Can 7 Days of Sex REALLY Fix Your Marriage?

You've got to admit that "7 Days of Sex" is a titillating prescription for fixing your marriage. That's why it's also the title of the latest reality show on Lifetime.

But, having sex for 7 straight days is about as close to marriage therapy as reality TV is to reality.

Though Lifetime says this is something completely different, the idea of sexathons for a quality marriage has been making the rounds in some church circles for several years now. The thinking there is to emphasize some of the fun and thrills of the committed relationship.

Lifetime's thinking, apparently, is that lots of hot sex can make bad relationships better.

Well, as they say, it couldn't hurt.


Research tells us that relationship success is all about the MATH... the ratio of positive sentiment to negative sentiment.  In layman's terms, what you like has to be five times greater than what you dislike for you to be able to say you're in a satisfying relationship.

If you do the math of "7 Days of Sex" you can see that it's entirely possible to up the percentages on likes versus dislikes in your marriage. That's because sex can really up the P-A-S-S-I-O-N in a marriage. That's:

P layfulness, A ppreciation, S ensuality, S haring, I ntimacy, O xytocin (and vassopressin) the "attachment hormones" and N urturing.    

 

Sex can make you feel great and connected -- which is why you have so much more of it when you first fall in love. It's nature's way of getting you hooked on each other. And it really works, doesn't it! 

 

But, can sex alone keep you hooked? 

 

Again, it couldn't hurt. But, sex alone really has little impact on negative feelings, which are the source of relationship distress.

 

If you have a poor connection with your partner -- if you feel misunderstood, neglected, devalued or unsupported -- having lots of sex is more than likely going to lead to lots of bad sex... and more negative feelings.

If couples really want to deal with their marital distress, they have to the things they need to do to feel confident that:

• they can depend on one another
• they can mange their differences effectively
• they can work as a team synergistically

A successful relationship -- one that is deep, strong and resilient -- isn't something that just happens.  It is something you create.  You need to be accessible and responsive to one another emotionally, not just sexually. THAT is the key to deepening your understanding of each other, strengthening your bond, and working together more collaboratively.

Emotional accessibility and responsiveness requires emotional intelligence - the ability to recognize your own emotions, to reveal your true self, to respond empathetically to your partner's needs, and to repair break downs and damage.

Repairing your relationship with "7 days of sex"  is like putting a fresh coat of paint on a termite-infested house.  It may look and feel pleasing for awhile.  But in the end, if you don't call an exterminator, the house will eventually crumble.

 

 

Is The "You Complete Me" Model of Relationships A MYTH?

"The problem with the "you complete me" model of relationships is simple math...people think 'I'm half and you're half and together we make a whole.' But human beings aren't additive, we're dynamic. It turns into multiplication. A half times a half is a fourth, and you end up with less than when you started."

Victoria Fleming, You Complete Me and Other Myths That Destroy Happily Ever After (North Shore Wellness Service). "

I  think the idea of "you complete me" is less a myth and more a paradox.  A paradox is something that is true, it is just not true every single minute of every single day.  We are not wired to be emotionally self sufficient. Rather, we are wired to attach.We are wired to depend on "other" for security, stimulation, and growth.  We are wired to "get." What couples need to understand is the quality of what they get is determined by how much they give.

I think the notion of  “you complete me,”  is a necessary prerequisite to relationship success.  Call me a "hopeless romantic."  But I would advise caution in killing the dream that a partner will nourish us, enrich us,transform us, and...yes...complete us.

My theory is that attachment is the foundation on which you build your love, over time, in four progressive stages:
Stage 1 - "You Are The Answer"
Stage 2 - "You Are The Problem"
Stage 3 - "We Are The Problem"
Stage 4 - "We Are The Answer"

In Stage 1- “You are the Answer,” the  “you complete me” drive is very strong.  The "you complete me" concept of love fuels chemistry and emotional bonding.  Idealizing one's partner, that perception of "you complete me," is psychologically necessary to keep insecurities and self protective barriers down in order to forge emotional bonds.   The "you complete me" notion fuels the secretion of   love hormones in our brains.     Besides, if you don’t believe the relationship will enhance your sense of security, life satisfaction, and self-worth - what is the purpose of the relationship anyhow?  

