Image by Martin Stranka

One of the things I’ve found in working with couples over the last 9 years, is that many of them come into session, and the session goes a little something like this:

Jack and Jill are fighting more frequently. Jack blames Jill for being too demanding, and they have stopped having intimate moments. Jill blames Jack for not helping out enough with the house and the children, and Jack is angry all the time.  The arguing in the office starts to escalate in just a matter of minutes. He said, She said. Back and forth.

Like Jack and Jill, many couples start to point fingers at their partner out of daily frustration and years of unresolved baggage between them. However, there’s one thing they’re forgetting: the only spouse you can change, is yourself. By stepping back from the confrontations, you can ask yourself, “How am I contributing to this problem? Where am I going wrong here?”

See, its real easy to point the finger, isn’t it? But when you look into your own issues, it gets a little more complicated. In fact, there are times when I run into couples who hear what their significant other says, and rather than address the issue, they hide behind a completely different issue! So shots are fired across the bow, and even though each partner hears the other, no one is really listening.

So the Result is that rather than digging into an issue and resolving it, we skirt away from it, and run even further away from where we are going wrong in the relationship. So much so, that perhaps we can’t even see it. Sound familiar? Hopefully not, but if it does, there’s hope for you yet!

So how do we fix it? Well, first we start with humility. Get over yourself (and I mean that in as sweetly and as lovingly as possible). You’re not perfect, and neither is your spouse. I understand that it would make you very happy to fix your significant other, but you have to recognize that you can’t control that person. They have to choose to change, and when/if they do, it means that much more. You can, however, control you, which is the next step.

Step 2 is taking a look at yourself, and realize what you’re doing wrong. I know that doesn’t feel very good, but hey, you want to make your relationship better, right? Well, that means work, and when you think of the word “work,” are you really thinking fun? My guess is no. So it means you have to take a second, and recognize that maybe some of your emotions about what’s going on here, might have something to do with you and what you’re doing wrong. Find one thing…just one, and own the thing you did wrong.

Step 3 is apologize for that thing. And please, don’t tell me you’re waiting for your partner to apologize first, because really, that’s just an excuse to not do it yourself. When does someone else’s bad behavior justify your own? Someone’s got to be the bigger person here, and take the first step. Does it always have to be you? No, and it shouldn’t always be you, and by recognizing you can’t control your partner, you’re taking a step toward improvement by taking responsibility.

See, if you’re humble, its hard for someone to be mean to you, unless they really don’t love you or don’t want to work out the relationship (and these people do exist, sadly). Humility is, in my opinion, half of the key to happiness. The other is gratitude.

Finally, step 4 is devising a plan of action. Its one thing to apologize (and if you’ve been reading me for a bit, you know how I feel about I’m Sorry), its another to take it step further by making a plan of action. By taking that step, you show, not just tell your partner that you mean business.

This is what I recommend to the couples I work with, because for many of them, they have been dealing with finger pointing for years. It has to stop somewhere, and with someone, so I usually try to encourage both of them to do it at the same time. That way, both parties are admitting a wrong-doing without the other doing the finger pointing, and can plan toward making ammends from there.

So consider looking at things a little differently. Its really easy when you’re mad to point the finger and shake it a few times. But what if you looked inward and took an account of where you’re going wrong, and then made ammends for it? Would that change your relationship?

I’m all ears.

So I took a week off from blogging for a couple of reasons. First, I didn’t have much to say, and the Valentine’s Day post seemed to get a lot of attention (though I may be misreading my spam folder).  The other is because I’ve been horribly busy (and in this business, when in time of feast you feast to prepare for possible famine). Anyway, I bring this topic up because I even found myself saying “sorry” to my wife for things I did (no, not for having a lousy Valentine’s Day…that was actually really cool), and I found a very peculiar thing.

I didn’t mean it.

