What Your Marriage Needs to Survive…

(ThyBlackMan.com) Even stel­lar rela­tion­ships lose their spark over time. Here are the ingre­di­ents of a last­ing, fruit­ful part­ner­ship, and tech­niques for weath­er­ing the stormy periods.

Joy, pas­sion, great sex: when a cou­ple heads into mar­riage, this is what they have in mind. Of course they want their rela­tion­ship to last—but with­out los­ing a shred of that ini­tial high from when they first met, began court­ing, and fell in love. But peo­ple change. Rela­tion­ships change. Some cou­ples’  bonds deepen and rela­tion­ships flour­ish over time; other part­ner­ships don’t fare as well. When our rela­tion­ships lose intimacy—as many of us fear they will—is the love lost for­ever or just tem­porar­ily misplaced?

As a mar­riage and fam­ily ther­a­pist in prac­tice for 40 years (and mar­ried for nearly 35), one thing I’ve learned is that even stel­lar rela­tion­ships lose their spark over time. I help peo­ple under­stand how to weath­er­proof their rela­tion­ships for the long run.

Research shows that mod­ern cou­ples are look­ing for a part­ner­ship that’s “inter­est­ing.” They want part­ners who enhance their lives and with whom they can grow over time. Gary W. Lewandowski Jr. at Mon­mouth Uni­ver­sity in New Jer­sey talks about “self-expansion”: how peo­ple learn about them­selves from their rela­tion­ships. His research demon­strates that as self-expansion increases, so do com­mit­ment and rela­tion­ship sat­is­fac­tion. In expan­sive part­ner­ships, he argues, cou­ples don’t lose them­selves in the marriage—they grow in it. Behav­iors and char­ac­ter traits that had pre­vi­ously not been a part of their iden­tity become essen­tial to how they expe­ri­ence life.

UCLA’s Fam­ily Stud­ies Cen­ter researched 1,500 cou­ples who had been together for five or more years and who acknowl­edged hav­ing a strong, close, deeply com­mit­ted bond. The cou­ples revealed six com­mon characteristics:

1.There was a phys­i­cal attrac­tion between them.
2.They were in the rela­tion­ship out of clear choice rather than out of oblig­a­tion or fear of being alone.
3.They shared fun­da­men­tal val­ues, beliefs, inter­ests, and goals.
4.They were able to express anger clearly and directly and they resolved dif­fer­ences through com­mu­ni­ca­tion and compromise.
5.They expe­ri­enced laugh­ter, fun, plea­sure, and play with each other.
6.They were able to express sup­port for each other and sup­port each other’s activ­i­ties, inter­ests, and careers.

In rela­tion­ships with poten­tial for durable longevity, each indi­vid­ual is will­ing to make the rela­tion­ship a pri­or­ity, giv­ing it time, energy, and sus­te­nance. As cou­ples age together, the traits inher­ent in true friend­ship and close com­pan­ion­ship take on greater sig­nif­i­cance. The part­ners con­stantly re-choose each other and feed pos­i­tive energy to the rela­tion­ship. They have each other’s back. They look out for each other.

In healthy rela­tion­ships, both part­ners feel appre­ci­ated. He knows she respects and admires him; she feels nur­tured and desired by him. Men tell me that their partner’s sweet­ness helps them to keep their hearts open. Women tell me that a man’s self-confidence is sexy. Con­versely, men fear and resent it when their part­ners lose the sweet­ness and become brit­tle, bit­ter, and “bitchy.” Women fear and resent it when their part­ners become dis­en­gaged and either pas­sive or controlling.

For a woman to remain vul­ner­a­ble and open to her part­ner, and to exude that attrac­tive energy so that a man stays turned on, she needs to feel secure and spe­cial. If she gets any mes­sages that she’s not the number-one per­son in his life, she will start to close up, and then after a while the mutual attrac­tion will wane. Under­stand­ing is the bridge to com­pas­sion, and com­pas­sion can be the spark that reignites the passion.

For a man to remain avail­able to his part­ner and to emit that attrac­tive energy so that she stays turned on, he needs to feel hon­ored. A man’s sense of self is to a large degree deter­mined by his feel­ing pro­duc­tive and use­ful. A man’s char­ac­ter counts tremen­dously. Integrity is cen­tral to his feel­ing like the good man his part­ner needs and deserves.

Gen­er­ally speak­ing, the truth works—so tell it as cur­rently, clearly, com­pletely, and com­pas­sion­ately as possible.

Many mar­riages end in divorce because one or both part­ners can no longer com­mu­ni­cate hon­estly. When there are too many with­held feel­ings and thoughts, the life of the rela­tion­ship gets snuffed out. The per­sonal safety that one feels in the pres­ence of the other is key to pro­mot­ing open and vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ca­tion. True inti­macy is deter­mined by the degree to which part­ners can com­mu­ni­cate safely and vulnerably.

Can­did com­mu­ni­ca­tion can be very invig­o­rat­ing, lead­ing to mutual respect and appre­ci­a­tion, rekin­dled pas­sion, and dynamic sex. His com­mu­ni­ca­tion might be: “Honey, I know we’ve both been work­ing long hours and have been quite tired lately. I want you to know how much the kids and I appre­ci­ate all your efforts on our behalf. I also want you to know that I’m miss­ing the inti­mate time that we used to have just for us. I’d like to find a way to put it back into our rela­tion­ship.” Her response might be: “Do you think we can come home for lunch one day dur­ing the week?” And then, “How about a ‘nooner’ this Friday?”

Lov­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion cre­ates arousal, pas­sion, and inti­macy. Main­tain­ing a sense of humor can go a long way toward eas­ing ten­sion and smooth­ing ruf­fled edges. Remem­ber the impor­tance of court­ing each other through­out the full length of the rela­tion­ship. Avoid tak­ing each other for granted. Recall how it felt when you were first dis­cov­er­ing each other and were falling deeply and madly in love—it’s pos­si­ble to fall all over again.

Written by Dr. Stephen J. John­son

Official website; http://www.drstephenjohnson.com/

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