Suggestions for Rebuilding a Marriage

The couples who come to my office lay out stories of once wonderful and solid relationships that now seem broken beyond repair.  It seems unfathomable that the relationship that had brought them the joy evident in their wedding photos is now bringing them such desperation and despair.  The solutions for bringing these couples back together are often complicated and difficult.  There is one thing that I see regularly in couples who are successful at reclaiming their happiness together: a willingness to put in the necessary work.  Even two people who are deeply in love have to work at their marriage to maintain a healthy and strong relationship.

Excuses are often made for why marriages fail.  It is common to hear that a couple grew apart, that they decided they want different things, or that old arguments have just finally become too much to handle.  This all means the same thing, one or both of the partners got involved in other responsibilities and didn’t make the relationship a priority.  Now I understand that careers, children and other obligations take a lot of time and effort.  It is easy to devote your attention to these things counting on the fact that your spouse will be there when all of those other things are taken care of, but we, as humans, are social creatures.  We crave love and affection.  We have needs for attention and caring that must be met. 

So my first suggestion to couples is always to reconnect.  Make each other a priority.  I love to suggest that they start a monthly date and alternate which spouse plans the date.  That way nobody feels as though they are putting in all the work or a spouse whose opinion often goes unheard gets a chance to share something they love with their partner.  The idea is to engage with each other.  Do the things you used to do when you were dating before marriage.  Be creative.  If money and babysitting are issues, plan special meals together after the kids are in bed or go on a picnic or hike.  Play cards, shoot pool, go hear live music, explore a new town together, cook your way through a cookbook together, rediscover ice skating or miniature golf.  The possibilities are endless.  It truly can be as simple as reading the same book and having a glass of wine while conducting your own “book club”.  Go to a movie.  Afterward have coffee and discuss it. 

Even if your relationship is solid, it can never hurt to make your spouse a priority all over again.  People are constantly growing and changing.  What your partner of fifteen years has to share with you may surprise you and it can definitely help keep the marriage alive and thriving.

Alternative Therapies

It is often the case that people come to me when they are feeling desperate and believe they have no other remaining avenues to explore.  While I would love to see someone sooner in their mental health decline, I appreciate the fact that therapy is often difficult for people to seek out due to the stigma against mental health issues and the time commitment involved in change.  These individuals are often looking for answers to things that will help them feel better quickly that will then allow them to work through deeper longer term solutions.  Unfortunately, changing thought patterns and learning new coping mechanisms is a process that takes time and the longer you have been solidifying your behavior patterns the longer it can take to unlearn them.  However, if people are open to alternative solutions there are many to choose from that may offer some relief while working through larger issues.  Today I would like to share two of them that I suggest regularly.

Vitamin D has been linked to many overall health benefits but most people are unaware that it is also a strong combatant when facing depression.   Multivitamins and certain foods are a good source of vitamin D but often not enough to cause a substantial difference.  There are two sources of increased vitamin D that I highly recommend.  The first is a vitamin D drop.  It is a natural additive that you can drop into any food or beverage.  It is odorless, tasteless and safe enough for children as long as dosage instructions are followed.  The second is the sun.  Being out in the sun for at least thirty minutes a day increases your vitamin D and can be enough to help combat depression.  If you cannot be out in the sun because of the weather, an indoor sun lamp can often have the same effect biologically even though it doesn’t feel as uplifting emotionally. 

Another recent discovery of mine is the use of essential oils.  When a massage therapist friend of mine recently shared with me that she was using a diffuser filled with water and essential oils to help her children sleep and boost their immune system I was skeptical.  However, I never turn down an opportunity to test something that may be helpful to the people I treat, so I bought a few diffusers and began to use them in every bedroom of our house.  My kids and I quickly became fond of their effects.  Lavender oil truly does seem to help them sleep better and I am falling asleep faster and sleeping more soundly.  Rosemary does seem to be helping my son with his memory.  The true test was a diffuser necklace that I bought to wear during the day.  I wanted to see if the calming oils really did help me lower my stress level.  While none of these scents completely takes stress away, I can say it seemed to have a marked effect on helping me stay calm.  I found it extremely soothing.  My friend keeps suggesting different oils for different problems and I have not tried them all, but I do believe this is a viable way to help improve mood and sleep.

