O'Grady Psychology Associates

Psychotherapy, Marriage Counseling, Neuropsychological Assessment

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The Sound Relationship House: Friendship and Appreciation

The Sound Relationship: Part 1

 

A great marriage needs a strong foundation. Remember the story of the three little pigs? The first little pig built his house of straw and the second made his house with wood. The third pig built his house of brick while the first two pigs played, taunting him for working so hard.

When the big bad wolf came to blow their houses down, the first two pigs ran to the third pig’s home and sheltered there, safe and secure from the wolf.

Big bad wolves can come to marriage at any time, in lots of forms: an out-of-the-blue life crisis such as an affair, job loss, or death of a loved one, for example. Or it can come as a slow erosion of love. Whether suddenly or slowly, events such as these can strain a marriage to the point of dissolution. But if your house is strong, then these crises don’t have to end your relationship. In this post, I’ll present two techniques for shoring up the relationship house’s foundations.

  Love Maps: Knowing and Being Known

Based on his research, Dr. John Gottman has defined what makes a strong relationship, and he illustrates this concept by using the metaphor of a house with seven floors. The bottom floor is the Friendship System because partners must be friends to have a good marriage. That friendship can become damaged if partners don’t stay in touch with each other’s lives.

In the courtship stage of a relationship, we learn everything we can about our partners, like favorite TV shows or best friends. Gottman-style couples therapists call this kind of knowledge “love maps.” But as years go by, couples can forget to keep asking; staying in touch gets lost in the shuffle of life. In my previous post on love maps, I emphasized the importance of updating these maps as we age. What was significant to your partner five years ago may not be today. How well do you know your partner, and do you feel known? Are you updating your love maps throughout the years?

Examples of love map questions that I give couples on the first session include “What are your partner’s hobbies?” and “Who is your partner’s favorite relative?” There are sixty-two questions and in most cases, it’s a fun assignment. The ground rules are that if a person doesn’t know the correct answer, you tell them—you don’t ridicule or criticize them for not knowing. It’s an opportunity to update your love maps, not a test.

Expressing Appreciation is Essential

We enter into marriage with the blush of new love, assuming that life together will be easy and smooth. We know our partner and frequently express gratitude and admiration.

Life takes a toll on even the best relationships. Normal and expectable stressors such as children, aging parents, and job problems can consume the time a couple needs to stay close. When we are depleted by these normal stresses of living, we can forget to express our appreciation for what our partner does. Tasks such as making dinner, shopping for groceries, and picking the kids up from daycare become routine and therefore go unacknowledged.

But the happiest relationships liberally express appreciation for both the big and little things. Saying “thank you for going to the dry cleaners today” or “I appreciate that you called the sitter” seem like small things, but in saying them we help secure our foundation.

Knowing each other through updated love maps and expressing appreciation for one another strengthens a marriage against big bad wolves.

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Sex and Kissing in Relationships

Why is kissing important? We need to feel connected in our intimate relationships and kissing is, or should be, an easy way to build and maintain the shared meaning that keeps us feeling that we are partners, not roommates. In ongoing relationships, kissing can be not just a prelude to sex, but how couples say goodbye in the morning and greet each other when they return home.

Even some animals do something like kissing, in what an evolutionary biologist quoted in a New York Times blog post calls “’an affiliative gesture.” Researchers on human relationships like Dr. John Gottman would include kissing among the “Rituals of Connection, or standard and every-day ways the couple connects and feels bonded to each other. “ Kissing is so intimate that many sex workers refuse to perform it.

  Why Does Kissing Disappear in Long-term Relationships?

Considering how well kissing builds connection, why might kissing disappear in long-term relationships?

One problem might be bad kissing. This can ruin a relationship before it even has a chance to start: I have heard many women complain that their date kissed with a wide-open mouth, teeth clicking together. If a prospective partner has poor oral hygiene, bad breath can spell disaster. Too much slobber or spit isn’t sexy unless lovemaking has become deeply passionate. One woman I worked with complained that her date’s tongue went too far down her throat and made her feel choked—a deal breaker.

