Relationship Coach Blog

You know that arguing is never helpful, but despite your best efforts, you and your spouse had an argument or “fight” (the verbal kind).  Depending on how heated things got, it may be difficult to get your relationship back on track.

Here are 10 things that you can do to make the making up easier (these will be elaborated in other blog posts):

1. You must decide that the relationship is more important than being right
2. Making up does not involve attacking or defending
3. Admitting when you are wrong will help to build respect and ease tension
4. It’s important to cool down after an argument
5. You need to be mature even if your spouse isn’t
6. Restart communication by helping your partner to be right
7. Deal positively with continued verbal attacks following an argument
8. Take responsibility for change after an argument
9. Reaffirm your desire for a good relationship after an argument
10. Don’t rush your partner to reconcile

Your relationship coach is prepared to help you to reconcile even the most difficult of situations.  Don’t give up before using his support and guidance to help you mend your relationship.

Magic potions, expensive lingerie, and drugs and alcohol are not a good way to improve your sex life with your partner.  Sex with your partner should be part of an ongoing great relationship.  Your relationship will enhance the sex and the sex will enhance the relationship.

Here are some specific things to work on to improve your sex life with your spouse:

1)  Talking before, during, and after sex.  The talking should be positive and focused on the two of you.  The main purposes are to increase emotional closeness, teach your partner how to please you, and to ensure that orgasm is not the end of the experience.

2)  Creating a mood for both people.  While one partner may be ready to “go” without any preparation, such quickie sex should only be an occasional part of your lovemaking.

3)  Being emotionally close.  Emotional distance inhibits sexual response.  The closer your relationship, the more satisfying the sex will be.  This means working on the relationship every day whether you have sex or not.

4)  Having sexual techniques that are satisfying to both partners.  If sex is not pleasurable for one or both people, it will decrease in frequency and intensity.  Porn is not a good way to learn sexual technique other than bad acting methods.  There are various guides to sex that will help you to learn more about pleasing yourself and your partner.  You need to know how to do both because part of your responsibility as a spouse is teaching your partner how he or she can please you.

If you are having difficulty in any of these four areas, your relationship coach can help.  Sexuality is an important part of marriage relationships.

There are no actions that we can take that will guarantee the response of another person, but there are actions that we can take that will increase the likelihood of a favorable response.  This is true whether you are meeting someone for the first time or have been married for many years.

Which of these actions on your part do you think will reduce the likelihood of an affair by your spouse?

a) Tell your spouse that he or she must never cheat on you or else

b) Tell your spouse that if he or she does have an affair that you would keep the relationship and try to work things out

c) Constantly check up on your spouse to make sure that he or she is being faithful

d) Ignore any problems that you and your partner have in order to reduce conflict

e) Work on any problems that you have so that you can strengthen the relationship

Answer “a” is helpful if you spell out for your spouse exactly what he or she would lose (house, money, kids, etc.).    Men, especially, weigh what they have to gain verses what they have to lose when making decisions.  Spelling out what they have to lose can help them to have more self control.

Answer “b” is like giving permission to your spouse to have an affair.

Answer “c” is not warranted unless you have other indications of cheating.  Without evidence, this can increase the risk of an affair rather than reduce it.

Answer “d” does nothing to reduce emotional distance in the relationship and is not effective.  Emotional distance particularly puts women at risk for affairs.

Answer “e” reduces emotional distance and increases the value of the relationship.  This reduces the risk of an affair by either a man or a woman.

If you need to work on decreasing conflict and increasing emotional intimacy, consider hiring a relationship coach today before things get out of hand.

Is it phony to pretend to be a certain way with people?  For example, if you are feeling depressed, but you make yourself smile and be outgoing at a party, are you being a phony?  Actually, the answer is “no”.

Always showing people what you feel does not make you genuine.  Just as there are times when we need to exercise restraint when feeling strong emotions such as anger or lust, we also need to ramp up our feelings at times when we are feeling down and lethargic.  When we do so, we are still expressing our true character although it may not match our mood at the time.

