CHAPTER 19

                                                                 CHOICE 10. LOVE IS A VERB: 

                                   CYCLES OF CONNECTION, DISCONNECTION, AND RECONNECTION

"Love is a verb. Love – the feeling — is the fruit of love the verb or our loving actions. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. "

                                                                                                            Stephen R. Covey

"Love is a verb, not a noun. It is active. Love is not just feelings of passion and romance. It is behavior.

                                                                                                            Susan Forward

"Love has to be more than something we feel. It has to be something we do, demonstrated concretely in our marriage, our family, among our friends and acquaintances, and, yes, even among our enemies."

                                                                                                           Gary Chapman

Ah, romantic love! It's sweet, exhilarating, life-changing. It's the central theme of books (fiction and nonfiction), poems, music, movies, and everyday conversation. We want it to last forever, and often assume that it will.

However, there's not much success in romantic love. Ae you shocked? You might be thinking: "What? Then why am I reading this book?"

Well, just think about it logically for a moment. Most romantic relationships are short-lived. A few last and grow into longer-term committed relationships.

When romantic love leads to commitment and possibly culminates in marriage, it's still a very risky business. Approximately half of married couples will divorce, and that doesn't mean the other half are deliriously happy. Maybe half of them would be willing to marry the same partner again, so we’re down to about 25% who are truly happy. What are your odds?

Well, that all depends. If you master the art of dialogue as discussed in Chapter 17 (which we described as a very unusual and unnatural way to communicate), and follow our other suggestions, your odds are pretty good.

However, many are leery of commitment and marriage. We're meeting an increasing number of young people who have stopped believing in marriage. They don't feel inspired by their parents, or by society at large. Many feel jaded (bored, tired, and not enthusiastic) because of too much frustration and disappointment, observed or personally experienced.

Many simply don't want to unnecessarily complicate their lives. Many simply don't trust love.

Tina Turner mirrors a common sentiment in her song: "What's love got to do with it?"

You must understand though the touch of your hand makes my pulse react

That it's only the thrill of boy meeting girl

Opposites attract

It's physical

Only logical

You must try to ignore that it means more than that

What's love got to do with it, got to do with it

What's love but a secondhand emotion

What's love got to do, got to do with it

Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken

Yes, love is risky business. Love means being vulnerable, and for many, vulnerability means danger. If you're vulnerable, you can be hurt. Yet love isn't going to get off the ground without vulnerability. A dilemma! Most of us will take the risk, again and again, even though hurt in the past.

a saying that quickly became proverbial. Nearly 80% of formally married people will remarry, despite having gone through one of the roughest experiences us humans encounter– the end of a love relationship.

We need connection like we need oxygen. Writer Donna Goddard sums it up eloquently in her book, Love's Longing:

“Somewhere along the way, there develops within the soul a yearning that can no longer be ignored, a craving for the great love affair. It is incomparable. It is the love affair with our own true nature and the source from which it comes. The desire is in all of us but, more often than not, it is ignored for other interests. Human love is the shadow of the Great love and, of all loves, it is romantic love which has the most riveting effect upon our soul. It is not by accident that it has such an unfailing pull on our psyche. If we cannot connect with visible human love, we will not be able to find the invisible Love. Human love is leading us, most of us unknowingly, straight to Love’s secret way; which is no secret at all”.

It's a deep-felt need, lifelong. Some give up believing they can ever find it, but most of us continue to experience the deep yearning that Donna Goddard talks about. Most of us believe in love and remain hopeful. Yet, there are so many things that get in the way. In spite of how much we need lasting love, it can sometimes be elusive, sometimes uncertain, sometimes tantalizingly within reach, sometimes slipping away all too soon.

However, there's a lot you can do to improve the odds of being successful in your long-term love relationship. That's what this book is all about — helping you master “Intentional Relating.”

When our clients "get it," we're thrilled. When they truly understand how to keep love alive and keep love growing, it's truly rewarding for us. It's why we love our work.

Just prior to writing this chapter, Bill had one of those breakthrough moments with a client who gets it. Let's call him Jack.

Jack was excited, in fact exuberant. After a few difficult months he could now confidently see a path to a secure marital future.

He and Susan had hit a rough spot in their marriage. Susan had begun doubting his love for her, acting out her insecurity with questions that seemed more like accusations. She was easily angered and often tearful. Jack would protest, defend, and sometimes angrily walk out. Of course, when he emotionally shut down or left the scene, Susan would be flooded with anxiety, often feeling panic over what seemed like abandonment.  Jack and Susan were struggling. Even though they'd been married for 13 years, the future was in doubt.

