“Kate lets Jerry get away with murder.” complained Fred. “It’s anarchy!”

“Fred’s always on Jerry’s case.” Kate countered. “He jumps on Jerry for the slightest infraction.”

Fred saw Kate’s parenting style as soft while Kate saw Fred’s parenting style as harsh.

As the three of us talked in my office, it quickly became clear to me that Fred and Kate had polarized. Fred had become the always-tough parent while Kate had become the always-tender parent.

They had driven each other to opposite extremes and this made it impossible for them to function together as an effective parenting team. They were battling over parenting styles, frequently dismissing and sometimes even undermining each other.

How did all this effect little Jerry? Sometimes he was confused about where the boundaries of acceptable behavior lay and so he would act out to test the limits. Other times, he would try to divide and conquer, to pit one parent against the other in a ploy to get his way.

Sound familiar? It might. A high percentage of parents polarize around parenting styles and fight “the parenting wars.” Usually, these battles are over tough parenting versus tender parenting, as with Fred and Kate. If clashes like this ever happen in your marriage or in the marriage of someone you know, read on.

1.    Insight: The best parenting style for your child is a combination of toughness and tenderness.

If one of you is the tough parent and the other the tender parent, your child needs the best that both of you have to offer.

There are times when your child needs toughness, like when he/she is being flagrantly disobedient or disrespectful. There are other times when your child needs tenderness, like when he/she is whining because of feelings of insecurity.

Often, your child needs some combination of toughness and tenderness.

Tip: Have a conversation with each other in which you recall situations in the past when each of these was effective: toughness, tenderness, or a combination of both.

2.    Insight: Your child will feel most secure if you resolve your parenting differences in private and present a united front.

To feel secure, your child needs for the two of you to send a single, unified message about which behaviors are acceptable and which are not.

The last thing your child needs is to see the two of you fighting over what is and is not acceptable behavior and how to manage him/her. This is a sure-fire recipe for instilling insecurity in your child.

Tip: When you disagree with each other about how to respond to misbehavior, get behind closed doors and don’t come out until you’ve agreed about what to do.

When your child misbehaves, you may need to put your child in time out while you privately decide which parenting approach best fits the misbehavior: tough, tender, or a combination of both. From there you should be better able to choose an appropriate consequence.

3.    Insight: What keeps you fighting “the parenting wars” is likely a negative interaction pattern in which you’ve both become ensnared.

The most common negative interaction pattern around parenting is the oscillating criticize-withdraw cycle. In this pattern you both go back and forth criticizing each other and defending until eventually the two of you withdraw from each other.

Each of you then becomes more deeply entrenched in your own position and less able to see the value in the other’s position. You begin to parent independently of each other, each of you doing your own thing.

The result? A confused child who acts out more and more!

Tip: Escape the oscillating criticize-withdraw cycle be talking about the emotions that lie beneath your surface anger and frustration.

For example, you both might be feeling devalued. It may seem to each of you that the thoughts you have about parenting don’t matter to the other.

At a deeper level you both may be thinking, “If my views about parenting don’t matter to my spouse, then maybe I don’t matter.”

Talk about these feelings that you don’t count for much with each other. Reassure each other that you really do matter and that your viewpoints on parenting also matter.

As you do, chances are you’ll connect at the heart level and each of you will feel more valued by the other. Then you’ll be better able to team up to integrate your tough and tender parenting styles.

Having this conversation is very difficult for many couples. If you’re having trouble discussing this, consider seeking professional marriage counseling. The primary approach that I use in my marriage counseling practice, Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), is particularly effective at helping couples to break free from negative interaction patterns by carrying on a deeper dialogue with each other.

4.    Insight: Together learn a unified parenting approach that balances toughness and tenderness.

Doing this will help you to function more effectively as a parenting team.

Tip: Together take the Love and Logic parenting class, developed by Foster Cline and Jim Fay.