Being phony is related to an attempt to deceive or mislead other people in a way that benefits you while harming them.  Pretending to love someone in order to use them for sexual or monetary gain, for example, would be phony.

Dressing up for church is not phony, being on your best behavior for guests is not phony, pushing yourself to show more passion to your spouse is not phony, and biting your tongue when you feel like arguing is not phony.

All permanent changes we make to our behavior are preceded by transition stages where we are doing something that is not yet natural for us.  “Pretending” to not be shy is a transitional step to not being shy.  Although it may feel phony to you, it is a very real way to take care of yourself and others.  After a while, it will feel more real as you get used to the new and improved you.

Your relationship coach can help you to “try on” new behaviors that you grow into and which give you more success with family, friends, and significant others.

Coaching is not a new field, but has only become popular with the general public in the past few years.  Many of the terms are still unfamiliar.  Most professional life and relationship coaches have degrees in psychology (as I have a PhD in clinical psychology) or related fields (such as social work).  Many, such as myself, have had many years of experience doing counseling.

While all personal coaches are trained in helping people with life skills, not all are specialized in relationships.  Relationship coaches are, therefore, life coaches with a specialization in relationships.  We can help you with the same kinds of things that life coaches do, but can also train you in many skills related to dating, relationship and marriage enhancement, and conflict resolution.

If you would like to see a list of more than 30 skills that my clients are working on, please visit this page.  You can learn some of these skills for free by visiting the tools link and getting the free workbook and newsletters.

When you were going to school or growing up, did you learn social skills?  I remember learning “social studies” which had something to do with studying different cultures, but I couldn’t tell you anything about them now.  Of the thousands of hours I spent in the classroom, very little of it was practical and most was forgotten before I even got out for summer vacation.

What I needed to learn in kindergarten was how to make friends.  What I learned instead was to sit down, shut up, and attend to my work or get punished.  Those rules of sitting down and shutting up were emphasized again and again throughout my education.  Sitting down and shutting up made it easier for the teachers to teach us things we would never need to know.  I must say, though, that learning English and mathematics were essential skills that I continue to benefit from.

I learned one thing in history class that I still remember, “Those who don’t learn from the past are destined to repeat it.”  Strangely, though, the teacher never taught us how to learn from the past.  Simply learning things about the past doesn’t help us to change our ways.  We have proven that as a society and as individuals.  If there is one thing that people can be counted on doing, it is repeating the mistakes of the past.

Sadly, if people were graded on the quality of their relationships, most people would receive no better than a “C” and many would have failing grades.  Because people are expected to naturally have these skills, they feel poorly about themselves and give up on having quality relationships.

As a relationship coach, it is part of my responsibility to educate people to know that making and keeping quality relationships requires skills not taught in our culture.  They are not valued by the educational system and most of our parents didn’t know them and so couldn’t teach us.  Many people who could cook a gourmet meal or repair a car engine couldn’t tell you the first thing about how to stop arguing with your spouse.

Isn’t it about time to admit that you need better relationship skills? I had to learn them and they have made all the difference in my life.  If you need a relationship coach, I would be happy to help you to learn them, too.  Learn about my introductory relationship coaching package.

Most New Year’s resolutions are given up within two weeks of being made.  There are some things you can do, however, to make those resolutions stick.

1.  Tell some other people what they are.  Secret resolutions are easier to give up because there’s no accountability.  Be careful who you tell, however.  Do not tell people who are likely to ridicule you or make it more difficult for you to change.  If you have no supportive people in your life, it is time to get your own coach.  Your coach will always be on your side.

2.  Break down your resolutions into small, easily achievable steps rather than one big goal.  The small steps will enable you to see your progress and that will encourage you to continue.  Big goals may seem admirable, but they will set you up for failure.  Like trying to drive across the country in one day, you will have a lot of enthusiasm at the start but tire out before you get halfway.