Now granted, just because that’s what happened with me, doesn’t mean its what happens with everyone. However, I found that the more and more I looked at the reasons why I said I was sorry, the more I realized that “I’m sorry” wasn’t really what I was trying to say. Most of the time I was saying I’m sorry because of one of these reasons:

1. I realized that I was wrong and didn’t want to face it

2. I just wanted her to stop bugging me about something I knew I was wrong about

3. I wanted to use some words to placate her so that I could put off what she wanted me to do a little longer

4. I said it, knowing that she trusts me, and I had no intention of changing, despite what I said. I knew she would accept it at face value and let it go if I said I was sorry.

Now granted, these situations are few and far between, and I make them sound worse than they actually are. But I have a question for you, dear reader…

Sound familiar?

From where I sit, ”I’m sorry” doesn’t mean much in American culture anymore. If you really think about how many times we say it, and how many situations we’ve used it in, is there truly a moment when we use I’m sorry to ask for forgiveness with the purpose of actually doing our best to ensure that it doesn’t happen again?

Accroding to a research study done at Cornell University, when it comes to insincere and sincere apologies, “targets of such apologies are not likely to respond differently.” Since people don’t respond differently to apologies, whether we mean them or not, it would make sense as to why we continue to use insincere apologies. In fact, they assert that the reasoning behind using insincere apologies are to feel good about oneself and to be seen positively by others.

Both of these reasons have nothing to do with what you’ve done to the other person.

So how should we apologize (and remember, should is fantasyland until you do something about it)? Well, this is how I’m going to apologize from now on, in order to ensure that I mean it when I say it:

1. I realize that what I did was wrong

2. I realize that what I did hurt you deeply

3. I want to continue to have a positive relationship with you

4. Therefore, I am going to ask for your forgiveness

5. And in a good faith effort, endeavor to rebuild your trust by never doing what I did to hurt you again.

That’s a lot, but we’ve condensed it down because its easier to say I’m sorry than it is to actually apologize.

What do you think? How do you apologize? Are your apologies sincere or insincere? Let me know what you think.

I’ve often said that if a woman can multi-task, she’s normal, but if a guy can multi-task, he’s got ADHD. I am about to introduce you to a very strange and magical place that men frequent often, but women may be unaware of. I’ve run into a lot of clients and friends who go to this magical place, and one of my clients finally put a name to it, which I thought was pretty clever.

Its called the Nothing Box.

Now what is the Nothing Box? Its a place where men go when there is absolutely nothing going on inside their head. Jerry Seinfeld once said, “Wanna know what men are thinking about? Nothing. We’re just walkin’ around….lookin’ around.” This happens more often than we men would like to think, or even admit. At times, the Nothing Box serves as a valuable tool to focus on the task at hand.

Now how do I know that this Nothing Box even exists? Well for starters, I go there often. One of the more common places I go to my Nothing Box is when I’m driving. All I’m doing is focusing on driving, and that’s basically it. When my wife is with me, sometimes she’ll ask me, “What are you thinking about?” To that I respond, “Nothing.” I wish I were kidding, but that really is the case.

I’ve worked with clients that will go to their Nothing Box as long as they are focusing on a task that requires concentration. These same men will ignore their wives for sex, insensitive to their wives, and have ignored small innuendo during conversation because too many people are talking.

So how do you avoid the Nothing Box? Here are a few tips:

1. Be aware of the outside world. Don’t be so drawn into what you’re doing that the rest of the world doesn’t shake you from your concentration.

2. There’s a time and a place for your Nothing Box. Don’t go there all the time, just certain times when you don’t have to be conscious of others needs or Emotions.

3. Increase your capacity for awareness. Sometimes you don’t recognize that you’re in your Nothing Box until you’re already there. Use your Thoughts to consider when and where you are most likely to go to your Nothing Box, and decide whether or not you want to go there.

For you ladies, there’s some stuff here too:

1. Realize that your man may vey well have a penchant for the Nothing Box. Cut him some slack if he’s decided to be there. Its not because he’s not thinking about what’s important, it may just be that he’s a guy and can focus on only one thing at a time.