 Bad Kissing

But even those in long-term relationships can face problems such as oral hygiene or bad kissing habits. Addressing the subject, whether with a date or spouse, is awkward and uncomfortable, but all is not lost. Kissing can be learned together. Just as in learning what your partner likes in bed, kissing is something that can be made better, with practice and a little humor.

 Non-Sexual Kissing is Important

Another reason couples might stop kissing is when one partner avoids touching their mate because of fear it will set the expectation for sex. Kissing, cuddling, and caressing in nonsexual ways is important; not all touch should lead to sex. If this has become a pattern, it’s crucial to talk about this.

When Jack and Judy came to counseling, they had been having sex once or twice a year. Jack was nearing forty years old and realized that although he loved Judy, he didn’t want a sexless marriage. Judy was focused on their two sons, involved in PTA, volunteering in the classroom, and making a comfortable home for ”her boys.”

Jack stated in therapy that although everything else in their marriage was good, he would not live without sex forever.  As much as the idea of divorce hurt him, he was considering it, if things didn’t get better. He would not go outside the marriage to get sex and masturbation wasn’t a substitute for the physical need to be with Judy.

 Counseling Provides a Safe Place to Talk About Sex

In counseling, although the two had not talked openly about sex for many years, they were able to talk about their feelings without feeling attacked or judged. Judy expressed, for the first time, that she felt repulsed by oral sex due to a young cousin’s history of sexual abuse. Jack was surprised and assured her that he didn’t need that in their lovemaking. Judy was also able to articulate that she felt turned off by some of Jack’s attempts to initiate sex. Grabbing her breasts or slapping her butt while she was cooking dinner turned her off, making her feel like an object. Her body was her body, not his to grab impulsively. Jack was unaware that these behaviors caused her to feel this way.

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Passion and Romance in Marriage: How it Goes Sour

Would you choose gelato over non-fat frozen yogurt? Most of us would say gelato, even knowing that it is an unhealthy choice. Long-term marriage versus an affair? Most would choose a good, healthy marriage over a fleeting affair. But that choice depends on many variables. Is your marriage healthy? Do you still have passion, romance, and intimacy? If your relationship has lost its passion and romance, there are ways to bring it back so that it can have the richness of gelato, yet be nourishing and fresh.

Relationships begin with infatuation. A crush is mistaken for love because it is so powerful and ineffable, even though it is fleeting in the end. Romantic love leaves an imprint on the heart and psyche that is hard to shake. When love matures and the romantic sentiment fades over years of managing kids, chores, jobs, money, and family commitments, the memory of that imprint can cause misery as couples feel loss. This is a pivotal point when marriage begins to unravel.

Most relationships begin with gelato and then evolve into true intimacy and love. With infatuation, you’re projecting your ideal lover onto someone who seems like the right fit, but once the real life intrudes, that projection fades. In a long-term relationship, intimacy develops as you see your partner’s flaws—and he sees yours. And by overcoming hardships together, intimacy deepens. Romantic weekends may be fun, but don’t lead to long-lasting romance and passion unless they are part of a real relationship.

Negative Sentiment Override

Though every partner sometimes has negative feelings about the other, in a deteriorating marriage one or both partners can develop what Dr. John Gottman calls negative sentiment override: “where your bad thoughts about your partner and relationship overwhelm and override any positive thoughts about them. You may start to stockpile your grievances, keeping track of each offense your partner commits. In the meantime, your bad feelings fester and grow.” (Gottman, John, Ph.D., Gottman, Julie Schwartz, Ph.D. 10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage, 2006.)

With negative sentiment override, disappointment seeps in as a husband or wife increasingly believes their partner is not their ideal mate. This is the time when a relationship is most vulnerable to infidelity. Thoughts of “what could have been” begin to dominate one’s private thoughts; the partner is viewed more and more with disappointment and criticism. The unhappy spouse often keeps these thoughts from the partner. Or, attempts to discuss the loss of intimacy are seen as a threat to both partners, and conversations are avoided.

When bottled-up feelings seek a release, people might seek support from a co-worker or a friend who will listen compassionately. Sometimes when friends get together, the conversation turns to the ways their partner goofed up, let them down, or was clueless, and camaraderie begins—a kind of misery-loves-company partner-bashing. By verbalizing the big and small ways their husband or wife is clueless, inept, thoughtless, inattentive, and dull, wives exaggerate and reinforce these very traits. Rather than relationship-enhancing thoughts, negative thinking dominates, squeezing out all traces of what drew a couple together and the good they created together in the marriage.