For several months Jack had been reading our materials and working on a different approach. He'd been getting better at calming down, letting go of defensiveness, putting his own issues on the back burner for a while, and instead tuning into Susan and working on understanding her deeper needs, with empathy, acceptance, and validation. Here's how Jack expressed it to Bill:

 “Things are so different now. Before, I was certain that there was something really wrong with Susan. Why else would she keep getting upset with me? Why was she so emotional? Why couldn't she see my point of view? It just seemed so wrong. Why would I want to stay married to someone who is so difficult to be with?”

“Then I started listening to what you were trying to tell me. I started being curious about what was behind Susan's distress. I stopped telling myself stories about how she just wanted to make me miserable, and how unfair it all was. I started listening. I stopped trying to convince her she was wrong, and I stopped withdrawing.”

“The two of us began co-creating a sense of safety. We made it a priority to create a marital environment where we could talk about anything and everything, at any time. Susan began sharing what she had learned in her own therapy, and I was listening. I learned about the pain of her childhood, things that were frightening to a small child, and most of all, I learned about her deep sense of abandonment. I was moved. I truly felt for her and I wanted to help her heal old wounds. I realized that the healing could only come through the safety of a committed relationship, a relationship where she felt fully understood.”

“I listen now. I don't withdraw. I don't defend. I'm simply there for her, understanding, accepting, and validating”.

“Instead of defending and feeling like a victim, I now choose to re-envision her having been a wounded child. She’s not my enemy, and I want to care for her and help her heal.”

“It's working, our relationship is stronger. Empathy is flowing in both directions. We're more patient with each other. Our relationship is deeply satisfying and now the future seems exciting rather than frightening and discouraging.”

Jack is understanding how long-term relationships work. It's not just a matter of honoring your marriage vows or sharing children together. You can be in the 25%, but not without the kind of self awareness and self-management that makes you a pro at being in relationship.

Of course, you deserve to be happy in your relationship, and you deserve to feel safe and connected. However, you're falling short if your partner doesn't also feel safe and connected — even cherished. This isn't terribly hard in the beginning of most relationships. Romantic love is nature's anesthetic. It attracts you and keeps you together long enough for an emotional bond to form, but keeping love alive for the long haul is the challenge, and the subject of this chapter.

Long-term relationships are rewarding at times, disappointing at times, and ultimately incredibly satisfying if you both hang in there and grow as your relationship grows. However, the path is rarely smooth and more like a journey of peaks and valleys; In fact, it may seem like a journey of impassable mountain ranges, barren deserts, or raging flood waters with an occasional earthquake or tornado thrown in.

It can be very helpful to accept the reality of the inevitable ups and downs of a long-term relationship, knowing that the hard times are not only predictable, but also manageable, and that lasting love and commitment can lie beyond the difficulties.

As we discussed in reviewing the work of Harville Hendrix and Imago Relationship Therapy, a power struggle is virtually inevitable following romantic attraction and romantic love. Working through that power struggle gets you to a place where you finally have maximum opportunity to heal old wounds and grow as a person within a safe committed relationship.

Ellyn Bader, PhD, and Peter T. Pearson, PhD, in their book In Quest of the Mythical Mate: A Developmental Approach to Diagnosis and Treatment in Couples Therapy, ask the Question "What Do We Do after We Fall in Love?" Bader and Pearson draw upon the research of Margaret Mahler and her theory of infant developmental stages. The authors see similar qualities characterizing the development of long-term relationships between adult partners.

Couples move through developmental stages with specific tasks to be mastered in each stage. Difficulties follow when individuals fail to master stage specific developmental tasks and therefore get stuck on a particular stage.

Couplehood, according to Bader and Pearson, evolves through five stages. The first stage, Symbiosis, is the stage of being newly in love. According to Bader and Pearson:

“Here There Is a Merging of Lives, Personalities, and Intense Bonding between the Two Lovers. The Purpose of This Stage Is Attachment. To Allow for the Merger, Similarities Are Magnified and Differences Are Overlooked."

The second stage, Differentiation, is where differences emerge and a power struggle may develop. Again, according to Bader and Pearson:

"This stage is rarely easy! As time passes, one person may start thinking about wanting more space from the other. As a couple, they began noticing differences and feel that they don't want to spend quite so much time together. They may want more privacy and may feel guilty and ask, What's happened? Why don't I feel the way I used to?"