This class is offered all across the country to parents who want to learn to parent more effectively by combining love and logic, or tenderness and toughness. You can find out more about Love and Logic at: www.loveandlogic.com.

A superb Love and Logic instructor in Boulder is Stephanie Bryan, LCSW. I strongly recommend that you visit her web site at: www.realparenting.net.

Remember, if you and your spouse continue to fight “the parenting wars” neither one of you will win and your child will surely lose.

In their marriage counseling with me, I was able to help Fred and Kate stop battling over their different parenting styles and start balancing toughness and tenderness.

The result was that they became more effective parents and Jerry became a better behaved child.

Her husband Tom nodded solemnly. “Yes, we’re complete opposites. We clash constantly. We’re incompatible, and I don’t see that changing.”

Tom and Mary then went on to tell me that when they were courting, all they could see were their similarities. Now, two years into their marriage, all they can see is their differences.

1.    Insight: Many couples who are opposites fear that they are hopelessly incompatible.

Tom and Mary really are opposites in a lot of ways. They contrast on many levels including their backgrounds and personalities, as well as some of their beliefs and values.

When they began their marriage therapy with me, they feared that because they were opposites, they were incompatible and always would be.

Are you and your partner opposites? If so, have you feared that you’re hopelessly incompatible? Have you wondered if marrying each other was a huge mistake?

If so, you’re not alone. Many couples who are opposites felt this way when they first  came to me. However, most found in their marriage therapy that they can be opposites and compatible at the same time.

Read on…

2.    Insight: Couples who are opposites can be highly compatibility.

If you and your partner are opposites, you can make your innate differences work for you rather than against you.

That’s because inherent differences always represent counterbalancing strengths that can work together for your mutual advantage.

For example, when it comes to personality, Tom is an extravert and Mary is an introvert. Because of this, they host a great party. Tom makes sure that their guests get acquainted and Mary makes sure they have plenty to eat.

Here’s a celebrity example:

Arnold Swarzenegger, governor of California, and his wife, Maria Shriver, are opposites politically. He is a Republican and she is a Democrat, one of the Kennedy clan.

As a couple the Swarzeneggers have been going strong since they married in 1986. Time and again, they have teamed up together, combining their contrasting political views for the common good.

Whatever your built-in differences as partners, there are counterbalancing strengths inherent in them that can benefit you both.

3.    Insight: The way for opposites to be highly compatible is for them to bond at a deep level.

Are you and your partner opposites? If so, it’s very important that you develop a strong emotional connection in which you both feel safe, secure, and supported.

That’s because a marriage of opposites, according to research, is more challenging than a marriage of similars. It takes more effort and it takes more heart, but the rewards can be great.

If you have a strong bond, your innate differences in personalities, values, etc., will be less threatening to you. You’ll be able to enjoy the personal growth and enrichment that can come from being different.

To Tom and Mary, I quoted these lines from Paula Abdul’s hit song, Opposites Attract:

“Don’t really think we’ll get our differences patched.
Don’t really matter because we’re perfectly matched.”

By ”perfectly matched” Paula means aligned at the heart level, in other words, strongly bonded. Because she and her partner have a powerful emotional connection, the inherent differences don’t really matter.

You and your partner as opposites can develop a strong bond that will allow your built-in differences to work for you rather than against you.

Tip: Create a strong bond by learning how to share with each other your deepest feelings, especially those about your differences.

For example, your innate differences might trigger fears, like these:

“You’re a risk taker and I’m cautious. I’m worried that if we invest our retirement funds your way, that we’ll lose it all and go broke. We’ll be living in our children’s basements.”

“You’re an extravert and I’m an introvert. I’m scared that some day you will have had enough of my shyness and that you’ll go off without me. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You’re a conservative and I’m a liberal. I fear that as our kids grow up you’ll convince them of your views. Then, they might lose respect for me.”

It can be hard to be vulnerable like this. Many couples don’t know how.