Laying the Ground for an Affair

If feelings of self-pity take hold and there is a convenient, attractive co-worker who is also feeling unhappy in their relationship, the friendship can become sexualized as they confide in each other over coffee, lunches, and eventually drinks after work. As meetings become more clandestine, the secrecy provides a dual purpose: it keeps the threat to the marriage from their spouses and it perpetuates excitement, intrigue, and illicit fantasies. This dynamic mimics the excitement they felt with their spouse at the beginning of their courtship when life was simpler.

Couples Counseling

At this juncture, some partners come to couples counseling because either the emotional affair has been revealed or because mutual unhappiness leads one partner to suggest counseling. If the emotional affair has not been revealed and in fact is continuing, then counseling will most likely be doomed. No marriage, with all of its history of squabbles, bickering, and life stresses, will compare with a sexualized companion who listens with consoling, uncomplaining, unquestioning patient attention. Trying to work on a marriage when only one partner is involved (even nonsexually) with someone outside the marriage is like choosing gelato. The healthier choice of marriage, like non-fat yogurt versus full-fat gelato, will lose in most cases. Our impulses to recapture the imprint of passionate love strongly pulls us from what is healthy—an impulse rather than a conscious choice.

Truth and Honesty: Rebuilding Intimacy

As difficult as it is, every relationship must be based on trust. Affairs, whether emotional or full-on sexual, do not have to spell the end of a marriage. I have worked with many couples that, once the affair is disclosed, use it as a wake-up call to begin to rebuild intimacy. But first, they must have the conversations that have been avoided or ignored. In the safety of counseling, many couples will develop the tools to resurrect their love, and while they may not return to the delirium of pounding hearts and fantasy, they will remember that still-present imprint of the love that brought them together.

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Relationships and Vacations

 

A weekend away can bring back romance and intimacy

For many couples, a vacation brings a return to romance. But you can set yourself up for disappointment if your expectations are too high or unrealistic.

 Usually, at some point in couples’ therapy, a weekend away is scheduled to help build romance and passion back into a strained relationship. For many, this is seen as an opportunity to take a break from the day-to-day grind of kids, chores, and work. One partner eagerly anticipates a day of whirlwind sex– —morning sex, afternoon delight, and after after-dinner sex–—that will recreate the relationship’s early months. The other partner looks forward to time to relax with a book or strolls on the beach.

But whatever your plans—and however closely you agree on them—travel entails some stress. Disappointed expectations can overshadow the romance you expect. Rather than saving a marriage, a vacation can break it.

During our first trip to Italy several years ago, I came down with the flu. A runny nose soon progressed to a sore throat and lethargy. By the time we disembarked in Venice and boarded a crowded ferry bound for our hotel, I was miserable and cranky. Venice, with a reputation as one of the world’s most romantic cities, looked to me as crowded and fake as Disneyland. I wondered how I could survive three days.

Pulling our suitcases over the cobbled streets, my snarkiness only increased. Our (tiny) room with a view looked onto a postage-stamp sized courtyard where men were working on a scaffold right outside our window. With saws and hammers pounding, I tried to sleep. We moved to a different hotel the next day.

But as I began to feel better, Venice came alive. The city’s turns and twists, I found, ended in delightful surprises. Canals and bridges no longer looked like Disneyland. Instead, Venice worked its charm on me and my mood changed. During our stay, I read Henry James’s journal about his life in Venice. This description personifies the city, giving it life:

It is by living there from day to day that you feel the fullness of her charm; that you invite her exquisite influence to sink into your spirit. The creature varies like a nervous woman, whom you know only when you know all aspects of her beauty. She has high spirits or low, she is pale or red, grey or pink, cold or warm, fresh or wan, according to the weather and the hour. She is always interesting and almost always sad, but she has a thousand occasional graces and is always liable to happy accidents. You become extraordinarily fond of these things; you count upon them; they make part of your life. Tenderly fond you become; there is something indefinable in those depths of personal acquaintance that gradually establish themselves. The place seems to personify itself, to become human and sentient and conscious of your affection. You desire to embrace it, to caress it, to possess it; and finally, a soft sense of possession grows up and your visit becomes a perpetual love affair. (Italian Hours, Henry James)

Disappointed expectations can overshadow  the romance you expect

Travel requires adaption and flexibility. Knowing that before you embark can prevent disappointment when things go awry.

