Page 6 of 17

Which AGE is a Romance Killer? You May Be Surprised.

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

beached rowboatNo matter what your age, assumptions, generalizations, and expectations (AGE) will kill romance, and even the relationship, just about every time.

Human beings, male or female, are complex outcomes of how they’re hardwired, the meaning they make of themselves and their place in the world, and the world in which they grow up. I’m not a fan of statistics but I do know enough to say the combinations are endless — finite, but endless.

In other words, no two people are exactly alike.

Maybe because of our need to manage those unmanageable numbers we make generalizations about “what is a man” and “what is a woman”.  As a therapist I sometimes fall victim to simplification myself rather than taking the elements of a couple as two different people and not the generalized version of their gender descriptions, e.g. men are stoic and women are emotional.

I’m not the only perpetrator.  Societies generalize all the time, with changes usually coming over time, and in sometimes cataclysmic ways.  In American society think women getting the vote, same-sex marriage, or race relations.

Some generalizations take their time dying.  For example, every newly married couple — and some long-term ones — have expectations based on generalizations.  Same with expectations each gender has about the other.  Our society generalizes about roles, sex, happiness, conjointness, privacy, emotionality, rationality, areas of competence, and so on.

Otherwise life is way too complex.

Take sensitive men, for example, with their thoughts, feelings and behaviors contrary to the alpha model.  Or women whose thoughts, feelings, and behaviors run to competitiveness and control.  It’s not just men who have to wear a mask, women do, too.  A guy might get away with wearing a pink shirt if he’s otherwise kick-ass.  A woman CEO has to wear more than perfume in order to be relabelled from pushy, bossy, or bitchy.

Expectation-based thinking is insidious in most of us, hetero- or homosexuals alike.  That’s trouble.

Human interaction is expectation-based, often uneducatedly expectation-based.  We generally modify expectations about the physical world based on trial and error — that’s called learning. But when it comes to couples, for instance, generalization-based assumptions are wedged tightly into our psyches and seldom disappear for good.

In other words, a failing grade is earned in Relationship 101.

Relationships don’t have to die, or even fail.  Examining automatic thinking is work. There’s another way; it’s harder, but it works. Paying attention to gray matter chatter is the first step in breaking an AGEing brain away from automatic thinking.  Automatic thinking is a passive process; no thought goes into it at all.

The more active (read “aware”) the process of thinking, the fewer assumptions, generalizations, and expectations we hold about our partner and our partner’s role in the relationship.  It’s active thinking that can give partners insight into each other — the real other, not the generalized versions.

If a relationship stands a chance, AGE has to be put aside.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist specializing in couples.  She and her husband, David, teach couples how to avoid the destructiveness of AGEs.  They offer a Secular Couple Communication Workshop throughout the year; the next one begins September 25th.  Check it out!

Copyright, 2015 Being Heard, LLC

THE CROCK-POT MARRIAGE: TASTY LOVE IS SLOW-COOKED

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

crock pot

“You Can’t Hurry Love” sang The Supremes in their 1966 hit, covered in 1982 by Phil Collins and in 1999 by the Dixie Chicks.  Love that’s instant is often short-lived, more lust than length.  To await the outcome of something not ready in a jiffy is the practice of relationship . . . love at its most tasty.  While many of us search out the searing heat of newness, turns out successful love is cooked in a crock-pot. 

That familiarity breeds attraction has been a theme celebrated for at least a century, from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion as inspiration for the Broadway hit musical My Fair Lady to Oscar-nominated Bridget Jones’ Diary.  Guys might not worry about big girl panties, but it’s not just plus-size gals who love the possibility that love conquers looks. 

Despite what mom said about a good personality and a great smile, it seems the pretty ones have a shapely leg up when it comes to finding a likewise gorgeous mate; in evolutionary terms it’s called “high mate value”.  Notwithstanding friends with benefits, turns out mate value increases the longer people spend time together before dating.  In other words, the more you get to know someone, the more attractive you find them. 