For Tom and Mary, sharing with each other about their deepest feelings, especially about their inherent differences, was like sailing in uncharted waters.

In their marriage therapy with me I showed them how to open their hearts to each other and listen with empathy. In particular, they learned how to share with each other about  the fears that their differences triggered in each of them.

Tom and Mary found that over time doing this strengthened their bond and helped them to feel more compatible. The same can happen for you and your partner.

Learn how to open your hearts to each other each about your deepest feelings, including those about your built-in differences. Learn how to listen to each other with sympathetic understanding. Doing these things can strengthen your emotional connection.

Then the following benefits can come your way:

1. Feeling safe, secure, and supported by each other.

2. Experiencing your differences as stimulating rather than threatening.

3. Being able to take full advantage of your counterbalancing strengths.

4. Spending less time clashing over your differences.

5. Resolving disagreements that stem from your differences.

6. Spending more time focusing on common ground.

Very likely, you and your partner will discover together that you can be

opposites and highly compatible.

Michelle called me from San Francisco. She had found my website about the private marital therapy weekend intensives I do for couples in crisis.

Several days earlier, Michelle had admitted to her husband, Tom, that she was having an extramarital affair. The affair was with an old boyfriend who had contacted her on Facebook.

Tom was devastated by Michelle’s revelation and now he was threatening to leave her.

Michelle was frantic. “I love Tom and I don’t want to lose him!” she sobbed. “I’ve made a terrible mistake. How can I get him to stay?”

Below are seven insights and tips I shared with Michele over the phone that helped save her marriage. They all have to do with recognizing the needs of a betrayed spouse.

If you’ve been having an affair, physical or emotional, these insights and tips will help you.  However, please understand that they are not a substitute for seeking qualified professional help for your marriage.

1.    Insight: Your spouse needs you to terminate your affair immediately.

Tip: End it now, once and for all.

Do it by phone rather than in person. Ask your spouse to join you on the extension. Say, “It’s over. Don’t ever contact me again.” Be firm and final.

Perhaps your affair was with a co-worker and you can’t quit. If so, then interact only when you must for business purposes. Prohibit any personal conversation.

2.    Insight: Your spouse needs you to give strong reassurances of your love and commitment.

Tip: Tell your spouse that you love him/her and that you are in the marriage to stay.

Be emphatic. Let your spouse know that he/she matters to you far more than does your affair partner.

Tell your spouse that you are willing to do whatever it takes to save your marriage.

3.    Insight: Your spouse needs you to take full responsibility for your affair.

Tip: Do not blame your spouse, even if he/she was not meeting important needs for you.

There are other things you could have done about your unmet needs, like asking your spouse to join you in couple therapy.

Your infidelity was your choice and your choice alone.

4.    Insight: Your spouse needs you to acknowledge the impact of your affair on him/her.

Tip: Do not minimize your affair.

Don’t say, “It was nothing to me, so get over it.”

Even if your affair now means little to you, to your spouse it is a major betrayal. It’s rocked his/her world.

5.    Insight: Your spouse needs you to listen to his/her feelings.

Tip: Encourage your partner to talk about the pain.

Remember, your spouse is severely traumatized. He/she may need to talk about the pain many times. That’s the way trauma gets healed.

As hard as it is, listen to your partner’s agony. Respond with heartfelt sorrow.

6.    Insight: Your spouse needs to know what happened.

Tip: Answer your spouse’s questions truthfully.

There are things he/she needs to know in order to make sense of your affair.

So answer your spouse’s questions, but not all at once. Instead, share your answers over a few conversations. Respond to the easier questions first and the tougher ones later.

Avoid answering questions about romantic and sexual details. Answering these questions could deepen your partner’s trauma and get in the way of the healing process.

After our phone conversation, Michelle pleaded with Tom to give their marriage a chance. She asked him to fly with her to Colorado to do a private marital therapy weekend intensive with me.

