Relationship Maintenance: Is It Time for a Tune Up?

by Carolynn Aristone | Feb 17, 2022 | Blog, Communication, Connection, Love, Marriage Survival, Mindfulness, Relationships, Sex Positive, Soulful and Mindful

Relationship Maintenance

I recently received a call from a former couple that I worked with. They said, “Can we come back in for a few sessions? We need a tune-up!”

Relationships require a certain level of maintenance. Just like a car requires standard maintenance a few times a year, well, your relationship does too.

Unfortunately, so many couples misconstrue this reality.

Have you ever had thoughts like this?

Here is a list of mistaken beliefs that many couples think when it comes to relationship maintenance and nurturing:

If we have to work at it, then something is wrong.
I shouldn’t have to tell him what I need, he should just know!
Sex should just happen, we shouldn’t have to talk about it.
She should know I love her, why should I have to say it all the time?
Isn’t it obvious that I appreciate what he does?
Why do I have to thank him for picking up the kids? He’s supposed to do that.
We’ve been together 30 years, isn’t it clear that I’m not going anywhere?
We have sex at least once a week, clearly she’s satisfied.
Yes, I work late a lot but he understands. If he was unhappy, he’d tell me.

Do you see the pattern here?

These simple statements show us a series of common thoughts that can become relationship poison.

Let me show you what lurks beneath them.

There are 3 Components of Love that help couples connect and build a healthy foundation. In this blog, “What to do if You’re Falling Out Of Love”, we talk in-depth about Sternberg’s theory.

Current research tells us that a predictor for divorce is not infidelity, lack of romance, financial stress, or co-parenting differences.

It’s a lack of love.

Relationship Maintenance At Every Stage

Whether you’ve been together five years or 50, whether you’re a new family or empty nesters, your relationship is the vehicle that you ride together through life.

If you’re not regularly maintaining it, well, you become a hazard to your family and to yourselves.

It’s so easy to let life get in the way of your relationship focus but as the authors have written in the book, A General Theory of Love, “If somebody must jettison a part of life, time with a mate should be last on the list…”

Dropping your time with your partner should be last on your list.

Try This “Tuning In” Exercise

One of the exercises I like to give couples in therapy is called the Relationship Check-In.

In this exercise, you’ll take turns sharing:

Set aside 20 minutes each week to check in with your partner.
Put away all electronics and find a private space in your home.
Try to check-in before either partner gets too tired (not too late).
Start by naming something that you appreciate about your partner.
Name something you might be struggling with in the relationship and name what you might need more or less of from your partner.
Tell your partner that you love them if that feels right for you. Hug.

In this exercise, no topic is off-limits.

It’s a great exercise in staying connected, holding space for both positive and negative experiences and clearly communicating what you each desire.

It’s also important to stick to the 20 minutes.

If check-ins become 2-hour marathons, no one will want to participate.

If a difficult topic is raised, it’s helpful to know that:

The partner with the complaint has the time and space to share it
The time to focus on a difficult topic is boundaried and softened by positive feelings.

When couples commit to this exercise, they almost always report feeling closer, more connected, in communication and generally happy with each other. Is it time for a relationship tune-up?

Fun Ways to Nurture Your Love

In addition to regular check-ins, it’s also helpful to be kind and offer loving gestures when the opportunity arises.

Small things like cooking your partner’s favorite meal, bringing her a cup of coffee in bed, washing his car for him or going out on regular date nights go a long way to demonstrate caring.

There are so many ways to attend to and maintain your love. Maintaining what you have together isn’t a sign of dysfunction. It’s a sign that you care so much.

What are all the ways you attend to your relationship?

How to Heal Your Relationship After a Betrayal

by Carolynn Aristone | Feb 12, 2022 | Blog, Communication, Connection, Love, Marriage Survival, Mindfulness, Relationships, Sex Positive, Soulful and Mindful

Healing After Infidelity and Betrayal

I see many couples in the practice because of infidelity, affairs, cheating and/or betrayal.