3.  Join with others who have similar resolutions and encourage each other.  Working alone on goals makes them far more difficult to achieve.  This is one of the reasons people with their own relationship coach have success where others don’t.

4.  Get professional help.  If you want to give up an addiction like smoking or overeating, addictions counselors and/or medical consultation may be the extra push that you need.  If you are working on relationship goals, working with a relationship coach can help you to experience repeatable success.

5.  Remember that change is not a matter of willpower.  There are specific skills needed to make changes.  Difficulty making changes just denotes a lack of these skills.  Your relationship coach can help you to learn the processes of change.

6.  Keep in mind the three processes necessary for change:  1)  giving up unhelpful behaviors, 2) learning helpful behaviors, and 3) doing the helpful behaviors repeatedly until you have success.  Just trying to give up unhelpful behaviors or just trying to learn new behaviors will not result in success.

If this is the year you want to work on your marriage, go here to find out more about it.

You can greatly increase your chances of finding a good partner if you let other people know what you are looking for.  There is nothing shameful about wanting to find a partner.  The people you talk to will either still be in that position themselves or will have been in that position before.

When you tell people that you are looking for a man or a woman, be sure to give them some kind of idea of what you are wanting.  Do not assume that other people will be able to figure out who would be good for you.  In fact, don’t assume they will spend any time trying to figure it out.

Typically, when I meet single people, they don’t tell me they are looking for someone unless I specifically ask.  The same people, if they were looking to buy a used boat, might ask a lot of people if they know anyone who is selling a boat.

Being shy or embarrassed about telling people what you want does not help you, but it will get in the way of getting what you want.

Your relationship coach can help you to overcome shyness so you can meet more people and get more of what you want.

Because we live “inside” ourselves, we often don’t stop to check how the world sees us.  The world does not experience us from the inside.  Other people see what we say and do-not what we think.  Although we may know ourselves as wonderful people because we are well aware of our thoughts and motivations, others may see us in quite a different way.

One exercise you can do is to write the name of someone close to you such as your wife or child.  After their name, try to write a list of adjectives that describe how you think that person sees you.  For example, do you think your wife sees you as “generous, a good listener, and handy” or as “controlling, stubborn, and short-tempered”?  Make similar descriptions for your children, coworkers, friends, etc.

If the way people see you is the way you want them to see you, then you are doing well.  If they see you as better than you are, that’s a good thing too.  But, if they are getting a message about you that you don’t want them to have, then it’s time to work on your behavior-what you say and do.  That will be the only effective way to change their thinking.

If you need help getting people to see you in a more positive light, work with your relationship coach to develop some specific behaviors you can practice.  And if people are not even noticing you at all, you can work on ways to be positively noticed as well.

If something makes sense to people, they will try it again and again, even if experience tells them it doesn’t work.  For example, many people reason that a good way to make a girlfriend or boyfriend is to befriend them first.  Rationally, it makes sense-being friends allows you to spend more time together, allows you to get to know each other, and should lead to greater attachment.  The reality, though, is that will often get in the way of romance rather than promoting it.

Another “reasonable” way to make a girlfriend or boyfriend is to find out what men or women say they are interested in and then try to be that kind of person.  The reality is, though, that men and women most often choose people for dating who are very different from what they say they want.  Women who say they want a stable, single, kind man, with a good job very often pass up such men for unstable men who are more like players.

Reason is a useful tool, but in the world of relationships it is often not a very accurate one. And reasoning with people about emotional issues often just ends in a fight.  To have more success, you have to get beyond your confidence in your ability to reason and develop your ability to see what really works.  This can be particularly difficult for very intelligent people who have relied heavily on their ability to reason for success in other areas.

If you are not having success, then your methods don’t work-no matter how reasonable they seem.  Working with your relationship coach, you can learn what really works and start to have more success with men or women.