2. Educate your man about his Nothing Box. He may not even know he’s going there. Kindly letting him in to what he’s doing could help you understand each other better.

3. Give your man some time to be in the Nothing Box. He’s got to be there sometime, so give him a chance to be there. Talk about when might be a good time for him to go there, so that it doesn’t get in the way of stuff you need to do.

So let me ask you this: Have you ever gone to your Nothing Box? Ladies, do you have a story about your man and his Nothing Box? I’d love to hear it!

P.S. – This isn’t a new concept. Cindy Holman talked about it here, as well as Robb Lewis, and Carolyn McCulley. Check out their stuff on this topic and enhance the discussion.

I was going to sit here and blog about death and how Halloween takes death and turns it into something we fear or something that we joke about. I was going to go off on a rant about how horror movies are bad mkay, and that we are trained by society to fear death.

Then I thought about it, and thought, that’s just no fun at all.

So I decided to share an equation that came to me in session one day. The simple equation below.

Let me explain this equation a bit further. See, I work with a lot of couples, and some of them have to work through issues of infidelity, lying and other acts of mistrust. As a result, many of them come into my office looking for a way to rebuild the trust that has been lost.

So this is what I offer them. You can not have Trust without Facts, and you can’t have Trust without seeing those facts for a period of Time.

Well, this is all well and good, but how can I apply this to my own life?

Well its not just as simple as that, is it? There are certain Facts that need to be understood in order for Trust to exist. What kind of Facts are we looking for? The kind that is necessary to ease the emotional distress of the other person. And not just any amount of Time will do, but we have to get specific about the amount of Time that must occur in order to regain this Trust.

Let’s make this simple, because I tend to make things more complicated than they actually are.

1. Decide that you want to rebuild the trust between you and the person who broke your trust. You have to decide whether or not you want to rebuild the Trust. This is where it has to start if you’re going to rebuild any trusting relationship.

2. Decide what you can trust this person with, and what you can’t. This separation has the WATER Method all over it. What you can and can’t change and what you can and can’t trust someone with are much in the same. The only difference is that with Trust, you can make a change in what you can’t trust someone with.

3. Give this person measurable goals with which they can rebuild your trust. Decide what you are willing to trade in return for your trust. Take in this process, and really think about what is worth trading for…what Facts and for how long do they need to exist before you feel comfortable trusting this person.

4. Decide to give back that trust. Make sure you make this decision, because if you don’t, you may find yourself wondering why this person is so bitter. I mean, you just made them jump through these flaming hoops, you have to make sure you keep up your end of the bargain.

So there you have it. Einstein had E=MC2, Newton had his laws of physics, Freud had his theories. Maybe this isn’t as amazing, but hey, its helped some people Maybe it will help you. 

So I’m sitting with my wife today and we’re talking over coffee about our friends and how they’re doing lately. One of the things we noticed was that women and men seem to see their friends very differently. Not that we need another reason to create a difference between men and women mind you, because heck, there are plenty of ways they’re different to begin with. But we noticed something really funny…

Some women hate successful women, yet some men praise and aspire to be like successful men.

For example, if Woman A is atractive or pretty in some way; if she’s successful or smart, or has some other quality that Woman B doesn’t have, then Woman A is a complete witch, and deserves the scorn and hatred of Woman B.

Whereas if Man A is attractive or successful or has some talent or skill that Man B doesn’t have, Man B seems more inclined to idolize Man A, and aspire to be like him.

I have no evidence to back this up whatsoever. I have tried to find articles or studies to show this strange anomoly between men and women, and I’ve come up with a whole lot of nothing.

However, what’s the point of talking about this? What’s the big deal anyway?

The point is to allow this example to help us understand ourselves. Because if you’re Man or Woman B, you likely need to consider how this affects your life in a very negative way.

