Congratulations! You’ve made it to this wonderful developmental stage in your relationship. Getting to this commitment level is usually no easy feat. Doesn’t it feel like an accomplishment? LOL But this new chapter is just the beginning… Do you wonder, You are engaged, now what? 💍
This is specially the case if it was challenging getting to the Popping the Question part. Because you got over that hump it doesn’t mean the rest is smooth sailing unless you’ve worked on what was getting in the way…
And, this wondering is also true if all of a sudden you are experiencing challenges in your relationship even if things were amazing before you got engaged.
Now that you are engaged, it is time to make sure that your relationship is on the right path and strong as can be, and that you are ready to start your marriage right… 🥰
Watch the video to learn the 3 steps to start your marriage right:
APPLICATION: Grab your lovey for a session on investing on the future of your relationship and to start your marriage right…
Values – Discuss your Values, identify the ones you have in common and explore how to weave them into your lifestyle
Life Vision – Have your values inform your Life Vision… Create your own and then combine them for a Joint Life Vision to serve as your North Star as you embark in your new Journey
Planning – Create a plan for planning your wedding… 😉
When you take a moment to Align with your Partner and have your relationship and your life flow from that alignment, it all becomes harmonious and joyous. It is much easier to create your new life from this place, and to create your radiant and successful relationship. Start your marriage right!
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
Copyright (c) 2021 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
When your partner won’t commit, it creates a sense of powerlessness. It leaves you not knowing how to carry on, what to expect, and even what your future holds. This is a very scary place to be, where one doesn’t even know what expectations are ok to have of one’s partner… Is your partner dragging their feet to pop the question?
It’s very convenient for the ambivalent partner to postpone making a decision, if the committed partner puts up with the lack of commitment from them. 🙄
Now, don’t get me wrong. This does not mean that if your partner is ambivalent that you demand a commitment, press for a commitment, give ultimatums, etc… Unfortunately, I see this too often in our practice where the wrong approach is used to get a commitment from an ambivalent partner.
The wrong approach promotes further power-struggling, stuckness, funky behaviors and when overdone might even lead to a break-up. 💔
So, what is the partner who is ready for commitment to do? In a nutshell, they are to strike a balance between not pressuring their partner, but also making their wishes well known… ⚖️
I know this sounds much easier said than done. I’ve seen plenty of couples be tortured by this situation. The brain doesn’t do well with ambivalence and question marks. The not knowing where things stand and what to expect is a great source of anxiety and torment.
But this situation is not hopeless. Partners who go through this can attain a higher level of commitment when they are intentional about their approach to getting there…
Getting to, Will you marry me?
There are reasons why some couples move slow to getting to a higher level of commitment, but it doesn’t mean they can’t…
Commitment Blocks…
A lot of times couples find themselves stuck because one partner is ready for more commitment and the other one isn’t, or something is getting in the way of moving forward.
Readiness – The ambivalent partner is just simply not ready. The relationship is just something in their lives but not a priority. They have other things that they are focused on or that take up their bandwidth. They:
•Don’t feel settle in their career, profession, business and/or financially •Might have unfinished business with a prior relationship •Might be overextended and overwhelmed in their life for different reasons
Sureness – The ambivalent partner is just not convinced or is worried about whether the other partner is the right fit for them as a Life Partner… They love the person but there are red flags for them, or concerns holding them back from being all in… They worry about the other’s:
•Habits, addictions •Personality traits •Financial standing, achievements •Culture, religion, other affiliations •Dreams for the future, motivation •Background, Family •And others
Essence – The nature of the relationship itself can influence the partners ability to sync, flow and move forward… Depending on what is going on in the relationship, how the partners see each other and the relationship, relate to one another, get on the same page, meet their needs, connect and bond, and collaborate, has a massive impact on what the couple is able to create…
For the Motivated Partner…
First off, if you are the motivated partner and your partner is just not committing yet, my heart goes out to you. This is a super painful and frustrating place to be…
When our partner doesn’t want to commit, it is very difficult to not take this personally and not let it impact us.
We make up all kinds of things about why our partner might not want us. We feel rejected, unwanted, unloved, not worthy, and such. This impacts our self-esteem. This disempowers us.