The third stage is Practicing. Bader and Pearson state:

"autonomy and individuation our primary; at this point the partners are rediscovering themselves as individuals. Developing self becomes more important than developing the relationship. Here, issues of self-esteem, individual power, and worthwhileness become central."

This is a stage where conflict may be increased and couples need to be really good at managing and resolving conflict while maintaining a balance between needs for emotional connection and self-development.

The fourth stage, Rapprochment, is a stage where partners have developed their own identity and feel safe again turning toward the relationship for intimacy and emotional support. According to Bader and Pearson:

"Vulnerability reemerges. Partners now see comfort and support one another. They alternate between periods of increased intimacy and efforts to reestablish independence. Although partners in this stage may find either the intimacy or the independence at times to be threatening, their anxiety will be resolved more quickly because negotiation is not as difficult as before."

Finally, the fifth stage is Mutual Interdependence or Constancy. Again, according to Bader and Pearson:

"Here, the two well-integrated individuals have found satisfaction in their own lives, have developed a bond that is deep and mutually satisfying, and have built a relationship based on the foundation of growth rather than on one of need."

Bader and Pearson have developed a Developmental Model for working with couples. They look at where each individual is in the developmental phases of the relationship. They found that many problems occur when there is an imbalance between developmental stages producing a "see-saw" effect where couples alternate between conflict and withdrawal. Diagnosing the couples developmental issues helps therapists figure out what skills are needed by each partner as well as determining joint issues to be addressed.

We find Bader and Pearson's Developmental Model to be very useful, particularly while working with couples in long-term relationships.

We are now in our fourth decade of marriage and the Developmental Model certainly makes sense looking back. In our Symbiotic stage we were caught up in romantic love, forming a strong bond and satisfying a deep need for attachment. We were struck by how similar we were in so many ways and differences seemed unimportant. It was so easy to be mutually nurturing.

In the Differentiation stage we began to realize that we had very different interests and began reestablishing our own boundaries. In the Practicing stage we found ourselves having more and more interests and relationships away from each other and developing a sense of self became as important or more important than developing or nurturing the relationship. Issues of self-esteem became central and yes, there was conflict.

"In long-term relationships… We are called upon to navigate that delicate balance between separateness and connectedness… We confront the challenge of sustaining both — without losing either."

Harriet Lerner

In Rapprochment we had become more comfortable in our individuality, each feeling competent and secure in our identity. We looked again to the relationship for a secure emotional connection. There was some back and forth between increased intimacy and reestablishing independence. And, there was increased vulnerability

Finally, in a stage of Constancy or Mutual Interdependence we find ourselves growing together, comfortable with the differences, and fully committed to helping one another on our shared journey. We've fully accepted that we are different people and that's okay. We have deep respect for one another and readily work together.

We're in a good place.

Trust and Betrayal

For couples to ultimately make it to the stage of constancy and mutual interdependence, achieving and maintaining a positive relationship, there are certain conditions that need to be established.

John Gottman describes these conditions in his book: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Establishing a deep and trusting friendship, having a willingness to be influenced, and being gentle with one another during times of conflict, are vital qualities. Simple right? If that’s all you have to do, what’s the problem?

Love is not all you need, and love doesn’t conquer all. Couples who love each other often become intensely adversarial, damaging and even destroying what was once an incredibly strong bond. Gottman talks about such couples being trapped in an "absorbing state of negativity. He further states:

"The probability that they will enter the state is greater than the odds that they will avoid it. In other words, they get stuck."

So, what is it that poisons a love relationship? Why do couples lose the magic of the early part of the relationship? Gottman, in his book: What Makes Love Last?: How to Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal, refers to the love destroying toxin as "betrayal."

By betrayal, Gutman is speaking broadly and not necessarily about a sexual affair. According to Gottman:

"Betrayal is a secret that lies at the heart of every failing relationship — it is there even if the couple is unaware of it. If a husband always puts his career ahead of his relationship, that is betrayal. When a wife keeps breaking her promise to start a family, that is also betrayal. Pervasive coldness, selfishness, unfairness, and other destructive behaviors are also evidence of disloyalty and can lead to consequences as equally devastating as adultery."

Gottman goes on to say:

"I now know that there is a fundamental principle for making relationships work that serves as an antidote to unfaithfulness, that principle is trust”. How do you build trust?