Here’s my take on this: Some women feel threatened by other women who have different, better, or other talents than they do. When this happens, they instinctively turn on these women who have other traits, and look to find ways to distance themselves from them. This could also allow for her to not be compared to other women who she percieves as “better than her,” and prevent her from being let down by others in the process.

On the other hand, men tend to do one of two things: they are either really supportive, and out of some form of admiration aspire to be like men who are successful, or they tend to envy them in an unhealthy way, and as a result, might praise them to save face, but may hate them from within.

See, in my opinion, the reason why we react the way we do to other people is because of the way we see ourselves. Abraham Maslow described this as the Hierarcy of Needs. Specifically, these issues tend to be somewhere between the Love/Belonging Needs and the Esteem Needs.

So depending on the needs that you have at the time, could determine how you respond to people who come your way.

But let’s take it a step further! What if you are one of these people? Is it a good idea to continue down this path?

Since this is a combination of Love/Belonging Needs and Esteem Needs, it seems we need to work on those the most. Here are my suggestions:

1. Consider what you’re telling yourself about yourself in relation to others. What is causing you to want what they have? Think about where that’s coming from, and how that’s affecting your Emotions and Actions.

2. Live your own life, not someone else’s. How much time do you spend thinking about what it would be like to live someone else’s life? If you’re spending more than a few minutes, you’re spending too much time in fantasy land. Live your life and enjoy it.

3. What do you really want? Do you want someone else’s life, or a better version of your own? If you want a better version of your own, stop looking to other’s lives as examples, and start looking at how you can change your own life to have what you want.

Granted, this isn’t therapy. Its your life, you do what you want…but consider how your attitude about others  and about your self is affecting how you see yourself, and how its affecting your overall life enjoyment.

What do you think? Has this ever happened to you?

One of the more common themes I’ve been dealing with in session with my couples is the concept of love, and how some people are “losing the loving feeling.” And I’ve come here to say one thing:

Love has nothing to do with feelings.

Yeah, I know, I know. This flies right in the face of all the great romantic comedies you’ve watched. It goes against everything you’ve been told by your favorite TV shows and romance novels you’ve read. Hell, it even goes against good ol’ Tony Robbins methodology doesn’t it (hence why he got divorced, because he couldn’t “be happy” in it). After all, aren’t you supposed to feel love and happiness all the time with the person you love?

No, you’re not.

Let me break it down to you this way. Think about all the reasons you got into a relationship. Think about all the feelings you felt and what that meant to you.

Did any of that stuff have anything to do with the other person?

Think about this for a second. The great feelings you feel are feelings YOU feel. This has to do with you. You get involved with someone because of how they make YOU feel and how they compliment YOUR life. The fact that all this works for the other person is really great too, isn’t it.

But in essence, it has to do with you and how you feel.

This, is in essence a form of relationship narcissism. The relationship isn’t something that you commit to for better or worse, its something that is an accessory to your life. Its there to make you feel happy or loved. If things feel bad, or there’s a problem that people aren’t willing to work on, then its time to move on, isn’t it? After all, if you’ve lost the loving feeling, then there must clearly be something wrong with the relationship.

Or maybe, just maybe, you’ve come back down to Earth and realized that you have to live in reality.

And reality is no fun. Nowhere near as fun as the endorphin filled, infatuation-fest that you went on when you first got involved with that person.

OK, I’m ranting. I know I’m ranting. But I do have a point in all this.

Sometimes relationships are not going to be fun. Sometimes they’re going to be hard, and sometimes they’re downright ugly. If you don’t make a choice to love someone despite how they make you feel, then what is going to keep you together?

That’s my point. You wanna know why the divorce rate is at 50% and climbing? You want to know why kids are still affected by divorce, even though its considered “normal” these days?

Its because no matter how normal it is, it still affects them…and negatively.

Its because people are weak (abuse, abandonment and adultery aside; leaving in these circumstances does not make you weak), and they don’t want to work out their crap. Its much easier to go find some other person and feel all those great feelings all over again. Its much easier to ignore the problem and keep making the same mistakes you always make in relationships.