7.    Insight: Your spouse needs you to make every effort to understand how and why your affair happened.

If you don’t do this, then he/she will fear that you could easily have another affair. You really do need to understand how and why your affair occurred so that you’ll be more affair resistant in the future.

Tip: Do an online search for information about the many factors that can contribute to a person choosing to have an affair.

Keep in mind that understanding your affair is not the same thing as excusing it.

Michele saw that these insights and tips would be helpful, but she knew that she and Tom needed more. After our phone conversation…

Tom accepted her invitation, even though he was close to leaving her.

For three days I worked with Tom and Michelle in a highly focused way. They connected with each other more deeply than ever before.

By the end of the weekend, Tom had agreed to keep working on the marriage. Also, he and Michele had made a strong start in the affair recovery process.

After they returned to  San Francisco, I kept in touch.  Now, three months later, they are closer than they’ve ever been.

In a recent phone conversation, Michelle said to me: “Flying to Colorado was the right decision. Our marriage was on the brink of divorce. Without quick intervention, it could easily have gone over the edge.”

She added that their weekend intensive with me gave them the concentrated, uninterrupted time they needed to pull their marriage back from the brink and turn it around.

If you’ve been having an affair, physical or emotional, and you want to save your marriage, implement the seven insights and tips in this article. Also, find qualified professional help. There’s hope for your marriage!

Couples in crisis fly in from all over the country to do private marital therapy weekend intensives with me.

To find out more about my 2-4 day private marital therpay weekend intensives for couples in crisis, visit my website at www.ColoradoMaritalTherapyIntensives.com.

Dr. Lindsay

To be sure, some knowledge of technique is important, but it’s fairly easy to come by. It can be gleaned through exploring one of the many popular books on the subject.

However, over the past 30-plus years of helping couples I’ve observed that far more important (and far more challenging) than technique is creating the kind of relationship in which satisfying sex is most likely to occur.

I’ve discovered that there are three secrets that will help you to create this kind of relationship so that you can enjoy a maximally fulfilling sex life. Now, I’ll share them with you.

1.    Insight: The first secret to satisfying sex is secure connection.

In order to be sexually responsive, each of you must feel emotionally secure with the other.

According to Dr. Sue Johnson in her book, Hold Me Tight, Secure, loving partners can relax, let go, and immerse themselves in the pleasure of lovemaking. They can talk openly, without getting embarrassed or offended, about what turns them off or on (p. 194).
 

Tip: Create secure connection by expressing acceptance and commitment to each other.

By acceptance I mean you and your partner favorably receiving each other’s thoughts and feelings, hopes and fears about all aspects of your lives, not just the sexual.

By commitment I mean being pledged to stay in your relationship and to be fully present to each other, not just physically but also emotionally.

It’s important that you and your partner verbally reassure each other from time to time of your acceptance and commitment:

I love you just the way you are.

I’m here for you and always will be.

Doing this will help you to create secure connection, the first secret to satisfying sex.

2.    Insight: The second secret to satisfying sex is intimate knowing.

To know each other intimately, you must learn to confide in each other about your emotional and sexual needs.

It’s best to start with the emotional. If you and your partner can share your emotional needs outside the bedroom, then you’ll be better able to share your sexual needs inside the bedroom.

Emotional needs include affection, understanding, comforting, touching, holding, soothing, reassuring, and affirming.
Sexual needs during lovemaking include the needs to be touched (and not touched) in certain ways and to proceed at a pace that is comfortable.

Confide!
 

Tip: Each evening, spend some time sharing with each other about your day and about your current emotional needs:

Today my boss really berated me. I’m feeling worthless and I need you to reassure me about how much you value me.

All day long the kids were out of control and now I’m feeling tense. I need you to hold me, stroke my hair, and soothe me.
 

Tip: Now and then when not making love, share frankly with each other about your sexual needs.

When we make love, I need you to slow down and spend more time in foreplay.