Turns out mom was right.  

It stands to reason that the perception of mate value might also increase once people are permanently paired, irrespective of the amount of time spent getting to know each other in a non-romantic way. 

Several factors may be key:

Realistic expectations might mean having few, if any, expectations at all.  Of course that means that long-term togetherness is best viewed as a box of chocolates; understanding that the twists, turns, and adventures of even one life are unpredictable that double goes for any couple.  Shared values can feed into the predictability that increases the more that’s known about each other.  An acquaintance’s behavior doesn’t carry the same weight as that of someone we’ve committed to, probably because the expectation of a friend’s behavior doesn’t matter as much even though the behaviors might be the same.  For example, when a friend gets drunk it may be humorous; when a mate does, not so much.

No one has a plan for change, even though change is on the short list of life’s certainties.  The story of the spouse who left when the other developed cancer is apocryphal but is only a segment of our fear that when we’ve grown older, rounder, or more wrinkled our mate value is lost.  But the more you know someone, really know someone, the less likely change is upending.  True as well is that knowing and planning require learning and practicing.  Despite a feeling of instant connection, relationship is, well, work.  Just when a couple feels the hard part’s behind them, then whammo change happens again; it’s not so much planning for particular changes (as if that were even possible) it’s having the ability to have a plan for change in general.  As difficult as it might be to achieve, couples who can reach consensus about a plan of action are couples who are successful at riding out change together. 

Communication is about more than talking and listening.  Communication that works is an active process that builds on itself over time.  Attentiveness, thought, understanding, and active involvement are marks of partners who continue to know each other.  Think of friends you’ve had, male or female, to whom you felt comfortable talking about anything.  Expectation, judgment, and vulnerability seem to increase with romantic closeness when the truth is that you may already have trusted a friend with lots of the same things.  The effort each of us puts into “communicating” seem inversely proportional to time:  listening and talking to new mates is more intense than listening and talking to new friends; while the same behaviors are more intense with older friendships than with long-standing mates.

Each partner’s vulnerability to the other is possibly the most telling feature of mates’ mutual value.  Belief in the relationship incorporates the needs for trust and safety we all have.  With vulnerability (and the acceptance of it) there are no surprises, no hidden agendas, and not much left unsaid.  Respect is a key element of mutual vulnerability; knowing that your partner – or your friend — will not seek to harm you intentionally.  Both have a serious effect on self-esteem and our beliefs about our place in the future of others.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice who specializes working with couples.  Cooking with a crock-pot every chance they get, she and husband David have been married for 29 years. Together with their 2 hooligan cats, the Skinners live in Colorado where they teach Couple Communication Workshops.

Copyright, 2015  Being Heard, LLC

A FATHER’S DAY FANTASY

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

hefner and twinsFantasy’s a powerful thing.  It fuels the head trip of desire and compels the illusion of feeling good, even when there are no hands on.   Multi-billion dollar industries – from publishing to prostitution to porn – start here first.   

But how does the brain distinguish between what’s real and what’s imagined?   Scientists’ hypotheses point to the involvement of different areas of the brain and the multi-directional processing among them.  

Sexual fantasies are a solo adventure usually leading to release through orgasm.  For some the mind’s eye is enough to induce a significant physical event like orgasm.  Actual visual stimulation is so powerful that doctors’ offices getting sperm samples provide men with sexually explicit magazines as a way for patients to get it up and over with.   Humans are not alone:  Species that are down the evolutionary ladder from us also purposely seek out ways to feel good “down there”.  Elephants rub, monkeys twiddle away the hours masturbating, and male dogs lust after people’s legs.

Sometimes fantasy goes wild and boundaries are blurred, creating a new “reality”.  One example is the substitution of social bonds created by in-person interaction with texting, sexting, and hook-up sites.  We’ve always looked for love in the wrong places but it’s easier now; you don’t have to take a shower to “chat”.  Carried to extreme, fantasy never becomes reality:  the lure of being anyone you choose, often without consequence, is a strong inducement to stay impersonal.

