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Posts Tagged ‘Relationship Intimacy’

Constructive Criticism Seldom Is

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

“You have more butt than you need, but you have a nice shape.” That’s the closest my hubby Dale has come to criticizing me and to be honest, his comment was merely a verbal observation of fact. I now have more butt than when the comment was made, but he’s never said another word about it. Bless him.

Coupling up bestows permission to say things (e.g., about your sweetie’s butt) that might not otherwise be appropriate. However, there’s a very thin line, over which you ought not to step, between criticism and comments such as that made by Dale. Criticism trashes emotional intimacy. Here’s why: To be justified in criticizing another person, the following must be true:

• You are right and the other person is wrong,
• You are superior in position or knowledge, and
• You have the right to voice criticism and demand certain behavior.

Your sweetheart’s boss, drill sergeant, mother, coach, personal trainer, or professor may meet that criteria but, as your partner’s equal, you do not. What you are (or should be) is the one person on the planet who your partner can always, absolutely, no questions asked, no doubt about it, count on for support. If you want emotional intimacy (and who doesn’t) then never, ever cause your partner to question that support.

You already know that shouting, “You’re lazy!” is more likely to result in the cold shoulder than help around the house. “No, honey, you’re wrong,” won’t endear you to your partner. “You could lose a few pounds,” is likely to get you cut off from you-know-what for several weeks! I don’t need to remind you that overt criticism plays havoc with intimacy. What we all need to remember is that it’s those situations where we’re tempted to give “constructive criticism” that are tricky. Here’s an example:

Your sweetheart is down in the dumps because, in his annual review, the boss said he’s too independent. It may be accurate to say, “Playing well with others is not your strong point. You need to work on that.” And your intention may be loving and the criticism may arguably be constructive, but would it be helpful? Probably not. There’s a good chance your partner will interpret your comment as siding with the boss, who at that moment is public enemy #1. What does that make you?

In this example, supporting your sweetheart doesn’t mean going on a rant about how clueless the boss is. It means saying and doing those things that will help your sweetheart come to his own conclusion about how to best handle it. Until asked for your advice and your help, keep it to yourself. When asked, be careful to give suggestions that are helpful and supportive WITHOUT expressing a single critical word. It’s not up to you to point out your sweetheart’s flaws or to tell him or her how to fix those flaws. If you need to fix something, work on yourself.

To be emotionally intimate, you must be connected. Criticism severs that connection and has no place in an intimate relationship. Noel Coward said it best, “I love criticism just so long as it’s unqualified praise.”

Differences Can Lead to Greater Intimacy

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Two questions:

• Why do made-for-each-other love bugs butt heads, step on each others toes, and get their wires crossed?
• In a “discussion” with your sweetie, have you ever said something like, “Well, in my book [fill in the blank].”

The answer to the second question is sure you have. The answer to the first question is this:

The “book” you’re referring to is the unique and complex mix of your preferences, opinions, priorities, standards, points of view, and sensitivities, all shaped by your DNA, upbringing, education, life’s experiences, religious or philosophical training, culture, and self-perception. It’s the guide for how you navigate life and it’s the standard by which you determine if others are flying right. In the context of your relationship, I call this your Foreplay Navigator™. We all have one.

Here’s the problem: You behave (and judge your sweetheart) according to your Foreplay Navigator while your sweetheart behaves (and judges you) according to his or her Foreplay Navigator. It’s like playing a game with two different sets of rules where neither of you knows the others rules. True, the Foreplay Navigators of you and your sweetheart overlap in fundamental ways, but they also differ in a bazillion ways and it’s those differences that result in the head butts, stepped on toes, and crossed wires that often play havoc with intimacy.

If only you could push the “print” button and exchange copies of Foreplay Navigators! Since you can’t, you must:

Never assume your sweetheart sees the world as you do. There are times when your differences require negotiation (such as whether to raise the baby Jewish or Baptist), but it is futile to butt heads over who’s right and who’s wrong. And while you may be passionate about what color the bathroom should be painted, your opinion does not rise to the level of universal truth. Differences are just that. They are not matters of right and wrong.

Never assume your sweetheart sees life as you do. It’s easy to get your toes stepped on if your sweetheart doesn’t know, for example, that according to your Foreplay Navigator, a gift certificate is the ultimate I-gave-this-no-thought acknowledgement of a special occasion, or having coffee with an ex who blew into town is tantamount to cheating. When you feel the pain of stepped on toes, it’s probably nothing more than an innocent clash of Foreplay Navigators.

