Once upon a time, you could barely keep your hands off each other. Red lights didn’t last long enough to complete the soulful kiss. Just the anticipation of being together was overwhelming.

But as the time passes, getting together became just another item on the to-do list. Can you revitalize a stale marriage? Of course you can if you’re both willing to turn up the heat. You’ve allowed too much of life’s problems to crowd out your interest for the relationship.

Do the words love, sex and marriage even belong in the same sentence together?

Work stress, commuting, finances, children or career dissatisfaction can be the slippery step to pushing relationship to the back of the line of priorities. You have to decide to make time for one another.

That means alone, uninterrupted time. To spice up your relationship again, you may have to take a long weekend away from office, phones and other distractions. Check in at a romantic bed and breakfast where there isn’t much else to do besides hang out together.

Or reserve the honeymoon suite at a hotel out of town and don’t open the door except for room service. Part of your relationship rut came from too many demands and too little alone time, so change that for the weekend.

Getting back in touch with each other in an “away from it all” environment gives you a sense of togetherness. Go for scheduling a couples’ massage at your favourite romantic place. The relaxation and comfort, not to mention those plush bathrobes, can give you new ideas after returning to your room. Or buy massage oil and give a massage to each other.

Before leaving your weekend getaway, go out for coffee and calmly discuss some of the habits that have deepened the relationship rut. You want to make sure to forbid repeating those when you return.

One biggie is a television or computer in the bedroom. Switch off the electronics appliances if you want to turn on your partner.

Once you get home, there’s a risk that you’ll get wrapped up in the busy routine whiles sex goes back to a “passing in the night” experience.

You must take time and try to enjoy each other. A regular weekly date night is important, even if you just go out to dinner. It’s part of connecting again as a couple and feeling that your relationship deserves attention and care.

You may not be able to take vacations alone when you have kids. But you can sneak away for a weekend periodically. Consider it marriage insurance – the best way to keep your relationship alive and strengthen your love.

Couples get married every day around the world like clockwork. The wedding industry is very big business. Couples get divorced every day as well and the divorce law industry is big business too.

Of all the things a man and woman can decide to do, marriage is perhaps one of the most difficult. Wait a minute! Getting married is easy. It’s a successful and happy marriage that takes skill, wisdom and practice. And the problem is there’s no school for something that requires more knowledge than flying airplanes; and yet we require proof that someone can fly an airplane. Kind of ironic isn’t it?

Almost half the people who decide to get married will find themselves facing a divorce within five years or less according to current statistics. Although these statistics are alarming, it’s good to note that the divorce rate has declined in the last few years or at least remained stable. One reason might be because of the huge cost of divorce. However, also a main reason for this is that many couples have spurned traditional marriage and elected to live together.

Living together, whether married or not, can be one of the best or worst things you’ll ever do. You enter into the sanctity of marriage or a long term relationship with high hopes of a blissful relationship and the dreams of a beautiful home and family. For many this has become true, but many others have found their dreams shattered.

What makes the difference in the success and failure of a marriage? The reasons are as many as they are varied. Studies of patterns of marriage practice such as those of the Myers-Briggs or the Marriage Blueprint ™ method yield a lot of answers. Most successful marriages seem to embrace a few key ingredients.

Both must be committed to a making the relationship work. Commitment is a scary word and many people run from the thought of a serious commitment. It conjures thoughts of a ball and chain, a nagging spouse and mounting bills that wait to be paid. But, if you’re to have growth and accomplishments in a marriage, both must be committed to the same values and goals. Some have taught that you can change a marriage all by yourself but no one really believes that.

You’ve heard it before but you must be able to communicate effectively. Communication of course goes on all the time, it’s a human thing that just can’t be bottled up, but effective communication where your message is sent with skill and received with skill is an art and a science.

Effective communication is so important that it cannot be overemphasized. This means not only talking about the happenings of the day at home and work but also sharing private thoughts and feelings. This is crucial for both husband and wife even if it’s hard to do at first. It will become something both of you look forward to if given the chance.

The big secret that many are discovering is that there are just as many men who are entirely capable of communicating about feelings and relationship as there are women, if the methods and styles of communication are slightly altered so that both can participate. Traditional psychotherapy and counseling emphasize methods that tend to be more friendly culturally to women than men, but some new methods are becoming increasingly friendly to both men and women.

