You do not need to fix anything, just listen and validate my feelings please.” When they know what to do and how to please you, they have a better chance of being successful.
14. When someone is pulling back because they feel attacked, it is best to let them pull back. If you go in after them, you frequently will frighten them away.

Statements to try:

1. "This would be a good time to validate that I have a right to a different opinion, even if you do not agree with that opinion. And that you still love me even when we have differences."
2. "I am not sure you fully get what I am saying. It could be that I am not explaining myself well. Could you please paraphrase/clarify what you hear me saying?"
3. "I am having a hard time hearing what you have to say right now. Could I ask you to lower your voice or check the tone and use an “I statement” and fully own your experience?"

Pay attention to your motivation.

Why did you just do what you did?

How often do we do things just to impress someone? How about to prove ourselves?

My challenge for you is this: Impress no one.

Be yourself, your full self and then you will impress others naturally and you won’t really care that they are impressed.
It will be irrelevant to you.
Impress no one with your clothes, your appearance, your possessions, your words or thoughts.

Relate to them honestly without needing to impress them.

Now, I challenge you to do this on Facebook, as well.

All the best,
Don

We have all heard of an affair. We have all had a friend who wasn't quite "loyal."

Within a marriage, it is debateable what is "loyalty."
I see it as someone is looking out for my needs versus their own needs. Is my spouse's need more important than my need? Well, yes, sometimes it is and sometimes it is not. If her needs are always more important or very often more important, than we do not have a "we." This can get sticky with entitlement thinking. I am entitled to my spouse's ___________. That doesn't work well. Instead, we express our needs and preferences. The spouse takes those into consideration and prioritizes. If my preferences always lose, then we have some conversations.

Many of my clients say they do not feel like a priority to their spouse. The job is first or the kids come before the spouse. Rounding out the top items are Bowling and Golf, and the in-laws.

How else does someone show that they are not loyal?
Being unfair, lying, cheating, being cold and simply looking out for themselves. Remember, we are partners.

Someone accused me of being unromantic (not my wife) about this. "Don, why would anyone ever get married if it is this tough and this fraught with turmoil?"

Here are several benefits of a "good enough" marriage:
Mutual trust allows for greater partnership
Deeper love allows friendship to blossom and intimacy as well.
Reduces stress
Companionship
Someone with whom to share the duties
Someone who listens

There are more. Anyone want to list a few?

If not, chances are you had difficulty with either sending or receiving expectations.

TRY THIS:

“I would like to spend some time just you and I tonight, without the kids. I would like to cuddle/spoon on the couch and watch Big Bang Theory and then maybe turn off the TV and just cuddle. How about you?” You clearly know if you have done the above. You have taken the initiative of knowing your needs, communicating them directly and not demanding that they get met. You are open to your partner’s influence and negotiating a different outcome if that is preferable.

“I would really like to connect with you” is not a clear expectation. We cannot easily measure whether “connection” happened or not. “Let’s spend some time together.” One partner often thinks they meet the other’s need and did not. Let’s try again.

Frustrated needs are the usual cause for a fight/disagreement and hurt feelings.

Here are commonly stated needs

I would like:

1. To Emotionally Connect (This is not nearly specific enough. I have spent countless hours with guys helping them understand how to meet this need for their spouse. Please be specific.)
2. Alone time (How much space and time is enough? “If you won’t leave me alone, I will find someone who will” is the refrain of a country song, I am told.)
3. To cuddle (How long? All night, an hour, five minutes? Where? Which type of cuddle? Cuddle, leading to intimacy or not?)
4. To be physically intimate (Not specific enough for some people. You have the right to ask for what you want. Please be specific.)

To watch TV with you, sitting on the couch, without reading your FaceBook during the show (Yes, that darn smartphone takes attention away from your partner. Being physically present in the same building is not the same thing as “connecting.” The time does not even count as together time for most couples.)

PS Don't wait for next Valentine's Day to try this

Whatever you do, do not be romantic.

Do things that show her that you love her, that you have thought of her, have considered what she likes and does not like.

Do things that demonstrate you "get" her and are willing to follow her love language.

Listen to her.

Tell her or write to her what you appreciate about her, what you would miss if she were not in your life.

Be nice to her.

Consider doing a favor for her.

Consider finishing that project you started. Help around the house without being asked. Get a babysitter for your next date.

Let her influence you on something you both deem important.

Buy her a nice outfit and take her out, showing her off, being proud that she is with you.

Kiss her and rub her back without expecting further intimacy (no strings attached).

But please do not be romantic!

As always, thank you for your comments. I appreciate your insights and welcome them.

Gottman's latest book What Makes Love Last? talks about trust and betrayal, affairs etc. I love his research and how accessible it is. Here I cite his work on the impact of loving/trusting relationships on health.

Here are some ideas "the husband's odds of dying over those twenty years (since our last research project) were eleven times higher than men in mutually cooperative relationships. They were also seven times higher compared to couples with a mixed style (meaning one partner displayed a cooperative style and the other was zero sum- treated each other like adversaries). These results are consistent with a number of studies that find men who believe their wives love them are likely to have significantly lower severity of ulcers and lower rates of coronary artery blockages and angina." (p. 228)

"When the wife's trust metric was high (even if the husband's was not) both partners had lower baseline blood velocities...wife's sense of security tends to influence the relationship dynamics more than does her husband's. When a man realizes how critical it is that he make his wife feel secure, the relationship reaps enormous benefits and so does their health....a happy relationship is good for your health. a low-trust one can be deadly...a wretched relationship is devastating to one's health, but statistics show that unremitting loneliness is even deadlier. life long isolation shortens life expectancy more than a bad marriage." pp 230-231

He continues with five detectable criteria for separating the trustworthy on pp 235-236. While it feels like common sense, it is nice to see it proven by statistics as well.