Never assume your sweetheart sees you the way you see yourself.  When you have beliefs that diminish your self-value (and who doesn’t), it’s easy to get your wires crossed and see or hear negative messages when no such thing is intended.  Your sweetheart loves you. If you don’t believe that, reconsider your relationship situation. If you do, don’t twist your sweetheart’s words and actions to fit your self-perception. When you feel hurt or disappointed, take a close look at why. Perhaps it’s a chapter in your Foreplay Navigator that needs a rewrite. For example, if your sweetheart says, “The rice is salty,” and you hear, “You’re a terrible cook,” maybe the problem is your self-esteem.

Head butts, stepped on toes, crossed wires. They are inevitable in every relationship. You can allow them to destroy intimacy. Or, you can see them as opportunities to learn more about your own and your sweetheart’s Foreplay Navigator and if you do, you will have a richer, more intimate, and more rewarding relationship. I promise.

Forgiveness: Is it Unconditional?

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

Forgiveness. It’s a topic we hear a lot about when it comes to marriage and relationships. Lord knows there’s plenty to forgive and I, for one, am grateful for a partner who has a generous and forgiving heart. But I ask you, for all the talk and hoopla about the “virtue” of forgiveness, why isn’t there more said about the conditions under which one is forgiven? You, in return, might ask, “Isn’t forgiveness supposed to be unconditional?”  Well, according to idealistic gurus it is, and that would be just dandy if we were perfect human beings. We’re not.

The truth is that forgiveness is conditioned on better behavior in the future. It chaps my hide that so many people think saying, “I’m sorry” is a cure-all that entitles the transgressor to immediate and unconditional forgiveness. That may have worked in kindergarten when you grabbed another kid’s crayon and were forced to give it back with an equally forced apology, but it doesn’t work in grown-up life.

If your sweetheart lies to you once, gets busted, and you forgive, don’t you expect that in exchange for that forgiveness, your sweetie promises not to do it again? What will you do if it happens over and again? Most likely, you’ll stop forgiving, revoke all prior forgiveness, and take a hike. At the very least, your trust will be shattered.

Most failed relationships don’t end because of one major body blow; most suffer death by a thousand cuts, none of which are individually lethal but all of which cumulatively sap the life out of a once vibrant relationship. Since it’s inevitable that we will screw up, it’s a good thing that most cuts can be healed through forgiveness. But here’s a 411 for you: the wound may heal but what’s left is emotional scar tissue. It’s a fact: scar tissue is weaker and inferior to the healthy tissue it replaces. That’s true for physical wounds and equally true for emotional wounds. Every time you do something that requires your sweetheart’s forgiveness, you are weakening the relationship.

Like most things in life, the hurts and disappointments we suffer (and inflict) are relative, ranging from inadvertent to thoughtless to deliberate to downright mean. It’s easy to forgive when your sweetie inadvertently steps on yours toes, much harder to forgive when the person who’s supposed to love you deliberately stomps on your foot. Your partner may give you a get-out-of-jail-free card the first few times you screw up, but you keep doing the same thing and that inadvertent or thoughtless behavior eventually becomes deliberate. Example: If your sweetheart tells you that not calling when you promise to call is a no-no, somewhere about the tenth time you do it, your sweetheart will construe your behavior as deliberately inconsiderate and will stop forgiving you.

Little things count BIG time in every relationship. A forgotten promise to call, by itself, won’t destroy a relationship. The cumulative effect of many broken promises will. So pay attention to the little things, don’t rely on the good nature and generous heart of your sweetheart, and avoid doing those things for which you know you’ll need forgiveness. Then, when you do screw up, your sweetheart will be a lot more generous. And, your relationship will be a lot more intimate.

Your sweetheart’s forgiveness is a finite resource. Use it sparing.

Intimacy Rituals

Monday, December 28th, 2009

Take time to talk.

Have you ever noticed how a good marriage has the attributes of friendship?  Someone’s there to zip your dress, give an opinion about what tie goes with the jacket, fetch aspirin for your headache, and (and this is important!) laugh at your jokes, funny or goofy. Good stuff. But what sustains a marriage and what makes living together on a daily basis, with all the ups and downs, easy and comfortable is Emotional Intimacy. That’s why it’s important for every couple to have intimacy rituals that can be practiced daily.

No, I don’t mean candles, heated massage oil, and the hot tub. Those are great—for sexual intimacy. But let’s not confuse physical intimacy with emotional intimacy. In the falling-in-love fireworks stage of your relationship, intimacy equaled SEX! But once you settle into your nest, the stork pays a visit or two, there’s a lawn to be mowed, the cat has to go to the vet, kids need chauffeuring or help with homework, the car breaks down, the toilet backs up, one of you loses a job, gets sick, or has an argument with a friend. All of that makes you too tired to think, let alone jump each other’s bones.