But take note that there is something about us that attracted this partner, created the current relationship with this partner, and is still with this partner… Just saying…
So, regardless of what is happening on our partner’s side to make them move slow, it is up to us to address our experience and what we are contributing to the status quo…
🌟 Readiness – We can use our genius to understand our partner’s bandwidth, and use our insight and understanding to address the current situation with them about the reality of the situation and prospect for the future…
These are not easy conversations to have, but they save everyone a lot of time and heartache. The mere conversation might help you align and get on a better path.
> But being more intentional about how to move forward is super helpful and empowering… It is up to you how long you want to wait for the other to get up to speed…
🌟 Sureness – Sometimes the relationship feels like it’s in a hamster wheel, there is a lot of activity but no movement forward… There seems to be something holding things back but it’s very illusive. We can’t put our finger on what’s wrong, our partner feels slippery, but nothing specifically stands out as to what’s amiss…
This is where it’s super important to be conscious and have awareness about ourselves and what we might be contributing to the stuckness. Likewise, to be intentional about learning more about our partner and mindful in our approach to it…
> This is where exploratory conversations are helpful to understand concerns, worry, fear and such. And, to clean up misconceptions, assumptions, assigned motives and the like that create roadblocks.
It is interesting how many things partners are getting wrong about each other that holds them back in the development of their relationship…
🌟 Essence – Most partners did not have great role models for how to be in a healthy, radiant and successful relationship. They don’t have great personal and relational skills to bring to their interactions and to the relationship overall. Our relationship is dependent on our ability to bring our Best Self to it…
When partners trip over themselves, haven’t done much personal development, and haven’t learned relationship nurturing and enrichment skills the whole relationship is like a house of cards…
APPLICATION: Identify what type of Commitment Block you might have and invite your partner into a conversation about it. Note, you might have a bit of all three…
Readiness – Not ready developmentally, emotionally or in terms of life stage Sureness – Concerns about partners’ fit Essence – Relationship needs nurturing and enrichment
Don’t invite your partner to the conversation by saying, We have to talk about our relationship… That is the kiss of death! LOL
Instead say something like, Hey, can we chat later about nurturing our relationship?
You have a lot more control and say than it seems and feels like, I promise. Take charge of your side and see how things begin to shift…
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
Copyright (c) 2021 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
If you are juggling taking care of small children, giving attention to your relationship, caring for your home, rocking it at work or your business, and managing other responsibilities, you probably have a hard time finding time for yourself.
Do you often feel like there is too much to do and not enough time in the day? Do you feel overwhelmed, exhausted and anxious? Do you lack proper support to boot? It is common for couples with young children to struggle finding time for self-care.
When the partners don’t take care of themselves:
1. Their nerves are frayed, become impatient, inflexible, hypersensitive, and closed minded
2. They have a hard time having productive conversations, making decisions, and solving problems
3. They are running on empty, their health and wellbeing deteriorate, and they don’t have the bandwidth or energy to meet each other’s needs
4. They become disenchanted with one another, they lack desire and even start losing attraction for the other
5. They have a harder time figuring out ways to support each other and collaborate
Partners find themselves in a vicious cycle that is very discouraging for the success of the relationship, and the partner’s overall life…
Lack of self-care has a huge impact on the wellbeing of the partners, the relationship and the family…
Implementing More Self-care
The partners’ lack of self-care has an overarching impact on different parts of the family. Some ways in which the lack of self-care manifests:
💫 Wellbeing of the partners – Individually the partners experience an impact to physical and mental health, resilience, vitality, appearance and fitness, productivity, performance, and zest for life
💫 Wellbeing of the relationship – There is an impasse and stuckness that permeates the relationship, poor communication and frequent disagreements and arguing, recurring issues, disconnection, lack of intimacy and suboptimal support and collaboration
💫 Wellbeing of the family – There is tension, chaos, disorganization, things falling through the cracks, difficulty keeping up with chores and preparing healthy meals, children with frequent health ailments, acting out, and/or poor grades
How can the partners do more self-care when they are already so strapped for time?
About time…
Our to-do list, responsibilities and demands seem to grow every day. Just the thought of having to find the time to add anything else to an already jammed packed day seems a laughable matter.