In Stage 2, I admit that the same "you complete me" idea can be a “fly in the ointment” for couples trying to manage their differences.  If you become too dependence on your partner for validation and self esteem you may have difficult expressing authentic needs.  Relationships will experience distress when two partners try to control feelings instead of revealing feelings.  The task in stage 2 is to learn to handle conflict without losing emotional connection.  At no time do you have to give up the romantic ideal of "you complete me."  Just temper it a little.  Couples who avoid turning toward one another and opt instead for self sufficiency, face emotional alienation and ultimate disaster.

Frankly, the myth that truly kills relationship is the idea that a relationship is only comprised of  a “me” and  a “you.”  A successful relationship is comprised of not two but three entities -- a me, a you, and a we.  You can be interdependent and individually empowered when you learn to hold onto your connection (the we) through your differences.  The key to maintaining connection is to develep the skill of emotional accessibility and responsiveness to your partner's needs. 

Stage 4 of relationships is  the stage of couple synergy.  Lets go back to the “math” of being a couple.  Victoria Fleming’s math is that 1/2 times 1/2 = 1/4, which I don't quite understand.  Instead, my understanding of relationships is 1 + 1 = 3.  In a successful relationship, the sum is greater than its individual parts.  The synergy of 1 + 1  produces 5 good things:

•Increased energy

•Increased empowerment to act

•Increased self- knowledge and knowledge of other

•Increased self- worth

•Desire for more connection

Test Your "Dumb Fight Prevention" Skills

There is no such thing as an authentic, conflict-free relationship.  

However, many of us are afraid to acknowledge frustration or anger because we are afraid it will jeopardize or end the relationship.

Conflict is acutualy necessary in order for your relationship to deepen, strengthen, and evolve.

However if you do not know how to fight with your RIGHT brain, your emotional brain, you may have some problems with DUMB fights.

Take this test to measure your emotional "smarts":

Part 1 - Regulating

1.      I use both negative and positive feelings as a guide to understanding myself.

2.      I can recognize how my judgments about my partner make me feel worse. 

3.      I recognize that I react when I feel misunderstood, judged, or not supported.

4.      I am good at reminding myself that anger is always secondary to a feeling of vulnerability.

5.      When I am upset I can pause, breathe, notice what is happening inside.

6.      I recognize that my perceptions are sometimes blurred by old memories and hurts.

7.      I am good at resisting the urge to attack or withdraw.

Part 2 - Revealing

1.      I believe that the purpose of our relationship is to depend on each other.

2.      I am not afraid to show my vulnerability to my partner.

3.      I find it easy to trust my partner.

4.      I am not uncomfortable revealing insecurities to my partner

5.      I talk openly, sharing almost everything with my partner.

6.      I turn to my partner for support, understanding, and validation.

7.      I like the way we talk through our differences.

Step 3 - Responding

1.      I am conscious that my tone, facial expressions and gestures speak louder than my words.

2.      I see myself as sensitive and responsive to my partner’s emotions

3.      I always try to listen with curiosity to my partner’s points and not judge

4.      I am good at hearing my partner’s pain underneath any anger.

5.      I know how to soothe and comfort my partner’s pain

6.      We regularly hold each other when one of us is upset.

7.      I can feel close to my partner even when we disagree.

Step 4 - Repairing

1.      I have no trouble forgiving my partner.

2.      I have no trouble apologizing.

3.      I believe we are supposed to learn as a couple from our mistakes

4.      I can use humor as a way to reconnect with my partner.

5.      I understand that sometimes forgiveness is less an event and more a process.

6.      I know in my heart my partner has good intentions and would never hurt me on purpose.

7.      I would rather be happy than be “right.”

Add up how many statements you can answer "True."
Score as follows:

28 – 22                 Emotionally Competent - Congrats!

21 and below        Dumb Fight WARNING

It is estimated that only one third of us are emotionally "literate."  The remaining  two thirds of us could use Dumb Fight Prevention Training.