He suggests trusting others when you meet someone, but not be gullible. "If there is reason for skepticism, become wary."

All the best,
Don

I see myself as wise, or at least knowledgeable. I have read so much about relationships, taken classes, trainings, tried to integrate information and have learned from personal and professional experience.Okay, I see myself as really knowledgeable. My mission in life is to alleviate suffering and my career affords me the opportunity to do so.

Someone suggested I convert my knowledge to wisdom to help even more people. I was intrigued. "What is the difference?" I asked

The answer was simple and transformative. "You can tell by the level of compassion how wise someone is," they said. I don't necessarily have to keep improving my fund of knowledge, reading at a break neck pace and incorporating new concepts. I could practice instead on just being compassionate. Being compassionate is more healing that knowledge. Hmmm

Would you believe that same week a woman who I see as wise challenged me to try on the Hawaiian concept- "I apologize for seeing you as not whole." I am responsible for how I see the world, we all know that in terms of pessimism and optimism. It logically follows that if I see someone as less than whole, I am responsible for the way I see that. Now extend that to yourself. I apologize to myself for seeing myself as not whole. Are we having fun yet?

It was a deep week.

Watch your level of compassion in different circumstances. Are you loving and kind? By the way, compassion is not some wimpy, doormat philosophy. If I have compassion for my children, at times I must challenge them, discipline them and teach lessons. More often, though, the person who is wise and compassionate is gentle with themselves and others, not prone to contempt and judging. That sounds good to me!

I challenge us all to be more compassionate to ourselves and watch the impact it has on the world around us.

All the best,
Don

Letting go is one of the hardest things to do. I want things the way I want them. I have strong preferences and I assume that my way is what is best for me. When I let go of the control, there is no telling how things will work out.

Being out of control can be scary to people, very scary. This often depends on what happened in their past when they were not in control.

Please look at your life and when it is easiest to let go of control and when it is hardest. Do you believe that life works out and things are going to be okay? If you do, you allow them to unfold, to happen organically. If you have had the experience that sometimes life really hurts you, you are more likely to push or pull or somehow manipulate to get your way.

Do a quick inventory of what is challenging in terms of letting go for you.


Of what do I need to let go?

Here are some of the ones I hear the most. I have put them in the masculine form, though I hear the same trends from women:

Closure-issues from my past, hers, ours

Am I still hung up on what’s her name, my first girlfriend?
Am I comparing my wife with ________?
Am I still thinking about you-know-who at inopportune times?
Does my wife know I still have contact with what’s her name?

Can I let go of the difficulty we had when we were first dating, or the miscarriage, the affair, that porn thing, the thing she said about me to her family/friends?

Do I need closure about that guy she was dating before we met, or the time I thought she was having an affair and she denied it, or that time she was traveling and when she got back, she talked in her sleep.

Everyone lets go or else sleep could not happen. We have plenty of practice at letting go. Exercise your letting go muscle and be mindful of what it feels like each time you let go. There can be a freeing quality to it or a sweet surrender.

Here is to a week of experimenting with letting go.

All the best,
Don

I ran across this article from a few years back that seems to have the same relevance today that it had back then.

"Neither do we know why the self-esteem of girls drops markedly at ages 12 or 13 or why girls are more cooperative and involved in relationships (Gilligan, Lyons & Hanmer, 1990). Actually, interesting recent research indicates that the drop in math and science grades only occurs in girls from traditional families in which gender roles are emphasized and the mothers are assigned the child-rearing role. Girls in egalitarian families also spent seven more hours per week with their fathers than girls in traditional families. These findings are reported in Psychology Today, August, 1996, and based on Kimberly A. Updegraff's research as a graduate student at Penn State. Good fathering is important.

Men and women operate in two very different social worlds. Men are in an ongoing contest, competing with everyone by displaying their competence and skill. Why don't men ask for directions when lost? Because it puts them in a you-know-more-than-I-do position. Women are cautious but persistently seek intimacy; they want emotional support, cooperation, and praise. Given these different orientations, it is no wonder the sexes have trouble communicating!

Many men relish getting into lively arguments about politics, sports, or a professional issue. Like boys at play, men are establishing their place in the pecking order."

While we point out the differences in gender, I would also like to say that I am finding more and more sameness between genders as I do this counseling work. There are more style differences than gender differences. The idea is not to highlight the differences, it is to point out potential hurdles so that we can adequately prepare.

While watching the video Celestine Prophecy, I was reminded about sending energy. Both men and women thrive on energy and attention and appreciation. Imagine a society in which everyone got their fill of energy. We can do this for our partners. I can send my wife energy and she instantly feels better. She does the same for me and then I have more to send her. We can expand this and expand this. The movie highlights this at the end and the ironic part is that my wife does energy healing in which she sends energy to people. It is a great complement to the counseling practice and we are working on ways to bring this gift to more people.

Imagine opening your heart on a regular basis to your partner and feeling full of energy. It is a wonderful place from which to operate. It has great implications for relationships as well.

School starts up soon, so I look forward to more regular blog posting.

All the best,
Don