Whether it be delayed trains or planes, or illness, or other setbacks, it helps to remember that the inevitable challenges inherent in travel will test your relationship even as it provides the opportunity for more intimate contact with your partner. If you haven’t managed conflicts well at home, they tend to resurface when you are together away from those responsibilities.

So, to avoid being disappointed when you finally get that weekend or long-anticipated vacation away, keep in mind the following suggestions:

  1. Discuss expectations. Assuming that your partner will want exactly what you do will set you up for disappointment. Preferences and energy levels differ. Do you want to eat out every meal? Or grab a quick bite at a mini-store several times each day? How much time do you each want for shopping or museums?  One partner might want to go for a run in the morning, while the other might want to sleep in. Talk it through before you go so you can know each other’s preferences. Remember: compromise is the key to harmony.
  2. Respect your differences and give them space. It’s okay to split up and do different things part of the day. Just make sure you agree beforehand on how much time you need for this.
  3. Relax and let yourselves rediscover being together.  Leaving room for fun, adventure, and just chill time allows intimacy to emerge naturally.

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Are you texting your partner too much? 6 Ways Texting Can Be Inappropriate in Your Relationship

With smartphones, our partner is just a text away. That’s not always a good thing. Sure, texting is a great way of communicating information quickly and efficiently, such as ”Don’t forget eggs,” or “I’m running late, see you in 10,” or “Call me, we need to talk.”

But just like answering machines and voicemail in their day, texting can be a way to avoid conversation. Leave a quick message, and you won’t have to talk to the person on the other end. You don’t have to deal with the messy non-verbal cues that might lead you to feel cut off, criticized, or ignored. Texting is sometimes a way to check out of intimacy. And obsessive texting, just as in obsessively checking email or social media, can be a way to avoid the person you’re actually with.

When not used to avoid, texting can be a means of checking up on and controlling your partner. The Wall Street Journal article “I’m OK, You’re Needy” (Elizabeth Bernstein, July 15, 2013) looks at how neediness can show itself in the form of constant texting. (Ironically, younger people—those most likely to text—may not recognize the title of the article as a takeoff from I’m OK, You’re OK, a popular self-help psychology book by Thomas A. Harris, MD [1967].) When one partner feels worried about where their spouse is, who they are with, and what they are doing, they may text as a way to check up on them. When they don’t get a response, they will text again and again. This only serves to irritate their partner.

In my work as a couples counselor, I often see clients use texting not for better communication but as a replacement for conversation or a way to check up on partners. That’s not healthy.

Here are a few ways that texting can be inappropriate in your relationship.

1. Having a dialogue that goes back and forth in paragraph form.

2. Texting angrily to tell your partner off so you don’t have to engage in a face-to-face discussion.

3. Venting, swearing and cussing to avoid taking responsibility for holding up your end of a two-way talk.

4. Texting to avoid hearing something you don’t want to hear. You can always feel in the right if you avoid a real dialogue.

5. Texting to check up on your partner. Where are they and why haven’t they called or responded to your text?

6. Needing to feel constantly connected so you don’t have to feel alone.

Meaningful conversation takes openness and a desire to hear your partner’s views, thoughts, and feelings.

The happiest relationships have a good balance of talking with each other about the day’s events or stresses—and time to be with each other and not having to talk. If you are texting your partner multiple times in a day, and repeating the same comments or questions, then take the time to reflect on why you feel the need to keep the texts coming. Are you lonely, insecure, worried about what your partner is doing? Are they faithful? Do they love you? Are they having fun with someone else? Just taking a few moments to ask yourself these questions may serve to inhibit your reflex urge to send a text.

Then, notice how you feel. Are you feeling emotionally and physically stressed? If so, take some time to calm yourself. Make a note to yourself to ask your question or make your comment at the next opportunity to have a real conversation. Make time to talk on the phone—or (gasp) talk in person.