It’s long been known that our brains are hardwired for pleasure, with specific neural pathways acting as highways.  As with anything pleasurable, the possibility of overindulgence, abuse, is possible.  While most brains have stopping, or surfeit, mechanisms, other brains are glitched to go wild.  Especially worrisome is the effect on young brains of unrelenting and ever-more-present societal messages about sex.  Young brains are not yet equipped with that Jiminy-Cricket-battle between the super-ego and the id; with this age group (and for some adults), the id wins almost every time.  Understandably there is concern for young people among parents, educators, and the mental health community.

The mental health and medical communities are concerned about the rise within the broader population of sexually identified mental health diagnoses as well as the rise in sexually transmitted disease.  It’s no longer unusual to know someone with herpes; it’s even been authoritatively predicted that in ten years over half of women and 40% of men will have contracted genital herpes.

Fantasy enables our addiction to the belief that if we can imagine it, we can make it real.  It sounds snappy when Sony says it, but those are dangerous words.  Not only because that’s not always true, but because it shouldn’t always be true..  Powerful as it is, sexual fantasy is just that.  Many of us are still hanging with Freud rather than updating our belief that it’s abnormal not to fantasize when bringing about orgasm. 

In praise of sexual fantasy: 

  • Leads to sexual activity, conjoint or solo, and that’s a good thing;

  • By inducing orgasm the body rids itself of stale sperm, an evolutionary advantage;

  • Orgasm reduces blood pressure, aids sleep, counts as exercise, lowers heart attack risk, lessens pain;

  • Can infuse a dulled relationship with newness;

  • Takes us on a journey we probably otherwise wouldn’t be capable of;

  • Stimulates creative thinking;

  • Enables us to practice social skills;

  • Offers an escape from criticism that may induce self-consciousness or an inability to function sexually;

  • Makes us feel good about ourselves, powerful, potent, and desirable;

  • Enhances relationship;

  • Mostly, sexual fantasy Is fun.

Sex is the adult version of play and fantasy is our way of looking forward to playing.  As thinking beings we need fantasy, daydreaming, and imagination as a pathway to our best self.  Fantasy is a pleasure in itself. 

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist whose private practice focuses on couples, especially those whose relationship is impacted by visible or invisible disability or illness for whom sexuality is often a significant issue.  It’s probable that childhood exposure to an overly enthusiastic dog is the reason she’s a cat person.  Then again, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.  With their two hooligan cats, Petey and Lucy, she and her husband David live in Colorado Springs where she maintains a private practice and where she and David co-instruct Couple Communication Workshops.  

Copyright 2015, Being Heard, LLC

Defining “normal”

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

Thanks to Cassandra for being insightful as well as a good writer. I know the rest of us with invisible illnesses share her perspectives! Find her at http://www.indisposedandundiagnosed.wordpress.com

indisposedandundiagnosed's avatarIndisposed and Undiagnosed

I have recently come across many posts where sufferers write about how they long to be “normal”. In a few of my posts, and most recently, I too speak of that longing for a norm.
I guess what I truly long for is familiarity, because when I fell ill I also felt like I lost a huge chunk of myself to the illness.
You may feel like you are not a whole person anymore. You might be embarrassed or ashamed that you have an illness. It happened to me, as I’m sure it has happened to you. It isn’t your fault – it’s inevitable.
It leaves you wishing to be normal, but when you think about it, what really is “normal”?

Google defines normal as, ”conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected”.

Is there only one standard that Google, and society, is referring to?
What do YOU…

View original post 379 more words

A SAD AND SOGGY SPRING

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

rain woman

Rain rain go away

come back again another day in another month

Too much of a good thing is too much.

A nursery rhyme sung over and over comes to mind.  Too much gray becomes black.  And too much rain dampens the most cheerful spirit among us.

