1. Do you spend time alone on a regular basis? When you are alone, are you comfortable or do you get anxious?

2. When your partner wants to spend time alone, do you feel rejected, scared or unloved?

3. Do you get jealous or upset when your partner spends time with other friends or family members?

4. Are you afraid that when your partner is out of sight, you are no longer in his or her thoughts?

Autonomy is the Foundation of Intimacy

If you are puzzled about what autonomy has to do with the capacity to be alone then keep reading. Autonomy gives us the ability to make choices according to our own free will. Without it, we feel like victims. If you cannot tolerate being alone, then you will choose to spend time with anyone but yourself. You will sacrifice your autonomy, your very sense of personal freedom, in order to feel connected.

If you feel that you cannot survive being alone, then fear will be in the driver’s seat. When run by fear, people choose partners who aren’t good for them (or are even dangerous) just to avoid being alone or rejected. On the other hand, if you know that you can be alone—and take care of your own needs—then you can risk being the unique individual that you are. You are able to let your partner come and go, both physically and emotionally instead of desperately clinging on for dear life.

The Balance Between Closeness and Distance

Most people value their relationships above everything else. Half of my clients come to therapy longing to find a healthy relationship, and the other half seeking to improve an already existing one. We are, by nature, social animals. But living in close quarters with family members is anything but easy. Part of what makes the dance of relationship so difficult is the ongoing tension between closeness and distance, connection and autonomy.

Unfortunately, too many people fall prey to the myth that intimacy is only about connection. Authentic connection is a big part of it, of course, since …

Do you know what the number one answer is? Are you sure? Let’s be honest. Did you guess that men want more sex and that women want more help with the housework?

While certainly both of those claims are true for many, when men in self-described unhappy relationships are asked what they want most from their partners that they’re not getting, the first answer was communication and the second answer was affection. Exactly the same answers that the unhappy women answered!

When it came to the third answer, men said more sex and women more financial security. More sex was #4 on women’s list. So the surprisingly good news is that all of us want more of the same thing…more talking and listening. Although improving our communication can take hard work and commitment, at least we can be assured that this goal is both mutual and a deal-breaker for healthy relationships.
New Study on What is “Normal” in Relationships
This information and a lot more is now available thanks to Chrisanna Northrup and social science researchers, Pepper Schwartz and James Witte, who conducted an on-line survey of  more than 70,000 participants from around the world. The results, published in the new book, The Normal Bar, provide us with hard empirical evidence about what really goes on behind closed doors, not only in America but in Europe, Australia, Latin America and Asia. As Northrup discovered, ”Cultural stereotypes and the media’s fantasies of romance and lust have little to do with what really goes on in relationships, especially since conduct varies over time and across geographic boundaries.”

Although their study does indeed reveal some differences between men and women and across cultures which I will discuss in future blogs, the broad similarities are striking. Men and women in almost every country described communication as the biggest relationship issue. The only exception were the French respondents who ranked affection first and communication second. Go figure.

“Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.”  -Oscar Wilde

…

“There exists, for everyone, a sentence – a series of words – that has the power to destroy you. Another sentence exists, another series of words, that could heal you. If you’re lucky you will get the second, but you can be certain of getting the first.”                                                                                            -Author Philip K. Dick

It will probably come as no surprise that I have been writing since I could put pen to paper–that’s my bias. That being said, I’m not sure what I would have done without it. In my teen years and early adulthood when I would never (and did never) set foot in a therapy office, I created a safe space in my journals to express everything I couldn’t talk about. Years later, when I began my journey of self-exploration and healing in early adulthood, I was able to reflect with new eyes on everything I had written. What had I learned, if anything, and what was I supposed to learn from the lessons life was giving me?

If you are not in therapy because you don’t believe in it, can’t afford it, or it’s against your religion, writing may help you. If you are in therapy, writing may help you deepen your experience and make yourself the hero of your journey. If you are a parent, and want to know how to help your child deal with the recent traumas from Boston or Newtown, here are some ideas. What is the story you tell yourself about your life and what do you want it to be?

The Health Benefits of Writing

There is now a considerable body of research showing how powerful it can be to …

What do YOU do when you are trying to get your way? You may be lobbying to go to a certain restaurant that your husband hates. You may be wanting to spend money on something your wife thinks is unnecessary. You may be trying to get your kids to change into clean clothes before your company arrives.

Most of us use different approaches depending on who we are dealing with (friend or telemarketer), what we learned from our role models, and what we imagine might be effective.Think about how you might go about trying to get your way when the person you are trying to convince is resistant–and also happens to be your mate.

