Infidelity is the ultimate betrayal. But does it have to be? Relationship therapist Esther Perel examines why people cheat, and unpacks why affairs are so traumatic: because they threaten our emotional security. In infidelity, she sees something unexpected — an expression of longing and loss. A must-watch for anyone who has ever cheated or been cheated on, or who simply wants a new framework for understanding relationships.
Today’s blog has marriage advice especially for busy couples — and which couples aren’t busy these days, right?
It’s easy to let the daily maintenance of your marriage take a backseat to all the other demands and obligations in your days. But it is possible to infuse your relationship with love and care even when your schedules are tight. Here are five quick, effective and research-backed ideas for building intimacy quickly.
Look into his eyes, not at your phone. Eye contact builds connection and helps your partner feel valued. Remember, though, that this has to be loving eye contact. No shooting daggers with your eyes! When you have four minutes, try more intense uninterrupted eye contact, like in this video, to deepen intimacy quickly:
Help when he’s stressed. Stress has a huge impact on our marriages. If your partner seems stressed out, ask what he needs from you. Maybe the answer will be unloading the dishwasher even if it’s not your night to or giving him a hug. Whatever the answer, just asking how you can help creates a sense of teamwork in your marriage.
Connect with texts. Texting is a busy couple’s best friend. You’re probably already in the habit of texting your husband when you get caught in a work meeting and need him to pick up the kids, or when you think of an errand that’s close to his office. But try sending a text when you don’t need something. Just let him know that you’re thinking about him. Make it as sweet – or as spicy – as you like. Creating a quick connection like this in your busy day helps maintain the health of your marriage.
Greet him warmly. We all have a need to be seen and heard by the people we love. It sounds simple, but just acknowledging him with a hug and warm smile when one of you gets home goes a long way toward making your time together emotionally positive.
Reach out through touch. Sometimes things are so busy that you don’t even have time to talk. Don’t forget the power of touch to help you and your husband connect. A quick, meaningful kiss, hug, or squeeze of the hand can convey deep caring. The more often you touch, even if it is brief, the closer you’ll feel to each other.
My book Strong Women, Strong Love has lots more marriage advice to help you keep your relationship healthy even when you’re tight on time. And I promise it’s a quick read!
My Valentine’s Day blog gave tips about firing up the passion in your relationship. This week, I want to talk about something a little less romantic but perhaps even more important: the connection between respect and love.
Just as we want the passion to continue in our relationships, we want the loving feelings, caring and sweetness to go on, as well. Too often we assume that these things take care of themselves. But just like passion, emotional intimacy needs maintenance in your relationship.
And the way to maintain a loving atmosphere in your marriage is to maintain a respectful atmosphere.
In my book,Strong Women, Strong Love, I note that respect is, in many ways, even more important than love in your relationship. Respect is the very soil from which true love sprouts.
In long-term relationships, it’s quite normal for feelings of love and passion to wax and wane over time. If partners have maintained a deep respect for each other, in time, these feelings can be rekindled. However, when there is a serious breakdown of respect, relationships inevitably end up deeply troubled.
Respect in a relationship can be lost unintentionally if we’re not being mindful of it. It’s all too easy to shift into “autopilot” with our spouses and slip into disrespect over time. We get so used to having each other around that sometimes we don’t truly “see” the other person any longer, and we don’t think about the impact of our words and actions. We might end up talking to our spouse without the same common courtesy we’d show a neighbor or colleague. How would your co-workers react if you rarely listened and talked to them mainly to point out what they weren’t doing or what they were doing badly? Your marriage can’t thrive that way, either.
Rebuilding Respect
If you’re ready to strengthen the respect in your marriage so that love can flourish, here are a few fundamentals:
Respect means valuing and holding each other in high regard. You can still express your needs and even argue, but you can’t attack your spouse’s dignity if you want your marriage to last.
Respect creates feelings of safety and trust in a relationship. It doesn’t matter how clearly you communicate, you’ll never achieve deep emotional intimacy if you say hurtful things when you express your true thoughts and feelings. When there is respect, it’s much easier to get emotionally closer, so don’t be brutally honest.
Respect is also about accepting your natural differences. The fact that the two of you are different is not a problem, unless you devalue each other based on those differences. For example, maybe your husband doesn’t emotionally disclose as readily as you do. If you think you’re a better human being because you’re more in touch with your feelings, that’s a disrespectful stance that can hurt your marriage.
Respect is a verb. Show respect and love regularly through your words and actions.
Respect and contempt can’t co-exist. According to the Gottman Institute, contempt is the No. 1 predictor of divorce. Treating each other with disrespect will eventually destroy your relationship.