Don’t get me wrong. It takes two people to make a relationship work. Each person has to decide that they’re going to make it work no matter what. I’ve seen people make that choice, and as a result, the relationship improves and gets stronger than ever before. I’ve also seen people bail because they’re weak and they don’t want to work through the issues.

Those people are likely still chasing that loving feeling.

Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but you know what? That doesn’t change the fact that its true. If you don’t like how that makes you feel, that’s fine, its your life. Go ahead and ignore the problem like you have before.

Or fix it. Either way, life is too short and too long to pretend that love is only a feeling. If that’s what you believe, good luck chasing the feeling. You’ll be chasing it a long time.

My recommendation: Think long and hard about your life and your children’s lives 5-10 years down the road from now. Do you honestly think you will be happy? Do think they will be in the long run?

If you think it can work, at least try. You can always leave if you wuss out.

OK, I’ll stop now and let you talk.

If you can’t control your crap, then you shouldn’t be in a relationship. In my opinion, there’s no excuse for cheating.  Plain and simple.  This isn’t the first time I’ve said this. My previous post: Life is Short, Have an Affair?, I go off on a tangent about a site that allows you to do this easier.

I won’t even waste the muscle usage in my fingers to type the name of the website.

Anyway, every now and then I work with a couple that decides to work through the cheating. Now I’ll admit, its not easy work, and usually involves a decent amount of time to help them get through it. However, the dedicated couple can get through the breakdown of trust that occurs when one of them cheats.

What I see more often than not, is that the “cheatee” (the person that was cheated on) is looking for a reason why from the “cheater (do I have to explain this?)”

Problem is, as I explained earlier, there’s no excuse for cheating. However, there is a difference between Explaining and Excusing.

Explaining a problem makes reason. Excusing a problem gives reason.

See the difference? Explaining a problem helps us understand the process by which something like this happened. Excusing involves the “cheater” to be on the defensive, and causes the “cheatee” to be on the offensive.

It allows the cheatee ammunition.

And they should have it after all. The cheater has a big target on his/her back for being so stupid to begin with. However, the reason why I bring this up, is because finding an excuse is NOT going to help things.

If you want to know “why” to work through and improve the relationship, that’s one thing. If you’re just looking for more ammunition, why don’t you use what you have already? Its not like they didn’t give you a stockpile when you found the emails, text messages, pictures, reservations or any other incriminating evidence.

Same goes for the cheater. Seriously, do you honestly think excuses are going to help the situation? Doing some strong soul searching and understanding the reasons for your behavior, and discussing it in as non-accusing or assuming a way as possible is probably the best way to go (if you’re looking to fix the relationship that is).

What’s the point of this post?

The point is that if you are going to couples counseling for a cheating incident, and you want to make it work:

Cheatee

1.  Seek the explaination so you can move forward with your partner. If you want someone to take your side while you verbally beat the heck out of them, find a friend.

2. Use your therapist to help the two of you understand what happened so you can fix the problem. Are there angry feelings? Sure there are. But yelling at each other in session isn’t going to change the situation.

3. Go to individual therapy to manage these feelings. This way you can process the broken trust, develop coping skills for the anger and sadness, and then come to the couples session more focused.

Cheater

1. Go to individual counseling and figure out why you did what you did. Its time to learn more about you and what happened here. It also means you have to learn about boundaries you need to set with yourself and others.

2. Once you figure that out, give an Explaination, not an Excuse. No sense defending what you did. For whatever reason, it was wrong. Resolve that, and explain it to yourself and to your partner.

3. Apologize, and keep doing it. Its not going to resolve all at once. It will take time, and you’re going to have to eat a heaping helping of humble pie.

Please understand, this is not to patronize or minimize cheating. Remember the beginning of the post: There’s no excuse for cheating. But I encourage the seeking of knowledge over the seeking of ammunition any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Its not going to be easy. It will be the hardest work you will probably be the hardest work you ever do. But if you have something worth saving, and are willing to save it, your relationship will be able to withstand anything.

