Relationship Advice & Marriage Help You Can Count On…
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Despite hearing about escalating divorces and the high rate of failed relationships, most of us don’t expect our relationship to become one of these bleak statistics. Because of this, couples often feel blind-sided by the inevitable marital problems and relationship challenges so many of us face. As a psychologist and couples/marriage counselor, I have heard from many couples who say the relationship that once brought meaning to their lives is slipping away — even when they still feel deep love for one another. Clearly, something more is needed to keep your marriage or relationship healthy and running smoothly. This is why I created StrengthenYourRelationship.com. The material presented throughout my Web site is the result of my work counseling marriages and relationships for over fifteen years, as well as the latest marriage help and relationship advice research. Each week you’ll find new relationship advice articles and audios, so check back often. So where should you begin? First, sign up for my popular Relationship Advice Newsletter (it’s free!) and you’ll also receive two free bonus reports on how to deepen intimacy and reduce conflict. You can also visit my relationship advice article page for marriage and relationship articles on a wide range of issues that matter most to couples. And when you’re ready to bring your marriage or relationship to the next level, check out my comprehensive relationship workbooks/audio programs. I look forward to the opportunity to make your relationship everything it can be! Rich Nicastro, Ph.D.
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Passionate Marriage: How to Fuel the Fires of Passion and Desire in Marriage
Q: I’m getting married in a month and I’m concerned about what my married friends have been telling me. Most of them seem to think it’s impossible to maintain a passionate marriage over the long haul. I don’t want my friends to negatively influence me, but I also want to have realistic expectations about marriage. Are my fiancé and I doomed to a passionless marriage?
~Erica, Santa Fe
A: Congratulations on your upcoming marriage, and thank you for raising this important issue, an issue that many couples face—how to keep passion alive over the long haul.
There are three points that you should be aware of when it comes to passion and desire.
Relationship Help: 3 Points to Remember about Passion and Desire
1. The intense, passionate fervor that engulfs many new relationships does fade over time, and what once seemed effortless and spontaneous now may require work and planning. Couples get into trouble when their expectations about what passion should look like stems mainly from the first two years of their relationship.
Keeping passion & Desire alive
It’s also important to note that the level of passion and desire that you and your spouse share will probably be different from what your friends (and others in general) experience. If you judge the health of your marriage or sex life by comparing yourself to others, you might be inadvertently ignoring the unique rhythms and strengths of your own relationship.
2. Passion and desire are fragile and can easily buckle under stress and the pressures of daily living. Many of the couples I work with report that as the stress of work, parenting, finances, etc. increase in their lives, their libido takes a nose-dive. An over-scheduled, stressful life can often lead to a passionless marriage.
While daily life won’t allow us to avoid all stress, buffering your marriage/relationship from unnecessary stress should be a priority—especially if you want to keep passion and desire alive.
3. The responsibilities of commitment and emotional sharing are not always passion-friendly.
In her book, Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel explores the dynamics of desire in long-term, committed relationships. One of the important points she makes is that the conditions needed for couples to experience a sense of emotional security can inadvertently rob the relationship of a sense of adventure and excitement.
So at times the predictability and security that couples seek can be at odds with the conditions that fuel passion and desire. Think of these two relationship dimensions (security/predictability versus desire/passion) as existing at opposite ends of a continuum: When you create the conditions that only nurture one end of the continuum and neglect the other end, something gets lost. This is a challenge all couples in committed, long-term relationships face.
Awareness of these three passion points can prevent your marriage/relationship from getting stuck in the quicksand of a passionless existence.
Marriage/Relationship Resources
I’ve created a workbook that focuses exclusively on giving couples tools needed to keep passion and intimacy alive. Check out my Passion, Sex & Intimacy workbook.
Wishing you and your relationship all the best,
Dr. Rich Nicastro
Relationship Help: 3 Conditions for Deeper Emotional Intimacy
When you feel “close” to your spouse/partner, you are experiencing an emotional connection that is the essence of a loving relationship. For so many of us, this special bond brings a sense of emotional completeness and vitality to our lives.
But the gift of emotional intimacy, the emotional bond that sustains a loving union, is fragile and can easily be undone.
Emotional intimacy is the foundation of a fulfilling relationship
While it’s natural for the emotional connection you feel with your spouse/partner to change throughout the life of your marriage/relationship (so one shouldn’t expect that feeling a deep emotional connection will be a constant), there are certain conditions couples should be aware of that can nurture emotional intimacy.
The goal is to create and maintain certain relationship conditions that will allow emotional intimacy to germinate. These conditions are created by the mindsets, behaviors and interactions that occur between you and your spouse/partner.
Conditions Needed for Emotional Intimacy
Relationship Help: Sometimes a Small Change Makes a Big Difference
Relationship Help Quick Tip:
If you want to strengthen your marriage/relationship, think small: Pick one tiny behavior that you’ve wanted to change about yourself (or a behavior that drives your spouse/partner up a wall) and commit to changing it.
You might be thinking “easier said than done.” But if it’s a small change–something that wouldn’t take a great deal of effort—your chance of success increase significantly. And don’t kid yourself, small changes add up to big differences over the long haul.
As a marriage and couples counselor, I’ve seen first-hand how important consistent follow-through is to strengthening a marriage/relationship and creating lasting change.
The golden rule for meaningful change is patience and persistence.
One Reason Why Marital/Relationship Problems Persist Read the rest of this entry »