Scientific studies about the impact of weather on mood are inconclusive because there are so many factors.  Results of a study using Dutch teens, for example, may not translate to American adults: so is one study right and the other wrong?  Not necessarily.  When apples and oranges are compared, in this case Dutch teens vs. American adults, broad assumptions can’t be made.

Such is the problem with making sweeping statements with little data.

Take the question of weather affecting mood.  The short answer is “not always and not for all people”.  Nevertheless, enough studies assert that the weather does indeed affect some peoples’ moods. It’s called Seasonal Affective Disorder — SAD for short — which is an apt name, considering.

What seems true for more people is that when weather is persistently unusual mood is affected.

Here in Eastern Colorado the wettest spring ever is making people already sensitive to depression, well, depressed.  It’s not just flowers who miss 8 hours of sunlight; people who weren’t SAD before rain, gloom, and chill were on the daily weather menu are sure as heck sad now.  And cranky, too.

This is Camp Watchogue weather; I didn’t like it when I was 8 and I don’t like it now.  But this is Colorado; give it another couple of weeks and we’ll all be complaining about how darned hot and dry it is.

I can’t wait.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice on Front Range of Colorado.  She specializes working with couples, especially those impacted by invisible or visible disability.  She and her husband David will soon be in Arizona in hopes that Colorado dries out in the meantime.  Their kitties Petey and Lucy have been unaffected: it’s just another good reason to find a cozy spot and go to sleep.  She and David teach Couples Communication Workshops throughout the year.  You can find them at http://www.beingheardnow.com or at www.coupleswhotalk.com.

copyright, 2015 Being Heard, LLC

How to Guarantee a Marital Argument

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

What’s easiest to do is sometimes the worst thing to do.  

Take getting on the wrong side of your partner.  It’s surprisingly easy to do; all you have to do is be right, or think you are.

Being right is easy:  None of us would intentionally put out there something dumb.  Our minds might change on further thought or discussion, but in the immediate we’ll stand by what we think.  But getting testy enough to argue even when we know we’re wrong has more to do with vulnerability — more accurately the perception of vulnerability – than with reality itself.  In a relationship, perception is reason enough.

While it’s true that few of us would choose looking foolish – at work for instance – it’s romantic relationship that touches our core.  It’s our fall-back, the default, the given.  Since we’re invested emotionally, when we think our partner thinks badly of us we want to change his or her mind, so we argue.

So what is it about being right?

1.  It’s threatening when you aren’t believed.  Get ready to rumble.  Not many of us like being doubted, especially if it replicates a know-it-all sibling or parent.  Because of that unconscious link to the past, a reaction is automatic thinking that’s thought-out poorly. The strength of the reaction is a good indication of the perception of threat.  My husband consistently  leaves the scene emotionally (flight) most times I correct his actions in the kitchen; while saber-toothed tigers that look like his dad are now extinct, I bet he’d respond the same way if one showed up.

2.  Acknowledgement is important.  Ever feel totally helpless trying to convince your partner you really are right?  Or that something that’s been attributed to you isn’t true?  How much we’re willing to defend ourselves is proportional to the force with which we’re accused, as well as how satisfying it is to be right after all, both are behaviors modeled and learned in family of origin.  Asking “What’s it to ya?” is reasonable for what is (and was) at stake is only cosmetically about the two of you. 

3.  It’s not about the relationship if it’s only about you.  What’s missing in a selfie is that there’s only one person in it.   Relationship isn’t a selfie, it’s a twosie so that anything that has to do with the marriage isn’t only one way or the other.  It might be you have all the reasons in the world to defend your turf but having the playground to yourself isn’t very much fun.  You can be too rational.  It doesn’t matter if everyone else in the world takes your side, the person who matters most to you doesn’t.  Relying on reason in an emotional situation is like comparing apples to oranges, only more crazy-making.  Make no mistake:  anyone who thinks actions/reactions in an intimate relationship aren’t about emotion ought to dis-enroll from the Mr. Spock School for Relationship Excellence.