There are four steps to learning how to fight with your RIGHT brain.  Stay tuned for more tools and tips  to Regulate, Reveal, Respond, and Repair.

Fighting With the RIGHT Brain

Were you conscious during your last "dumb" fight?

Were you mindful of what the trigger was that got you or your partner fired up and ready to rumble? What was happening inside as the conflict ensued?  Did your breathing become shallow.  Was your heart beating faster?  Where were you telling yourself about what was going on?  Were your thoughts only accelerating your upset?  How did you behave?  Were your actions effective?  Or did things only get worse? 

My guess is that during the conflict, you had no idea what was going on. That’s because your emotional mind was in control. 

Let me give you a mini-lesson in neurobiology.  Your brain has two hemispheres, a right and a left.  The left brain, is the seat of your cognition and reason.  The right brain is your emotional brain that operates instinctively and mostly unconsciously. Your emotional reactions are 10 times faster than your logic and reason. 

Our brains have been hard wired to give emotion the upper hand.   The emotional mind is the seat of our survival instinct. When it perceives a threat, it revs up and takes off as if it was being chased by a sabre-toothed tiger. Your first reaction to an event will always be an emotional one.  You have no control over this part.  You do have control over how you respond to emotion...as long as you are emotionally aware.

The reason this biology lesson is important is because it will help you understand why love can turn to fury in half the time it takes to blink of an eye.  Your bond with your partner is an emotion -to- emotion bond. 

When we get out of sync with our partner, if we cannot turn around and quickly reconnect on an emotional level, we are going to slide into "attachment distress" mode and end up having a really  "dumb" fight.  

  Research in the field of emotional intelligence estimates that two thirds of us are emotionally "unintelligent."  We are not conscious enough to recognize what we are feeling.  If we cannot recognize, regulate, and reveal our emotions to our partner, we are probably going to have emotionally unintelligent (dumb) fights.  

Dumb fights occur when couples don't RECOGNIZE what they're really fighting about.
Dumb fights occur when couples have trouble REGULATING their emotions - instead they  either avoid and stuff, or blow up like a hand grenade.
Dumb fights occur when couples have difficulty REVEALING their needs for closeness, understanding, soothing, validation, and support.
Dumb fights occur when we pay no attention to tone, facial expressions, and body language - the language of our emotional "minds".
Dumb fights occur when we react defensively rather than RESPOND consciously and  compassionately.
Dumb fights occur when we get get disconnected with our partner and have difficulty with RE-SYNCING. 

Recently, I had a client tell me the story of her latest dumb fight. She kept repeating, “I watched myself going crazy but I couldn’t stop it!”

She was taken aback when I told her, If you could watch yourself acting crazy, you have the power to slow yourself down."  Learning to shift from the reactor to the observer is the essence of being mindful, the key to slowing down dumb fights.

Being mindful is paying attention “on purpose.”  Mindfulness is “noticing your mind’s business (thought and feeling) and not getting all tangled up in them.”

The observing mind can notice your agitated state and pause, breathe, notice.   Recognize that you are about to fight and then calm down, slow down, give your logical mind time to decide, "What does the "we" need next?"

Can Couples Counseling Be Funny?

When people are laughing, they're generally not killing each other.  ~Alan Alda

 Did you hear this one? How many couple’s counselors does it take to save a relationship? Three. Two to change careers waiting for couples to show up and one to be there when they do.

O-k… I know I am no comedian but I also know that couples counseling is in serious need of a public relations makeover.

A survey of divorced couples shows that only 1% had even sought help from a marriage counselor. Another study found that the average distressed couple waits 6 years before making a call to a relationship professional.

People wouldn’t wait 6 minutes to relieve the pain of a broken arm, but couples will wait six years to treat a broken marriage because they THINK they’ve failed!  Waiting 6 years can spell romantic suicide for couples in moderate to severe distress. Six years of frustration, six years of emotional disconnection, six years of hopelessness and helplessness.  What a waste of time, emotions, and – in the end – attorney fees.

So, what is the public relations problem that leads distressed couples to NOT think of counseling?

