Staying Together: How to work it out. How to be in synch with each other and rekindle romance.
How's your relationship with yourself? It better be in good shape if you want to know how to stay together with your partner and make love last. You want to know how to do that?
In a fast-paced world where many subliminally believe relationships are very disposable because people are replaceable, Al Green sings, Let's Stay Together, but so many people don't know how to stay together even though they want to and they'd like to, but unfortunately they don't know how to do it.
Well, the experts say the following:
1. You must reach out more to your partner.
3. You must want to connect to your partner.
4. You must be in the most secure attachment you can create with each other.
Dr. Stan Tatkin, Clinical Researcher, teacher, Developer of PAC, a Psychobiological Approach to Couple's Therapy and author of Wired for Love, How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Diffuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship has worked and written extensively about this. He suggests that if you want to stay together you've got to do several things. He says strengthen your relationship by creating a safe couple bubble, which allows partners to feel safe and secure with each other. Partners can make love and avoid war when the security seeking part of the brain is put at ease. He also says partners relate to each other primarily as anchors securely attached like Islands or waves. He also says that partners who are experts on one another know how to please and soothe each other. He also says partners with busy lives such as those who travel often and are gone a lot should create and use bed time and morning rituals, which he calls launching and landing, as well as reunion or re-entry rituals to stay connected. In our culture and society people spend more time away from home, work long hours, are bombarded by activities particularly, and when there are children couples begin to spend less and less time together and ultimately get disconnected.
He also says, partners should serve as the primary go-to-people for one another. Partners should prevent each other from being the third wheel when relating to outsiders. Partners who want to stay together must learn to fight well. Partners can rekindle their love at any time through eye contact, and partners can minimize each other's stresses and optimize each other's health by their actions. Ultimately, he says getting in synch with your partner helps you stay together.
Why should the list you have in your book on staying together be so important to couples who want to stay together?
Beyond our culture, which is very powerful, there's a biology that drives us in relationships and we know about this biology by studying primates and human infants and their mothers, and so understanding that the way adults pair bond is not that mysterious, it is what actually allows relationships to last longer than a year. Also, after a while, it's not so mysterious either. If you understand how the brain and body works and how human beings have worked for a long, long time, this is where the list really becomes science, studying the brain and human attachment particularly with babies.
As babies the first thing we want is to be touched. Touching is very important for babies. Touch is one of the most powerful sensory gates that we have. It influences our nervous system more than any other sense. Second to that is vision, and third to that is auditory, which is the human voice. Touch is very important and there are a lot of people raised in a certain way where they weren't held very much as children and because of this they are touch aversive. These folks have a little harder time in life because of this.
Bedroom rituals, which are how to launch and land because so many people are so busy trying to make a living, and not spending enough time or making good connections or spending enough time with each other is another thing couples should do. On The View a couple of weeks ago, Barak and Michelle Obama were the guest and they were talking about their stressful lifestyle and schedules, and Michelle said something that's in your book in response to Barbara Walter's question to them about how they connect emotionally given that he works long hours and is away often. She said they have dinner together and they have a tucking-in ritual when he comes upstairs and tucks everybody in including her when she goes to bed early no later than 10PM and he stays up till 12 AM or 1 AM in the morning. This ritual is what keeps them connected as a couple. That's what Chapter 5, titled Launching and Landing: How to Use Morning and Bed Time Rituals is about.
People including children and adults are very vulnerable at bedtime and when they wake up in the morning. We've studied this in children over the years especially in children who don't have landings and launchings. At nighttime we are ending the day. It's a separation. We're going to sleep, which is really being alone. Those of us who've had the experience of being tucked in at night, read to, sung to, debriefed, or experienced any other kind of process where we say goodbye to each other at night before we cross over to that other time know the benefits. We do better in adulthood and have better sleep hygiene when we have been exposed to this. It's the same thing for waking up together. That's taking off or launching. We get our energy from each other. Adult love partners get their energy from each other and without having that time together in the morning to launch each other, it's a lot harder to have energy throughout the day and particularly the kind of energy that gives us the ability and courage to fight dragons, deal with difficult bosses, and all the other things we have to deal with every day. So, I tell people, if they only have a very little time during the week or the weekend, that they should be focusing on these landings and launching periods at night time and in the morning, otherwise people can feel very alone, lonely and disconnected.
To stay connected, partners can do thing like lying in bed gazing into each other's eyes and gently sending one another off to sleep. Other times you and your partner can take turns reading from a book that you both enjoy to one another. Create experiments with new bedtime rituals as well. Couples can also take turns at stroking each other to sleep. The touch involved in stroking is not only for the person that's being touched, but it is also for the person doing the touching because it's so repetitive that it makes them fall asleep too. These are just some of many possibilities of rituals people can choose to do.