Being in a permanent relationship is a whole new way of being, the best part of which is not having to be alone.  It’s a no-brainer that togetherness doesn’t thrive on aloneness.  It’s consequential that most couples I work with can’t remember what the argument that brought them to see me was about. 

The next time you two argue, it’ll be worth it to wonder if any of these insights brings you to something more profound than who really was in charge of packing the sunscreen.   

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist whose specialty is couples work, especially with those whose relationships are impacted by visible or invisible disability.  Married to David for almost 30 years, she’s grateful for the relationship lessons she continues to learn.  They live in Colorado with two hooligan cats, Petey and Lucy.  Learn more about Kathe at www.coupleswhotalk.com and about the Couples Communication Workshops the Skinners offer throughout the year. 

Copyright, 2015 Being Heard, LLC

GENGHIS KHAN GOT A DIVORCE

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

genghis Khan

It’s not that I don’t love you, Gengy.  I do.  But things just aren’t the same.

Used to be we’d talk ’til the yaks came home.  We don’t talk like that anymore.  Actually, we don’t talk at all.  You’re distant and quiet, even with the kids.  You’re never home at dinnertime and I can’t remember the last time we had a date night.

Other gals say it’s the same with them.  You and your horde come home after conquering and slaughtering and a year’s gone by and you act like some bigshot who’s gonna take over where you left off, but guess what? everybody’s been used to fending without you. Know what else? we’ve done pretty good, too.

Whoa, Gengy; don’t get your temper up!  You’re such a control freak, but you’re not gonna bully me anymore.  I love you, I do. But I can’t — no, I won’t — keep taking it.  You come off as so studly but I’m tired of sleeping by myself while you get wasted on that fermented crap.  I’m really sick of all those concubines hanging off you.  And I’m tired of entertaining all those brutes you call generals.  Gengy, I’m just. plain. tired.

I’m done.  I mean it this time.

Your moods don’t bother me anymore.  I don’t give an ox’s ass about all that blood on your hands and those nightmares you have.  Man up, Genghis!  It’s a brutal world out there for all of us; but the Great Khan wants us to feel sorry for him like nobody else matters.

The saying is “love conquers all”, not “Genghis Khan conquers all.”  Try thinking about somebody else besides yourself for a change!

It’s beyond me how you can get one end of your empire to communicate with the other but you’re in the dark when it comes to communicating with me.  What do I want?  I’ll tell you:  I want you to tell me dinner was good.  That I look nice.  Tell me about your day; you know, like how’d it go out on the steppes. Some funny story about one of your generals.  Like that.

Yeah, yeah, I know all about all the great stuff you do.  You keep telling me, don’t you?  You don’t listen, not to anybody.  You do what you want, you get what you want, and thousands of people get hurt.  If you put half as much effort into us as you do into work, we wouldn’t be so far apart.

Look, Gengy, we’ve been together a long time, since we were 12. Pretty good for an arranged marriage, huh?  Remember our first night — all those stars! the music of shuffling ponies.  And you couldn’t . . . well, that’s ancient history.  After all, you were only twelve.

You once said you’d give me the known world but I didn’t think it meant you’d be gone all the time.  It’s like you’re trying to prove something with all this conquering.  And being so fearsome; what’s that about?  Sometimes you even scare me.  You don’t have to be a therapist to see what having a tyrant for a father did to you. And the way you treat me? Just like your father treated your mother.  She took it for all those years, but I don’t have to.

I’m sorry; bringing your mother into it, that was a low blow.

Listen.  Mongolia doesn’t feel like home anymore.  You’re never around and when you are you’re all inside your head about who you and the boys are going to pillage next.  The kids don’t need me; they’re all grown and scattered to the winds.  You don’t need me, and I’m tired of doing this marriage by myself.  I’ve got to think about me for a change.  I’ve always wanted to travel —  maybe China; I hear their silks are to die for.

