All this month, I’ve been sending you videos about how to have a fabulous New Year and New Decade. As part of that, I want to tell you three very specific things you can do right now for having your relationship be fantastic in 2020. And each of these things are backed up by scientific studies, which I love!
Give a listen – this could save your relationship! Or send it to someone (your partner, maybe?) who might benefit from it.
Relationships are hard. I know – I was a divorce attorney for 20 years, I’ve been doing couples work with Sedona Soul Adventures for almost 20 years and I’ve been married more than once.
I’m happy to say I’m in a blissful marriage now, but one of the reasons it’s blissful is because I practice what I preach. I do the three specific tips I just gave you and when something is going on, my husband and I do sessions with our practitioners here, because they are the best of the best and sometimes you just need to hear something from a third person.
We all need help, once in a while – even me!
Do you need help? Does your relationship need help? If your relationship is on the wrong path right now, you’ve got to do something to turn it in the right direction.
Give us a call and let us custom design the perfect retreat for the two of you.
I love this post from Rachel on Facebook:
Wouldn’t you love to have all that happen for you and your relationship?
- To thrive more as a couple
- To thrive more as an individual
- To thrive more as a parent
- To really show up for each other and in your lives
- To have your relationship feel NEW
To have a whole new relationship, that’s what happens when people do a Couples Soul Adventure. Call us and let’s get one started for you.
Or if you’d prefer, call us toll-free at 1-877-204-3664 (US and Canada). For our friends outside the US and Canada, call 01 928-204-5988 or click here and one of our Retreat Guides will call you.
Most of you who have been watching my videos over the years know that I was a divorce attorney for over 20 years in Omaha, Nebraska and then after that, I’ve spent almost 20 years working with couples through Sedona Soul Adventures – so I have almost 40 years experience of working with couples.
Today I want to give you 3 specific tips for making your relationship stronger.
What I love about these is that they are actually based on scientific studies. I love it when studies prove things that we intuitively already know.
The first one is one – and when you first hear it, you’re probably going to say something like, “Duh, Debra, everybody knows that” – but I want you to really listen to it. Here it is:
If you want your relationship to thrive, you should be having sex often and regularly.
And here’s why:
Because studies have shown there is a direct correlation between how often you have sex and the positive feelings you have about your partner. The more frequently partners had sex, the more positive their implicit, or gut-level, positive feelings about the relationship were. This is according to a study in Psychological Science.
So let me explain exactly what this means. Your implicit feeling about your partner is your automatic response to them. Let’s say they walk in the door at the end of the day and you’re tired and know you have to make dinner. The study researchers reported, “When you’re tired and don’t have the energy to think about how you feel about your partner, the implicit attitude you have toward them is the one that will come out and influence the way you treat them.”
Of course we all know that, but here’s the kicker: in the study, the more people had sex, the more their implicit response – their automatic response to their partner – was positive. So by having more sex, you’re increasing the likelihood that your automatic response to your partner, the response you don’t even think about, will be positive.
And how do you want to feel about your partner? You want to automatically feel good about them. Ergo, have more sex.
One of the things that’s been so heartbreaking for me, both when I was a divorce attorney and now after all these years of working with couples at Sedona Soul Adventures, is to find out the number of couples who have not had sex in a really, really long time. I mean 2 ½ years, 5 years, even 10 years. It’s such an indicator of what’s going on in the relationship. And sometimes there ARE things going on – anger, mistrust, upset with the other person – but if you allow those to linger, if you don’t take steps to fix them, that’s when you’re going to have long term trouble, the kind of trouble that leads to divorce and separation.
Which leads us to Tip No. 2:
Figure out how to fight fair.
Anger and Stonewalling don’t work, they lead to health problems and long term unhappiness.
Again, “duh,” but really listen to this because I love what this study found. They followed 156 couples over a 20 year period, observing the same couples every 5 years, and found that people who get really angry in arguing with their spouse have a greatly increased risk of heart disease.