The next time we make love, I’d like you to join me in the fantasy that we are doing it outside, under the stars in the middle of a pine forest.

Disclosing sexual needs to each other is a challenge for most couples. However, you and your partner will find it easier to do if you are also regularly disclosing to each other your emotional needs.

Doing both is necessary to creating intimate knowing, the second secret to satisfying sex.

3.    Insight: The third secret to satisfying sex is empathic attunement.

By empathic attunement, I mean focusing on each other during lovemaking and being alert to nonverbal cues about immediate sensations and desires. These tend to shift from moment to moment, so it’s important to monitor them continually.

While tuning into your partner’s sensations and desires, it’s also important to pay attention to your own.
 

Tip: Create empathic attunement by verbalizing the meaning of your nonverbal cues.

After all, you’re not mind readers.

Here are two examples of how to verbalize the meaning of nonverbal cues during lovemaking:

When I sigh like that, it means keep on doing what you’re doing.

When I touch your hand with mine, it means slow down.

Making the implicit explicit is particularly important at the beginning of your love life, when the two of you are just getting to know each other sexually.

It’s also important later on, because needs can and do change over time.

Paying attention to each other’s nonverbal cues will help you to create empathic attunement, the third secret to satisfying sex.
 

Secure connection, intimate knowing, and empathic attunement: they’re all essential to you and your partner enjoying a fulfilling sex life.

Of course, these three secrets alone will not guaranty complete sexual fulfillment, because many additional factors can negatively impact your lovemaking including stress, health issues, and medication side effects.

In addition, long-standing sexual dysfunctions can get in your way. These include low sexual desire, premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction in males, and inability to experience orgasm in females.

Sex therapy, offered by many couple therapists, can help greatly.

Also, discord in your relationship can inhibit satisfying sex. This is because negative interaction patterns tend to disrupt secure connection, intimate knowing, and empathic attunement.

Therefore, if you and your partner are frequently fighting and/or avoiding each other, couple therapy can not only increase your overall enjoyment of your relationship. It also can significantly enhance your sex life.

One final thought. Sex at its best is an expression of love. There’s a huge difference between making love and just having sex.

To sum up, when it comes to satisfying sex, the three secrets are: secure connection, intimate knowing, and empathic attunement. Working on these will help you and your partner create the kind of relationship that is conducive to maximally fulfilling sex.

As a marital therapist, the most common complaint I hear from couples who contact me for help is communication problems.

In the early years of my practice, I used to invite distressed couples to come in and let me teach them more effective communication skills. Now, I know better.

What have I learned?

1.    Insight: Most distressed couples are too distressed to make good use of communication skills training.

Yet that’s where many therapists start with distressed couples: trying to teach them how to communicate better. It’s a mistake.

The partners are so angry that they just use their new communication skills to beat up on each other all the more. Their fights get worse!

Later on after their distress has been alleviated and anger has abated, learning to communicate better may help, but not at the start.

Numerous research studies show a high failure rate for communication skills training when use to treat distressed couples, yet this continues to be the treatment of choice for many therapists.

      Tip: If you’re in relationship distress and a therapist you call wants to teach you communication skills, find another therapist.

2.    Insight: For most distressed couples, communication skills training misses the mark.

It doesn’t address the real issue.

It’s kind of like putting a band aid on an infected wound. The band aid won’t cure the underlying infection.

Couple communication problems, though real, are usually a symptom of something deeper: a breakdown in the bond, or emotional connectedness, between two spouses.

Because of this loss of closeness, the sense of safety and security in the relationship has gone out the window. Neither partner trusts the other to be genuinely concerned about his or her welfare.

If neither partner trusts the other, then what good are communication skills? No wonder many distressed couples who are taught communication skills go home and keep right on fighting.

Until the broken bond is repaired and trust is restored, communication skills training probably won’t help.

      Tip: If your relationship is in distress and you’re having communication problems, start by focusing on repairing your broken bond, not on learning new communication skills.

