It’s certainly not just about candy and sweet cards. Here’s a whole different approach which will help your marriage a lot

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Dr. Max Vogt

Shane in Springfield, Missouri has a problem with his wife. He says that after a long day at work, he just wants to unwind a bit. His wife, on the other hand, wants to tell him every detail of her day.

Steve, this problem is really common for married couples to have. In my book, I explain the intimacy paradox, which says that in a great marriage, you want to achieve 100% acceptance of yourself and 100% acceptance of your partner. This means accepting her behavior of telling you everything about herself when you are tired. See if you can tell her that you need to unwind a bit, and that you will listen to her during dinner. But make sure that after she does give you a bit of time to unwind, you really listen to her, and not just let your eyes glaze over. If you get into a good routine, soon you will both be enjoying these conversations.

Dr. Max Vogt

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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.

Dr. Max Vogt

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Jared from Sacramento says that his wife wants more romance, but when he asks her what she wants, she says that it isn’t romantic if she has to tell him what to do.

Well Jared, you’re not the only person who has this problem. Whether it is romance, housework or earning money, nearly every couple has disagreements on the right amount of something in their marriage. There are many different marriage types; each one is neither better nor worse than the other. I’m sure you know what being romantic includes, but you may not know how to put romance back into your relationship if it has been missing for a while. You can’t go wrong with a warm smile, a dinner at her favorite restaurant, a love note or taking the kids out of her hair for a bit. If you listen to your wife, she’ll probably give you more than enough hints on what she likes. Just don’t shoot down what she says before you consider it.

Dr. Max Vogt

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Everyone wants to have a healthy relationship with that perfect partner. When you have one, you’ll want to maintain it, but one of the mistakes people tend to make is that they forget about the “me” time in their relationship.

It’s not healthy to always be around your partner. You need to spend some “me” time so that you have more to give your partner. This is a common problem with couples – whether they’re still in that newlywed stage of romance or have been together for decades.

Some people spend so much time with their partner that they feel lost and alone when they’re left alone for any period of time. Here are some ways you can nurture yourself so that you’re able to give the best to your lover when it is time to be a couple:

1. Spend an evening reading that book you’ve been waiting to get your hands on. Quiet time at home enjoying a good book without any interruptions can energize you when you meet up with your partner again.
2. Watch a movie that you’ve wanted to see, but your partner wasn’t interested in seeing (like a good chick flick). Don’t deny yourself something you want to do just because your partner doesn’t want to do it.
3. Visit your family. Spending time with your family can help you keep a relationship strong. We often alienate our own family in favor of a new love interest.
4. Go out with your friends. Spending time with your friends allows you to let loose and be yourself without worrying how you’re coming across to the other person. If your partner exhibits jealousy to an extreme level, then you may want to reconsider whether it’s a healthy bond.
5. Play sports or do your favorite hobby. If you’re a golfer and your partner isn’t, there’s no reason you shouldn’t take a day and hit the links. Take in a friendly game with someone or just play a round by yourself. If you like to sew, spend a day doing that. Just because your partner finds it boring, doesn’t mean you can’t do it.
6. Enjoy a bubble bath or whirlpool. Pamper yourself with a bubble bath, hot tub, whirlpool or massage. Make yourself feel good and get energized for the next time you meet up with your partner.
7. Go shopping. You can go shopping and pick up something for yourself. If you choose, you can find something for your partner. Eat out if you want to and splurge on that “Great Wall of Chocolate” you’re always too embarrassed to have your lover see you eating. Spend a day and window shop or go antiquing.
A healthy relationship requires “me” as much as “we” time. Be sure to plan a healthy dose of both in your relationship. And when your partner begins to find his own me time, allow him the freedom to reconnect to his own soul, too.

Dr. Max Vogt

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Rosie from Arlington, Virginia writes that she had an affair with a coworker. She felt so guilty about it, and confessed to her husband. He says he forgives her; but sometimes he brings it up and says terrible things about her. Rosie says that she really loves him because he is a super father and a great husband, but doesn’t know what to do.

Rosie, one of the most damaging things that couples do is to always bring up the past. We all make mistakes. The important thing to do is to learn from these mistakes, and realize that your spouse will make a mistake sometime, and to forgive him or her. One trick that can definitely help when you’re husband brings it up is to drop your defenses. If you listen to his criticism, and stop getting defensive about it, eventually he will let the subject drop, because he will know that you are truly sorry about the incident.

Dr. Max Vogt

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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.

Dr. Max Vogt

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Ron wrote:

We had been married for a year. We shared the same interests, felt very at ease together, had (often) discussed future plans and had even spent some of the holidays together. Our intimate relationship seemed right on track and just right in general.

Then, without warning, he said he “needs some time to think and figure things out.” He stopped talking. When he did, I was often met with silence. When I asked “what happened”, I just got a run around of excuses about how overwhelmed…

What happened? What did I do? I don’t know what to think.

Does the above scene sound at all familiar? If so, you can relate to being confused and stunned over the sudden change in a their behavior.

Now think about this – What if your intimate relationship wasn’t what you thought it was? What if unspoken issues had existed all along? What if there were signs you chose to ignore or just didn’t see? Are any of these possible?

Probably.

This sudden change in a couple’s intimate relationship is reported quite a bit by individuals who have just broken up with a significant other. Unfortunately, it leaves the person who has been “dumped” with feelings of low self-esteem, regret, inadequacy and anger.

There is often no real closure, as the couple is never able (willing) to talk through what went wrong or was never right with their intimate relationship.

So, how can you know what the problem was and hope to avoid a repeat of this hurtful experience? You can do this by examining your failed intimate relationship and gaining insight and understanding about what just wasn’t right between you.

In order to assist you with this; I am providing a basic framework of the intimate relationship stages a couple must pass through TOGETHER in order to get to a place of shared intimacy and commitment. If either person’s feelings change before, during or after one of these stages; it is not necessarily the “fault” of the other individual. It is simply a statement about the individuals’ rightness (or not) for each other. It is also a reflection of each individual’s intimate relationship readiness and ability to handle long-term, committed intimacy.

How an individual handles their changing feelings and resultant behavior toward the other is a subject for another article, coming soon…

For more go to Easy Marriage Counseling

Dr. Max Vogt

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Sometimes “trying hard” is the worst thing you can do in your relationship. Here are a few of the reasons

1. If you are taking the wrong approach, doing more of it only digs you in deeper.

2. If your partner doesn’t like what you are doing to “try” and can’t get into it, you’ll just piss him or her off more

3. You are likely to generate “defensiveness” in your partner by pushing the “wrong buttons.”

4. The “Same-Old” Marriage Counseling advice and techniques you are flooded with by therapists, counselors, television personalities and book writers don’t work, and if you try to keep hammering at them you’ll make your marriage worse.

Get the truth at Easy Marriage Counseling and stop “trying hard.”

http://www.EasyMarriageCounseling.com

Dr. Max Vogt

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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

Go here for more
Easy Marriage Counseling

Dr. Max Vogt

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