Don’t act surprised, Gengy.  We’ve both known this was coming. As brutal as you are, you never laid a hand on me.  This is gonna sound strange, but you know what?  I almost wish you had.  At least that way you would’ve touched me.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist specializing in couples work, especially with those couples whose relationship is impacted by visible or invisible disability.  She lives in Colorado with her husband David (whose latest conquered territory is the garage) and their two pampered yak-ity cats, Petey and Lucy.  She and David hold a Couples Communication Workshop throughout the year.  Check it out all the Workshops offered @ www.coupleswhotalk.com

Copyright, 2015 Being Heard, LLC

DO YOU NEED YOUR THERAPIST TO BE HUMAN?

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

robot“I can’t work with someone who’s broken,” he said calmly.

The young man had just read my Disclosure, a description of rights that, as a Marriage & Family Therapist, I’m legally required to give all clients.  Although it isn’t necessary, my Disclosure also relates that I have multiple sclerosis; I don’t want clients to wonder whether my stumbling is about a liquid lunch.

Broken, he said.  Broken.  I never imagine anyone thinking of me as “damaged” – hell, even in my most self-pitying moments I don’t think of myself in that way. 

I was temporarily speechless; did he really say that? 

“Tell you what,” I said when I was sure my response wouldn’t betray my hurt, “think about it until next time.”  Then I went home and cried.

At our final session he admitted what had evidently been in his mind for the three months we worked together.  He was glad he’d given me a chance.  “I found out I was broken, too,” he told me.

That young man understood that no one is perfect, not even therapists.  That healers can be in need of healing, too.  By making it “normal” to have flaws —  even serious or disabling ones (his anxiety and my m.s.) — the young man was able to let go of the stigma of emotional distress, the impossibility of being perfect, that was behind his anxiety in the first place.

I still disclose my disability to clients although the passage of twelve years has made symptoms apparent that were once easy to hide.  I fundamentally believe that clients who come to therapy often do so because they feel alone with how they feel; as Roy Orbison sang, the feeling is that we’re the “only one” who experiences the depth of pain we do.  How secretly pleasing to know that the someone who slips-up, isn’t always self-assured, or doesn’t always behave the way the experts’ books say is your own therapist!

How healing to know you’re really not the only one.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist specializing in couples work, especially with those whose relationships are impacted by invisible disability or chronic illness.  She’s been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis for over 35 years.  At home in Colorado with David, her husband, and their two hooligan cats, Petey and Lucy, no one in their household believes in Kathe’s perfection.  Find information about the Skinners’ upcoming Couples Communication Workshop at www.beingheardnow.comand Kathe’s other dynamic practice and programs at coupleswhotalk.com.

Image Courtesy of supakitmod at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

© 2015, Being Heard, LLC

5 WAYS BUSY COUPLES BUDGET FIGHTING

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

couple smiling bwMost couples still rely on two incomes, not just to pay for extras like dinner and a movie, but to cover bills.  And even though finances make the top 3 of what couples fight about, it takes more than an economic implosion to make couples cranky.

Smart relationships know that money isn’t the only thing that’s limited: time and energy are, too.   Budgeting what’s in short supply helps insure that resources are there when needed.  That’s the wisdom behind budgeting the time to fight.  Budgeting makes partners examine what’s really important to hold onto so that fighting is a storm that passes, not a 3-day hurricane that sleeps on the couch.

Here’s what healthy couples know about how important it is to budget fighting:

1.  They understand the need to keep fighting in the budget.   Fitting fighting into a relationship budget is just as important as allocating any other resource.  Didn’t know fighting was a resource?  It is.  Fighting clears the air, demonstrates passion, expresses problems and aims at solving them, and risks vulnerability in order to build trust.  At the same time, smart couples know to draw the line on smothering each other with agreement.   Budgeting for fighting recognizes the need the relationship has for vulnerability, safety, honesty, respect, mutual responsibility, and trust – and to know they’ll never be perfect at it.