Less than two per cent of married couples proudly report never having had a disagreement. The rest of us mere mortals don’t know how that is even possible. Since conflict is an inevitable part of our romantic relationships, it is clearly something important to be smart about. What are the most effective ways to have influence over someone else? (Even though all the self-help books tell us that the only person we can change is ourselves, not surprisingly we are constantly trying to change our partner in little to big ways).

Various Methods of Influencing People: The Good and the Not So Good Ways

Here are the most commonly observed approaches. Most of us have probably tried our hand at all of them. Although I describe them as “strategies,” I don’t mean to imply that the person using each tactic has always made a conscious and deliberate choice to try to get their partner to change via this method. Often we simply fall into the habit of communicating in certain ways–even when they don’t serve us or our relationship.
#1: Compliance-based or the “If you do what I want, I will make your life so much better” strategy
This is an approach where one person tries to get the other to do what is desired by offering positive rewards or incentives to get the other to comply. It can be effective, …

“To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.” -Ogden Nash

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess who was kept in a lonely castle imprisoned by a wicked witch. One day, her knight in shining armor (her one true love, of course) rescued her from her despair, and they lived happily ever after…or so the story goes. Have you fallen under the spell of the fairy tale romance and been seduced by the myths of effortless everlasting love? If so, you are not alone. 

The truth of the matter is that healthy, strong relationships take grit. Grit is the word recently coined by researchers looking at the importance of deliberate practice for attaining mastery. Not only do great athletes, artists, creatives of all kinds, business entrepreneurs, successful students–you name it–take grit.  As it turns out, so do happy, loving marriages. In all cases, it is hard work that pays off, even more important than luck or talent.

Given that staying in love takes commitment, what are some tips that can help make our relationships more loving and satisfying?

Tip#1: For love to grow, we need to give it time and energy. 

Perhaps this should be obvious, but far too many couples just don’t make this happen. Our time gets eaten up by the demands of work, the children, the television, the computer, and the housework. We don’t even get enough time to sleep as much as our bodies need to remain alert and healthy. Still, creating time–even twenty minutes a day–is essential for us to stay in touch and feel connected. Don’t forget the date night. Even if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford not to. (Save money by trading childcare with friends or neighbors, pack a picnic, take a long walk together, put the kids to bed early and make a date just to hang out).

Tip #2: Be generous with your thoughts and actions.

Did …

“People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other’s personalities. Who wouldn’t? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that’s not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws?” -Elizabeth Gilbert

Myth #1: If we have fallen out of love, it means we can never get it back.

Far too often in my role as a psychotherapist, I have sat with couples in distress because one of them reports that he or she is no longer “in love”, and therefore must leave the relationship to find a more perfect love with someone else. Or the rejected partner tells the other to go ahead and leave, convinced that love, once lost, cannot be rekindled. How tragic that we have been so filled with images of romantic love that we think of it as something outside of our control. We wait for love, like a giant bird, to descend from some distant landscape and settle in our branches once again.

Myth #2: If we have fallen out of love, it means we married the wrong person.

This destructive myth makes many believe that love, once set into motion, will carry us along through the complexities of life, if only we are lucky enough, or if we choose the right person. Not so, since conflict, disagreement, hardship and misunderstandings are inevitable in every close relationship. To build a strong, lasting relationship, love is better thought of as a verb not a noun. Love is hard work and includes all of the ten keys described in How’s Your Family Really Doing? 10 Keys to a Happy Loving Family. This means learning things like how to listen deeply to one another, how to understand each other’s point of view, how to respect differences, argue constructively, and to forgive each other’s mistakes.

Myth 3#: If the romance and sex have disappeared, we should just accept the inevitable…the spark goes out over time.

If you talk to …

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development.”                                                                                            -Rainier Maria Rilke, poet

One of the ongoing polarities in any relationship–whether between marriage partners, parents and children, or friends–is the balancing act of closeness and distance. This is the ongoing dance of intimacy, and the key is to learn to move towards and to move away without seeing either polarity as right or wrong, good or bad. To forge the bonds of relationship takes time together but also takes time apart lest the bonds begin to feel too tight or binding.

In my last blog about the tug-of-war in relationships, I described the predictable stages of closeness and distance as the bond of intimacy develops over time, working towards the goal of mutual interdependence. What happens when a family goes through times of increased stress due to loss, trauma, illness or rapid change?