In these deeply painful experiences, couples not only struggle with the most fundamental concept of commitment but also with attempting to maintain their love during their crisis.

When Ashley Madison was hacked in 2016, an interview on NPR revealed that affairs occur in at least 20% of all marriages yet other reports state affairs occur in at least 60% of all marriages.

Most couples have no map, no fallback plan, no direction on where to go once the affair is discovered or revealed.

“NPR revealed that affairs occur in at least 20% of all marriages yet other reports state affairs occur in at least 60% of all marriages.”

If you’ve experienced infidelity or betrayal, the pain endured by both of you can feel insurmountable.

Restoring commitment in its most fundamental sense can feel nearly impossible for you.

Yet, with attention, intention, effort, and patience, I’ve seen couples move from near divorce to complete healing.

Couples may seek therapy at different stages of this journey.

Here are some examples of when partners contact us:

One partner suspects the other is cheating. Rather than sit alone with his concerns, he’ll use therapy as a means to explore what to do and how to handle it.
One partner is on the brink of having an affair or actively having one. She’ll use therapy to try to gain clarity about her conflicted feelings.
A betrayed partner discovers an affair and experiences a crisis of emotions. Feeling total devastation and loss, she’ll immediately seek out couple’s therapy for guidance.
A betrayed partner cannot get past a previous affair discovery. It may be years later and the couple struggles to move on. They may schedule for themselves to see how they can “get past” what happened.

Transparency, Accountability and Time

Initially, it will be important for couples to practice transparency and accountability.

If you are the betrayed partner, you hold a whirlwind of emotions that must be expressed.

Critical to healing, you’ll need to express your anxiety, anger, fear, disappointment, shock and overall devastation.

It’s natural for you to ask questions about the affair, remain suspicious for a period of time, and to question everything.

If you are the involved partner, you must hold yourself accountable for the decision to step outside the relationship, even if you feel justified in doing so.

You may have your own separate emotional experience that can also include fear, sadness, desperation, relief and concern.

It’s natural for you to avoid answering questions but you cannot avoid all questions.

Most importantly, you’ll both need to value time.

Time will help you move out of a crisis state, develop insight into your relationship and possibly envision a future together.

“Time helps couples move out of a crisis state, develop insight into their relationship and envision a future together”

Is it Possible to Experience Intimacy During a Crisis?

In therapy, as couples move through these phases, they learn how to practice the behaviors associated with “loving” while healing from an affair.

Amongst the many skills learned, couples practice communication, empathy, vulnerability, transparency, care for the welfare of the other, honesty, trust-building, and forgiveness.

Learning these skills isn’t a guarantee that you will stay together.

For some couples, the best decision, while difficult, is separation.

Before you move into those big decisions alone, please consider seeking therapy.

Therapy provides a space for couples to explore the healthiest way for them to heal.

Therapy shows couples how to practice “loving”, whether they choose to stay together or to separate.

Research tells us that couples will wait five years before they seek out relationship help.

The Silent Divide

For many affair couples, they unknowingly experienced a silent divide, a slow and steady series of actions and inactions that laid the groundwork for the affair(s) to occur.

Remember, commitment isn’t a one-time act. It’s a series of behaviors that nurture your relationship over its lifespan.

This happens on the days when life feels ordinary, mundane and fine, as well as when you struggle to be in each other’s company.

With so many tools/resources at your disposal, from articles and books, podcasts and courses, and/or therapy, it’s easier than ever to stay attuned, connect and practice loving every day.

What resources do you use to practice “loving”, consistently, even when your relationship feels hard?

How to Be a More Interesting Partner

by Carolynn Aristone | Jul 28, 2021 | Connection, General, Love, Personal Growth, Relationships

Is Your Relationship Boring?

During the pandemic I had to confront reality about myself… and my marriage. “I” and “We” were boring. Sure, the pandemic limited the world in many ways.