So treat yourself to something that appeals to you and can help you as well.  While neither of these treatments replaces the need for therapy or other medical interventions, they are different tools that can help you manage in the interim while you do the long term work. 

Tips for Effective Communication

When I am asked to offer suggestions for improving communication, three items immediately come to my mind.  While a lot of people have been taught to express themselves well, that is as far as their communication efforts extend.  Communication is about so much more than expressing what you would like to say.  It involves keeping your emotional responses under control, having your message received by the other party, and listening effectively in order to correct any error in communication.

The first thing I educate individuals about with regard to communication is how to listen effectively.  Effective listening involves more than just hearing what the other person is saying.  You must keep your mind focused on what the other party is saying not on what you are planning to say in return.  You goal should be to make sure that you are understanding what someone is trying to say to you, especially when it is in response to something you have just said.  Make eye contact to show the other person that you are actively listening.  Mirror back what they say to you in order to determine if you have fully understood their message.  In order to do this you may say things such as “I heard you say___________, is that what you meant to say?”  Fully listening to and understanding another individual’s responses to you will help you correct any inaccuracies and make sure your message is received. 

Secondly, you must think about the person who is your intended audience.  What do you know about them?  How are they like you and how are they different?  While saying something one way might be the best way for you to receive a message, saying something the exact same way to someone who thinks and reacts to things differently than you might send a completely different message than you intended.  Everything you say should be catered to the message recipient so that the message is most likely to be received accurately.  Perhaps you like people who are very direct and to the point but the person you are speaking to is conflict averse and needs something softened a bit.  This is a factor you must consider when deciding what it is you want to say and how you want to say it.

Finally, always go into conversations thinking about your goal for that conversation.  Don’t try to pile too much into a conversation, especially if you know that the other party isn’t going to like what you have to say.  One can become lost in defensiveness if he/she feels that the other person is challenging what he/she is saying.  This is an emotional response that may cause a conversation to derail completely.  If you can keep your cool by staying focused on your goal for the conversation, you can easily steer it back to the intended topic rather than getting lost in the other topics that may get pulled into the discussion. Additionally, recognizing that the other party doesn’t need to agree with you to hear what you have to say can be a valuable asset to any conversation.

So, next time you have to have a difficult conversation, remember to stay calm and focused on your goal.  When possible, spend some time in advance thinking about your audience and catering what you have to say to them specifically.  Make sure that you are actively listening to any response so that you can correct any misunderstandings before they spiral out of control.  All of these things are just as important as what message you want to convey and being able to express yourself in a way that connects with your audience will make a world of difference in your ability to communicate effectively.     

Journaling to Examine Relationships

The use of journaling in therapy has nearly unlimited uses.  Many things can be gleaned about our subconscious thoughts and feelings from a journal which lead to countless teachable skills.  For example, food journaling can help you recognize the extra or unhealthy calories that you consume. A journal of the tasks you complete in a day can help you identify patterns of wasted time or tasks with which you routinely struggle.  This can help you gain more self-awareness regarding your abilities to complete tasks within deadlines and focus your attention on areas where you might want to request assistance.

I also often prescribe journaling for anyone who is questioning whether or not to stay in a relationship.  Relationships with significant others often invoke nostalgic feelings or associations that make it difficult for you to evaluate them objectively.  Our memories of better times often make us overlook serious flaws in the relationship, but I regularly see the opposite effect as well.  Unresolved negative feelings toward another person can begin to color our feelings about benign interactions, leading to thoughts that “everything” in the relationship is bad.  In these cases, I suggest keeping a daily journal that records general thoughts and feelings about interactions with your significant other as well as details about important interactions.  Sometimes I even suggest a rating scale of 1-10 every day to assess the level of positive regard you have for your significant other.  Each week I suggest that you review your journal when you are feeling calm.  It is not unusual for the journal to tell a very different story from the perception you have formed in your head.  You may see that you gave your spouse a high rating five out of seven days and that there were a lot of positive interactions that you forgot about when one negative interaction occurred. 