2.  They develop the budget together.  Fighting all the time is as unhealthy as never fighting.  But how much is too much and what should fighting with each other look like?  Wise couples agree that two rules are universal:  Never include abuse of any kind – verbal, physical, emotional, sexual; and resist the impulse to involve children, even grown children, by seeking their advice or comfort, or downplaying a partner.  Partners benefit from skills like self-talk, time-out, and self-calming techniques.  After that, couples develop their own best-fit ways of fighting.

3.  They learn to budget effectively.  If you haven’t had experience budgeting, or haven’t been successful at it, listen up:  The best way to get in over your head is to spend more than you take in.  Saying you “don’t have time for this” and relying on a relationship credit card doesn’t work for long.   Busy couples explore and express what each needs in order to stay connected.  They regard the needs and wants of each partner as an important budget item.  These couples don’t spend time on jealousy, blame, disregard, or distrust.  Clearing the closet of hidden agendas keeps you aware of what’s happening.  They avoid finding out later that something’s wrong now.  Think of fighting as a steam valve that periodically releases pressure from building up to dangerous levels.

3.  They prioritize fighting with other budgeted items.  If it’s true that the average couple spends about 20 minutes of time together per day then any busy couples’ time is limited.  Saying “can we talk?”as you’re getting in bed violates the budget unless both partners have agreed beforehand to take time from one place (sleep) and put those assets into another (problem-solving). Is watching television as important as catching up a partner’s day?  What about personal time?  Where does “shared activity” fit in?  How about lovemaking?  Limited time together means, perhaps unfortunately, that we aren’t yet as rich in available resources as we’d like.

4.  They evaluate the budget from time to time.   A budget that works is one that reflects reality.  Changes in a couple’s life affect the stress levels that so often predict fighting.  Budgets are reflective of relationships themselves, which are dynamic and colorful.  Tuned-in couples know this and pay attention.  They learn that the circumstances that made for an argument can disappear with understanding, humor, and choice. They set limits, describe rules, and delineate what’s important and how important something is.

A bloody nose is an attention-getter, forcing you to pay attention to what’s standing in front of you.  Successful couples don’t need to bloody each other’s noses:  They know that expressing healthy disagreement is as important as food in the ‘fridge; that there are rules to fighting, especially ones about abuse; and that a good fight clears a path to what’s really going on.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist who works primarily with couples, especially those whose relationships are affected by visible or invisible disability.  Her Russian/Sicilian temper and David’s passive-aggressive style have challenged them to come up with a “budget” that works for their marriage.  They live in Colorado with their two hooligan cats, Petey and Lucy, whose fur flies only in fun.  Read  about the Skinners’ Couples Communication Workshops at www.beingheardnow.com and about Kathe’s couples programs at www.coupleswhotalk.com

copyright, 2015 Being Heard LLC

Be Direct! Ask for What you Want and Need….

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

Fiunny, David and I were just talking and he finished a sentence for me. That happens often enough that my expectation is that he not only finishes my sentences, he knows beforehand what those sentences are. When he’s not on the same page — not even in the same book — I’m angry at him. And when he really really really doesn’t get me, I’m really really really angry.

Translate anger into hurt, which of course is what lies beneath anger. The angrier, the greater the hurt. Translate more and up pops vulnerability which, in an intimate relationshiop, is powerful enough to shut down the whole show.

Another challenge that comes with being in love.

Debra Taitel's avatarDaily Muse

LabrynthDo you have a challenge when it comes to asking for what you want? Do you feel like you have to do everything alone? Do you “hint” at your wants and needs hoping someone “picks up on them?

More importantly do you refrain from bringing up what you want and need because you don’t want to “bother” or “burden” someone else?

“From what I’ve seen, it isn’t so much the act of asking that paralyzes us–it’s what lies beneath: the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak. The fear of being seen as a burdensome member of the community instead of a productive one.”~Amanda Palmer

It takes a great deal of courage to be direct and ask for what we want and need. The Amanda Palmer quote really sums it up nicely. Many of us are challenged asking for help. We don’t…

View original post 631 more words