Ask: What’s happened to our closeness? What’s happened to our trust? What can we do?

3.    Insight: When it comes to repairing broken bonds, many relationship experts agree that the most effective therapy approach is Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT).

This is a revolutionary approach that helps distressed couples get back their closeness and trust. When they do, distress is alleviated, anger decreases, and communication automatically improves.

More than 25 years of research shows that with EFT, 75% of distressed couples recover completely and another 15% improve significantly. In other words, 90% get better! At two-years follow up, almost all have retained their gains.

I’m the first therapist in our seven-state Rocky Mountain Region to become fully trained and certified in EFT. I’ve had more experience using this approach to help distressed couples than any other therapist in our part of the country.

      Tip: If your marriage is in distress and you’re experiencing communication problems, find an EFT therapist.

With EFT, you’ll repair your broken bond and regain your closeness and trust. Then, you’ll communicate a lot better and fight a lot less.

What do you do?

You ask your spouse what you’ve been doing or not doing that has contributed to the unhappiness and you listen carefully.

Fortunately, there is a research study that can guide you in what to listen for.*  According to this study, there are three reasons that spouses typically give for being disaffected with their marriages.

Once you’ve found out your spouse’s reasons, you can decide what behaviors of your own you want to change.

 
1.    Insight: The first most common reason given for marital disaffection is a perceived lack of mutuality.

The spouse who gives this reason tends to feel like an unequal partner.  He or she may feel dominated and controlled or may feel that important needs are being ignored.

       Tip: If your spouse complains about a lack of mutuality, try harder to make decisions together.

Ask for your spouse’s input, opinions, and feelings and give them equal weight to your own.

 
2.    Insight: The second most common reason given for marital disaffection is a lack of emotional intimacy.

The spouse who gives this reason usually feels disconnected from his or her partner.  He or she may feel neglected and alone.

       Tip: If your spouse complains about a lack of emotional intimacy, spend more time interacting with your partner.

Draw out your spouse’s hopes, dreams, and fears.  Touch your partner more.  Join together in more shared activities.

 
3.     Insight: The third most common reason given for marital disaffection is difficulty in resolving conflicts.

The spouse who gives this reason typically feels unable to get anywhere with his or her partner when they disagree.  He or she may view the partner as avoiding discussion of conflict issues and/or as being unwilling to compromise.

        Tip: If your spouse complains about difficulty in resolving conflicts with you, make a greater effort to hear your partner out and to meet him or her half way.

You and your spouse may want to consider taking a couple communication course that includes training on conflict resolution.  Then you’ll be equipped with the skills you need to succeed at settling disputes.

I offer such a course in my practice.  I teach it in a private format, tailoring it to a couple’s needs.  Usually, a couple completes the course in three one-hour sessions.

Finally, I am aware that the insights and tips I have given above will help many but not all couples.  A whole lot of couples are stuck in negative interaction patterns that lie at the roots of their marital disaffection.

For these couples, the tips above are unlikely to be effective until these underlying patterns are changed.  That’s where good marital therapy can be of tremendous benefit.

In my practice, I use an approach that helps 90% of couples to get better and 75% of couples to recover completely.  This state-of-the-art approach aims at helping couples identify their negative interaction patterns and transition out of them into positive ones.

Once my couples have accomplished this, they do much better at mutuality, emotional intimacy, and conflict resolution.  Typically, disaffection is replaced by a deep sense of fulfillment.

*When Love Dies:  The Process of Marital Disaffection, chapter 5, by Karen Kayser.  New York, Guilford Press, 1993.

Kathy was devastated, but she wanted to save her marriage.  Now she was asking me, an affair recovery specialist, to help her.

Here are some insights and tips I shared with Kathy.

1.    Insight: Couples can and do recover from extramarital affairs.

Your marriage can heal from your spouse’s infidelity.  In fact, if the two of you work at it, you can become closer than you’ve ever been.

Tip: Keep hope alive.