When the now-less-frequent opportunity for sex presents itself, there are times when you really do have a headache, are beyond irritated by your mouthy teen-ager’s attitude, have an early flight to catch, or for whatever reason you’re just not in the mood. It’s a bummer, I agree, but you just cannot rely on sex to provide the intimacy you need to have a great relationship. Yes, a good sex life is important, but without emotional intimacy, your marriage is likely to wither and die no matter how great the sex may be.

Intimacy rituals don’t have to be complicated or take a big chunk of time and can even be part of a daily chore or event. Here’s what Hubby Dale and I do. At the beginning of the day, Dale sits in the bathroom and chats with me while I get dressed for the office. We don’t talk about anything special, we’re just together for a few minutes before we go our separate ways. We come back together over dinner. We don’t answer the phone and the TV is off. We talk about current events or Dale’s trip to the grocery store where he ran into a friend, we chuckle over something cute a grandchild said, we plan a dinner party, or revisit a favorite memory. An eavesdropper would find it mundane, but for us, it’s a reconnection after being apart all day.

For you, an intimacy ritual might be calling each other on your lunch hour and taking 15 minutes to catch up on your day, cooking dinner together, doing an evening crossword puzzle, playing dominoes, or turning off the TV, snuggling and chatting for 20 minutes before going to sleep.

Converting an everyday event into an intimacy ritual may require nothing more than a change in how you view that activity. Finding the time may be as easy as doing together what one usually does alone. Bathing the baby, pulling weeds, grocery shopping, preparing the evening meal, washing the cars, etc., are all opportunities for the kind of togetherness that fosters emotional intimacy. You just need the right state of mind.

Give it a try and see how much closer you will be.  Then, let me know how it works out.

Intimacy for Christmas: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

I dunno about you but gift giving between spouses has always seemed strange to me. I don’t quite get the point of buying a shirt or sweater (or even jewelry) for your lovebug when the $$ comes from a communal pot (which is kind of like contributing to the purchase price of your own gift, isn’t it?) Or, what’s the point of buying another shirt or sweater for the person who already has more shirts or sweaters than can ever be worn. So hubby Dale and I decided a long time ago that instead of buying each other gifts, we’d do something together, for us, as our gift to each other and to our relationship.

One year we bought bicycles and a bike rack for our 4-Runner. At the time we were living in Northern California where, within a short distance in any direction, there were a zillion fabulous places to cycle. The first place we headed was South Lake Tahoe where, courtesy of friends, we had a place to stay right on the lake. We were so excited that the minute we got there, we were pedaling up the lane. We tried holding hands while riding. I do not recommend this. I lost my balance, we both toppled over, and I ended up with a black eye. Yeah, that was not fun. But here’s the good part. We rousted out early the next morning, filled a thermos with hot coffee, and pedaled to where we could watch the sun come up. Holding hands this time was far more successful. An intimate moment, cuddled together to ward off the chill, sipping coffee and watching the sun rise. It’s one of those hey-remember-when moments that we enjoy reliving again and again.

Torres Del Paine

Another year we splurged and went to Patagonia for three weeks. Wow! That was a great trip with the highlight being a stay at the Explora, located at the base of the Torres Del Paine. Check out the picture that I took from our room in the wee hours of the morning. It was on that trip that our car broke down in the middle of nowhere and Dale had the meltdown I wrote about in an earlier post. Yep, even a meltdown is an opportunity to create intimacy. We spent New Year’s Eve on a ferry that took us down the coast of Chile to Patagonia. We sat in our not-at-all-luxury cabin, popped the cork on a bottle of champagne we thought to buy at the last minute, toasted, kissed, took and sip and then both practically gagged. Champagne?  Uh-uh. More like fuel oil.  Nasty stuff that went down the drain.  But who needs champagne to celebrate the new year. We didn’t. After going out on deck where the crew shot off fireworks, we headed back to our cabin. How many people can say they’ve done the wild thing on a ferry, heading south along the Chilean coast to Patagonia on New Year’s Eve?  Great trip from which we have a whole bunch of hey-remember-when memories.

You don’t have to spend a lot. One year we bought a martini shaker and glasses. We spent most of January slightly tipsy as we worked our way from Appletini (which I recommend) to Wasabi Martini (which I do not recommend). We have used that shaker for many years and each time we pull it out of the cabinet, it inspires a hey-remember-when Christie and Gary came for dinner and we . . . , or when we celebrated the . . . , or we . . . story.

A shirt is long forgotten. But the memory of an intimate moment is the gift that keeps on giving. Try it. I think you’ll like it.

Marriage: Is It Really Hard Work?

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

Beige? Are you kidding? Of course taupe is the right color!