People avoid going to a marriage counselor like they dread going to a dentist for a root canal.  "It will be awful!  Painful.  Scary!"  "I'm going to get psychoanalyzed"  "You're going to tell we are hopeless."    "You are going to side with my spouse."  "Any couple who needs counseling is doomed."

Ok, first of all marital distress is not about failure or lousy partners so much as it stems from lousy emotional connections.  And most of us have trouble dealing with emotions when the stakes are high. 

Couples counseling is no day at the beach, but that doesn’t mean it can’t utilize playfulness and humor for therapuetic purposes!

Frankly, I think the most important tool a couples counselor should use is a sense of humor.  The humor says, "We are all in this together.  Conflict is normal.  And conflict can make your relationship stronger.  I can teach you how.  Now take a deep breath and relax."

There are lots of reasons why humor is so powerful in therapy.  Humor softens tension.  Humor invokes a more gentle and playful mood for a couple, it really brings out the original "we."  Humor enables clients  to shift from the "reactor" to the "observer" in their drama and thus is a very powerful mindfulness tool.  Humor in couples counseling sessions is an immediate state changer and help de-escalate conflict.   Laughter actually influences both sides of the brain, our emotional mind and our thinking mind. Humor is a wonderful tool for couples to use to get their messages across to one another without resistance.   And, we all learn more when we are having fun.

I have a big red ball of blame in my office.  It’s about 20 inches across and has “Big Ball of Blame” written across it. When a new couple walks into my office, I often see a little smile cross their faces when they see it. I mean, who doesn’t have a festering ball of blame somewhere in their relationship. They get it. And they also get that I may approach all this a little differently. 

When a person gets into a blaming rant in a session, I make them hold the “Big Ball of Blame” for a minute. Or I place the ball between the couple and point to it saying, "Your partner is not the problem.  It's this blaming defensive cycle that is the problem...this "thing" is what is coming in between the two of you."  This helps a couple shift from their "you verses me" adversarial perspective to a more collaborative, "Us verses the problem" stance. 

I also have a pair of foam swords leaning up against the wall in my office. When new couples spy the swords, you usually see the glint in their eyes as they ask, "When can we play with the swords."  And, if the other partner laughs, its a very good sign!  If a couple can still play together, they still have great passion potential.  

I use the swords also when I demonstrate how they are pushing each other, rather than doing what they truly want which is to pull each other closer.  I ask couples, "what does it feel like to ask for love with a weapon in your hands?"  When a couple gets into a “Dumb Fight” – conflict that is mindless and unproductive – I give them an opportunity to experience their negative dumb fight “duels” in a whole new way. Trust me. They get it!

I am suggesting that the Couples Counseling Industry launch a new media campaign emphasizing the four potential benefits for clients:

1)   Counseling will help you feel "normal"-  Society has the crazy idea that “happy couples don’t fight.” That’s unrealistic as it can get and knowing it’s not true can be an enormous relief.
2)    Counseling will inspire  hope - when couple can look at their struggles in different context – as a lousy connection instead of a lousy partner problem – couples feel empowered.
3)  Counseling provides you with solutions and tools - conflict may be unavoidable, but dumb fights – mindless conflict – is totally optional. Dumb Fight prevention skills are very teachable. 
4)    Counseling that employs a sense of humor can actually be FUN -  I have many couples who tell me that they enjoy coming to sessions for the insight, the bonding, and the psychological release of laughter.  

One of my favorite quotes is from American philosopher Jean Houston, "At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. 

How To Talk To Your Honey About Money

   

Financial stress is named as one of the primary reasons for divorce.  Money is second only to infidelity as the most popular cause of marital breakup.

           

Did you know that couples spend 80 per cent of their  waking hours earning money, spending money or thinking about money?  No wonder the topic of money pushes so many emotional buttons.

