In recent weeks I’ve been talking about ways to develop friendship so that positive feelings override the inevitable ups and downs of your marital relationship. In this article I want to move on to another strategy—that of strengthening your relationship by nurturing admiration. The reason this is so important is that a happy marriage is […]

As I pointed out in my last article, one of the characteristics of successful and satisfying relationships is “positive sentiment override.” This means that you have built up enough positive feelings (friendship) towards each other that you’re able to withstand the inevitable disappointments, conflicts, and just plain hard times in your marriage. One way to […]

Happy vs. Unhappy Couples The purpose of this article is to talk about friendship in marriage. But first, I need to tell you about the research of John Gottman at the University of Washington in Seattle. Gottman may be the most respected researcher on marriage in the world. For four decades now, John and his […]

Two Ways of Being A philosopher by the name of Martin Buber said that we can come from one of two orientations or ways of being in our relationships with others. He called them I-It vs. I-Thou. Whichever orientation we adopt has huge implications in marriage as well as any and all of our relationships. […]

I’ve talked a lot about self-responsibility. In truth, it’s hard to show up in a loving way for another person if you don’t take responsibility for yourself. Otherwise, you’ll be passive and dependent or blaming and controlling, in either case believing that your wellbeing is up to someone else more than you. This mindset will […]

In this article, I talk about differences between men and women. The purpose is to help you develop more understanding and even appreciation of your partner. So much conflict and alienation couples experience comes from misunderstanding our partner’s intent. Much of this can be reduced as we recognize gender differences. Although there are so many […]

In a recent blog post, I talked about the differences between owning versus disowning responsibility for yourself in your relationship with your partner. I shared a story in which I made myself a victim of Judy until I stopped to think about it and was able to alter my reaction. I went from feeling like […]

The phrase personal responsibility has a lot of meanings so let me be clear about what I’m talking about. It means that you take ownership of your life. You’re not a passenger but in the driver’s seat of your life. Life does not simply happen to you. Rather, you shape your life by your ability […]

In my last article, I talked about four toxic patterns that diminish our feelings of safety, security and love within our relationships. And because we are human, we will sometimes fall into these patterns. But the good news is that we can recover and rebuild feelings of safety and love. My purpose in this article […]

In a recent blog post I introduced the five stage of marital satisfaction: enchantment, disillusionment, obligation, friendship and mature love. In this post I want to talk about four toxic relationship patterns that prevent you from moving forward from disillusionment or obligation to friendship and love. These four patterns come from marriage research at the […]