Gottman is a scientist and much of his research is statistical and mathematical. Many couples seem to operate out of the basic principle of game theory, where your relationship is a zero-some game, where there is a winner and a loser. If you're both thinking in terms of winning and losing you will come to distrust your partner, taking the stance that they should change to maximize your benefit. Of course, your partner is probably thinking you should change your behavior to benefit them. An atmosphere of distrust exists when one of you or neither of you is including the well-being of your partner in your calculations.

Gottman goes on to say:

"I now know that there is a fundamental principle for making relationships work that serves as an antidote to unfaithfulness, that principle is trust”. How do you build trust?

Gottman is a scientist and much of his research is statistical and mathematical. Many couples seem to operate out of the basic principle of game theory, where your relationship is a zero-some game, where there is a winner and a loser. If you're both thinking in terms of winning and losing you will come to distrust your partner, taking the stance that they should change to maximize your benefit. Of course, your partner is probably thinking you should change your behavior to benefit them. An atmosphere of distrust exists when one of you or neither of you is including the well-being of your partner in your calculations.

Gottman goes on to say:

"I now know that there is a fundamental principle for making relationships work that serves as an antidote to unfaithfulness, that principle is trust”. How do you build trust?

Gottman is a scientist and much of his research is statistical and mathematical. Many couples seem to operate out of the basic principle of game theory, where your relationship is a zero-some game, where there is a winner and a loser. If you're both thinking in terms of winning and losing you will come to distrust your partner, taking the stance that they should change to maximize your benefit. Of course, your partner is probably thinking you should change your behavior to benefit them. An atmosphere of distrust exists when one of you or neither of you is including the well-being of your partner in your calculations.

The Nash Equilibrium

Gottman maintains that to build trust you have to look at the opposite of distrust. According to Gottman:

"Trust is not some vague quality that grows between two people. It is a specific state that exist when you are both willing to change your own behavior to benefit your partner. The more trust that exist in a relationship, the more you look out for each other. You have your beloveds back, and vice versa. In a trusting relationship you feel pleasure when your partner succeeds and troubled when he or she is upset."

The "Nash Equilibrium” is so named for John Nash, the Nobel prize-winning mathematician who was the subject of the movie: A Beautiful Mind. In the Nash Equilibrium you both receive maximum benefit when the focus is on increasing each other's benefits, and not merely your own. This is quite different than they "win-lose," or "zero-sum" mindset that is central to game theory, and most relationships.

The bottom line according to Gottman? Happy couples, who remain happy over a long-term relationship, are those that seek to maximize their partner's benefits along with their own.

Happy couples are giving couples, and couples that care about the happiness of their partner enough to sacrifice. According to Gottman:

"In a long-term, committed relationship, sacrifice entails both people agreeing to give the romance priority over other goals and dreams.”

Love Maps, Fondness and Admiration, and Turning Toward

John Gottman has developed a concept called the Sound Relationship House, represented schematically as a house with seven levels. Each level represents a basic process or component of a sound relationship.

The first three levels, building love maps, sharing fondness and admiration, and turning towards rather than away, are the basic ingredients of a couple's friendship– and friendship is what sustains a successful long-term relationship. If you have a deep satisfying friendship you have what Gottman calls "positive sentiment override," a reserve of good feeling that will help you weather conflict.

The most basic level, building love maps, is about asking open-ended questions and forever remaining curious about your partner. We are now in our fourth decade and still learning about one another. Whatever we thought we knew about each other needs to be updated from time to time.

Sharing fondness and admiration according to Gottman means "Building a culture of appreciation, fondness, affection, and respect," rather than being focused on your partner's mistakes.

Turning toward your partner rather than away from them, or turning against them, is the way you build your relationship bank account. According to Gottman: "The fundamental process is building awareness of how one's partner asks for connection and expresses emotional needs, and deciding to turn toward these bids (rather than turning away or against)."

Clearly, if you're going to have a long-term relationship that is satisfying, these are essential ingredients and provide a solid foundation for lasting friendship.

Sympathetic Joy

In Buddhist teaching the four highest qualities of the heart or brahmaviharas are: loving-kindness, compassion, equanimity, and sympathetic joy (Pali: mudita). The first three are vitally important for your relationship and have gotten a lot of attention from psychologists. Can you cultivate a consistent quality of kindness and compassion for your partner, even when you disagree or feel wronged by them? Can you maintain a sense of calm and be a calm, nonreactive presence even during conflict?

The fourth quality of the heart, sympathetic joy, is all about being happy for someone else's happiness. This can be the most challenging of the four, but can be magic in enhancing the longevity of your relationship. How about you? Can you get genuinely happy when your partner shares things that make him or her happy?

