One of the patterns we notice on the Guy-side of the relationship equation is the lack of emotional development in men’s personalities. Women may have their own version of this, but men are socialized in so many more ways than women to avoid knowing their emotional world. More often than not, this gets in the way of true intimacy being created in a relationship. So our article today is an attempt to speak practically to men about how to take some first steps in opening up to the territory of their emotional landscape.
Guys:
I am a stay-at-home dad, which means that I take our two kids back and forth to school, clean the house, do the laundry, pay the bills, and make the social calendar for us all. My wife is the bread winner. She works for a large corporation, has a graduate degree in economics, and busts her butt to make a decent living for us.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2010 the number of married couples in American households has dropped below half for the first time ever. We offer our thoughts here as to why trust in the institution of marriage has diminished in the 21st century as well as some of the causes of the negative filter that marriage is currently being viewed through.
Though we teach healthy communication skills to the couples we work with in our office, we also realize that no technique will be effective at home for our couples if there are no safe and solid underlying agreements between them—ground rules, so to speak—of how to treat each other in the most respectful and loving ways. Here are the basic Relationship Agreements that we believe create the safest environment for a healthy relationship to take place:
This might not be a new topic for our readers, but it is one that we encounter every day in working with couples that we feel could use some clarification. We see that what many couples call true love is really a fear-based, mistrustful, and indirect way of dealing with each other that we call codependency.
Here comes the beginning of a New Year, and we see it as an opportunity for our readers to become proactive about making their relationships better. We believe that it is a good time to rejuvenate a marriage or relationship by paying attention to some very basic but necessary aspects of maintaining a deeper connection to your partner. Make an agreement with each other to consistently try these five things to make it a better year for your relationship:
We have talked about some of the effects of financial stress on a relationship in the past, but feel it deserves further examination in a full column. Money anxiety can be a formidable adversary to a marriage when its insidious presence triggers a cascade of underlying dynamics that cause mistrust and disrespect between a couple.
I am trying to figure out whether I should marry my boyfriend or not. He is a very conservative man, and I am a very liberal woman. He is a devout Catholic, a Republican, and a big family man.
My husband is involved with a very important humanitarian cause that keeps him very busy and preoccupied. We have been married for 20 years, and we continue to go through these cycles where he seems to check out of the relationship and another part of him takes over to “run the show.”
