7 Steps to Rescuing Romance
From Oprah Magazine
Has your relationship lost its spark? These suggestions will reignite the flame between you and your partner. Try one every day of the week, focus on one at a time, do whatever you like with them—but do take them all to heart.
1. Find Out What You Want
Dr. Harville Hendrix, a relationship expert, offers advice on how to better your marriage when your partner is no longer willing to give you what you need. "You may try to coerce him into caring through criticism, intimidation, shame, withdrawal, crying, anger—whatever works," he says. This power struggle may continue for years, but it can end because of the love you have for each other. "The emotional bond created by romantic love evolves into a powerful organic bond through the process of resolving conflict," Dr. Hendrix says. "With self-awareness, we can correct what has gone wrong."
2. Respect Your Partner
It shouldn't matter why your partner needs what he or she needs. Consider Dr. Phil's example: If one of your kids got up in the middle of the night and said, "I'm thirsty," would you just turn around and say, "Well, I'm not, so go back to bed"? The key is to appreciate your partner's individuality. Don't expect your partner to react exactly as you would; your partner isn't you!
Learn more about your partner and understand why he acts the way he does. Listening to your partner can reduce conflict, boost trust and lead to a more satisfying relationship. It's especially important to listen when your partner is upset—which could require some practice. "Practice listening in less-loaded relationships, like with customers at work or friends on the phone," says Dr. Steve Brody, author of Renew Your Marriage at Midlife. "After building up listening muscles in those less-challenging relationships, the weight of your partner becoming unglued won't be as overwhelming."
3. What Message Do You Send?
Think about the message you're sending your partner when you don't acknowledge his or her wants. How does this make your partner feel? How would it make you feel?
4. Compromise
Know that you can fulfill your partner's wants. But by prioritizing your needs alone, you're making the conscious decision to not to fulfil his or her wants. Try talking about both of your needs and wants. Find the middle ground.
Sex therapist Dr. Laura Berman says it's important to connect emotionally with your partner and communicate your needs and wants in the bedroom. Bring your emotions, desires, fantasies and inhibitions to each other, allowing you to listen to your partner's thoughts and sharing your own too. Lose the sexual and nonsexual distractions, and get down to the bare, honest truth about how pleasure is factoring into your relationships, she says.
5. Don't Forget Romance
Keep in mind that romance is an important element of marriage. Your partner might consider romance as the true measure of his or her value to your relationship. Be thoughtful and try doing something sweet for no apparent reason.
In 2004, DrPhil.com, O, the Oprah Magazine and Oprah.com conducted a survey about love. The survey found that romance is central to people's definition of love: Ninety-four percent [of people surveyed] responded that giving flowers, holding hands or taking your partner for a night out are hallmarks of love. Also, about two-thirds of respondents characterized chores like taking out the trash and doing the dishes as acts of love.
You can predict how an evening with your partner will be based on the first four minutes of your time together, so make those minutes count! Bring flowers. Greet each other with a compliment. Ask questions about your partner's day. Smile; it'll make a difference.
Research shows that you must be nice to your partner to have a happy marriage. "The little things matter," social psychologist Susan Boon says. "You have to do nice things often. But it's harder to be nice when the heat is on, when you're really angry or when something has happened for the 15th time. Nevertheless, the balance must be heavily, heavily stacked in the positive to have a happy marriage."
7. Open Up
Be communicative and expressive with your partner. Remember, sharing emotions is not weakness; it makes you whole.
Dr. Phil offers six rules for talking with and listening to your partner, including insisting on emotional integrity and the importance of being a two-way, not a one-way, communicator. "Mean what you say and say what you mean," he says. "You don't have to tell people everything you think or feel. But you do have to be accurate when you choose to disclose."
Is Your Marriage Good Enough?
By Ginger Tobias from "O, The Oprah Magazine"
Are you expecting too much? Are you just "settling"? Author Ginger Tobias asks 10 pointed questions about the state of your union.