However, the thing we don't want people to do is to spend each night doing parallel play, where they are doing different things such as one is watching TV and the other is reading and then they just turn the lights off without bonding. Or they are both watching a TV show, but they don't use it for conversation, they just use it for just their own parallel tracks and then they just go to sleep. Too much parallel play breeds loneliness. That's why there are some people in marriages who still feel very lonely. This kind of thing is one of the things that will do it. For example, he's on the computer, she's watching TV and often not even in the same room, even though being in the same room is slightly better, but even still, people just need to connect by maybe just gazing into each other's eyes.
You have to do things together to stay together so you can have a connection with each other.
Caller: My husband and I have been married for a little over a year and I see that we have a lot of the issues that you've mentioned. We do a lot of parallel playing and we didn't have a lot of rituals that brought togetherness into our relationship but the deeper part of our problem was that the intimacy wasn't there and after a while he felt I was confiding too much in my family about our problems and that I was swayed by their dislike of him. It was really bad and we lost our ability to communicate. We never learned how to fight well and it got to the point that he became emotionally abusive. We're apart now. We tried marriage counseling but it wasn't successful at resolving our differences, but we still love each other and there's still this desire to try to make it work, but I don't know that it can. Is it still possible to make it work if the two people have this desire and love each other after all these things have happened?
Guest: Relationships are very sticky and it's true that breaking up is hard to do. People do all sorts of things to tank their relationships and still can survive. However, some of the things you mentioned have to stop, for instance, the improper use of thirds. Going outside of the couple system and either of you using some other things, persons or activity that comes between the solidarity of the two of you as a couple in a couple bubble so to speak won't help your relationship. We find that relationships where people allow other people, things and tasks to come in between them and compete too much with the couple, where one partner loses, the relationship never works.
In the book, Wired for Love, he talks about how you can both benefit when you put each other to bed/tuck each other in. What are your couple rituals?
Mariah Carey sings We Belong Together and there are so many people who belong together and want to stay together, but they need to learn the art and technique of staying together. That's so important to do because even the best intentions are not enough to sustain a relationship.
With people who get married repeatedly, the mismanagement of thirds is a big issue. Allowing people such as in-laws, sisters, ex-lovers, friends or tasks to ruin their relationships by sidelining and making the other person a third wheel isn't appropriate. Another issue is with couples with children from previous relationships. In order to protect the relationship with the children, there's often an explicit or implicit message to the new partner that he or she isn't going to come first. While it makes sense that the children are going to be the most important people to the partners, still the belief that the relationship does come first has to be conveyed to the new partner. This kind of situation is often tricky to handle, but it’s one of the mistakes people often make.
I see often that people meet, court, fall in love, spend time with each other and have all these rituals together. Then they have their first child and the relationship is abandoned. The relationship gets tossed aside and partners behave like the relationship will exist on its own. However, at some point it begins to wither and die and the partners are too busy to notice because they are caught up in all the other stuff that's occurring in their lives, until one partner has an affair, is gone all the time, or something happens and then they realize that there's a huge disconnect. Often at this point in time in the relationship it’s difficult to do the repair work.
Is it possible to make relationships work?
If people are going to make their relationship work they have to start making each other the priority. They have to learn how to make their relationship secure functionally. The most important aspects of the relationship need to be shared between each other and not taken outside of the relationship because one person will feel betrayed. In the book, Wired for Love, How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Diffuse Conflict and Build A Secure Relationship, we talk about "insecurers," who are people from insecure family backgrounds that were unfair, unjust and insensitive and consciously or unconsciously they bring that idea and way of life to the table when they get together and as you can imagine the relationship won't work because eventually people cry foul and say this is really unfair and leave.
Caller: My husband and I have a soap opera we watch daily in the evenings together and discuss in between the show or the next morning. We discuss what we would do or not do if we were in that situation and how we would feel in that situation, so it generates a lot of interesting conversation and we learn more things about each other and when he comes to bed we have a cuddling moment, no matter how tired we are or how late it is. It's like 30 seconds to 2 minutes of just connecting and touching each other and then we sleep. We've tried different things such as praying in the morning, encouraging each other, asking what's the best thing that happened to each other and it seems like it works for us as our ritual, but I feel it's not enough. I also have a teenager who I want to get involved. How can we get our teenager involved in our ritual?
Guest/Host: Kids like to be involved as long as they don't feel that they have to be there. So, you and your husband should do something at night that would be interesting to him and attract him to participate in the activity and see if he comes. He may come and leave and come and leave from time to time and as teenagers they need to feel that they can do that because it is a time they feel the need to separate and do their own thing, and it's hard when parents don't understand their need to separate, but it’s important to realize that it is developmental.
It's very hard to get a teenager to do things but kids really like it when their parents are in love and taking good care of each other because it makes them feel secure, much more than the individual relationship they have with each parent. Secure attachment always operate on the basis of attraction and never fear or threat, so whatever you can do to attract him to your activity is the best way to get him involved. In the morning, couples should gaze into each other’s eyes and embrace each other before they launch each other off and send each other off for the day. What you and your husband are doing is nice and is more than what most couples do even though you feel it's not enough, but it's not about the amount of time, it's about the quality of the time you spend together.