But it is not about finding the time, but about making the time… Making the time is a lot easier than it seems!
📣 Mindset – For starters, the way we choose to look at time, our responsibilities, our abilities, our lifestyle, our support, and so on influences how we gatekeep, prioritize and manage our time.
If we believe that we should be all things to all people, that being nurturing, loving and supportive means doing more and saying yes to everything, that we are the only ones that can take care of things the way we want them, and such, we are more likely to be burning the candle at both ends.
On the other hand, if we don’t need to prove our worth, value ourselves, play to our strengths, don’t need to micromanage, trust we can count on others, believe that others want to please us and do right by us, stay in our own circle, and such, we are more likely to not be spread too thin…
📣 Routine – When we don’t get in our own way with a funky mindset, we are a lot more likely to create an Ideal Day routine that supports our Best Life. We are able to design our day so what’s important to us gets our attention and our best selves. And it feels like we have all the time in the world…
We are able to create a routine and a flow to our days that enables us to tackle our responsibilities seamlessly and with ease. There is a time for everything… We are not overly scheduled, we are not crammed, and we are not running around like a chicken without a head. There is gracefulness to the day and transitions built-in to allow for staying present, grounded and attuned…
📣 Habits – And then, we add wellness, connection and success habits to the routine that allows us to take care of everything we want to take care of. When we intentionally set up leveraged habits, we get more milage out of our efforts. We become superhuman, we have more time, and we take care of a lot – seamlessly!
Being intentional in our approach to our days, buys us time!
Your Self-care Practice
Once you’ve shifted how you look at the importance of self-care and how to tackle the time concern, you can ease into integrating more self-care activities into your routine to build your rich self-care practice.
Below is a list of suggested items to sprinkle into your routine, creating habits of them to carry them out consistently:
• Meditation, Journaling, Affirmations
• Listening to inspiring content, motivation speeches, music
• HIIT, yoga, weight training, walking
• Nutritious eating, hydration, supplementation
• Connecting with loved ones
• Mani/pedi, bath, massage
• Tantric meditation visualization and practice
• Soothing nighttime routine
Investing in shifting your perspective on this topic, on creating time and prioritizing self-care, and integrating more self-care activities into your routine is a must to support you in your Journey…
APPLICATION: Take a moment. Yes, you have a moment – before you jump out of bed, while you brush your teeth, when you are on the toilet, when you are in the shower, when you are nursing or giving a bottle, while you are making food, while you are folding laundry, while you are driving, etc…
Hey, I know some moms feel they don’t even have this – they skip brushing their teeth, showering, and even eating. They go to the bathroom with little ones hanging onto them. I get it. If this is you, I’m sending you lots of love and encouragement to steel a moment from somewhere – if you look, you find…
Use the moment to make a commitment to make a change – it doesn’t have to be like this!
Think on the impact of not taking care of yourself, dare to look at time differently…, and dream about what self-care activities you’d like to enjoy…
Pick one self-care activity that you will integrate into your life in the next couple of days…
You get a gold star! 🌟
We create our own hell and promote our own demise sometimes… Let’s empower ourselves and approach self-care differently… Let’s give this a good shot, as if our life depends on it – for it does!!
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
Copyright (c) 2021 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
Are you creating your Best Life? Do you have a Life Vision? Do you have a Joint Life Vision? How do you know what you are working towards every day? Are you just focused on making ends meet, or are you working towards something?
Are all your choices in alignment with your values and creating your Best Life? Is all your effort put towards it? Or are you squandering your precious resources, your focus, energy and time? Becoming a strong partnership is key to creating your Best Life.
It is very common for people to not have a Life Vision and goals for the future, as is also very common for couples to not be on the same page about their future and working towards a joint vision together. Couples don’t usually have a Joint Life Vision.
When couples don’t have a Joint Life Vision, they don’t have a North Star guiding their life. They don’t have a way to filter their actions, their activities, their habits, their routines, their lifestyle, their spending – all their decisions and approach to their relationship and their life.
A Joint Life Vision is the map to where you want to do, what kind of life you want to create. Not having one means you are banging around through life, creating by default, and possibly focusing on the wrong things.
