Tips to create a long lasting juicy relationship

"There are some questions I explore with couples in helping the couple manage and talk through discovered secrets and other betrayals. Most important is talking about what these secrets mean to each partner, and how the couple is managing this discovery. Try going through these ideas and see how you feel at the end of this exploration:

What is the actual secret, and how serious do you think it is? Ex your partner had been arrested. Have you asked him what he was arrested for. If not, ask.
How did you find out? It’s different to find out a secret from an outside person, rather than your partner “coming clean” on their own. Oftentimes, there is a story in how the betrayed partner finds out that may even confirm suspicions that something is off, or being withheld.
Does the partner with the discovered secret agree to discuss it and provide details? Is he sharing with you the details of this arrest? Does he speak out of defensiveness, and not make excuses for not telling you? Does he acknowledge how withholding this information was harmful to you and to the relationship?
Is your boyfriend willing to respond to additional questions, and to any needs you express that can help repair your damaged trust?
Partners need to feel safe in relationships. You may feel, after getting the details, that this is a deal-breaker because of the nature of his arrest, and/or that keeping the secret has created an unsafe feeling. As a result, you may be unwilling to go forward in the relationship. If, on the other hand, you feel you still need more information and time to sort this through, hopefully the above questions give you a starting point.

Drs. John and Julie Gottman’s work on trust, betrayals, and affairs highlights the importance of the betrayed partner talking about the betrayal. It is critical for you to be able to ask questions and get details and share your feelings, even though this will undoubtedly be difficult and uncomfortable for your boyfriend. The purpose is not to make him feel bad, or to punish him, but rather, to have a process to heal from the betrayal, which provides the relationship a chance to move forward — if that is what you both want to do.

How do couples build trust? Dr. John Gottman states that “attunement” is the skill built by couples and is “the blueprint for building trust in long-term committed relationships” (Science of Trust). An important component of attunement is for partners to be able to express negative emotions when there is something upsetting or concerning happening in the relationship, and to have their voice heard.

Couples can recover from betrayals, but it takes a willingness to have these conversations. They may be difficult in the short-term, but they can make all the difference in the long-term."

Self sabotaging behaviours in your relationship:

Stop isolating yourself:
Everyone needs some down time to refuel or distract from problems, but spending too much time alone can be detrimental to your relationships.

People with avoidant attachment styles often choose to isolate themselves because they find being around even the people they love can be depleting or exhausting. For them, being alone may feel like relief.

But there’s no way to connect with your partner when you spend all of your time apart or turning to devices as distraction when you're together. Your partner will feel like you’re doing this because you don’t want to be with them, even if you really do.

How to stop: Bonding is essential in relationships. On top of any alone time you schedule for yourself, be sure to spend time with your partner without phones, tablets, or other distractions. This will help ensure that technology doesn't interfere with your intimacy and that you both have plenty of face-to-face and body-to-body contact. Lean into your discomfort a little bit and you might actually find that being with your partner is surprisingly nourishing, and that you may welcome it more and more in the future.

Focusing on the negative:
If you feel a need to always consider negative outcome because you feel a need to be prepared for the "inevitable" worst, you might have an ambivalent attachment style.

It's normal to worry at times, but focusing on what might potentially go wrong on a constant basis is unhealthy and gets in the way of you relaxing in the relational field of your partner.

When you have ongoing expectations of being disappointed by your partner, you undermine your relationship. You might find yourself hypersensitive to the normal ebb and flow of the relationship and see signals that your partner is distancing or leaving you, even when they are not.

Likewise, repeatedly complaining to your partner about what they do wrong while rarely recognizing their caring behaviors and rarely offering compliments or encouragement causes a great deal of damage in relationships. And doing this even when things seem to be going well is doubly confusing to a partner who really is trying to please you.

How to stop: Challenge yourself to see the ways that they are reliable and love you; this will help build trust. As a practice, notice your partner’s efforts to get closer. Try to be present to receive love and feel satisfaction more and more. And if they do something nice or unexpected, make sure you thank them and show your appreciation.

Practicing 'magical thinking':
Magical thinking is defined as, "The belief that one’s own thoughts, wishes, or desires can influence the external world."

In relationships, this may make take the form of believing your significant other should know exactly what you need and want, without requiring you to tell them directly.

