ON MARRIAGE As I see it: Nurture relationship with the one you love

By BRAD NOWLIN
Special to The Star
National Marriage Week was Feb. 7-14 this year. In my practice as a licensed clinical marriage and family therapist, I’ve found that relationships are complex and yet simple. They can be incredibly frustrating and immensely rewarding.

Yet I wish that people would try to do better without needing clinical help. Here are some ideas gleaned from the profession and from working with hundreds of couples:

You can set a date night and put the same amount of effort and creativity into it you did during courtship. Didn’t that work for you at one time? Where was that first date?

I’m sometimes amazed at the blank looks I get when I ask, “When was your last date?” In fairness, we are busy with jobs, kids and everything else, but dating can be fun and it doesn’t have to be expensive.

Make time each day to talk to each other and listen intently to your partner. You do that for your friends and that’s what your partner is. The happiest couples seem to take such interest in each other that it doesn’t seem like work (even though it may be at times).

Do one random act of kindness for your partner each week. Yes, that could include laundry or lawn, watching a sporting event or a chick flick. Some of the funniest stories come from stepping outside of our comfort zone, like when a man might watch HGTV or Oprah or a woman might go to Cabela’s or Bass Pro Shops.

I like the story of the couple who came in for counseling after 40 years of marriage. When I asked what the problem was, the wife said, “He never tells me he loves me.” I turned to the husband and he said, “I told her I loved her when we were married 40 years ago and nothing’s changed.” Yes, tell her you love her more often than that.

Express appreciation for your partner’s friends and family. You can find something to admire about your mother-in-law. I love my mother-in-law, and I know that I’m not alone.

Celebrate Valentine’s week and make your partner’s birthday and your anniversary a weeklong occasion. This can also take some of the pressure off of the day so that you don’t absolutely have to dine out with everyone else on Valentine’s Day.

Make time for love as you would any important investment in your relationship. It’s time management, it’s chemistry, it’s really important to the relationship.

These ideas may seem corny and prosaic and are not meant to be a complete list. Yet like other simple ideas, I see them work.

It seems to me that your motivation to improve your relationship is the single most important factor in making it happen. Is the payoff there?

I am honored to tell my wife a quote I picked up from a client that rings true: “I love my life with you!”

Brad Nowlin is a licensed clinical marriage and family therapist with offices in Overland Park and Kansas City. He lives in Overland Park. You can view his Marriage Friendly Therapist profile and website at: http://www.marriagefriendlytherapists.com/bradnowlin.php

Seven Signs for Relationship Problems and Their Solutions

Troubled Relationships, Seven Signs for Relationships Problems and Their Solutions by Dr. Nili Sachs.

In the best of intimate relationships, there are those subtle and not so subtle waves of difficulties. Some disagreements make sense; his words against hers, her values in the face of his values, old traditions vs. new ideas and so on. However, over few years living with a partner, attempting and working on intimacy, you could see few patterns emerging. Those patterns might be complicated for you to detect when you are a part of the ‘drama’.

For me, after thirty years of marriage-therapy and relationship-coaching, I find them simple to detect. Solving relationships’ problems take commitment, education and good will. From here the solutions are pretty much straightforward.

Some of these patterns are signs of troubled relationships. Here is the list of the seven most damaging intimate relationships’ troubles and their solutions:

1. Inability to be emotionally open; the uniqueness and secret of intimate relationships in comparison to other social, workplace and family relationships is in staying emotionally open. By exercising daily confiding with each other, couples learn to become emotionally open towards each other.

Read the rest of the article here...

Welcome to the Marriage Friendly Therapist Blog

Welcome to our new Marriage Friendly Therapy blog. Marriage problems are draining emotionally and physically. When you're in a time of need it can be very hard to sort out where to find a competent therapist and what questions to ask of a potential marriage counselor.

The purpose of this blog will continue to grow and change based on your feedback. Because of the confidential nature of marriage counseling we will solicit your feedback via email and post the best questions directly in the blog, along with the answer, protecting your privacy.

We hope to get all your questions answered - along with questions you never thought to ask! We hope to feature different forms of therapy, different ways of doing therapy (called therapy models), and share some of the reasons why marriage counselors are joining the only pro-commitment resource in the nation, MarriageFriendlyTherapists.com.

We are grateful for all the help couples have been receiving over the course of our existence (launched in June 2005). We continue to grow our marriage counselor listings across the nation and look forward to being in relationship with you, through this blog.

Warmly,
Elizabeth