So, want to build a successful and happy long-term relationship? Work on:

• Trust based on a valuing of your partner's needs and feelings as well as your own
• Effective conflict resolution habits
• Rituals of connection rather than disconnection
• Awareness of the developmental tasks for the particular stage of your couple relationship
• Commitment to ongoing personal and relational growth
• Building your love map, knowing your partner deeply.
• Demonstrating fondness and admiration, expressions of caring and respect
• Turning toward your partner rather than turning away or against
• Sympathetic joy, celebrating and supporting your partners success and happiness
• Patience and perseverance in building strong positive habits

THE THOUGHTS BEHIND THE CHOICE 10 SELF-ASSESSMENT STATEMENTS (CHAPTER 9)

a. I realize that much of being successful in a long-term relationship is cultivating habits of friendship such as being curious about your world, being aware of and recognizing your positive qualities and behaviors, building a sense of being on the same journey together, and responding positively to your bids for connection. These are habits I am actively developing and demonstrating on a daily basis.

Not enough attention is given to keeping friendship alive. When divorcing couples are asked about the major cause of their breakup, 40% say it’s mainly about their fighting. Fully 60% say that they gradually drifted apart, so one conclusion might be that what happens between the fights is even more important than the fights.

 Happily married people are friends who frequently express fondness and admiration for one another. They have what John Gottman calls "positive sentiment override," with such a backlog of good feelings that they easily cruise through difficult times. They have at least five positive interactions for every negative interaction.

They remain curious about their partner's world. They readily express appreciation and acknowledge the positive behaviors of their partner. They share common meaning and purpose, and see themselves on a satisfying journey together. They are aware of their partner's bids for connection and respond positively to those bids. They in turn make many bids for connection, large and small.

b. I am committed to healing conversations. I'm willing to hear about your frustrations and when you feel hurt or misunderstood. I recognize that being happy in a long-term relationship involves accepting responsibility for my share of our difficulties and listening patiently and fully, without defensiveness or avoidance, as you share frustrations and disappointments. I demonstrate my willingness to fully process and work through any unfinished business.

Long-term relationships tend to accumulate unwanted baggage. You or your partner may want to talk about things that have been hurtful or distressing, but are reluctant to do so out of fear of conflict or being misunderstood. How you react to each other when past hurts are brought up will determine whether or not those hurts are resolved. Unresolved hurts can be toxic for the relationship and may never go away (See the Zeigarnik Effect in Chapter 17).

When your partner wants to talk about past hurts, listen! Don't debate. Don't get caught up in talking about the facts and how your memory may be different. Forget about accuracy and shift to understanding your partner's pain or frustration. Tune into the underlying feelings and validate. You don't have to agree. You could say something like: "When I take your perspective I can understand how you would feel that way." It's not agreement but it goes a long way toward helping your partner feel listened to and understood, and that can powerfully clear the way for resolution.

 Don't tell your partner that it's all in their head. Don't get caught up in trying to justify your actions by talking about what your partner did wrong. And whatever you do, don't tell your partner they should be over it by now. That kind of invalidating response is sure to draw fire and deepen the hurt.

 Healing conversations are vital to a long-term relationship successfully progressing through different stages leading ultimately to the stage of constancy and mutual interdependence. Unfortunately, these healing conversations usually don't happen or get hijacked by the blame game, avoidance, or being minimized and discounted. This is how you get stuck on a particular stage, unable to move forward with relationship growth.

 c. We are different people and there will always be disagreements. I am not quick to conclude that you are wrong. I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt before getting caught up in the belief that you are being selfish, immature, stubborn, etc. I don't engage in the blame game. I don't jump to conclusions. I get more information. I accept what you want to tell me as useful information about how you view your world.

Romantic love  (Symbiotic Stage) is probably the easy part. Sooner or later, the two of you are going to find yourselves in a power struggle. It's inevitable. Although obscured at first, you are two different people with different thoughts, feelings, memories, goals, and maybe even values. You will probably make mistakes in how you handle those differences.

For your relationship to grow into a successful long-term relationship, relationship repairs are needed for relationship missteps, misunderstandings, and outright blunders — and you will both make blunders. You both have natural tendencies for self-protection, tendencies that underlie relationship damaging habits that you bring to the relationship, habits that are largely automatic and hard to change. These habits will continue to damage your relationship until you master the art of relationship repair.