This is often associated with an ambivalent attachment style, and is mostly like to harm your relationships in two ways:

You frequently feel upset with your partner for failing to meet you needs
Your partner frequently feels upset with you for so frequently feeling disappointed in or angry with them when I have no idea what they did wrong, or even what doing something right looks like to you
How to stop: Communication is the gateway to blissful relationship. Tell your truth with love and respect. If you need something from your partner, tell them what it is in as gentle and honest a way as you can. Be specific. Rather than simply telling them what they do wrong, try explaining what they could do that would be helpful to you, e.g., "Instead of doing _______, it would be helpful to me if you could try ________." Be sure to pay attention to what works for your partner as well, and practice being clear about how you might be mutually supportive to them.

Being afraid to take risks
Relationships can be intimidating for people who have an insecure attachment styles and underlying anger issues caused by the way they were raised.

But choosing not to take risks, whether big or small, can lead the two of you to stop growing and discovering each other. You may make the mistake of thinking you already know everything there is to know about your partner and decide your partner has nothing new to offer.

Remember that novelty creates attraction, so do new and fun things together regularly.

This "thinking you know everything already" may result in a sense of stagnation that ultimately breaks down the connection and bond you share. This is not your fault, because the brain tends to automate, so you need to practice keeping your sense of curiosity and discovery alive!

Talking about your feelings and discussing your problems openly is a must in healthy relationships. When you allow the fear of taking risks to prevent you from communicating honestly, you cause significant damage to your relationship. You may find yourself feeling bored when one or both of you have just been sweeping too many things under the carpet.
Again, tell your tell your truth when you feel regulated, loving and respectful.
Your partner loves you, and when you hide your inner self from them, it feels personal to them, whether you mean it to or not. That kind of complacency kills any potential growth in the level of intimacy between the two of you.

How to stop: Try discussing your feelings. Ask for you partner's understanding and patience as you learn to be more vulnerable. And don’t be afraid to take a few healthy risks now and again!

When Your Relationship Is Stuck In A Loop:
m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=_GmVqpfgTKY

Holding grudges:
If you hold onto resentment and contempt for your partner’s actions and inaction, you must learn to resolve the issues from your history or conflicts any relationship so you can let these things go.
This can be particularly difficult for people who tend toward an ambivalent attachment style.

For instance, if you prefer going to bed earlier than your partner most night, but you also like talking to him before going to sleep, you might feel hurt when he says a quick goodnight and turns back to his computer or continues watching a movie while you drift off alone.

Regardless of the circumstances, it’s important to identify any grudges or resentments you may be holding onto so you can talk about them openly and make a sincere effort to put your anger aside for good.

How to stop: Communicating your needs to each other clearly can help keep contempt in the relationship at bay, but you can also set rituals for each other that will help nurture your attachment bond and make sure everyone’s needs are met in a reasonable way. Looking at your partner with kind eyes, being affectionate in a safe way, stopping what you’re doing and reading your partner when they come home after being away, having your partners back, and being a couple with boundaries and respect for confidentiality are just a few ways you can enhance “gourmet contact nutrition” that feeds and stabilizes secure attachment behaviors and skillfulness.

Not respecting privacy or boundaries:
Some people feel entitled to snoop through their partner’s private emails, texts, pictures, and call log for reassurance that nothing is going on behind their back.

This largely a fear-based reaction may be a sign that you tend toward ambivalent attachments.

If you frequently stomp on boundaries and have trouble respecting your partner's need for and right to privacy, you will only end up hurting them and, ultimately, yourself.

How to stop: To deal with these kinds of worries, pinpoint whether they are driven by your unprovoked emotions or by something your partner has done that gives you justifiable reason to be suspicious. If there's no clear reason for you to be concerned, make a commitment to respecting your partners boundaries and discuss your worries with them directly rather trying to playing private investigator. Set lines you both agree cannot be crossed, and don’t cross them.

(Diane Poole Heller)

When we are under pressure and we are worried, we become more sensitive, we are more vulnerable, thin-skinned and irritable.

Any problems, disagreements and needs that we already had in the relationship will emerge much more clearly.
It can wear a lot on the relationship.

You could say that crises seem like an amplifier of everything that is already there.

