Staying in Love: Three Tips

It’s the bugaboo of a couple’s life—how to respect each other’s free will, while growing more intimate as a couple. It’s the kind of topic that sounds fancy in a lecture, but gets messier in real life. Like how to influence each other without committing the famous fouls of:

• guilt-tripping
• rolling the eyes
• walking out on a conversation
• talking down to your partner

Kate and I celebrated our thirty year anniversary this month (See YouTube Episode #11: DR DAN AND KATE MONTGOMERY HIP HOP MARTIAL ARTS AND LOVE for part of the celebration!) But we, like all couples, still need to work on healthy communication.

Dr. Dan and Kate Montgomery

Three Little Tips

1. Warm-up your partner up to the communication you wish to have. "Is this a good time for you to talk?" Realize that we each live inside our own skin. At any given moment, we are experiencing things that our partners have no way of knowing about, unless we tell them.  
 

It is a huge mistake to believe 

that if a person really loves you, 

he or she will be able to read your mind. 

No way. Your partner is as locked inside their skin as you are. The only tools available for communication and communion are words and body language. So whatever you want to say, especially if it has a strong emotional valence to it, break it to them gently.

2. Avoid verbal arguments and misunderstandings by willingly repeating whatever you’re trying to say in fresh new words. It is only natural for couples to mishear a communication, or to take something very personally and react defensively, instead of continuing the communication. With practice you can learn to let your partner finish whatever they are trying to say without interrupting them, or short-circuiting the communication with an emotional reaction. Taking the time to clarify any misunderstanding builds mutual goodwill.  

The more grace you extend to your partner, 

the more grace they become willing 

and able to extend to you.

3. Just as in car maintenance, 

keep your intimacy well oiled and lubricated 

by a generous supply of basic kindness:  

 “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

“Please may I?” 

“Excuse me.” 

“Good morning.” 

“Sleep well.” 

“How are you?” 

 “I need you.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“I love you!”

As you can tell, I feel passionately about couple’s growth. 

If one of my dreams could come true, it would be that 

every couple on earth might come to know 

the warmth, emotional security, and adventure 

of couple’s intimacy that really works. 

STAYING IN LOVE

Handling Old Flames in Couple's Intimacy

What makes couple's intimacy special is making your partner number one emotionally in your life—and keeping it that way.

Easier said than carried out. Especially when old flames compete for your heart’s allegiance.

Most people have tried their hand at couple’s bonding. Most have failed their first time out of the chute and have a broken heart to show for it. The upshot? We develop relational histories with past boyfriends or girlfriends we’ve known; sometimes former spouses with whom we have parted company.

The thing is, old flames are hardwired into the brain’s RNA memory coding. Even after going separate ways, old flames remain emotionally significant. They can suddenly appear in daydreams, night dreams, or associations to a song you hear or a photo you see. You might pine for them, hate them, or wish you two had never met, but short of a lobotomy, their memory lingers.

That’s okay. The best way to get on with life after heartbreak is to build a new collection of memories and adventures with your new companion.

So how do you handle it when something reminds you of your old flame? Let’s look at three ways that this can happen.

1) First there’s the old flame you must keep seeing in the person of a former spouse with whom you maintain a co-parenting relationship for the sake of the children. I believe it’s wise to work and pray for conflict resolution and the cessation of hostilities: to make peace and treat the ex-spouse with fairness and civility. Many couples don’t go this route, one or both preferring the heady sensations of righteous indignation and/or character assassination. They pay the price of a festering bitterness that is guaranteed to infect the new relationship and the children’s personalities.

I’m sure you know couples that perpetuate this Chinese water-torture game. I suggest you not follow suit.

2) Then there are the daydreams and fantasies you might have about an old flame in terms of the good times once shared. This is normal, especially when you take into account that your unconscious never quite grasps whom you once loved, or whom you are committed to now. The unconscious sends fragmented thoughts and images into the conscious mind the way nature send birds flitting through trees.

These thoughts about an old flame are like magpies. If you don’t chase them out of the tree of consciousness, they’ll nest there and pester you daily.

Nesting magpies can drive you crazy. A man who left his wife and two children to marry the sexually hot woman he worked with later had second thoughts. He kept thinking about the sex he and his former wife used to have. Finally, he paid her several visits and actually talked her into sex on two occasions. But when the ex-wife realized he wasn’t coming back, she called the new girlfriend and told all. In the end, both women dumped the man. He had entered mortal combat and lost.

I suggest that you gather up the memorabilia from any former flame and toss it into the trash. It will only incur bittersweet memories at best and jaundiced fantasies at worst. In matters of the heart, emotional and physical fidelity to the person you live with are challenging enough, without throwing a magpie into the mix.

3) And finally, the reality that baffles many couples is a psychological phenomenon called projection. From time to time you will project an experience based on your history with your old flame into a current experience with your partner.

Dave was cleaning out the garage. Nicole’s voice sang out from the kitchen that the orange-glazed duck she prepared as a romantic treat was almost ready. Only she didn’t convey all that. She simply called, “Dave, dinner’s almost done,” to alert him.

Enter Dave’s previous wife into his unconscious. In the last year of their mortal combat before Dave and Sarah divorced, Sarah had a nasty habit of yelling, “Dave, get your butt in here before dinner gets cold!”

Now Dave hears his new wife calling, but can’t make out her words because he is in the garage. His unconscious mistakes Nicole’s gracious invitation to dinner for Sarah’s sarcastic cattle call.

Throwing down the tool in his hand, he rushes into the kitchen, and says sternly to Nicole: “Don’t you ever yell at me like that again!”

Nicole stands frozen with a plate of Duck L’Orange and steamed vegetables that she’s about to place on a candlelit table. Instead, she whirls around, dumps the plate into the sink, and streaks out of the kitchen weeping.

It’ll take some sincere exchanges to straighten out this mess, but if Dave and Nicole are learning how unconscious projection works, and how real it is, they will eventually make mutual amends and reduce the chances of such future distortions. 

For more on couple's intimacy, read:

STAYING IN LOVE:

DR. DAN & SIGGY'S GUIDE TO COUPLES INTIMACY