It will take considerable practice to develop awareness of your negative habits, and the self-management skills needed to take your relationship in a different direction. Perhaps the most important skill to develop is self-regulation, the ability to slow things down, delay reacting, instead choosing to listen to understand. Learn to listen for valuable information about your partner's world, even when he or she is angry. Listen deeply. Listen for underlying feelings and unmet needs.

d. I am aware that the outcome of our disagreements can be predicted based upon the first three minutes of conflict. My response to you depends upon whether or not I am triggered, causing me to have intense physiological reacting, instantaneous negative conclusions, and knee-jerk automatic reactions. I am fully committed to developing a greater awareness of my triggers and a greater ability to slow things down and respond with an awareness of your needs and feelings. I’m becoming conscious and intentional.

Another impressive Gottman finding was that "diffuse physiological arousal" is perhaps the most important determinant of a negative outcome for a disagreement — and it's automatic! Gottman and his researchers found that husbands who ultimately divorced had significantly higher heart rates during conflict. In fact The husbands who were destined to have stable marriages had lower heart rates by 17 bpm. Similar results were found for women. Those women destined for divorce had significantly faster blood flow than women in stable marriages.

When your heart rate speeds up even slightly you may find yourself in fight or flight mode, and neither fight or flight are going to be the least bit helpful in resolving conflict and building a relationship. You may also want to freeze or flee. Again, these are not beneficial responses, unless there is real danger.

Other stress responses include sweating, rapid and shallow breathing, and the production of stress hormones. Your brain may be responding as though there is a threat to your survival. The bottom line? When there is diffuse physiological arousal, the fight or flight response, you've lost a bunch of IQ points. Your ability to take in information through your senses is greatly diminished, as is your ability to pay attention, empathize, or engage in creative problem-solving. In such a state it's entirely natural to become overly defensive, or to engage in blaming or avoiding.

We work to help our clients become acutely aware of their stress response. We help them develop the ability to catch themselves becoming “up-tight,” and to take a break if necessary, using their breath awareness to slow down, calm down, relax, give up control, give up having to win, give up having to fix it, instead being willing to simply pursue understanding.

Important! When taking a break be sure to let your partner know what you're doing, and make it a short time-limited break you will use to get yourself together so as to be more receptive for a conscious and intentional discussion. If you simply walk out abruptly in the conversation, your partner will probably feel panicky, and may attack verbally (or even physically) to get you to stay connected.

e. I build trust by balancing my interests and your interests. I do not see our interactions as "win-lose." Instead, I consistently work to maximize the benefit to both of us. I am willing to be influenced and I am willing to negotiate.

Again, John Gottman; are you willing to be influenced by your partner? One Gottman finding was that husbands who were unwilling to be influenced by their wives, were unlikely to stay married. Accept that you are two different people. Conflict is inevitable. You are either living your lives in perpetual gridlock or perpetual dialogue. Are you willing to give your partner's interests equal weight?

Successful partners know how to negotiate, and they do so with a high degree of acceptance and respect. Thinking and feeling differently is okay!

f. I am aware that a long-term relationship has ups and downs, periods of connection, disconnection, and reconnection. I'm aware that romantic love, although usually deeply pleasurable and exhilarating, is just one phase of our relationship. I accept that our relationship will change, and that there are challenges, such as finances, career pressures or raising children, that stress our connection. I am meeting the challenges head-on with a commitment to working wholeheartedly with you rather than against you. My behavior reflects my belief that the relationship, our partnership, is a top priority.

Two thirds of couples report less marital satisfaction after the birth of their first child, and many other pressures will impact your relationship. Many of the couples we’ve talked to are so busy and so stressed that they are often exhausted and feeling depleted when they finally have time together. Many express disappointment that the relationship is not the way it once was.

Reality can be difficult. Your relationship will change. Over time the passion of the early days of your relationship may dwindle. You may find that you each have other things on your minds beside each other.

It can be helpful to be aware of the stages discussed in the first part of this chapter. Ultimately, your relationship may be very stable and satisfying, but you may have to weather some difficult changes in the meantime. Talk about challenges with your partner. Develop a game plan for meeting those challenges head-on — together! Make preserving and strengthening the relationship, even during hard times, an unwavering commitment.

g. I accept our differences and the fact that we will always have disagreements. I proactively plan for productive discussions. I make an effort to focus on interests (what we each want) and options (our possible collaborative or win-win actions), rather than our surface positions (our immediate assertions, usually related to who is right or wrong, good or bad). I look for solutions where we both benefit, searching for options (often creative) where we both gain.