You don't need NFL training to hurl a pizza across a New York City apartment. I found this out as I ducked to avoid my husband's dinner (he didn't fling it at me, he claims). "They folded the slices," he bellowed. "Ruined." I bit my tongue hard — but not, unfortunately, before "Did you lose your nappies?" slipped out (nappies being what they call diapers in England, which is where he's from and where, at this point, I was wishing he had stayed). Big mistake. He went off like a car alarm, the honk-honk-beeeep-honk of his tirade so familiar, I'd long since learned to tune it out by doing guided imagery: Single Me with full custody of remote control. Single Me released from his rancid pessimism. Single Me without tomato and extra cheese dripping down my newly painted white (of course) wall.
Airborne pizza has a way of speed-dialing every doubt you've had about your marriage. And I expected such moments when I signed up. What has thrown me, however, is the drag of compromise, the extra weight of two lives trying to trundle forward together but instead holding each other back. After five years of gradually easing off good behavior, we're left with a nearly constant scrape of differences.Freedom beckons intoxicatingly, but then I wonder if my expectations aren't unrealistic — whether I've got the makings of a good marriage but am foolishly holding out for perfect. Paul Amato, Ph.D., professor of sociology, demography, and family studies at Penn State, conducted a 20-year study on 2,000 subjects who started off married, and says 55 to 60 percent of divorcing couples discard unions with real potential. Most of these people say they continue to love their betrothed but are bored with the relationship or feel it hasn't lived up to their expectations. "It's important to recognize that many of these marriages would improve over time," Amato says, "and most of them could be strengthened through marital counseling and enrichment programs."
So how do you know if you have one of those fixable marriages? A place to start is with the work of British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott, who lets women obsessed with being a perfect mother off the hook. According to him, the "good-enough mother" loves and cares for her child but, being imperfect, doesn't satisfy every need perfectly. While the baby may wish for better service, it's the ordinary mother's failures that prepare her child for life — motivating her to get what she needs for herself while teaching her to tolerate frustration.
Similarly, the idea of the good-enough marriage relieves couples of the pressure to have a perfect union, and the inherent disappointments and difficulties may spur them to evolve as individuals. Michele Weiner Davis, author of The Divorce Remedy (Simon & Schuster), offers herself as an example. "In the early years of my marriage, I envisioned our lives as being joined at the hip. He didn't," she says. "At first I was miserable, but then I started going places by myself and I became much more independent. I never, ever would have done that had it not been for his stubbornness."
But what is a good-enough marriage? Or, as Tina Tessina, Ph.D., author of The Ten Smartest Decisions a Woman Can Make After 40 (Renaissance), would have me ask: "Can I make my marriage good enough?" After interviewing several experts**, I've uncovered ten questions you can ask yourself to help clarify whether or not your relationship, albeit imperfect, is worth a good go:
1. Are you exaggerating the negatives? For the next two months mark the good and bad days on your calendar to get a reality check.
2. Have you already left the marriage by emotionally withdrawing? Or by giving up all attempts to make the relationship better? If so, can you find a way to reengage?
4. If you're frustrated because your husband won't change (you'd like him to be more forceful or manly, for example), is it really necessary that he does? Is there anything in your family history that may be driving your need to transform him? (For example, perhaps your father never stood up for you when you needed him to do so.)
5. Have you been teaching your husband the wrong lessons by not challenging his hurtful behavior? (You don't say anything when he criticizes you in public. He never washes the dishes, so you just do them, resentfully.)
6. Do you have fun together? Even when things are tough, do you make jokes about it? (A good sign.) If not, can you make time in your marriage for more play?
7. Are there conflicts that you've avoided in the relationship? What do you fear would happen if you confronted them?
8. Do you simply need more time alone? A weekend on your own every so often to make the heart grow fonder?
9. Has something occurred — a death, a big birthday, a job loss — that's throwing off your relationship and needs to be addressed?
10. Have you done everything you possibly can to make this marriage work? Are you certain he has heard your complaints? Have you tried a marriage-education class or couples therapy? If he won't go to counseling, have you gone yourself to see how you might save the relationship?
While pondering these questions, I remembered — from somewhere deep — many of the delightful aspects of my marriage. (Did I mention that he surprises me with candlelit lavender baths and singing Chanukah mugs?) And we do talk and make up well.