At first Kathy feared that her marriage could never recover from Jim’s affair.  However, with reassurances from me that healing was possible, she allowed herself to hope.

2.    Insight: How anger is handled after an affair surfaces is critical.

Be careful not to say or do things that are likely to make matters worse.

Tip: Keep your anger in check.

Understandably, Kathy’s initial reaction to learning about Jim’s affair was anger.  A part of her wanted to scream insults at him to make him hurt as much as she did.

I encouraged Kathy to talk with Jim about her anger in a controlled way.  I also encouraged her to talk with Jim even more about her pain.  Kathy noticed that when she disclosed her deep hurt to Jim, he responded with support.

3.    Insight: Following the discovery of an affair, one should be careful about making major decisions.

If you make major decisions impulsively while in a state of heightened emotionality, you might later regret them.

Tip: Avoid making major decisions hastily.

Despite Kathy’s desire to save her marriage, during the first several weeks there also were times when she felt like giving up and filing for divorce.

I urged her to rule out that option for at least three months and in the meantime to pour all her energies into trying to save her marriage.

4.    Insight: A person whose spouse is having an affair needs support.

No doubt, your spouse’s infidelity has traumatized you.  To regain your equilibrium, you’ll need the support of another person.  This could be a therapist or a close friend.

Tip: Choose your support person carefully.

Kathy wanted to enlist a friend, so I recommended that she choose one who was outside their social circle, who she could trust to maintain confidentiality, and who would support her in trying to save her marriage.

Kathy contacted her best girlfriend from college who lived in a different state.  In the days and weeks to come, this friend provided invaluable support over the phone.

5.    Insight: When an affair has occurred, a couple should seek professional help immediately.

If you and your spouse are to get past the affair, then the two of you must move through three stages of recovery:  healing from the trauma, making sense of the affair, and restoring your marital bond.  Getting through the entire process can take months.

The chances of successfully working your way through all three stages are much greater with professional help than without it.  A good way to jump-start the recovery process is to begin by doing intensive marital therapy over several days.

Tip: Ask your spouse to join you on a private marital therapy weekend intensive.

Kathy felt strongly that it was in their best interest to make a strong start in the recovery process.  She invited Jim to fly with her to Colorado to do a weekend intensive with me.  Jim accepted her invitation and they arrived at their hotel on Friday evening.

On Saturday I did five hours of intensive marital therapy with Jim and Kathy and on Sunday I did five more.

By Sunday evening, Jim and Kathy had made good initial progress.  I was willing to also work with them on Monday, but it was clear that they had gone as far as they could go in one weekend.

Before flying back to Atlanta, they spent several days vacationing together in our magnificent Colorado Rockies.

After returning home, Jim and Kathy did a few more sessions with me over the phone. They continued to move forward in the recovery process.

At one-year follow-up, they were doing well.  Jim and Kathy both said that their weekend intensive with me probably saved their marriage.

So what should you do if an extramarital affair has rocked your marriage?  Keep hope alive, keep your anger in check, choose a support person wisely, and consider asking your spouse to join you on a private marital therapy weekend intensive.

I specialize in helping couples recover from affairs.  To find out more about how I do this, click here.

In my previous article, I discussed what repetitive fights are really about:  the anxiety couples experience when recurring conflicts erode their closeness.

 In this article I will discuss what is it that maintains recurring arguments, that keeps them coming back. 

You’ll recall that I had been helping Bill and Barb overcome their repetitive fights.  They said that these were about Bill’s not completing home improvement projects. 

Bill and Barb’s recurring arguments had been eating away at their emotional connectedness and they had become anxious about this.  Each had been wondering about the other, “Are you really there for me?” 

That’s what their fights had really been about. 

Helping Bill and Barb see this and soothe each other’s fears provided them with great relief.  As a result, their repetitive fighting abated. 