Stress and the Tug of War

When anxiety goes up in a family or relationship due to times of rapid change, each of us has a preference for one side of the polarity. When stressed, young children cling more to one or both parents, whereas adolescents often do the opposite and pull away, locking themselves into their bedroom and refusing to talk. What do you do? What does your partner do? Is it more painful for you to be more distant from loved ones or do you feel …

There’s a tug-of-war going on in intimate relationships all across the country. A conflict, although sometimes never fully resolved, that can make or break a marriage. It often rears its head around Valentine’s Day, birthdays, or anniversaries. Can you guess what it is?

If you or your partner has been voicing the sentiments in the following list, you are not alone. It’s normal.

•  ”You never spend time with me!”
• “I need to be able to spend time with my friends.”
• “Why can’t we just hang out and talk like we used to?”
• “I wish you would find your own friends or get more hobbies.”
• “Why don’t you take better care of yourself and learn to be happy.”

One of the ongoing polarities in any relationship–whether between marriage partners, parents and children, or friends–is the balancing act of closeness and distance. This is the ongoing dance of intimacy, and the key is to learn to move towards and to move away without seeing either polarity as right or wrong, good or bad. To forge the bonds of relationship takes time together but also takes time apart lest the bonds begin to feel too tight or binding.

The Stages of Intimacy

The dance of intimacy and autonomy goes through predictable stages as a couple passes through the family life cycle. At the beginning, when couples are getting to know one another, and are falling in love, they tend to spend so much time together that other friends and family may feel abandoned or neglected. The first stage is all about closeness and bonding or the relationship never gets off the ground. Once the bond is established, a new stage emerges where each person feels safe enough to assert his or her individuality.

The second stage, known by psychotherapists as differentiation, was named after the biological process when cells or tissues start to become specialized in their functions. It is a necessary and positive movement that is crucial for healthy growth and development. But the process of differentiation in couples–moving from “we are one” to becoming two unique individuals in relationship–is often confusing and painful for couples. In fact, …

“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

The wish to seek and have a deep sense of family connection and commitment is universal. Ask people what is most important to them and their first answer is always the same–their family. Our families give us a sense of identity and belonging, reminding us of who we are and what is unique about us. They are also the context, the garden soil, out of which our individuality flowers. The metaphor of a garden is an apt one for many reasons. All over the world, there are gardens of vastly different designs, planted at different times, at different stages of growth and decay, with different types of plants. In spite of the fact that no two are alike, all gardens have some common needs–sunlight and water, planting of seeds and cutting back weeds. In short, for a garden to flourish, it needs tending.

What gives families a strong sense of connection? The answer is so simple even though often so difficult to do. We must spend quality time together, or if separated by geography, spend time communicating. Only by making the time to share the details of our daily lives as well as our successes, hardships, dreams and disappointments can we reap the rewards of our intimate bonds. Twenty-first century families are more isolated than ever before. With both parents working more hours than ever and with the demands of work infiltrating family time via computers and cell phones, most everyone we talk to complains about the same thing. There’s just not enough time!

“Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, …

“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
― George Bernard Shaw

When I see couples or families in therapy, improving communication is often the first goal. Most people, convinced that they are already good communicators, quickly discover that many of their skills need honing. Effective communication can be far more difficult than any of us first imagined. I am constantly shocked and reminded just how easy it is to hurt or be hurt by our loved ones due to correctable misunderstandings. What are some of the most common mistakes all of us make?

One of the most universal communication errors in our relationships with our parents, partners, and children is that we are tempted to speak without thinking first. This is understandable because we are typically less guarded with people we feel close to. The downside of having this increased freedom of expression is that we often blurt things that we would never even dream of saying out loud to a friend or colleague.

Hence, Tip #1: Engage your brain before you open your mouth, and ask yourself if anyone will really be served by what you are about to say. The old adage “some things are better left unsaid” happens to be true. Healthy families are lavish when it comes to sharing positive words and more restrained and deliberate when it comes to delivering negative feedback.

The  second most common error is that we assume that the other person actually understands precisely what we have communicated. Unfortunately, this is very often not the case. Tip #2: The more important the information being communicated, the more we need to slow down, taking ample time to make sure that the message we are sending is the same one that our loved one is receiving. The best remedy for this (besides making your communications short and to the point) is to learn how to paraphrase and make a habit of asking the listener what they heard. I know that this may sound incredibly tedious, boring, and unnatural–which it will be until you get better at it. Difficult as this may be at first, the …