As with busyness comes neglect of things we care about, our partner is usually one of the first to go. This is very unfortunate as most would say that the relationship with their partner is one of the things they care about most in life. But, still they usually come in last on the priority list.
I see people trying to take care of everything but their partner. They worry about clean houses, gifts for relatives and friends, work, email, etc. By the time the end of the day arrives, they are too exhausted to have fun and connect with their partner. They claim they want to, but they are too tired… People are too tired for the good stuff!! Isn’t that something?
We worry about our quality of life, but we really do little to make sure we have the quality of life we want day-in and day-out. We believe that more money will provide a higher quality of life and so focus our energies on working more for our money.
We end up overextended, stressed, and exhausted. This is hardly conducive to a “high quality of life.” When we are in this context, we can’t find pleasure in the little everyday things and interactions that make up our life.
The Fall and Winter are magnet month’s for staleness in relationships. We get caught up with the children’s school and extra curricular schedules, with meeting end of year deadlines, with the Holidays, etc. that we overbook and overextend ourselves to the point that we can’t handle anything or anyone else placing demands on us. We can’t even take pleasure on the things we are working for!
So, how do we make sure we stay on our partner’s priority list, and them in ours? How do we keep our relationship from getting stale?
We take care to create a Couple Routine. A Couple Routine is an explicit plan that delineates when and how to have contact. This needs to include small daily connecting rituals, weekly dates, time set aside for joint projects, weekend trips, vacations, romantic dinners, gifts, etc.
The Couple Routine set up now for the next few months will ensure that when you are in go-go-go mode, and have no time or inclination to think about connecting and having fun with your partner, that is already taken cared of. All you have to do is follow your plan.
Of course, your plan will be specific enough that it’ll have its details scheduled in your calendar. So, you’d have automated your relating taking the guesswork out of the equation and the chance for your partner not to make it to your priority list.
This task actually blocks out time from your calendar preventing you to overbook yourself and forget your partner and be too tire to interact with your partner. It takes out the staleness before it even manifests! And, because you’ve booked and committed yourself to interacting and connecting with your partner that will automatically get you on their priority list! Try it and see!!
Happy Prioritizing!!!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Create your Couple Routine. Go through your calendar and book dates, outings, project times, weekend trips, dinners, joint down time, etc. If you follow a TimeMap, it already blocks out “social time” that includes couple time. Then all you have to do is put in activities in the allotted times of your calendar.
You may also want to get “Time Management from the Inside Out“: It gives you a play by play on creating your “TimeMap.” Use this book to help you automate your Couple Routine. Let it guide your daily moves to create connection and fun with your partner!
Copyright (c) 2016 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
A common complaint in relationships is partners feeling disconnected from each other. I hear this as one of the primary concerns couples present with in my practice, aside from fighting a lot and not communicating.
As a couple is composed of two different individuals who have different histories, upbringings, personalities, ways of looking at things and processing information, styles of communication and many other individual characteristics, it is easy to get disconnected. This gets even further compounded with current dynamics and contexts if an effort to stay connected is not made.
As partners are different from each other in all these areas, it comes as no surprise that they are different in what they need to feel connected and to connect as well. I have come across three different styles of connecting:
ACTIVE (doing)- The partner wants to do fun activities, projects, or other endeavors together. They look to feel like a partnership, a unit, or a team. They seek to have a common sense of purpose, a shared destination. They want approaches, goals, tasks spelled out. These partners are on the go and are busy.
PASSIVE (being)– The passive partner enjoys being around the other regardless of whether they interact. They can sit together doing individual activities or a joint one that does not require interaction (i.e., watching T.V.). They feel connected as long as they are physically close to one another. I’ve even heard this type of partner feeling connected by just carrying the thought of the other with them.
EXPRESSIVE (talking) – These types of partners need to explore and share feelings and thoughts. They need to analyze and process their interactions, relationship, vision, needs, wishes, etc. These partners are very emotionally expressive and usually very verbal. Issues, concerns or ideas need to get discussed.
What I often see happening with couples is that the partners have different connecting needs and styles and are not really aware of it or have not figured out how to work out this kink.
