Marital Therapy: Go Beyond the Physical for a Lasting Relationship

My many sessions of marital therapy with couples has taught me that when relationships are new, it’s pretty common for there to be a lot of passion based on sex and physical attraction. Most new couples think this will never fade, but the truth is that it usually does. Our early “fire” for each other is a literal chemical reaction, but over time, the chemicals that cause this are reduced, and we might start to feel like our “love” has gone away. Couples who haven’t taken the time to get to know each other in other ways before this happens tend to experience problems and end up in marital therapy.

Marital Therapy: Find Non-Sexual Ways to Connect

Before you reach that point and need the professional help of Houston marriage counseling or couples workshops, do yourselves a favor and take the time to get to know each other. This may sound like obvious advice, but too often those early throes of passion keep us in the bedroom and prevent us from learning all that much about the person we’re in “love” with.

To avoid having this happen to you, make a point to talk to each other and plan a date or outing at least once or twice a week with the purpose of finding things to do together beyond sex that you both enjoy. Pretty much anything qualifies: cooking, taking a walk, dancing, playing games, watching a movie, going sightseeing – the point is to find non-sexual things to do together that make you happy to be around each other.

The nice thing is that engaging in these activities is in itself a kind of marital therapy as it can often rejuvenate or reinforce those feelings of passion when they do begin to fade from your natural reduction in chemicals.

If you and your partner can’t seem to reignite that initial spark on your own, consider couples workshops or Houston relationship counseling for more helpful advice.

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Houston Marriage Counselor: But Do They Really Love Me?

As the Houston marriage counselor, I hear all kinds of problems from different couples: She doesn’t care about the things that are important to me. He wants to spend more time with his friends than together. She’s never physically affectionate – I always have to start things. Many times, what these and other frustrating relationship problems boil down to is the fear that your partner doesn’t like you as much as you like them – what’s scarier than that?

Houston Marriage Counselor: “Prove” How Much You Care

Unfortunately, these kinds of fears are ultimately based on having trust in your partner and confidence in your own lovability – something that involves you coming to a place of acceptance within yourself. There are, however, things that both partners can do to show each other how much they do care and ease relationship problems. I call these “loving and caring behaviors,” and they are quite simple.

I ask each person to write down a list of simple things (meaning fast, inexpensive, and non-sexual) their partner can do to make them feel more loved. Many of my Houston marriage counselor clients write down things like “compliment me,” “hug me,” “massage me,” “ask me how my day went,” “make my favorite dinner,” and “send me a love note.” These lists are then exchanged, and both partners agree to try to do some of the things there.

It’s an interesting trick in our makeup that we tend to be moved by actions regardless of whether they are “planned” like these lists or not. Simply engaging in these actions – especially if they continue over time – makes both partners feel more loved and less concerned about what their partner isn’t doing, greatly easing relationship problems.

If, however, you and your partner still feel like you’re experiencing relationship problems related to not feeling loved enough, give the Houston marriage counselor offices a call.

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Houston Relationship Counselor: Turn Toward Instead of Turning Away

As the Houston relationship counselor, I often counsel my clients in marital therapy to talk about problems in terms of how they feel about them and to attempt to be positive and constructive rather than tearing each other down. For some, this is easier said than done, and they seem to have difficulty wrapping their minds around the process, which is why I am always looking for new ways to articulate my advice.

That’s how I came across a wonderful way of thinking about it as described by Timothy F. Hogan. Instead of telling people to use ‘I’ feelings and be positive, he says that marriages work better when partners stop “Turning Away” or “Turning Against” each other and start “Turning Toward” their significant other.

Houston Relationship Counselor: Don’t Be a Marriage in Mutiny

I really like the image created by “Turning Toward” versus “Turning Against.” It makes me think of a crew starting a mutiny against their captain rather trying to work with him or her to find a solution that makes both sides happy. Too often, we focus on making people get their feelings out, but when a person isn’t skilled at this – and it can be difficult at first – it can often hurt the feelings of the other person – either intentionally or unintentionally.

Hogan’s method of “turning toward” is more elegant and defines the argument better. Criticizing, name-calling, and blaming are examples of “turning away” or “against” each other, whereas being encouraging and asking to work together for positive solutions are ways to “turn toward” one another. Put another way, yelling at someone for not being at home enough will only cause defensiveness and push them away, but saying you really liked it when you get to spend more time with them and asking how you can help out to get them home more often should elicit a far more positive reaction.

He also uses examples like writing a note when you don’t feel comfortable talking to your partner about something, and talking – even if it just to say that you are angry and need to cool down – instead of simply storming out of a room during an argument. For more ways in which you can “turn toward” and embrace one another instead of getting into the same old arguments and patterns, contact the Houston relationship counselor today for marital therapy that works.

 

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Relationship Advice: Good Listeners Make for Good Relationships

If I could go back in time and offer my younger self any relationship advice, it would be on how to be a better listener. This is my constant mantra in Houston marriage counseling, and the source of many of my clients’ problems. We’re so used to waiting until it is our turn to speak that we often don’t develop those skills we need to simply be attentive when other people are talking to us. Never is this more apparent than in serious, long-term romantic relationships, because these are the people who know us best and get to see us at our worst.

Relationship Advice: More Tips to Help Your Listening Skills

This isn’t the first time I’ve devoted blog space to a post about listening and communicating, and it won’t be the last. The below tips are an addition to these listening tips from back in November. If Houston marriage counseling has taught me nothing else, it is that all of us can learn to be better listeners, and should take any help we can get.

Make sure they know you’re paying attention. This means body language. Eyes on your partner when he or she is talking. Smile. Nod. Shake your head. But don’t just try to guess – you want to be engaged in their body language as much as you want them reading yours so that you can tell if what they are saying is really the whole story or if there is other information there.

Be seen, not heard. More relationship advice to my younger self: don’t interrupt. Remember, this is about you paying attention to them. You want to be involved in what they are saying, not jumping in because you’ve got a related story or you just remembered your dry cleaning. If you have questions, at least wait till they take a pause. The only exception to this rule is when your partner has been going on for so long that you’ve actually lost the thread of what they were saying. Even then, though, only interrupt to ask questions and clarify what they are talking about.

Engage. If you have the opposite problem and it’s tough to be a good listener because your spouse just won’t open up, try asking questions that are open-ended and starting with subjects that you know them to feel passionately about, such as a hobby. You might be surprised how verbose they suddenly become.

If you and your spouse are experiencing marriage problems related to not listening to each other, you might want to seek relationship advice in Houston marriage counseling or couples workshops.

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