“Marriage is hard work.”  I think that’s a bunch of bologna. If I had said to Dale, “Honey, being married is going to require hard work, and lots of it,” he would have cut and run as fast as he could and who would have blamed him? Certainly not me. When I envision a great marriage, I don’t see a labor camp. So, I got to wondering why do we so often hear, even from relationship gurus, that a good marriage requires hard work. I’m thinking maybe couples are working hard on the wrong things. For instance . . .

Being right. Just as you can’t have over without under, up without down, cold without hot, or light without dark, you can’t be right without someone else being wrong. While there are things that, based on empirical evidence, are objectively right, I’m sorry to say that your opinion is not one of them. We all have opinions about virtually everything…the prettiest color for the bathroom…the superiority of cats over dogs (or vice verse)…the best team in football…the perfect recipe for mac ‘n cheese…what music is worth listening to, and so on ad infinitum.

And while it may be difficult, if not downright impossible, to believe that anyone would love eggplant, prefer beige to taupe, and think a day at the water park is as good as it gets, your partner has opinions, too. Expressing your opinion is easy. Listening to your sweetheart’s opinion is easy if not mind-boggling. So far, no hard work. It’s when you elevate your opinion to universally right and then try to convince your sweetheart that he or she is wrong that the going gets tough.

Differences are just that. Your sweetheart is not your clone. Get over it. If you insist of making differences matters of right and wrong, you’re going to be exhausted from the hard (and futile) work of convincing your sweetheart how right you are and how wrong he or she is. Worse, you’re going to be an irritating bore. It’s not necessary to reconcile all your differences to peacefully coexist. Really, it’s okay if you’re a Democrat and your sweetie is a Republican.  Where differences do have to be reconciled—yep, you do have to agree on what color to paint the bathroom—it’s just a matter of negotiation. And, come on, differences make life more interesting, don’t they? No matter how wonderful you are, would you really want to live with your mirror image?

Arguing about whether beige or taupe is “right” is not only a waste of time and exhausting, it plays havoc with intimacy. So, here’s the choice:

• Argue about who’s right until you run out of steam, one of you finally gives in, and end up sleeping back-to-back with a wall of ice between you, or
• Nix the argument, let your sweetheart “win” this one, pick up Frequent Foreplay Miles, and enjoy between-the-sheets and emotional intimacy.

If you want more intimacy in your relationship (and who doesn’t?), stop working hard on the wrong things.

More on this topic in future posts.  So, stay tuned!

Creating Intimacy with Private Jokes

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Amazon River

Have you ever been with a couple and one says something to the other that seems to make sense only to them? You say, “What?” They say, “Private joke,” and give each other a meaningful glance. I was working on the chapter in my book about humor and it occurred to me that it’s often from humorous situations that “private jokes” arise. E.g., Dale and I were on a camping tour of Manu Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon basin. Dale was in heaven and although it was pretty cool to wake to the sound of howler monkeys and see poison dart frogs in their natural environment, there’s a reason why a rain forest is called a rain forest. Wet. Hot. Humid. Camping. No shower. REALLY big bugs. Ugh! On the tour were four other couples, including Lucinda and Graham from London where an umbrella is an everyday accessory. While the rest of us drowned rats huddled in an open canoe wearing cheap plastic ponchos purchased on the streets of Cuzco, Lucinda and Graham were cuddled under the giant umbrella they thought to bring with them. As if this weren’t annoying enough, they were also irrepressibly chipper—of course they were, they were dry! Every morning, they’d get up and describe the previous night in a moldy old tent as, “Brilliant!” By the fifth day, I was pretty cranky and, frankly, tired of Lucinda and Graham. Dale (normally a very funny guy) was having the time of his life and attempted to make a joke with our non-English speaking Peruvian guide who, of course, didn’t get it. I grabbed Dale by the lapels, pulled his face close to mine, and said through clenched teeth, “Dale, you are not funny in the rain forest!” Without blinking an eye, he looked down at me and said, “Graham thinks I’m funny.” I cracked up. Now, years later, when I fail to find Dale as humorous as he thinks he is, I say, “This is the rain forest.” He knows to get serious but before he does, he often adds, “Graham thinks I’m funny,” and it always makes me smile.

The phrase “not pregnant” also has a special meaning for us. It means “don’t make assumptions.”  Here’s how that one came about: We were on our way to an afternoon matinee. I was driving my hot little Mustang, chatting and not paying close enough attention, when I rear-ended a van. We pulled into the closest parking lot and while I went to speak to the driver, Dale ran to the passenger side to make sure no one was hurt. He yanked the door open and blurted out to the large woman reclining in the seat, “Oh, my God, you’re really pregnant!” She wasn’t. Ha!

Bottom line:  Every couple in love builds their own little “world” of shared experiences, code words, meaningful glances, and gestures only they understand. It’s part of what makes a couple a couple. It’s pretty darned intimate when you two are the only ones in a crowded room to share a “private joke.”

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