Respect for yourself is as essential as respect for your partner.
I write much more about the relationship between respect and love in my book Strong Women, Strong Love. This week, look for ways to build respect in your marriage, whether that means choosing your words more carefully when you want your husband to do something around the house, or exercising your own self-respect by setting boundaries on disrespectful behavior.
Aretha Franklin was right: It really all does come down to R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
We spend an awful lot of time and money (an average of about $135) trying to make Valentine’s Day special for our partners.
We expect all those flowers, boxes of candy and fancy dinners to stoke the fires of romance and passion in our relationships.
But if you’re part of a longtime couple, those run-of-the-mill Valentine’s Day ideas might not be doing it anymore — especially if you celebrate the same way every year.
I’m a pragmatist — even about romance. So why not spend your time and money on some Valentine’s Day ideas that actually work?
Why We Get Bored
First, let’s take a quick look at why those Valentine’s Day roses that made you heart flutter the first year of your marriage don’t have quite the same effect on you now (and how something similar happens on a larger scale in marriage).
Roses haven’t gotten less lovely. The problem is that if your husband sends them every Valentine’s Day, you’ve gotten used to them. They no longer bring the novelty and surprise that psychotherapist, Esther Perel, says is essential to igniting desire.
And, just as you’ve gotten used to the roses, chances are you’ve gotten used to the husband who sends them. Maybe he made you swoon when you first met, but now you don’t know notice him as much because he’s so familiar to you.
That’s the challenge of relationships: The longer you’re together and the more deeply you know each other, the more connected you are as companions, but that same deep familiarity chips away at passion.
But knowing this is a normal shift in relationships doesn’t stop us from wanting to feel passion again the way we did in the early days of our relationship.
So what do we do?
The Real Keys to More Passion
To fire up your relationship, try adding some novelty and variety. Luckily, we have a romantic holiday coming up that’s a great excuse to do just that. Here are some Valentine’s Day ideas based on what research has found actually stimulates desire and passion.
Keep growing together. Take a class together, or go to an exhibit or talk on a subject that intrigues you both. When you try new experiences and keep learning, the relationship keeps you stimulated and helps you grow as a person. That’s exactly the kind of relationship in which passion thrives!
Book an exciting experience together. Exciting, challenging activities make couples more enthusiastic about their relationships than merely pleasant ones.
Change up your routine. If you’re more of a stay-in-and-watch Netflix kind of couple, choose a new movie that will get your pulse racing. Instead of making reservations at the same restaurant you always choose for special occasions, try somewhere new that serves a cuisine you haven’t tried. Likewise, skip your usual favorite weekend getaway this year to explore a different destination.
Strengthen the relationship habits that have been clearly linked to passion, such as: (1) thinking positive thoughts about your partner (2) thinking about each other when you’re apart, and (3) being very affectionate (kissing, hugging, holding hands) when you are together.
If you’d rather take a quieter route to passion, never underestimate the value of just being present for each other. Remember the New York Times story about how to fall in love with anyone that was so popular on social media last month? As the story shows, being fully present is one of the greatest drivers of passion. We all want to be seen by another. Put your phones up and connect through touch, eye contact and deep listening.
You’ll find more ideas about cultivating passion in my book Strong Women, Strong Love. I wish you a Valentine’s Day filled with true passion and connection!
Happy 2015! As the new year begins, we’re all thinking a lot about our goals and wishes for the next 12 months. Perhaps one of your New Year’s resolutions is strengthening your marriage. So how do you break a big goal like that into actions you can take every day? Pick one or more of the ideas from the following list to turn into habits for 2015.
Prioritize couple time. Work, family and the other myriad demands of daily life can easily crowd out your time for each other. But consider this: The stronger your bond with your husband, the more likely it is that the two of you will work as a team to face life’s hardships . Care for your relationship, and it will make your life easier.
But don’t forget ‘you’ time. While you need times of deep connection with your husband, you also need some breathing room. Make time for the things that you love — the things that make you you. You’ll come back to the relationship a much happier and more intriguing partner.
Reign in the disrespect. If you tend to be snarky, sarcastic, or roll your eyes when you’re unhappy with your husband, resolve to change your habits this year. Never shame, humiliate or show contempt toward your partner because you’ll eventually destroy the relationship.
Show your love. Research shows that the happiest couples have a lot of positive interactions that make it clear they value and deeply care for each other — specifically, 20 positive interactions for every negative one. Need to bring up you numbers? Express appreciation, give compliments and even work on greeting each other warmly. It all counts!