Do any of these top 5 money arguments sound familiar to you:

1. spending verses saving, 
2. credit card debt,
3.  keeping secrets, 
4. sharing power and decision making and 
5. whether or not to have joint or separate bank accounts

It is also not surprising that conflicts over money can lead into some nasty dumb fights.  The "dumb" fight is really not just about dollars and cents.  Couples are struggling with topics that they don't even know how to name.  For example, money is a symbol that maybe represents core values – how much do you live in the “now” and how much do you plan for the future.  Money can represent life dreams.  Money can represent success and self esteem.  Money represents a safety net and psychological security for many.  How do you feel connected to a partner who doesn't seem to want you to feel safe?

Differences in marriage are natural and conflict over finances is normal.  Spenders marry savers, dreamers marry planners, avoiders marry worriers.   These differences become what John Gottman calls  "perpetual problems," because they are not solveble, rather they need to be managed.  Perpetual problems always stem from personality differences, qualities about your partner that you are never going to change.

Try to see conflict over money as an opportunity to deepen and expand your partnership.  You can  understand each other more deeply, accept each other more completely and learn to share power and decision-making if you can fight "smart."

Fighting "smart" is:

    

• ·         Knowing how to calm down or take a break when you loose your cool

• ·         Understanding your emotions and be willing to reveal them truthfully

• ·         Listening to your partner in 3 ways – with your ears, your head, and your heart

• ·         Looking  for solutions that feel like win-win

You don't have to wait for a dumb fight to talk about money. Talk about what money means to each partner - love, security, status,  freedom, empowerment to reach goals?    Write a financial mission statement for the "we."  Share with one another your financial dreams and goals. 

Relationship success is not always about solving the differences, so much as managing the differences.  

Are You Mindful or Mind-less In Your Relationship?

Let's face it, most of us have mindless relationships.  That's not a slam on your ability to experience love, happiness or harmony.  Mindless isn't who you are, its how you conduct your relationship, the process you use to relate emotionally to your partner.

It may or may not be a surprise to you that we are ruled by our emotional minds in the heat of conflict.  And this is not some new age speculation.  There is more and more research showing that these two distinct parts of the brain - the emotional mind and the logical mind - hold tremendous sway over how we behave.

But, even more important, there's more and more evidence that we can consciously take control and ensure that in times of stress, we can step back and observe our thoughts, body sensations, and feelings, without identifying with them.  This enhances our ability to respond to relationship conflict rather than react.

Practicing mindfulness helps us slow down our emotional process, regulate our reactivity and communicate more openly, less defensively, and listen to our partner with greater presence of mind.  Mindfulness exercises include techniques to help you calm you mind, slow your breathing, and clarify your feelings.  You can learn exercises to send out loving kindness to your partner, attune to their hurts, and practice forgiveness.   

Mindfulness is not just a process to work through difficult feelings and relationship conflict.   Mindfulness is also an outcome. Mindfulness will change who you are as a person.   Practicing mindfulness on a regular basis will make you less judgmental, more accepting, more open, more flexible, more trusting.  You will learn to see yourself, your partner, and events in your life in a new perspective, with greater clarity, depth, and wisdom.

Mindfulness practice cultivates qualities like gratitude, gentleness, generosity and empathy.  All of these qualities are crucial for long term relationship success.  These emotional qualities will enable you to "fight smart" with your partner.  These qualities enable you to simultaneously be an authentic "me" and a closely connected "we."

As an experiment, close your eyes, and simply notice what your mind is doing.   Stay on the lookout for any thoughts or images.  You may notice your mind is quite busy. 

Imagine that you can watch your thoughts like you can watch clouds floating by.  Or actors walking on and off stage.  Or fish  swimming in a tank. You can watch your thoughts come and and watch them go. And, not get tangled up in the thinking.

Notice where your thoughts seem to be located - are they out in front of you, above you, behind you, to one side of you, or within you.  Just like a friendly scientist, observe with curiosity and alert attention.

 

Notice that there are really two of you doing this exercise! One part of you is doing the planning, thinking, remembering.  But there is a second YOU that is the observer, "the friendly scientist," who is noticing the thinking without reactivity or judgment.  

That is the OBSERVER YOU and I will help you cultivate this quality more in the next few weeks so that, at the very least, you will be mindful enough to be able to say, " Honey, let's not have another dumb fight."