Marriage: In pleasure and in pain
Happily ever after doesn’t do justice to anyone’s experience of marriage. A former professor of mine dedicated ...
Relationship Mindset: How implicit beliefs affect romantic relationships
Like the proverbial moth to a flame, we are drawn to the intense experience of romantic passion. In popular culture, ...
Passion, Sex, and Romance in Long-term Relationships
It is not uncommon to have romantic fantasies about people other than your partner. It’s not just normal; it can even ...
What to Do After a Fight and How to Repair
One of the most important skills you can learn to better manage conflict is how to make a repair AFTER you’ve had a ...
When Strong Emotions Derail You: How to manage
How do emotions get us into trouble? Some strong emotions are enjoyable, but some can knock us off balance. ...
The Very Real Grief of Miscarriage
Early in a wanted pregnancy, we become attached to the growing baby—imagining who this little creature will be, how ...
What is ‘Micro-Cheating’? And Is It Really Cheating?
In a committed relationship, cheating comes in many forms. It can be as big as a long-term affair with one’s best ...
Using Softened Startup in Conflict Discussions
Dirty Dishes in the Sink, Smelly Socks on the Floor Sometimes the things that drive us most crazy in a marriage are the ...
Sex and Romance in Long Term Relationships
Harboring fantasies about someone else while happily coupled isn’t unusual. In most relationships, whether of two years, ...
How to Keep Your Marriage Healthy While Coping with Chronic Illness
Most marriages will be confronted with challenges. How we cope, make meaning from, and find benefit in challenges ...
Expressing Fondness and Admiration for a Strong Foundation in Marriage
Healthy relationships are built on a strong foundation. In Northern California, where I live, houses are constructed on ...
Remaking Love: When did you stop dancing?
Taking Down the Walls to Intimacy Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all ...
Look Into My Eyes: The crucial role of eye contact in relationships
People are innately attracted to faces, especially eyes. The human face is associated with our identity; we are ...
Division of labor in relationships: How to make it work
Conflict is inevitable in marriage, and how to divvy up chores is one of the most common conflicts. Virtually every ...
Marriage and Parenting: Balancing everyone’s needs
Work-life Balance -- Making Time for Yourself When I was born, my father’s colleagues congratulated him with the ...
Better Sex through Non-Sexual Touching
Two people rarely have the exact same sex drive. One person might be happy with daily sex, another with monthly. Besides ...
Parenting: Playing the Hand You’re Dealt
As parents, most of us make terrible fortune-tellers. When my daughter Eileen was a first-grader, she was sent to the ...
“I’d be better off single”: Distress-maintaining thinking
How many times have you gone to bed thinking that you hate your partner, fantasizing how you would live on your own? ...
Building and Keeping a Strong Relationship After Having Kids
Marital conflict is bad for kids. While every marriage has conflict, especially after the first baby, ...
The Effect of Having Kids on a Marriage
Marriage is Strained After Having Children Being a parent is hard. But being a parent is really hard on a marriage. ...
Falling in Love Again with Your Partner: Love Maps, Friendship, and Staying Connected
When love is new, we ask questions to get to know our partner well. As Mandy Len Catron wrote for The New York Times in ...
Turning Toward Each Other Every Day: You Don’t Have to Wait for Date Night
Building closeness doesn’t happen only on date night, the subject of my previous two posts. Turning toward each other ...
Five Excuses Couples Use to Avoid Date Night
1. “Hiring a sitter is too expensive.” There are ways to minimize the expense of hiring a babysitter. A neighborhood ...
Date Night: Making Time Together
Couples need time to be together without other couples, family, kids, TV, and the endless distractions of a digital ...
Why Soul Mate is a Setup for Disappointment
In my practice, I often treat couples who have highly idealistic expectations about marriage. Does that sound ...
Marriage & Acceptance: Crooked Timbers
Perfectionism is a personality trait that can have positive results: perfectionists work hard to get ...
Seeing How Childhood Patterns Affect Marriage
When Mark and Judy came to see me for couples therapy, Judy felt frustrated by her husband’s constant ...
Six Ground Rules for Introducing a New Girlfriend or Boyfriend to Your Kids
When is it okay to introduce your kids to a date after divorce or separation? This is a common question for newly ...