Having this map, doesn’t mean the route is written in permanent marker, that you can’t take the scenery route here and there, or park by the side of the road every so often. Having this map, a Joint Life Vision, does mean you are going in the right direction and enjoying the ride.
Creating a Joint Life Vision is much easier to do when you are operating as a strong team, when you become a strong partnership… Partners that feel stuck and are pointing the finger at each other, that can’t get on the same page, who keep having the same issues and can’t get out of their own way, and who feel disconnected have a hard time with this.
Setting common goals, working towards them and collaborating is not easy to do with our partner if the rest of the relationship is off…
To create an awesome life, we need to have an awesome relationship… When our relationship is off, it is challenging for the rest of our life to feel right and be epic…
Where does this leave us in terms of creating our #BestLife? It means we have a dream, a Life Vision, and work towards it while we give our relationship a lot of TLC…
Here is a quick formula to wrap our mind around this:
👀 Have your own Life Vision, flesh out all the life areas and then focus on your top 3 💗 Always make your relationship part of the top 3 👏 Once you are in a good place with your partner, share your Life Vision and create a Joint Life Vision 📐 Align your whole life against this Joint Life Vision 🛠 Create systems with your partner for easy collaboration and a divide and conquer approach
What does it mean to align your whole life against the life vision?
That you spend time on activities that help you complete projects that flow from your goals
That you spend time on goals that move the needle forward in creating your life vision
Make the Baby Steps Count
What kind of habits and activities are we talking about?
Let’s say, that you are focusing on the 3 main life themes: Wellness, Connection and Success. You’d make sure that you have habits and activities in these themes (their related life areas), to accomplish goals in these areas and move the needle forward in creating your life vision…
This can look something like this:
🌟Wellness (Spiritual, Physical, Emotional, Mental): Meditation, Intermittent Fasting, Exercise, Reading >> For fitness, vitality, longevity, resilience and personal development
🌟Connection (Relational, Social): Check-In Chat, Delight Partner, Sexy Time, Fun Outing/Event >> For a radiant and successful relationship, and strong community
🌟Success –(Financial, Lifestyle): TimeMapping, Networking, Budgeting, Writing >> For wealth, social impact and great life
Making daily habits and actions of these is the easiest way to stay focused and cranking along…
In the daily routine is also where the managing the business of life, the domestic, personal tasks and projects, and other ventures and life projects happen, and which are best tackled in collaboration with your partner.
The divide and conquer approach and the synergy inherent in your partnership propels your creation and manifestation forward. This is how you seamlessly create your Best Life, your (Joint) Life Vision.
Collaboration FLOW
Here are some Collaboration Flow suggestions that work super well for our couples when they need support in this area:
💫 Bulk food shopping, grocery deliveries (sun, wed) – Keep a running shopping list to easily grab everything in one shopping event 💫 Laundry (sun, wed) – Throw in a couple of loads as needed (don’t do laundry every day, don’t let it pile up!) 💫 Food prep (sun) – Cook/bake a couple of things, cut up veggies and fruit – portion out and store (freeze if possible) 💫 Synchronizing Meeting (sun) – Have a moment on Sunday evenings to get on the same page about the upcoming week 💫 Check-In Chats (daily before or after dinner) – Have a moment to catch up on the day and get on the same page as needed 💫 Weekend Planning (thu) – Map out the flow, and plan the activities and fun for the upcoming weekend 💫 Integrating Meeting (sat) – Make time to meet to plan, discuss, share or what work on yourselves, the relationship, your finances, home renovations, and other projects
Creating structures, systems and automations makes it much easier to run a joint life freeing up time, energy and attention for Being and Enjoying.
Here is to your smooth, harmonious, and joyful home and family.
Here is to seamlessly creating your Best Life with your Partner!
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
PS: APPLICATION – Consider where you have glitches in your weekly flow and collaboration with your partner and implement any Collaboration Flow suggestions that fit your needs.
🌟 Feel free to create your own. The key is to create an ongoing solution to address a need or recurring glitch…
Copyright (c) 2021 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
Sometimes we might get cranky, moody, impatient, and easily annoyed, and want to bite someone’s head off. Have you ever stopped to consider what is happening for you when you feel this way? You can probably guess that you are not well resourced, that you are running on empty.