Next, it was time for me to teach Bill and Barb how to nip their repetitive fights in the bud if they started up again.  To accomplish this, I helped them see what it was that had been maintaining their recurring arguments.
 

Insight:  Repetitive marital fights are almost always maintained by negative behavioral cycles that are driven by underlying emotions. 

In these behavioral cycles, each partner unwittingly cues the other.  For example, the more one criticizes, the more the other withdraws.  And the more the other withdraws, the more the first one criticizes.  Around and around it goes. 

This is a criticize-withdraw cycle.  It’s just one of a number of kinds of cycles that couples get trapped in. 

A negative behavioral cycle is like a whirlpool that spins around, sucks a couple in, and pulls them down and under! 

So here’s how I assist a couple in stopping repetitive fights: 

I help them to identify their negative cycle and then to identify and process the underlying emotions that are driving it.  

Then they can avoid their negative cycle or, if they do enter it, they can catch it early and exit it.  That way, they are able to avoid slipping back into the same old fights.
 

Tip:  Try to identify the negative behavioral cycle in your repetitive fights. 

In Bill and Barb’s case, the negative behavioral cycle went like this: 

The more she demanded that he get the home improvement projects done, the more he resisted.  And the more he resisted, the more she demanded. 

It was a classic demand-resist cycle.  Without realizing it, Bill and Barb had been triggering each other’s problem behaviors.
 

Tip:  Try to identify and process the underlying emotions that are driving the negative behavioral cycle in your repetitive fights. 

By underlying emotions, I mean the “softer” emotions beneath the anger.  These can include hurt, sadness, a fear of being controlled, or a fear of being abandoned, to name but a few. 

Under her anger, Barb felt dismissed, “blown off.”  It seemed to her that her needs didn’t matter to Bill.  She felt unimportant to him. 

Under his anger, Bill felt overwhelmed by Barb’s intensity.  He also felt unappreciated for the things he did do around the house that Barb didn’t seem to notice.  He feared that he would never be able to do enough to please her, so why try? 

In assisting Bill and Barb, I first helped them identify their negative cycle.  

Then, I helped them to identify and process their underlying emotions, that is, to talk about them in a way that elicited from each other a compassionate response.  The effect was that their cycle lost much of its charge. 

Through our work together, Bill and Barb learned how to avoid entering their negative cycle.  Those rare times when they would enter it, they were able to recognize this and nip the cycle in the bud before it took over. 

Instead of fighting about the same issues over and over, they were able to talk about their underlying emotions and support each other.  The result was that Bill and Barb deepened their emotional connectedness.  They got closer and stayed closer. 

Notice that in the two tips above, I recommended that you try to identify your negative cycle and try to identify and process the underlying emotions that are driving it. 

In reality, succeeding at this can be very difficult.  It’s a little like being lost in a forest so dense that you can’t find your way out.  That’s where a little marital therapy can go a long way! 

A good marital therapist is like an eagle soaring above the forest.  He can clearly see where you and your partner are.  He knows how to swoop in and guide you out of the forest to safety. 

As I said above, all couples get caught up in repetitive fights.  If yours are taking a toll on your closeness, don’t let it get any worse.  Seek help from a marital therapist!

Several weeks ago my best friend from high school, “Big Bad John” Friedrich, died in Westfield, New York after a 19-year battle with Huntington’s chorea, a devastating disease of the central nervous system that is hereditary.

 2.  Insight:  “We supported and validated each other’s interests.”John loved to act.  Lexie didn’t, but she helped make acting possible for John.  She single-handedly took charge of their two daughters, Shondra and Kristina, during the many evenings and weekends when John was away at rehearsals and performances.  When a show opened, Lexie was always in the audience cheering John on.  She was his greatest fan.  

      Tip:  Instead of harboring angry feelings toward your partner, get them out in the open and deal with them.Here’s how:
First, share with your partner about your anger without accusing or attacking.  Second, share about the hurt or fear underneath your anger.  This two-step approach likely will elicit a compassionate response.