“Only connect,” wrote E. M. Forster in Howards End,“and human love will be seen at its height.” Love depends on a couple’s ability to forge and then maintain the precious bond between them. We want to look more closely at ways of creating connection, preserving it through challenging times, and healing breaks when they occur.
There are some general rules for relationship health that if you follow them your happiness level should improve tremendously. 1. Compassion, understanding, respect and empathy are essential. Avoid: Criticism or contempt. Also avoid: 2. Blaming or shaming. 3. Defensiveness. 4. Negativity. 5. Stonewalling or turning away. 6. Being the victim or the perp. 7. Fight
Marriage is simply hard work. But the good news is that attitude is everything. The Toltec Empire lasted from 300 to 600 BC and included the Pacific Coastal Chiapas and Guatemala, the Yucatan Peninsula, and much of Northern and Western Mexico. They left clay tablets with a message they called “The Four Agreements.” They were:
To be happy together, we need to build and maintain loving connections with our partner. The stronger these connections are, the more lasting our love will be. Love and romance are nurtured as much by small, everyday things as by grand gestures—and sometimes more so. A patient recently explained to me that he had taken
We pan in on a newly married couple gazing lovingly at each other on the dance floor dressed in white and aglow with happiness and sweet expectation for a life together. They read their vows professing love sublime with misty-eyed friends and family looking on. It’s a happy time for all, maybe one of the
My wife of 26 years and I were making dinner the other night and between shifts of chopping and mixing I was waxing philosophical about what women want. So, naturally I sort of put the question to her in my typically male off-handed way, so what is it that woman want? The answer was not
Candlelit dinners. Champagne. Diamonds. Roses. Imported Chocolates.
NOTE TO MEN: If you haven’t planned or purchased something from this list, you’re likely going to have a horrible night this Feb. 14th (and one without any lovemaking). Why? Blame it on romantic fantasy. It starts long before our first Valentine’s purchase or our first kiss. We’ve heard “happily-ever-after” fairy tales since kindergarten. We’ve grown up viewing “diamonds-are-forever” commercials.
As adults, we experience the commercialization of Valentine’s Day as a day of great expectations, and just as often, great disappointments when our beloved’s gift-giving (or lack thereof) doesn’t support our romantic dreams.
A Beatles song captures the imagination of youthful love in the verse, “When she crossed that room, my heart went boom and I fell in love with her.” When we are hit with that thunderbolt, we become teenagers again as a tsunami of chemicals amass the feelings of love at first sight. At this point,
“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.” —Anaïs Nin The way a relationship begins is often a far cry from what it’s like
“The married are those who have taken the terrible risk of intimacy and, having taken it, know life without intimacy to be impossible.” – Carolyn Heilbrun For most of us, the word intimate conjures up romantic images of candlelit dinners, slow dancing, and long passionate kisses. Romantic gestures are certainly a dominant theme of intimacy,