If we are already good at being loving, caring and supportive of one another, then we typically become even more so in a crisis.
If we miss proximity to one another, then what we miss will typically be felt much more.

Break down or build up?
It is important to understand that there is a lot we can do to avoid wearing each other out.

We can actively choose to build up more love.
It's a choice we always have.

Many couples now have more time together than they usually do.
And it looks like it will last some time.

Many are not at work and at the same time much of what we usually spend on  time on is not possible - sports, evening school, culture, friends, family ...

If that applies to you too - then you can choose to use  your time constructively and meaningfully to open up your love much more.

So afterwards you can look back at this time and think that you did it together

That you spent the extra time together to create something important and loving with each other that gained huge importance in your life.

You can see this as an opportunity

Timeout
Although everything that is happening right now is, in many ways, horrible, demanding and frightening - both on a personal and a societal level - it is also an opportunity.

We are suddenly forced out of our daily bitsss and the obvious.

It gives us an opportunity to do something different than we usually do.

An opportunityy to feel much deeper of what is important to us.

Withdrawal and silence always offer us an opportunity for reflection and to set course differently when we can go back to our daily life.

Get  love on board
Perhaps it may seem provocative to someone that I offer a positive and constructive angle into a scary reality where many of us are challenged financially, morally, job-wise, etc.

But love, care, confidentiality, togetherness give us a lot of energy to draw on when we are in trouble.

Therefore, it is right now extremely important to take good care of love.

When we strengthen love, we strengthen ourselves and our lives on many levels.

And maybe that's the very best

goop.com/wellness/relationships/passion-intimacy-and-why-a-little-hate-is-normal/

Terry Real

Standing up to each other is just as critical to a relationship as compromising, says Boston-based therapist Terry Real, the author of The New Rules of Marriage. “You know you’re in a real relationship the day you look at this person and realize they’re exquisitely designed to stick the burning spear into your eyeball,” he says...

While a partner uniquely positioned to take you on might sound like torture, Real says it’s a sign that your relationship definitely has a chance. The number one passion killer, he finds, is when partners stop taking each other on—when they might tell themselves that they’re compromising but in actuality they’re settling. “People generally do in the bedroom what they do in every other room,” he points out.

Chi for two
youtu.be/ps25NJ6YiZw

relationalimplicit.com/chi-for-two/

Why do we need a dance/movement therapy partner practice? So much of our communication is nonverbal. The words we struggle to find may fail us—may complicate things rather than leading to useful negotiation with our partners.

The problem may lay below the words.

Chi for Two® exercises—like this one called Patty Cake—help us manage the times when our partners’ energy—the punching of words, the quality of gestures—gets intense.

Like many of the Chi for Two® exercises, Patty Cake helps us have a felt sense of our partner being “at arms length.” When we feel “armed” to “handle” the energy our partner is sending our way, we feel space for perspective. We can have empathy for our partners and that empathy can allow us to explore options, which can lead to negotiation. Invite your partner to try Patty Cake with you, and let us know how it goes?

About kissing 😘 ❤

- as a single, kissing is one of your compasses to the right partner - and a way to be attractive

- if you are in a relationship, make sure that you kiss deeply and a lot: it has many really good effects, among other things. It increases the satisfaction between you, it increases the lifespan of men, it provides more and better sex and it lowers stress levels. (be aware that you do not develop aunty kisses between you, just because your relationship has become everyday life!)

I've started taking private dance lessons and I'm surprissed of how my reptile 🦎 brain wants me to go into freeze mode, when the dance teacher corrects me and my moves.
It reminds me of my time in school as a teenager, when a teacher made me wrong Infront of the class.
But I am challaging my own fears and imbarisment and  Im choosing to step out of my comfort zone. I'm in my 50'ties and have never had dance lessons because of my own fears from the past.

Dance helps me to get down into my body.

I have asked my avoidant husband to take dance classes with me - and you know what ? - He said yes !!! 🙂
We are having soo much fun together and it strengthens our relationship.💃

Doing new things together while having fun strengthens the relationship, we develop new skills together and we help and support eachother while laughing together. Yeah!!!

#Relationship goals, #selfworth, #self-esteem, #play, #bonding, #expansion #win-win, #secure functioning, #getting out of the comfort zone, #getting out of the daily hamster wheel

An ambivalent attatched female attatchment coach