When partners remain entrenched in their different styles they have difficulties connecting, meeting each other’s needs, getting on the same page, achieving joint goals, and feeling satisfied in the relationship. These partners also have a hard time being more intimate both emotionally and physically as they constantly miss each other.
The task of the partners, to ensure this kink does not cause havoc in their relationship and future together, is to first become aware that they have different styles of connecting, and different needs, and then to try connecting in their partner’s style and meeting their partner’s needs.
As I’ve written before, one partner always needs to start first taking responsibility for changing the status quo (or situation at hand) and getting things moving in a better direction. If both partners continue to wait for the other to start making changes, they’ll be both waiting a long time.
Once, the ball starts rolling, it picks up momentum: the other partner follows suit. Believe me it is true. I’ve seen this happen more often than not. Granted, the other partner might need some guidance, but because they are being showed love and interest they are willing to learn and stretch themselves. Give it a try and watch your bond flourish!
Happy Flourishing!!!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Think on your connecting styles and identify how these promote your missing each other. Come up with specific examples for when you appeared to be out of sync. Approach your partner with this understanding and have a discussion about how to take turns using each of your styles, incorporating a new one, or in some other way compromising, so that you do get to connect and have your needs met.
Copyright (c) 2016 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
Do you find that you have so many demands and responsibilities calling for your attention and resources that sometimes you feel like crawling under a rock and going to sleep for a millennium? Do you find that everyone wants a piece of you? Your kids have practical, social, intellectual and emotional needs.
Your home needs tending and your family life has a ton of minutia to be managed. Your social calendar, extra-curricular activities and other commitments grab at you at every corner. Your job, business, or profession takes the bulk of your attention and energy.
There is very little left for your partner… There is nothing left for you… Does this sound familiar? These are the majority of the partners that work with me. Doesn’t it make sense that their relationship would suffer given this scenario?
What also happens to these partners is that they lose sight of what is important to them. They get tunnel vision. They become robotic in their attempt at doing it all. In the guise of family values they become overextended with “family and family related commitments” doing their family a disservice in the end…
In the guise of working and providing they miss out on their family and their life… These partners do not enjoy a balanced and healthy lifestyle, relationships and family life… They do not properly role model these for their children… These partners miss the bigger boat in life. Living in their everyday hamster wheel they miss out on embracing the meaning of their life…
Now, don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to be the next Mother Teresa or Gandhi for your life to have meaning and purpose. But you do have to live a balanced (whatever this means for you…), healthy, intentional and meaningful life. You do have to make this world a better place. It is our duty as human Beings to contribute to this earth.
And, all it takes is for us to live a Soulful, Authentic Life… That’s it! If we do this, we have accomplished our Mission… For from this place magnificent things follow…
So, where do we start? With tons of Self Care and Ownership, including proper boundaries, structures and systems that support us…
We start by deconstructing our Mindset around self care, health, fitness, nutrition, support, worthiness, trust, investing, empowerment, power, mission, meaning, purpose, balance, motivation, accountability, responsibility, responsiveness, attunement, role modeling, family values, awesome relationship, passionate intimacy, passionate life…
Stop the narrow, black and white, and victim perspective and scripts. Watch for these like a hawk and eradicate them. These are the cancer in your life.
Be gentle with your Self. Everything here has been ingrained in you since before you were born… We have family legacies. We have family trauma. We have all sorts of goodies that have been with us for a long while… Don’t beat up on your Self if you are moving slow or have repeating patterns that you can’t seem to shake.
To your untrained eye, you might think there is something wrong with you, that this is how things are, that life is a succession of struggles and other untrue beliefs… There is nothing wrong with you. You are special and have your set of special circumstances to allow you to transcend your lot… Your job is to crack this code. That’s it!
Change your Mindset, be gentle with your Self, implement lots of Self care, and own your Self to create the life and relationship you desire and were meant to live. Start small and build on it. Take it one day at a time… I know you can do it!
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Authentic Life… Please share your takeaways on our Blog!
Happy Creating!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Choose a combo of three: Situations, behaviors, habits, commitments, people, belongings / stuff, or any other “noise” in your life that are no longer serving you, and possibly never did… Be very specific on what it is and take massive decisive action to remove this from your lot now.
