Do Men Feel Threatened By Women?
Welcome to another installment of the Relationship Help For Men series.
It’s no surprise that for some men, experiencing and expressing vulnerability is akin to root canal without anesthesia. To understand men’s struggles with emotions, it has been argued that men are socialized to avoid emotional vulnerability, and the research shows that by age four or five, children are already aware of gender differences (“Boys don’t do that…”; “You’re acting like a girl.”). Our early gender awareness has a profound impact on our evolving identity—shaping assumptions, beliefs and behaviors about what it means to be a man.
The Exclusionary Self: I’m Not a Woman, Therefore I’m a Man
Most troubling, for many boys (and later teenagers and adults), our sense of maleness is rigidly defined by what is considered off limits, and as our masculine identities solidify, a wide range of experiences get tagged as being in violation of our masculine way of being. Read the rest of this entry »
Couples Communication: Is There a Dark Side to Empathy?
If you’ve ever read any marriage or relationship advice articles/books, you probably heard the authors discussing the importance of empathy—the skill considered by 
many to be the gold standard of healthy relationships. I have written several relationship help articles on the topic of empathy here at strengthen your relationship.
What is needed for empathetic communication?
When trying to capture the essence of what it means to be empathetic, the metaphor of a bridge is frequently used: Empathy involves a kind of psychological travel where you leave your inner world (for a period of time) and cross over into your spouse’s/partner’s psychological landscape.
The purpose of this bridge crossing is to allow you a better understanding of your partner’s inner world: stepping into his/her world gives you a first-hand account of his/her perspective, feelings, values and experiences. (Empathy always involves approximations, and some trial and error–we come as close as possible in capturing what the other person is experiencing, though we can never truly experience another’s feelings exactly how they experience them.)
Implied in the bridge metaphor is that there are two separate people (psychologically separate) with healthy boundaries, each with a stable sense of self that can be momentarily left (during the empathic moment) and subsequently returned to. For empathy, these psychological boundaries must be flexible, allowing for an emotional openness that grants others access into your inner world and that allows you the ability to enter into another’s emotional experience. Read the rest of this entry »
Relationship Advice: Savoring Present Moments for a Stronger Relationship
In a previous relationship help article, we focused on the idea of reminiscing as a pathway to nurturing your relationship—in particular, making a conscious effort to 
remember and share the positive memories that you and your spouse/partner have created and stored up over the history of your relationship. Bringing the positive-past into the present moment gives couples the opportunity to recapture and savor emotionally pleasurable, bonding experiences that can be used (and re-used) to feed and deepen emotional intimacy.
In today’s relationship advice article, we’ll briefly explore how you can strengthen your marriage or relationship by making a conscious effort to be more mindful and savor present-day experiences with your partner.
Savoring Present Moments for a Stronger Relationship
For the last week or so, Lisa and Jerry haven’t stopped talking about a recent movie they saw. They talked about their favorite scenes of the movie, the characters they liked and didn’t, who they identified with, possible motives for why characters did what they did… In short, Lisa and Jerry savored their experiences of the movie with one another. Read the rest of this entry »
Relationship Help: Reminiscing for a Better Relationship
About once a month, Pete and Naomi spend a designated amount of time reminiscing about their marriage—in particular, they each recall and describe a 
positive experience they shared together over the course of their relationship (after being married for twenty-three years, they have a large pool of memories to reflect upon).
These “reminiscent moments” (as Naomi and Pete like to call them) may seem simple and sweet, but these moments aren’t just about sweetness. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that these moments of sharing serve a very important function for the couple and for the health of their relationship. As Naomi described, “Our friends ask us all the time, ‘You’ve done this once a month for how many years? Why?’ My answer is always the same: It makes us feel better about our relationship, it makes us feel closer, it makes us feel better about ourselves. It’s that simple.”
Reminiscing for a Stronger Marriage/Relationship Read the rest of this entry »
Relationship Help: Is Passion Overrated?
The following article is a companion to my recent article, Is Passion Possible in Long-Term Relationships? 
In my work as a psychologist and couples counselor, I’ve observed the tendency for some couples to think that their marriage or relationship should be a certain way, somehow other than it is: “We should communicate more”; “We should spend more time together”; “We should have more shared interests”; “We should be having more sex”; “We should…”; “Why aren’t we…?”
When couples present with the beliefs that their relationship should be a particular way, I often ask them, “Why? Why do you believe that things should be different as you’re suggesting?”; “Who said you should be having more sex?” “Why do you want more passion, and what would that look like for you and your partner?”
These questions get to a particular issue that is important for all of us to consider:
Do you want a more passionate relationship (or more specifically, a more passionate sex life) because not having passion is causing you distress and you feel that something important is truly missing, or do you want more passion because you think you’re supposed to have more passion? Read the rest of this entry »