Therefore, you don’t have much bandwidth to be tolerant, patient, understanding, flexible, compassionate, giving, nurturing, and loving. But did you know that we can fill our tank by being in Connection?
At my last yoga class, the instructor was so tuned in… She actually made reference to this concept. She said something to the effect of, We get cranky when we need connection. 🤯 I was so excited to hear this and other beautiful golden nuggets she had to offer. Inspiration and affirmation come in all shapes and when least expect it.
I teach this concept to our couples:
We don’t get annoyed with our partner’s imperfections when we feel connected.
When partners report their partner is really getting on their nerves, or that becomes apparent simply by how they share about how they are doing, it becomes obvious how disconnected they might be feeling…
Partners that are feeling connected get along much better. The little things don’t annoy them, they are more able to give grace, to focus on the positive, and to be more compassionate and generous.
But it is challenging to feel connected to our partner when we choose to look at them in a negative light, when we get in their circle (and become codependent), and our focus is “what about me?”
It is challenging to connect with our partner when we are being messy in how we show up to our interactions, and the rest of our lives…
So, this might seem like a Catch22. We need to feel connected to let go of annoyances, but we can’t connect because there are annoyances… Putting this concept together in this way, or having this logic or mindset, doesn’t serve us.
There is a better way of putting this together. We have the power to choose how we interpret things, what meaning we assign things, how we respond, how we show up, how we feel, what we focus on, and so on…
The empowered state allows us to see our partner with imperfections and all, and still think they are awesome. And still want to be with them. And still feel connected…
I get that this is difficult to do when we are running on empty… The littlest of things can grate on us. Some partners expect to get all their needs met through their partner. This is really a toll order and an unrealistic expectation… Something to be revisited immediately…
Therefore, it’s super important to replenish ourselves, to fill our tank, outside of our partner…
When we are resourced, we have more bandwidth that allow us the ability to choose to look at our partner in a much more positive light. When we choose our focus better, we are better able to overlook imperfections and see the Essence of our partner.
It is then much easier to connect with our partner when we don’t focus on their faults but focus on their awesomeness instead… AND, when we are connected it becomes easier to ignore their imperfections and not get annoyed. A beautiful Catch22 after all.
Connection to Ourselves
How do we resource ourselves to be able to do this? The answer still lies in being in Connection… But being in Connection with ourselves, with our Higher Self… The part of us that is one with the Universe, or our Higher Power.
This is the easiest and simplest way to recharge ourselves and fill up our tank! When we are in Connection with our Higher Self, we are plugged in, we are Charged. And, then we can easily connect with our Partner. Voila!
Mindfulness Practice
Our Mindfulness Practice can take on any flavor we desire. Mindfulness is a moment-to-moment awareness of one’s experience without judgement.
The key is to go within and be still. To quiet our mind. To not engage with our usual thoughts and scripts, but just notice them and let them go.
To focus on Being with ourselves – to hear surrounding noises, to feel body sensations, to notice our breathing, to go further within.
To connect with our Core, our Self. To connect with our Essence…
This can be done through meditation and movement like yoga, tai chi, qi gong, walking, cleaning, coloring, knitting, and other repetitive activities where we can transcend our thinking, ego, fear…
APPLICATION: Connect with your Self, connect with your Partner, note a deeper Connection…
Make a commitment to Connect with yourself daily…
Embrace a Mindfulness Practice that fits your lifestyle and integrate it into your daily routine.
Take note of how differently you feel when you practice
Take note of how differently you show up when you practice
Take note of how much easier it is to let go of annoyances when you practice
Take note of how much easier it is to connect with your partner when you practice
Take note of how you don’t even notice annoyances when you feel connected with your partner…
Connection is a goal to strive for daily…
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
Copyright (c) 2021 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT has been in the mental health profession in varying capacities for the past 20+ years. She is the Founder and Director of metrorelationship.com a psychotherapy and coaching practice specializing in working with busy professional and entrepreneurial couples who are struggling getting on the same page and feeling connected. The work helps couples create a radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life by becoming a strong partnership and increasing their connection, intimacy, and fun. Emma is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Relationship Strategy™.
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