Marriage

• Intimacy in Relationships
• Relationships
• Work & Family Life
• Problem Solving

Intimacy in Relationships

Key to Success

The key to a successful and happy relationship is the willingness of the couple to work hard at keeping their relationship healthy. Remember that, there are some people who manage to get it right, despite facing the same circumstances that defeat others.

Intimacy and Self-Esteem

Nothing is more important to intimacy than your sense of self-worth. How you feel about yourself in relation to other people is a major factor in the quality of your intimate relationships. Trouble in a relationship almost always involves a problem with self-esteem.

Improving Self-Esteem and Becoming Non-Defensive

Confiding

The ability to reveal yourself fully, honestly, and directly to another human being is the lifeblood of intimacy. Intimacy thrives only when partners know what is happening in each other's lives - the
trivial as well as the important.

Emotional Awareness Affects Intimacy

Attitudes and Beliefs that Affect Intimacy

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Relationships: An Equal Partnership

What is Peer Relationships?

Peer Relationships is a collaboration of love and labor that produces profound intimacy and mutual respect. Above all, peer couples live the same life. In doing so, they have found a new way to make love last. The idea of "peer" is important because it incorporates the notion of friendship and equality.

The Early Psychological Tasks of Peer Relationships

1. Building the sense of marital identity: a sense of "we-ness" in addition to and different from themselves as individuals.
   
   
2. Establishing the sexual life of the couple. This involves finding the appropriate customs, frequency, and rhythms that satisfy both partners physically and emotionally.
   
   
3. Establishing the Relationships as a zone of safety, a place that is safe for love, hate, conflict, dependency, play, etc.
   
   
4. Expanding the marital relationship to make room for children while maintaining the private sphere of the couple.
   
   
5. Building a relationship that is fun and interesting for the couple.

What Does it Take?

• Coordination and co-operation. Combining work, home and child raising responsibilities in a way that allows for equal sharing and support.
  
  
• Even more tricky is not letting the work place environment set emotional and task agenda of the home.
  
  
• Keeping an eye that the relationship is not distracted by career opportunities or job pressures.
  
  
• The desire of both parents to have full input on the raising of the children, in other words to co-parent.
  
  
• Co-parents may have a particular need for good negotiating and communication skills so that they can resolve their differences without threatening the basis of their relationship.

What Enables Couples to Maintain a Peer Relationships?

Happy Relationships

Studies suggest that a happy Relationships reflects the shared awareness of a couple that they have achieved a special goodness of fit between their individual needs, wishes, and expectations – a fit that they regard as unique and probably irreplaceable. This allows couples both to feel cherished, respected, and in many instances, passionately loved throughout their lives.

The ability to build and maintain a happy relationships is not necessarily related to having experienced or witnessed good relationships as a child. Instead, the fit itself is created and recreated in the ever-changing interaction of the relationship, which continually reinforces the early commitment.

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Work and Family Life

All Work and No Play?

When a person is experiencing problems at work, the outcome may result in these problems being carried into the home. When stress is high at work, the importance of having a well- functioning and supportive family is increased.

Why Does This Happen?

One of the factors that can make it difficult to make a smooth transition from work to home; is that the behaviors that are expected of us at work are often quite different from those required at home. ie. A person who works as a supervisor and is demanding at work may become
demanding at home.

One of the ways to make it easier for your family to understand why you are acting different, is to share with your family what is going on inside of you.

Here's How!

It has been said that sharing problems with your family is one way of reducing stress in the home environment. It may also bring families closer together if these problems are worked out with each other. The following tips will help you to decrease stress at home.

Tips...

1. Admit that you are upset This lets your family know what is going on with you and keeps them from having to guess.
2. Explain the reason for being upset. This allows your spouse and children to know that they are not to blame. This will help reduce their stress level.
3. Let your family know what would be of most help to you. This gives family members an opportunity to feel a part of the solution and may give them a good feeling too.

These tips are only are few things that can reduce the stress caused by work.

Actions to Avoid

Families under high stress are likely to do the following which increase the amount of tension in the home.

1. Keep score by comparing how hard they are working with how hard their partner is working.
   
   
2. Give orders rather than make requests.
   
   
3. Restrict the amount of fun in their lives.
   
   
4. Resent when work interferes in their family life.
   
   
5. Experience a lower tolerance for disagreement.
   
   
6. Become angry easily and argue more than usual.
   
   
7. Distance themselves from one another.

Remember...

It is inevitable that the problems and stresses of work will intrude to some extent into the home. To minimize these intrusions:

1. Exercise – exercising while at home or work will help you wind down and help clear your mind
   
   
2. Have fun! – people under high stress may decide to wait until they have more energy to have fun. Don't wait until you have the energy, just go and have fun, this will give you energy.
   
   
3. Know how much to share – do not share too much or too little of your work problems. Too much sharing will poison the home environment. Too little sharing will have the family feeling like they are being excluded.
   Remember to TALK about it!

Problem Solving and Self-Awareness

Effective conflict resolution in relationships starts with self-awareness, self-caring, and self-honesty. Knowing what we want and valuing it enough to talk about it will help you determine what you want in you relationship. Listening to your partner and try to come to a compromise. It is important for you not to forget that almost everything is negotiable.

Five Basic Skills to Conflict Resolution

1. Use a softened startup. Present your complaints without criticism. Criticism involves a global attack or blaming of a partner and only provokes defensiveness.
   
   
2. Accept Influence. Positively take in what your partner is asking of you. In healing relationships, both partners freely give and receive influence from each other.
   
   
3. Repair, or Put the Brakes on Conflict. This means trying to prevent negativity; by explaining your feelings before your anger takes over, or being rationale and thinking things through first.
   
   
4. Take a Time-out. If nothing is being resolved take time out to cool off. It will give you a chance to think about something else or new ways to handle the situation.
   
   
5. De-escalate Conflict. In healthy relationships, couples actively lessen the intensity of arguments by doing things like adding humor to situations or by showing signs of affection.

Creating a Safe Place for Anger and Conflict

• Agree openly that fighting is not going to break up the relationships.
• Set up rules that best fit your relationship.
• Try to solve the conflict by coming up with a win - win solution.
• Some conflicts can be resolved by compromise while others may be non-negotiable.
• Agreeing to disagree may be the best solution for some conflicts.
• Remember that uncertainty and difference is part of being in a relationship with others.

Who Usually Has the Last Word?

Men and women communicate with each other in different and relatively stereotypic ways.

Women tend to be described as emotionally expressive always seeking intimacy, and men as task-oriented problem-solvers who want relationships but withdraw when the emotional atmosphere heats up.

What happens when individuals disagree and who takes responsibility for solving disagreements is a central determinant of both stability and the quality of the relationships..Don't Forget :

Most Importantly ...

Is the willingness of the couple to work at the relationship; to work at sharing and accepting, to work out problems and make it a win/win situation, and to clarify values. Individuals need to have relationships for support when life becomes difficult and to celebrate with when your life becomes wonderful.