According to John Gottman, for approximately two thirds of your disagreements, you will always disagree. These "perpetual issues" tend to happen over and over again, sometimes for the life of the relationship. You don't have to wait until another one of these issues surfaces again. You can proactively plan conversations for when you both have time, aren't distracted, and when stress levels are low. You can accept that you will always have differences, and it doesn't have to be a big deal. You can accept that you're with a different human being and work proactively to prevent, minimize, or resolve the perpetual issues that inevitably pop up.

h. I do not become complacent about our relationship. I make it a point to frequently observe, listen, and invite your input and feedback on relationship matters. I frequently "check-in" with you during our interaction to get your thoughts on the process, i.e., what is helping or not helping.

In this book we've written a lot about habits. All relationships can be looked at in terms of good habits and bad habits. How aware are you of habits you need to work on?

Have you become complacent? Do you actively seek feedback from your partner? Can you hear feedback without getting defensive? If you can, you've got a golden opportunity to make positive changes. All you have to give up is your need to be blameless or your belief that you’re an  innocent victim.

If you can bring yourself to understand how your partner sees you, you can free yourself from a lot of blunders that damage the relationship or keep it from being more satisfying.

Engage in "meta-communication which is communicating about communicating. High functioning couples do this a lot. They take the time to talk about the relationship. They ask their partner how the relationship is going for them, and they listen non-defensively to the answer, with visible sincerity.

You don't have to always agree with your partner, and you don't always have to do what your partner wants you to do, but you should at least need be willing to hear them. Listen with openness, and without an “attitude.”  If the shoe fits, wear It! It might be good for you, and it just might be good for the relationship.

i. I am proactive about trust building through giving and sacrifice. I do not wait for trust problems to develop in our relationship. I look for ways to give freely of myself so as build open communication, trust, safety, and a sense of productivity, optimism, and satisfaction.

For Susan Johnson, a creator of Emotionally Focused Therapy, the basic question for partners is: "Are you there for me?" Can your partner trust you to be there for him or her?

When John Gottman talks about betrayal, he's not talking simply about extramarital affairs. He's talking about what you feel when you believe your partner places other things above caring for you. Trust on the other hand is built by consistently communicating to your partner that their well-being matters to you, and that you're willing to sacrifice to help them meet their needs.

j. I strive to be aware and stay aware of process as well as content. Content is the subject of our communication, what we are talking about, while process is the way you and I relate. I believe a focus on how we relate is often the key to building our relationship and producing a collaborative effort.  I focus on the process so as to not let the discussion become sidetracked into a debate over who is right and who is wrong. When I see us stuck or at an impasse about an issue, I invite you to join with me in discussing the process and how we as a team might do it better or differently. I acknowledge that I may not have all relevant information and I invite you to share your point of view with full assurance that I will listen with an open mind.

What you are talking about is often far less important than "how" you are talking to each other.   Can  you develop the habit of staying calm and respectful, even when you are angry. Can you avoid the blame game? Can you readily communicate to your partner that you may have as much of the blame for how events have unfolded as they have.?

Can you invite your partner to join with you in taking a look at how you are talking to each other? Can you invite your partner to join with you and slow down to really listen to each other. You may not agree with each other, but you need to be engaged in a process of pursuing understanding rather than agreement, a process that is caring and intentional rather than business as usual.

What’s the next step?

When your love relationship is new and all you can see are the positives, being in the relationship may seem easy and uncomplicated. While we sometimes see new partners for couple counseling, it's more typical to see people who have been together for 5 to 10 years, or longer.

Over time, problems creep into the relationship. Often, they get recycled, or avoided. Over time, there is more blaming, defensiveness, and frustration. Many start to question whether they made the right choice in a partner. The joy and passion that once characterized the relationship may be ebbing away.

It's absolutely vital that you see these issues not as signs that your relationship is wrong or has failed, but as growing pains — your relationship is trying to work! The power struggle was predictable. The challenge is to adapt to the changes with self-awareness and skillful self-management.

We see couples in every stage of the relationship, and we work with people still in their teens as well as senior citizens (our oldest couples to date have been in their 80s). They all have the same basic need. They're looking for a secure satisfying relationship — a secure attachment.

The next step is recognizing and accepting that all relationships over time have challenges, and that the path forward requires a willingness to meet the challenges with love, acceptance, knowledge, patience, and a strong commitment to personal and relational growth. The commitment also involves owning your own responsibility to grow in self-awareness and self-management, within the context of your relationship.