The people who stonewall (meaning, “I don’t want to talk about his right now”) and so then they never really deal with their problems, were much more likely to develop musculoskeletal problems, meaning back pain. The other thing I loved about this study is that the researchers said in their report that a lot of the couples in this study had the same conflict year in and year out, and they usually discussed it in eerily similar terms. Dr. Robert Levenson of UC Berkeley said, “Sometimes we’d be listening in and wondering, ‘Is this the same conversation they had five years ago?’”
Anger doesn’t work. Stonewalling doesn’t work. It can give you heart disease and back pain, and lead to years of unhappiness. You’ve got to figure out a better way of communicating with each other than getting angry or giving the other person the silent treatment.
And this leads directly to the 3rd tip:
Leave the past In the past.
If you work through a hardship together and come to a positive resolution, move past it and use the experience as an opportunity to learn and grow. Don’t keep throwing it in your partner’s face during arguments, don’t use it to guilt-trip your partner, and try not to assume that just because something happened once, it will happen again. What’s passed is past, and rehashing old ugliness will just poison future happiness. Let it go.
I know from my own personal experience and also from working with couples how hard this is. We had a couple here this year who two years ago, the man had an emotional relationship with someone at work. Nothing sexual ever happened and he stopped it when he realized where it was going and told his wife about it. She was understandably very upset, but even after two years of therapy, she simply could not let this go and she continually accused him of doing it again – although he never did – and she was jealous and angry and becoming really nasty with him all the time.
They were on the verge of divorce when they came to us and we discovered that she had some core wounds from her childhood around not being worthy of love. That’s what was preventing her from letting this go. When she really got it that it was her own feelings of not being loveable, not his behavior that was really causing the problem, she was able to let it go and they were more in love than ever, saving their marriage, which I was especially happy for because they have two young children.
If your relationship and your family is important to you, you have to find a way to let go of the past and reclaim the love the two of you have.
And of course, sometimes that’s a whole lot easier said than done. Sometimes we just can’t get beyond things that have happened, especially if they involve trust or betrayal. But the question is: Do you want to hold onto that or do you want to hold onto your marriage and your family?
So here are the tips:
- Have more sex
- Learn how to disagree without anger and stonewalling
- Let go of the past
How are you doing with those? Is your relationship where you want it to be? Does it still Sizzle like it used to? Is your partner your best friend?
If not, I can tell you that you’re on a difficult road, a road that is probably going to lead you someplace you don’t want to go. So you have two choices:
- Do something about it, or
- Get more and more miserable
The second choice is what a lot of people do for a long period of time before they simply can’t stand it anymore and they split up. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want that for your family.
Our couples retreats are so powerful because they are custom designed for exactly what the two of you need.
First, we’ll talk to each of you separately before you even come to Sedona, really digging deep to get to the causes of the problems and what got you here. The problems that got you here in the first place are different for everybody and need to be treated in the specific ways that you need.
Then we’ll custom design your retreat and when you come to Sedona, you’ll be working one-on-one with the Master Practitioners here, some of whom have over 20 years of working with couples. Your sessions will be completely private. You won’t be in a group where you’ll have to air your dirty laundry in front of a lot of strangers. You’ll be working privately with people who are caring and compassionate, helping you to move through the blocks and gunk that have brought you here and bringing you back into connection. Connection with yourself, connection with your beloved and connection with that third thing which is your relationship.
We’ve had so many people come to us on the verge of divorce, sometimes with the papers already signed, and we’ve turned things around and brought them back to the love that brought them together in the first place. And we’ve had so many people where the sizzle is gone and they want to take their relationship to the next level – really bringing in the love and connection that is so juicy and wonderful and satisfying.
I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video with someone you think might get something out of it and subscribe to our channel.
But if you’re ready to have the relationship of your dreams and move through the problems of the past, call us at (928) 204-5988 today to talk to us so that we can custom design the perfect retreat for your needs and desires.
We all want to be loved in the way we want to be loved. Sometimes we need help finding that. If this is something you’re searching for, please call us – or if you’d like more information, go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Couples Retreats today.
You can have the life AND the relationship you want – I know it.