Strive to meet each other’s needs both emotional and physical. You must desire to take care of one another in every way. It should be a pleasure and not a chore. Treat your spouse as a friend as well as a lover and provider. Appreciate, admire and respect each other and you’ll find petty annoyances begin to fade in importance quickly.

Maintain a good balance of leisure, work and pleasure. Set common goals and work toward them. Dream together and strive to make those dreams come true. When a decision has to be made, do it together. Respect each other’s opinion and seek their help and advice, or simply be open to a good talk.

Laugh with your spouse and not at your spouse. Making fun of someone is aggressive and it never sits well with a person over time. Humor can be a very tender and sensitive area. It’s very important but even more important is that you express humor in a way that supports each other rather than taking each other down or causing pain.

A great marriage is one of the greatest gifts of life and worth whatever it takes to achieve. Many times people find that they need some re-education or a new way of thinking about marriage and relationships because their old models just don’t seem to work anymore. That’s where professional help comes in very handy, as long as that help has proven effectiveness and isn’t just another place where people vent old and worn out feelings and thoughts in ways which don’t serve progress in the relationship.

Dan and Peggy wrote

“Working with Dr. Max’s course brought our marriage back from the brink of disaster…”
“…we bickered loudly and publicly, and argued constantly. With his help, we discovered that what we bring to the relationship defines it, and we got the tools to make the relationship we truly wanted: a supportive, animated marriage where communication and intimacy flourish, rather than the doomed relationship we had and were continuing to create.
With Dr. Max’s Easy Marriage Counseling… we communicate openly, we see each other as dynamic changing beings, and we do things together again (even dancing).
By learning how to accept each other as we are rather than attempting to change one another as we used to, our marriage has dramatically and permanently improved.”
-Dan and Peggy T. Oklahoma City, OK

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Easy Marriage Counseling

Howdy, hope this Should You Stay Together series of videos has been of value to you! I’m sure it has… now here’s the next episode. Enjoy and COMMENT!

Here’s the next video in the series. Even if you aren’t considering breaking up or leaving, it’s got some GREAT relationship advice in it

PLEASE COMMENT BELOW!

Some friends just celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary.

They seem very happy with each other… but who really knows?

Over the years in my practice and in my own personal life I’ve met a lot of people who stayed together in marrige for a long long time.

I’d have to say that these “long-time marrieds” fall into three categories.

1. Those who truly love each other and keep the fire of passion and interest alive. They are together because they truly want to be.

My parents were like that.

2. People who stay together because they think they should, it’s the right thing to do… but are either bored to tears with their marriage relationship or have turned it into something “irrelevant” like a form of hygiene, not particularly pleasant but not so terrible either.

3. People who truly don’t want to be together but are afraid of the consequences of breaking up.

Now I know people admire long marriages and celebrate the number of years like that is an accomplishment.

Personally options 2 and 3 are completely unacceptable to me… although I can see the values behind #2.

Number 3 seems like a dismal life.

Boldness in life is rare.

I say if you are going to be married give it all you have and turn it into a really great thing.

What’s the sense of being married if you don’t truly enjoy it or are miserable?

Convenience?

I think we can do better than that.

I believe in great marriage.

How about you?

To your great relationship future,

Dr. Max

Is your spouse “stubborn?”

Whenever there is something tough to talk about, or you have a legitimate problem to talk about, does he (I’ll use “he” for simplicity here) just

- fold his arms, or
- look away, or
- get that “out of here” look on is face, or
- walk out of the room, or
- “explain away everything, or
- turn it right back on you, or or or …

People can get creative about this

Of course we know this is an absolute roadblock to going any further.

It’s like you are driving on a road going somewhere you really need to be and you see a sign that says “bridge out ahead.”

It’s like you are driving on a road going somewhere you need to be and there’s a rockslide or a mudslide which stops all traffic…

It’s, well, frustrating as hell!

Listen.

There are answers.

There are ways around this “roadblock.”

I’ll be talking about some of those ways soon.

For right now I just wanted to say “I get it.”

I know you and I know what you are going through…

To your great relationship future,
Dr. Max

===>>> PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS POST, I need your feedback!