We have a YouTube video titled, The Welcome Home Exercise for Couples, which shows how long it takes for people to adjust to each other when reuniting after being separated. It doesn't take long and it really must happen because these are two nervous systems that are reuniting from inside/outside and daytime/nighttime and these reunions whether they are face-to-face or eye-to-eye for a short period or just embracing really changes the game. For example, when coming home, it's important that you embrace and hold on to each other till you feel your tense bodies relax and then you can let each other go and go on about your business for the rest of the day. This can be done best in a matter of minutes because if one person feels it's too long, he or she won't want to do it again. Rituals keep couples together so couples should keep doing it.
In your book, Wired for Love, How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Diffuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship, you talk about activities which can become rituals such as listening to an audiobook or a podcast, praying together, spending time gazing into each other’s eyes, reading to each other, tickling each other's back, drawing pictures on each other's backs, and giving your partner an orgasm, and you say these are very important so couples please take note.
Do you have morning rituals?
Caller: I literarily just broke up with someone over this very issue. I was in a relationship and we both clearly had attachment issues. I'm actually in therapy working on some of these issues now, but ours was a morning ritual issue. She needed me to call first thing in the morning. However, I would call her once I got to work because I have my own morning ritual especially since we didn't live together. Even when I was married I just like my morning time to get ready for the day. I like my morning ritual to be quiet and introspective and it's my time to get ready for the day. It didn't mean that I wasn't thinking about her. I loved her. I would just call her when I got to work and because of that she didn't feel connected enough to me. It wasn't enough for her. She would say call me in the morning, but to me 9 AM when I get to work and call her is still morning and it wasn't a two-sided thing. It was one-sided because it was her always saying, "You call me."
How do we compromise on rituals based on what we each need to feel connected and loved even when we didn't live together and when what I was doing was enough for me, but not for her?
Guest/host: It's a tricky matter and it may seem like she wanted too much, but oftentimes people want more of what they feel isn't available to them, so you not calling her in the morning just made her feel unimportant. That could have been easily corrected by just calling her before, during or after your morning ritual. I didn't have to have been either or. You should have done both. Also, getting clarification would have been good. It would have helped if you asked more questions to understand more about what she was really asking you to do. Explicitly ask her, do you want me to do xxx? Then give her a chance to clear that up. Also, you should have a rule to call each other in the morning. Then you can at least say, "I thought this is what we do, not what I do, so it’s not just me calling, you have to call me too."
Caller: I'm having a severe third-wheel problem. I'm in a five-year relationship with a woman with an adopted son. He's now eight years old and she still sleeps with him. We just got back from vacation in Ft Lauderdale, Florida where this child who has severe ADHD interrupted any chance of intimacy. How can I deal with that kind of problem?
Guest/Host: I hear this often, especially from parents where there's been a separation of the child from a parent and they bring the child into the room with them and once that starts, it is so difficult to stop. A child with severe ADHD can still put himself to bed. At that age, what is occurring is not good for the child, but I don't know if you are the best person to explain that to her because she may not receive it from you because you are a boyfriend. But without question this is a way to keep you or any other man away from being in bed with her. She may unconsciously have attachment issues herself and may not be aware and I suspect that she may be using the child to ensure that she only attaches to partners to a certain degree, but this is not good for the boy. Previously, I suggested a patient with a similar situation to talk to her pediatrician about what was occurring and the pediatrician was very clear that this wasn't good for the child and helped her wean the child out of the bed with positive reinforcement exercises and the child no longer sleeps with the mother. In your case, I don't know if you can make that suggestion to the mother because she'll probably be furious, but that's what I did and it worked in that situation. You are in a tough situation and it's tough for a person in your position to do anything about it.
Rituals should include making and eating breakfast in or out of bed with your partner. Lie in bed together and gaze into each other's eyes. Quietly talk with your partner about the day or about what each of you will be doing, facing or accomplishing in the near future. Make plans for the night time; agree to meet in bed at a certain time by having a bed appointment. Even if the person has to get back up and do some work in the home office or whatever, that's ok. Give each other orgasms. We have a culture that discourages that, so people have various problems in that area. They don't know where they are coming from most of the time having to do with sex at night, so I will talk from a medical point of view. The nice thing about giving each other orgasms at night aside from the love making process is the medical benefits such as pain reduction by 50%, anxiety reduction, and restless leg syndrome cure. It also improves the sense of bonding and collectiveness, which helps the human through the night and helps people go to sleep. There are a lot of good things that come from it and sometimes we over focus on the sexual part and that often becomes problematic. It can be very therapeutic and does wonders for one's health.
Dr. Tatkin’s suggestions for couples:
1. Strengthen your relationship by creating and maintaining a safe couple bubble.
3. Learn to fight so that nobody loses.
There are many more in the book, Wired for Love, How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Diffuse Conflict and Build A Secure Relationship.
Source: The Audrey Chapman Show
Guest: Dr. Stan Tatkin www.stantatkin.com
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