relationships - Couples Therapy Better Treasures

This comes to you from working with a couple who have put romantic affection for one another on the back-burner. …for so long, it has been forgotten. And it is hard to reboot. To do so, fantasy helps. I encouraged them to reconnect to an earlier-less -cynical version of themselves. It doesn’t really matter if you go back to when you were 8 or 9 years old, the point is to reconnect to creativity, openness, your aliveness, and dreaming. Here is their homework assignment:

Your homework for the week is to dream about an ideal date night arrangement. You will want to think about what would really appeal to you about a plan together; what is the ideal plan for you?

How would you get started? How would it end?

Also thinking deeply about what is in the plan that is essential for making it a thing you would look forward to doing together. We will talk more about this in the coming weeks. This is a skill that takes time to develop. It requires introspection and self-awareness along with positive use of anticipation and fantasy. It might seem easy, but it really isn’t for many of us and for many reasons.

Next you can think about what are all the different ways in which you might achieve the essence of what brought joy about being in connection with your partner. In other words, aren’t there multiple ways in which you could bring those special moments to life? What are they?

Questions to help the process.

What about this fantasy matters to me? What would moving through this fantasy provide for me; how would I be receiving support from my partner–in what way? What are the elements of the fantasy that feel most achievable, which ones seem difficult to acknowledge? Is my initial reaction to reject what comes up for me? Won’t this get easier if I continue to put forth effort into it? What other feelings arise that protect me from possible disappointment? How do I Turn Towards what comes up for me? How do I shut myself down? What am I telling myself when I am shutting myself down? Is that helping me to grow? What might I need in order to feel more comfortable sharing and developing my fantasies? From myself? From my partner? What would help?

Remember to use Assumption of Similarity if in doing this exercise, you notice critical feelings arise about your partner. You might try writing them down. Usually there is a fear here, …AND one or several vulnerable requests, wishes, desires–these are the keys to healing, becoming okay to realize your unmet or unfulfilled desires and then taking courage to explore how you might allow yourself to acknowledge these wishes, dreams, needs, as well as how you might invite them to be known to and requested of your loving partner. There is a skill in introducing our needs, wishes, dreams to our partner. I can help you with that.

Looking forward to our next session.

Hope this helps!

There is an in and out of love. There is a rest and action. There is a pulsating rhythm to life and so it also goes with love. You can rest in that. You can explore what are your needs in the ebbs and floes of your own love experiences.

Healthy relationships are buttressed by healthy secure attachments. Aligning your actions to what promotes secure attachments is essential. Saying a proper hello and goodbye goes a very long way in fostering a trustworthiness that the relationship continues to be just as strong and secure even when we are not together, even as we inevitably come and go.

Building routine and ritual in the quintessential comings and goings can be one of the biggest challenges and victories for couples. Even parents must wrest with the daily greetings and goodbyes inevitable in raising our children. But what does it mean to create a ritual around relational breathing? Around the ho-hum daily rhythms of the couple, or if you have kids, the hive?

With intention, with consciousness, we create beauty. Whereas with mindlessness, havoc and chaos reign. We all want a beautiful life. Here’s how to set yourself up for having one.

Develop your hello and goodbye rituals.

It only takes a split-second to realize that we want to be greeted when we come home, and be wished well when we depart.

How this looks is as individual as we are.

Try identifying or dreaming up your idealized version of your everyday greeting of one another.

How do you greet one another? How do you come back together?

Now look at what you would most like to receive before leaving the ones that you love.

How do you depart from your beloved?

Take it a step further and extend the benefits of this exploration.

Anticipate your longings for the times when you and your partner are not together?

What do you need when you are away?

What does your partner need when away?

A warm hello and a pleasant goodbye not only impart fondness but also leave us with the sense that we are desired and a part of something greater than ourselves. No matter what upset may be lingering unprocessed, warmth and connective efforts go a long way to reducing relational stress and creating a sense of attachment security and safety.

In thinking back, what do you recall have been the most pleasant welcoming and departures? What would increase your sense of safety and connectedness in these simple yet powerful rituals?

Tag: relationships

Choose-Your-Own Fantasy Date Night–for the couples having trouble putting themselves back out there together.

Because Love Breathes