Identify one Self Care action you want to implement in your life. Take massive decisive action to implement it now.
Go right ahead. You can do it…
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2016 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
One characteristic satisfied and successful couples have in common is that they are part of each other’s lives.Duh-ah! I’m sure this does not come as a surprise. The trick though is how the partners are part of each other’s lives.
Partners have difficulties negotiating what this means to them and integrating a healthy approach to togetherness and couplehood. Their relating ranges from partners leading parallel lives where each barely knows what the other is up to and is minimally involved in the other’s activities, pursuits and processes to being completely enmeshed in each other’s world where there is little space for uniqueness, originality, and authentic selfhood.
The extent the relationship is characterized by these interactions impacts the resiliency of the partnership. This relating poses a danger to the couple as it extinguishes the sparks between the partners rendering them passionless.
Couples with no passion express dissatisfaction, lack of intimacy and connection and tend to feel dead in their relationship [Disengaged relational style], have a very conflictual relationship (misguided passion!) [Conflictual relational style], and/or become great friends (friendship is nice but not enough…) [Enmeshed relational style].
In any case, they are at risk. These couples usually do not fare well. The space between them is too great to bare, the conflict is too painful, and/or their interactions are too tedious and boring!
Continuing with such dynamics leads to inertia in the relationship, while it lasts…, and in the partners’ lives. This is how people get stuck and are generally unhappy.
The opposite is also true. When partners find a balance between togetherness and separateness, of being a couple while holding on to their individuality, when they create a true partnership where they get to explore, integrate and express their whole self, they are then able to engender passion and tap into the synergy intrinsic to couples.
Thus the couple is able to have a satisfying and successful relationship, create and contribute to our universe, live their life and be truly alive. The goal of our humanness…
Happy Balancing!!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™Assignment
Identify what is your style [or combination of styles] of relating: Disengaged, Conflictual or Enmeshed. Discuss with your partner the impact your style is having on your relationship and your lives.
Examine the contribution of your behaviors, activities and commitment to your style and their overall value in your life. Brainstorm and explore ideas of what to add to your repertoire that addresses your level of togetherness and individuality. Pick two ideas to integrate into your lives and do it now!
Copyright (c) 2016 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
One would think that connecting with our partner is an easy feat. After all they are the one person we are supposed to be the most intimate with. This is most often not the case and we are actually not that intimate. I find that couples have a very difficult time connecting, feeling connected and staying connected, and their efforts at connecting sometimes create even more distance between them. It doesn’t have to be this way.
First, we need to become aware of some of the ways we sabotage our attempts to connect and set ourselves up to be disconnected:
1. Being too busy
2. Placing our partner down on the priority list
3. Allowing other people and things to eat up our time and energy
4. Dismissing our partner’s attempt at closeness
5. Giving our partner negative attention and criticism
6. Setting up interactions and situations that typically annoy or hurt our partner
7. Withdrawing attention and affection
8. Demanding closeness, attention and caring
9. Being right all the time and seeing only our perspective
10. Playing the victim card
Then, we can start doing things differently. We can change how we set up interactions, respond to our partner, approach our partner and generally organize ourselves so we create space to connect.
Note that as you attempt to implement changes to your non-connecting-habits, you will find yourself and your partner resisting and undermining the changes – even if you both want to really connect! Don’t trick yourself into thinking only you want to connect – your partner does too even if you can’t see it!
Connecting is scary – we are not used to being in real connection. We crave it and at the same time we fear it. Don’t let this stop you. Practice makes perfect. Ease yourselves into it. Eventually you become experts making sure you safe guard your connection, nurturing it and enjoying it!
From this connected place we feel gotten, understood, accepted, valued, respected, admired, wanted, and cherished. We mutually build ourselves up. We become whole. We grow up. We heal. Our self-esteem soars. We no longer just complement each other.
We are now two wholes ready to collaborate. We are full of potential and might. We enhance and bring out the best in each other. We synergize and are ready to take on any old project we so choose to take on!!
Happy Connecting and Creating!!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™Assignment
Pick two non-connecting-habits you have and make immediate moves to rectify them. Invite your partner to be open to your attempts at approaching them and to receive you.
Copyright (c) 2016 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth 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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