How do I know? I’ve seen it.

Am I naive? Tell me what you think.

One day I was going to go hang out with a friend of mine, and I was fuming mad. I think my wife had said something to me, and then full circle, told me that she wanted the exact opposite (you guys out there probably know what I mean) or something like that. So I went to the mall, and met him at the food court.

“Hey, man. How’s it goin?” He asked, expecting my usual, “I’m doing well, thank you.”

“Pissed.” I said.

He asked me what was up and I laid it out to him. All the fury and the anger came out at that time (this was about 4 years ago).  I couldn’t believe how angry I was about the problem, and despite my best memory, I can’t to this day remember what I was so mad about.

Then my friend smiles at me and hands me a pen. He said “Hold on to that pen as hard as you can.” I gave him a funny look but I did what he asked.

Then he said, “Now, imagine that the pen is your anger, and you can hold onto that pen as long and as hard as you like, right? But what if you wanted to let it go, would you let it go? If you wanted to let it go, when would you?”

He then told me that my anger was a lot like that pen. I could let go of it whenever I wanted, and that all I had to do was decide that I wanted to let it go. It seemed too simple! I mean, what about the thing I was angry about? It hasn’t resolved itself!

But then I thought: what if it never does? Am I going to choose to be angry at my wife until we resolve the issue (we resolved shortly after this event, hence why I can’t remember why I was so mad). I had to decide what I wanted, and whether I wanted to be angry or not.  

So I dropped the pen. I decided to feel better.

Now for a lot of you, that probably sounds really stupid. You’re probably thinking to yourself, its not that easy is it?

Well, go get yourself a pen, and try it. Imagine that the pen is whatever emotion you’re feeling. Do you want to let that emotion go? Would you if you could? When would you?

I guess the point to all this, is that you can let it go, because I’m a firm believer in your ability to control your emotions. If you want to know how, check out my post titled Want To Change How You Feel? Change How You Think! That’s a good place to start. Also, consider The Water Method, and decide if this is something you can or can’t change. Sure you have feelings about things you can’t change, but that doesn’t mean they have to affect what you can change. If your feelings are about what someone else is doing or has done, talk to them about it (preferably somewhere public so you speak in civilized tones), and try to get some resolution about the issue at hand.

Hey, I could do it and I was ripping mad. You can do it too. Just drop the pen.

Now on the one hand, I ask this question: What’s new here? People have been using social networking sites to have affairs since they’ve been in existence, so how is this any different, other than its bold statements and “Affair Guarantee.” If Match.com and eHarmony.com can make money getting people together, why can’t this site make money breaking relationships apart?

On the other hand, just because people have been having affairs, doesn’t mean you should encourage or help them along in doing so. Their slogan “Life is short. Have an affair.” is an imperative statement (meaning giving you an order, like “Listen!”). Its one thing if a site is up, and its there for anyone to access and connect with people at their discretion. For example, you can’t blame Facebook or Myspace for being the cause of people having affairs, because it is the person making the decision to do so. This site, on the other hand, encourages an affair, and guarantees you one for the low, low cost of $249.

So this raises another question: If you tell someone to have an affair, and they do, is it your fault that they have an affair, or are human beings responsible for their own actions? Its like asking the question: Do guns kill people, or do people kill people?

The bottom line here is morals and values. What are your core beliefs about love? About relationships? About marriage? About sex? Do you believe your relationship will work, or is it bound to fail like all the others?

I am a firm believer that life is what you make it to be, including relationships and yes, sex. If you’re truly unhappy with your relationship, then start talking to your significant other about it. If you want to slap that person in the face for your own selfish reasons, be my guest, but you probably won’t learn from your relationship experience, and it may be that you’ll end up getting in and out of relationships for the rest of your life. Your call.

www.NewHopeCounselingOnline.com