A similar style of journaling can also be used to help you make a realization that a relationship is unhealthy.  When you meet someone during a major life transition (a divorce, death, break-up, etc.) you may be drawn to them because they are meeting an emotional need that has long gone unmet.  For instance, a controlling person who wants to be involved in every aspect of your life may seem wonderful to you if you have been in a marriage where you felt ignored.  However, often as your life is rebuilt and you reconnect with other facets that help fill that need you may begin to feel that the negatives in the relationship far outweigh the positive ones.  Daily journaling about the relationship can help you to recognize that the powerful positive feelings evoked when your previously unsatisfied needs were initially met early in the relationship are not based on the reality of how this person treats you.  It can help you view the relationship objectively so that you may realize the relationship has run its course and is no longer a healthy one for you.

So if you are questioning a relationship that you are currently involved in, journal before you make the decision whether to end it or continue it.  While you should never stay in a relationship that doesn’t make you feel good, sometimes emotional triggers and associations cause you to feel that a relationship is unsalvageable when it may not be.  Make sure that you take the time to process all available information from a calm place before you call it quits (unless you are being physically abused - NOTHING is salvageable about a relationship involving abuse).  You may be surprised how emotional baggage can color what you see.

A Happiness Journal to Combat Unhappiness

The mindset that leads people to seek therapy is often a result of a habitual negative pattern of thinking.  Interestingly, the amount of change required to make a large impact in the way you feel is often minimal.  The hard part is having the motivation to make an initial change and then maintaining that change until it becomes a new permanent habit.  Therefore, I normally suggest that people start with a tiny insignificant change such as changing their morning coffee to tea.  While this seems like such a minor shift, it is a building point to prove to yourself that you can make change, and a very easy way to break out of your mental rut.

If you are capable of making a minor change, which everyone is despite what they may believe, I often suggest the implementation of a “happiness journal”.  Most people who feel unhappy struggle to even find the smallest positives in their day-to-day life.  They have become adept at seeking out every negative experience throughout the day and ruminating on how “unlucky” their lives have become.  I have discovered that journaling is a powerful tool in many ways.  A happiness journal is a tool that anyone can use to teach themselves how to recognize all the positive things that do occur in their day-to-day life. 

At the end of every day I suggest that people sit down and write a list of at least three things that were positive about their day. Believe it or not, this is often a struggle for people who are unhappy.  They often seek guidelines for what is acceptable as a positive item for the list and I refuse to give any.  I want them to be forced to expand their thinking to allow for all of the wonderful things that happen in their lives.  Maybe a stranger complimented your shoes. Maybe a coworker who is notoriously difficult for you to deal with was out of the office or, even better, suddenly kinder that day.  Maybe it is just that you are grateful for your spouse sticking by you even though you have not been the most pleasant person to be around lately. Maybe you saw a beautiful sunset while stuck in traffic on your way home.  I don’t really care what it is that made you feel a moment of cheer that day, I just want you to be able to recognize the positive events.

In response to this requested task, I often get complaints that people are tired and don’t want to “waste” the time at the end of their day.  Ironically, these are often the same people who struggle to fall or stay asleep.  Doing it at the end of the day is important because it allows you to go into sleep with a happier and more relaxed mindset.  It may actually help you sleep better so that you are less tired the next day.  It will also help you have a more positive feeling about a day that may have seemed overwhelmingly awful.  Another complaint is that people feel silly writing these things down.  While the goal may be that you can eventually do this in your head as you are drifting off to sleep, it is vitally important that it begin as a written exercise for two reasons.  First, writing something down will solidify it in your mind, which will have a larger emotional impact and cement something in your memory.  Second, if you have a written record, when you are feeling extremely low you can look back over previous entries to recapture some of the happiness that does exist in your life.

I know that initially this may be a difficult and time consuming task.  However, I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t find it easier in a very short amount of time and love the effect that it has on their emotions.  As you become adept at this exercise you can utilize it to boost your self-esteem by simply changing it to three things that you did well every day.  Or use it to help a marriage by coming up with three things your spouse did that made you happy that day. So pick up a pen or pencil and get started.  The only thing you have to lose is your negative viewpoint.