For me the most clarity has come from thinking of marriage not as a noun, or a state of being, but as a verb, as in what "I do" (you say those two words for a reason), and therefore something I can do better. So rather than hang my marriage on the clearance rack, as I fear I've done, I vow to try to understand — even appreciate — his faults, er, growth opportunities. You know, I always wanted a red apartment, and just think: pizza-proof.
Are you about to be dumped?
By Bob Strauss
1. Her friends aren’t as friendly as they used to be. “Maybe she told her girlfriends she’s going to leave you, and the girlfriends have told their boyfriends and acquaintances,” says relationship expert Py Kim Conant. “All of them pull back somewhat, because they’re afraid you’ll somehow sense from them that something’s rotten in Denmark.” Browse Local Singles at Match.com on Yahoo!
8, 9 and 10. She puts you off, she makes you mad, and she won’t let you kiss her. “Recently, I went out with a guy for a second date,” says Melissa from Chicago. “Before this, I tried to give him all the telltale signs that I wasn’t interested, but he persisted: he wouldn’t stop calling, he wouldn’t stop asking me out. So just to get him off my back, I agreed to go out one more time. During the date, to continue to show him I wasn’t interested, I brought up every taboo subject I could think of and tilted my views toward the radical side: feminism, politics, religion, marriage, etc.,” says Melissa.
1. Her friends aren’t as friendly as they used to be. “Maybe she told her girlfriends she’s going to leave you, and the girlfriends have told their boyfriends and acquaintances,” says relationship expert Py Kim Conant. “All of them pull back somewhat, because they’re afraid you’ll somehow sense from them that something’s rotten in Denmark.” Browse Local Singles at Match.com on Yahoo!2. She ups her weekly workouts. “If your significant other starts to increase her visits to the gym or adds a new workout routine, it may mean that she’s thinking of finding greener pastures,” says Tina de Lemp, president of B.Fit. “Often, women become lax with their workout schedules when they’re in a satisfying relationship.”
3. She’s not having as much fun you-know-where. “For guys, physical intimacy without love is not a new idea,” says Patricia from Florida. “But for a woman, it’s a big deal. Distance from physical intimacy means she’s pulling away, as opposed to a guy who can enjoy it passionately with someone he’ll never see again.”
4. She’s increasingly hard to reach. “If you’re playing voicemail volleyball with her too often, the fact is that she’s just not that into you,” according to Liz Kelly, author of Smart Man Hunting. “If a woman really wants to reach you, she will go out of her way to find the right time to call.”
5. She gives you that little pat on the back. “Watch out for this one,” warns Lisa Daily, author of Stop Getting Dumped. “A woman who pats you on the back while giving you a hug is indicating that she’s uncomfortable for some reason. The bigger the pat, the more discomfort she feels.”
6. Her hug is a little bit off. While we’re on the subject, Daily continues, “another important sign that things may not be going well is the amount of contact during her hugs. Full frontal contact is good, but the one-shoulder hug could be a sign that she’s distancing herself in the relationship. She may be pulling away, or getting ready to break things off.”
7. She stops criticizing you. This one may sound counterintuitive, but, as Py Kim Conant says, “if she stops complaining about you leaving the toilet seat up, it may mean that she’s given up on the relationship and has no energy to put into further criticism of you. In fact, she may not even notice the toilet seat any longer, since her focus is no longer on perfecting you.”
8, 9 and 10. She puts you off, she makes you mad, and she won’t let you kiss her. “Recently, I went out with a guy for a second date,” says Melissa from Chicago. “Before this, I tried to give him all the telltale signs that I wasn’t interested, but he persisted: he wouldn’t stop calling, he wouldn’t stop asking me out. So just to get him off my back, I agreed to go out one more time. During the date, to continue to show him I wasn’t interested, I brought up every taboo subject I could think of and tilted my views toward the radical side: feminism, politics, religion, marriage, etc.,” says Melissa. “When he dropped me off, I very clearly leaned toward the door away from him and hopped out of the car as soon as possible to avoid the terrible ‘goodnight kiss.’ After that, he finally figured it out!” My advice to my fellow single guys? Maybe take a hint and bail before things get that bad.