Give generously to the relationship. Do you find yourself “keeping score” on how each of you contributes in your relationship? This can keep you mired in resentment and hold you back from making positive changes. Granted, no one likes that “Do I have to do everything?” feeling. But in the long run, you’ll be happier knowing you are definitely doing your part to keep your relationship healthy.
Protect your marriage from stress. Make no mistake: The stressful, demanding times we live in affect your relationship. Researchers Lisa Neff and Benjamin Karney found that couples exposed to high stress for extended periods tend to be much more reactive to the normal ups and downs of relationships. To ease stress, take care of your basic needs (getting enough sleep, eating nutritious food), ease up on your expectations for yourself, and take concrete steps to decrease the pressure.
Listen up. Learning to listen deeply is one of the best ways to deepen your connection and sweeten your life together. This kind of listening means you must be present, so turn off your phone, put away the to do list , and make real human contact for a few moments. When you tune into each other in this way and then listen with an open mind and heart, you’ll uproot the feelings of loneliness and rejection that cause problems in many relationships.
Just ask. Sometimes we hesitate to ask for what we need, figuring our husbands “should” know. Or we end up expressing our needs in complaints. It’s a lot more effective to ask instead of complaining or silently stewing, so resolve to be more direct this year.
Correct your relationship vision. It’s not your imagination — it’s challenging to keep a long-term relationship vibrant and interesting. Our brains love novelty, so it’s easy to take the person you’ve been married to many years for granted. Because your partner is so familiar, you literally can’t see all of who he is any more. To make matters worse, because our minds tend to focus on the negative, it’s easy to get locked into only seeing the many ways in which he irritates you. So, resolve to make it a habit to periodically step back and really look at your husband. See if you can learn something new about him, and notice all his qualities, not just the annoying ones. Hopefully, you’ll be able to clearly see why you married him in the first place.
Work on acceptance. Remember that you are two imperfect people probably doing the best you can in this relationship. Don’t get caught in the trap of trying to fix or change your partner to make him the perfect husband. Everyone has shortcomings. So, resolve to accept (and maybe even love) his imperfections, and you’ll keep your marriage on solid ground.
Gratitude isn’t just a feel-good, warm-fuzzy sentiment we talk about this time of year. Showing gratitude and appreciation for your partner is one of the most important ways to keep a marriage strong.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to get out of the gratitude habit. We’re all stressed and busy these days, which makes us neglect to compliment and appreciate our spouses.
Another reason we may not show appreciation is that we’re around each other all the time. After you’ve been together a while, you stop noticing all the things your partner contributes to the relationship. This is because the human brain is designed to respond primarily to novelty, so you literally don’t see the whole picture of who you’re married to and start taking each other for granted.
So what’s the big deal about gratitude? Why go to all the extra effort? Actually, the stakes for your marriage are huge.
The Case for Gratitude
Studies have verified that couples who show more gratitude feel closer to each other and are happier with their relationships. Researchers can even predict which couples will stay together based on how much gratitude they show each other.
Dr. Sara Algoe’s research shows that when one partner reported feeling more gratitude on a particular day, the other partner experienced more relationship satisfaction.
In my book Strong Women, Strong Love, I talk about the eye-opening work of John Gottman. Gottman studied couples he calls the Masters of Marriage (those who have been married a long time and still have a solid marriage) and the Disasters of Marriage (those headed toward divorce). Gottman found that the Masters typically have 20 positive interactions with their spouse for every negative one during a normal day (yes, that’s 20:1!). During conflict, this ratio is reduced to 5:1, but that’s still well above the 1:1 of the Disasters group.
We all know that housework is a sore spot for many couples, but relationship satisfaction isn’t just related to who does what chore. Research shows that expressing gratitude for the work each partner does is also important.
The Art of Appreciation
Try this exercise to get the gratitude flowing. Think about or even write down the answers to these questions.
What qualities do you appreciate about your husband? (Think about why you married him.)
When was the last time you told him you appreciate him?
What did you say or do? And how did he respond?
What’s the ratio of positive to negative interactions in your relationship?
What appreciation, understanding, or compliment can you genuinely express to your spouse?
When you’re frustrated and resentful, it can be tempting to say that because your husband doesn’t appreciate you, that you shouldn’t bother expressing gratitude either. Research shows that if you can get the ball rolling first by focusing on your own feelings of appreciation, you will find that the gratitude will eventually come back to you.
Let Thanksgiving be a reminder to bring more gratitude into your relationship. Keep it up and the relationship will benefit tremendously, which I hope encourages you to maintain an attitude of gratitude year-round.
We spend an awful lot of time and money (an average of about $135) trying to make Valentine’s Day special for our partners.