How Couples Counseling Can Guide a Divorce That’s Better for the Kids
Staying Together for the Kids: Why This Isn't a Good Idea In my work as a counselor, I approach every couple with the ...
Ways to Increase Fondness and Admiration
The Sound Relationship House Part 3: Ways to Increase Fondness and Admiration We use many of these tools for ...
The Sound Relationship House: Sharing Fondness and Admiration
In the previous post, I described the first foundation level of the Sound Relationship House: friendship and ...
The Sound Relationship House: Friendship and Appreciation
The Sound Relationship: Part 1 A great marriage needs a strong foundation. Remember the story of the three little pigs? ...
Sex and Kissing in Relationships
Have you stopped kissing your partner? In new relationships, kissing is frequent, often as a prelude to ...
Passion and Romance in Marriage: How it Goes Sour
Would you choose gelato over non-fat frozen yogurt? Most of us would say gelato, even knowing that it is an unhealthy ...
Relationships and Vacations
A weekend away can bring back romance and intimacy For many couples, a vacation brings a return to romance. But ...
Are you texting your partner too much? 6 Ways Texting Can Be Inappropriate in Your Relationship
With smartphones, our partner is just a text away. That’s not always a good thing. Sure, texting is a great way of ...
Marriage Takes Work, Care, and Attention
“Marriage, the Job: The Hard Work in ‘Before Midnight,’ Amour’ and Other Films and Shows,” A.O. Scott points out that in ...
How Anger Hurts Relationships
Getting angry...is easy and everyone can do it; but doing it . . . in the right amount, at the right time, and for the ...
140 Characters or Less: The Three-Sentence Rule in Communication
Couples frequently come to therapy complaining of communication problems. Conflicts don’t get resolved. Intimacy has ...
Do Opposites Attract in Choosing a Mate: How what once attracted us can begin to repel
We Seek Wholeness in Ourselves When we Choose our Mate The adage “opposites attract” is often true before marriage and ...
Honoring Each Other’s Dreams: Create Shared Meaning
For Greater Intimacy, Stay in Touch With Hopes and Dreams “Like everything which is not the involuntary result of ...
ADHD Medications in Childhood: Dependency and Addiction in Adulthood
ADHD Medications in Childhood: A Cautionary Tale The NY Times article ‘Drowned in a Stream of Prescriptions’ was all ...
Amour: Keeping Marriage Strong After a Stroke
The French film Amour is a touching, realistic window into the world of a committed marriage in which one partner has ...
10 Things Parents can do to Help Their Kids Engage in School
My daughter posted this photo and comment on her Facebook page after purchasing her textbooks for winter ...
Sleep and Romantic Relationships: How a Good Night’s Sleep Keeps Relationships Romantic
Research conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, showed that poor sleep hurts relationships. “Poor sleep ...
Turning Toward Each Other to Maintain Your Relationship
The Magic Five and One-half Hours a Week: How to strengthen your relationship by turning toward each other every ...
The Fourth Horseman: Stonewalling
Walking up the steep steps gave me a view of the entire countryside, but scaling a partner’s emotional wall isn’t that ...
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Shortcutting Criticism
In the biblical Book of Revelations, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse signal the end of the world through conquest, ...
Preventing infidelity: Open the sliding door to love
Dr. John Gottman sent me a complimentary copy of his latest book, What Makes Love Last? I read it with great interest. ...
The College Transition: Things to Talk About
College is a rite of passage, a transition into adulthood. It’s a transition for parents, too, who can no longer ...
Updating Your Love Maps—Keeping Friendship in Your Marriage
Love Maps —“You like tomato and I like tomahto” Last night I made a salad for dinner. I picked fresh lemon ...
Learning to Stay Calm During Difficult Discussions
By the time couples come to couples therapy, they have a built up a lot of tension around recurring problems. For ...
Summer Travels and Travails: Tips for Stress-free Vacations
Tips for Making Summer Vacations Stress-Proof: or at least stress-resistant By now, most of us have either taken the ...
Strains of Summer on Family Life
School is out. Swim season is in full swing. From my home, I hear the loud speaker blasting from the ...