Remember, you both need to make changes, and as the relationship changes, is necessary for both of you to adapt and grow.

Don't wait for your partner to make the first move.

"If you want a recipe for relationship failure, just wait for the other person to change first."

Harriet Lerner

Tips for Improvement: The Shortlist

 Consider dialoging with your partner about where your relationship is from a developmental perspective. If you're in a new relationship and you both agree that you want it to be forever, Have a realistic discussion about how relationships change over time. Make a commitment to each other to adapt and change as necessary, never turning away from the relationship, abandoning your commitment, or turning to someone outside of your relationship for need satisfaction.

 If your relationship has already lasted for a considerable period of time, try to engage your partner in dialogue about changes, positive and negative. Talk about perceptions and talk about desired changes. Remember to listen with non-reactivity, openness and a willingness to learn.

Consider developing a “Shared Relationship Vision as suggested by Harville Hendrix, founder of Imago Relationship. Each of you makes a list of everything you want in your relationship, stating each item on your list in the present tense such as: "We work together in raising healthy children." Then get together and generate a Shared Relationship Vision, including only those items you agree upon, or can agree upon with slight modification through discussion

Invite your partner to work through this book together, setting aside regular time to discuss material from the book.

There are numerous exercises throughout the book such as "H42 or Habitualizing for Two." Remember, you can systematically shape new habits. Self-Directed Neuroplasticity means you can use your mind to change your brain. You can become very mindful of habits that need to change, and you can change those habits using the strategies outlined in this book.

Focus on steadily improving your score to the “Good,” or “Optimal” levels. If you are working specifically on this choice area, take the short assessment on a daily basis utilizing the 31 day form found on our website.

Re-take the self-test from this chapter, as part of the overall Mindful Choices for Couples monthly assessment.

Choice 10 Personal Development Worksheet

1: Identify a foundational value, or values.  In other words, why is this Mindful Choice for Couples important to me?  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 2: How would I describe my present Choice 10 performance? 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

3: In regard to Choice 10, what are the behaviors I want to change?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4: What is my personal vision for Choice 10?  Imagining some point in the future, what do I see myself doing in regard to Choice 8? 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5: What do I hope to get from Choice 10:

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6: To pursue Choice 10 to the point that I am  much more conscious and intentional in my relationships, how will I have to be in ways that might constitute a major stretch for me?  Do I need a new way of being that would constitute a paradigm shift?  Are there radically different ways of being (thinking, feeling, acting) that contribute to doing Mindful Choice 10 and getting what I want to get?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7: In regard to Choice 10, How will I have to act on a daily or ongoing basis so that I wind up doing what I want to do, and getting what I want to get, and being the way I want to be? How do I have to discipline myself to have consistent, routine, and well-practiced daily or ongoing actions that steadily contribute to the results I really want and value in my life?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8: What are the barriers such as negative self-talk or lack of time that might prevent me from reaching my Choice 10 goals?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

9: Who will be helpful or supportive in my Choice 10 change efforts?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

10: How will I be rewarded while I am accomplishing the changes I desire?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

11: how important is this to me on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being extremely important?  How might I sabotage the plan, or allow others to sabotage the plan?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

12: I am committing to the following SMART goal (Specific as to actions I will take, Meaningful and in alignment with my values, Adaptive in that I strongly believe my life will be improved, Realistic and achievable, and Time-framed with specific time dedicated).

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 References

Bader, E. & Pearson, P. (1988). In Quest of the Mythical Mate: A Developmental Approach to Diagnosis and Treatment in Couples Therapy.New York, NY: Bruner?Mazel.

Goddard, D. (2018). Love’s Longing. Melbourne, Australia: Create Space Independent Pub

Gottman, J. M. (2002). The Relationship Cure: A Five Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships. New York, NY: Harmony.

Gottman, J. M. (2015). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. New York, NY: Harmony.

Gottman, J. S. (2014). 10 Principles for Doing Effective Couples Therapy. New York, NY: W.H. Norton & Company.

Gottman, J. M. & Silver, N. (2012). What Makes Love Last? How to Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Hendrix, H. (2007). Getting the Love You Want. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.

Lerner, H. (1990). The Dance of Intimacy: A Woman’s Guide to Courageous Acts of Change in Key Relationships. New York, NY: Harper Perennial

Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2012). Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Tatkin, S. (2011), Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Wile, D. (2008), After the Honeymoon: How Conflict Can Improve Your Relationship. Oakland, CA: Collaborative Couple Therapy Books.