For better or for worse, the “little things” in relationships, both good and bad, matter more than we’d like to believe. We’ve spoken before on this blog about our belief that daily life IS foreplay for couples. We know that large, regular doses of kindness offered to our partner make for great connection and intimacy. Continuing to water and feed the garden of our relationship is critical.
But there is another grouping of “Little Things” that we all must pay attention to… the Weeds! In honor of Summer, it seems appropriate to look at what our love interests have in common with our gardens. Weeding our relationship garden is critical. Weeds not dealt with can wreak havoc on those wonderful plants we’ve been cultivating for a while. We have one in particular that attaches itself to other plants and gradually chokes the life out of them. Can you see where I’m going with this? I see it every day in my office; “small” problems or conflicts left unattended gradually suck the juice out of the relationship.
Believe me, I pull a lot of weeds out of our flower gardens. The problem is, many times I don’t get the whole root and they just grow back again. In our relationships, the weeds or frustrations we experience also have deeper roots. Without getting at these our conflicts simply return again and again in one form or another. They’ve been doing that our entire lives. There are no magic carpets we can sweep them under or weed killers that take care of the problem long term. “If we don’t deal, we can’t heal”. It’s an ongoing project. Read More→
Our recent newsletter had an article about Fun and Intimacy. It’s gotten me thinking. For so many years we focused our relationship work primarily on all the hard stuff: Frustrations, Conflict, Deep Process, Relationship Visioning, Learning how to Communicate about Feelings, Needs, Sex, Childhood History…
Now, don’t get me wrong, all those things are very very important. As couples and people growing in life together, we must understand ourselves and we have to learn to be relationally skillful. We must be able to reveal ourselves at deep levels and we must be able to repair conflict with out re-wounding each other. These are important parts of building intimacy.
But recently, I’m into brain science and how we are hardwired for love, empathy, fun and pleasure. We literally have the capacity built into our brains to connect with each other at very deep levels. And this connection, it turns out, is vital for our immune systems, our longevity and our sense of well being.
So I’m thinking a lot about Fun and Intimacy these days.
I remember asking an older married couple what their secret was. They had had such a good life. Here is what they told me. Read More→
You should’ve known”
“How could you not know…after all this time”
“What did you assume I meant?”
Trouble, trouble and more trouble. Expectations and assumptions….place them in the cupboard labeled Recipes for Disaster, or, to be more precise….. Love Killers. Shoulds (the S word) are like weeds that commonly thrive in even the best of relationship gardens. Dig one up, two more arrive the next day. “I mean, if I can’t expect you to come through for me, who can I?” And the answer is (drumrollllllllllll) “fagetaboutit”. No cheese down that tunnel! Read More→
Alright, I can wrap my head around the understanding part; we were raised differently, schooled differently, believed differently and all that. I can understand that we’re different. But rejoicing in those differences? That’s another subject altogether! You (Nietzshe) can afford to be philosophical about all that. I mean, after all, you get paid to theorize about such things. I wonder though how you feel when your partner takes your carefully squeezed and rolled tube of toothpaste and utterly destroys all your meticulous work? Read More→
Falling in love is easy. It happens almost by accident. Building long-term love is no accident. For most of us it takes a whole lot of intentionality and the care that goes into building anything of lasting beauty. When someone undertakes a great journey, climbing Mt. Everest for example, there is a heck of a lot of forethought, preparation and training that goes into it. Just imagine the list you would come up with when considering what you’d need in order to create a mountain of love with your partner. You’d have to consider what would make them feel loved. If you don’t know, you’d have to ask(imagine that!). Then you would go about the task of becoming that person, yes, making attempts to change your good self for the purpose of becoming a better lover. Is this really so different than conquering Everest?
Remember that folks don’t succeed at that great task by themselves. They have guides to show them the best route. Probably a Sherpa or 2 to help lighten their load. Read More→
To be successful in a committed relationship will always require us to look at ourselves. To deeply check out my motives for acting as I did, to consider the deeper feelings that were stimulated in me and to see if I acted in the way I would have wanted to. There is no doubt that my partner acted in a way I didn’t like. It may have hurt me. It certainly didn’t meet my expectations. I can blame her all day and all night, but what will that help me learn about myself? In the end, we will both need to choose to hold the mirror up to ourselves and see what role we each played. Sometimes those roles get a bit subtle and require a good, long look. My behavior may have been unconscious but nonetheless real. Sometimes my inability to decide quickly will cause Kate to move into “fix it” mode. I may have a complaint about why she did that, but she will also say that I had a role in it as well. I then get to choose whether to go on trying to prove that I am “right” or letting her know both how I felt and what I did to provoke her behavior. Usually, if I am upset, I have to calm myself down before it’s possible to really look inside. There’s is usually something I can own. Whenever I can do that AND communicate it skillfully we both get to learn something and come back into Connection much more quickly.
Will you let go of being right and own your part? Tell us, tell your partner, tell the world!
This is my first ever post on our very first blog! I’m totally excited to enter into this realm of relating and sharing about how to navigate around in the often challenging waters of relationship. The technology is new for me and I just wanted to see what happened when I typed in some words and whether anyone would find them. It’s good to be a beginner in anything-a humbling experience indeed! Like being a visitor in a new land-like visiting the world of your partner…. full of mystery and quite different from your own. So, here I am, experiencing the newness and walking as carefully as I can without tripping all over myself.
If you happen to land on this site, give us a shout and maybe inspire some interesting tidbits of relational wisdom. Thanks!