But I couldn’t use the pandemic as a scapegoat. I personally teetered on the status of “bored, flat and uninteresting” for a bit of time. As my spouse and I often tell our young boys, “If you’re bored, it’s because you’re boring”.

Sure I’ve worn many hats in life and accomplished many goals. But most of my “interests” hovered around work activities and parenting life. I didn’t seem to have anything for or about me, or just for having fun.

Nurturing a career and all-in parenting can consume anyone. It’s easy to lose sense of self under the demands, responsibilities and goals of both.

How To Know If You Are Boring

For one, I found that I talked about the same subjects all of the time. I didn’t seem to have anything new to offer to a given conversation. I also didn’t have any real hobbies. I wasn’t venturing out into the world in new ways.

My life consisted of getting up, going to work, coming home, eating dinner, going to bed, and repeating it all the next day. Weekends consisted of chores and Netflix.

Then the pandemic came along and magnified my boring status. Only this time, it also included stress, despair, uncertainty, and anger.

And worse, my dull and ho-hum status bled into my marriage. We were both on a path of monotony that required emergency attention!

As a relationship, marriage, and sex therapist, I’m all too aware of how boredom and monotony can zap the energy and spark out of an intimate relationship. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I’ve created private, online programs for couples to get their spark back.

I’ve managed to get myself out of the “boring” rut. And I started this BEFORE the pandemic ended. Before I share some of the ways I transformed from boring into interesting and hence breathed life back into my life and marriage, let’s better understand what’s required to get there.

How To Transform From Boring to Interesting

Shifting from boring to interesting requires you to evolve, expand and grow. My own experience felt like a static state of being. Unmoving, without action and flat.

Before you can take concrete, tangible steps to become more interesting, you have to recognize and admit “I’m pretty darn boring” and actually want to be more interesting. Be willing first. Then commit to a few key steps below.

Benefits to Becoming a More Interesting Partner

Let’s look at how your efforts to shift into a more interesting person benefit your intimate relationship.

Some of the benefits to amping up your interests include:

Becoming more attractive to your partner through your personality and pursuits
Bringing renewed energy into your everyday life
Creating space between you and your partner to allow for individual interests
Having new conversations together that stem from all of your new pursuits
Looking forward to seeing each other after having had time apart
Engaging in new shared activities together to add spice and adventure to your love
Making new friends and contacts that you could meet up with, separate or together
Creating new opportunities for you personally and as a couple

Relationships function best when we breathe new life into them. The paradox of love is that committed relationships draw partners into each other so closely that you forget to individuate and engage with the rest of the world. Instead, you become each other’s worlds. And yet…

Healthy love needs each partner to be both separate and together. It requires that each partner strive to stay interesting. That means nurturing your individuality within the context of being a couple. And trust me, there is plenty of room for attention to both.

10 New Ways to Become More Interesting

As mentioned earlier, staying interesting means moving from static same ‘ol everything to a dynamic, action state of growth and expansion. There’s so many ways to develop and evolve. Here’s a sample list to work with:

Learn a New Language – Think of a country you’d love to visit. If it feels like a far off fantasy, begin to manifest that fantasy by learning the country’s language. Not only does this give you a new hobby, it strengthens your cognitive and memory skills and gets you one step closer to fulfilling a dream.
Find a Hobby Outside of Your Career – Work consumes so much of our time. Even when you love what you do, when you only focus on work stuff, you become one-dimensional. Find a hobby that grabs your interest and go for it – be all in.
Practice Optimism – Pessimism keeps you stuck. Optimism is a much more magnetic energy that will attract your partner to you. No one wants to be around negative energy. If you feel stuck in a pessimistic rut, read books on positive psychology.
Volunteer – If you’re not sure how to start expanding your circle, find a cause that you feel passionate about and volunteer some of your time and talents. This gives you an alternative way to spend your time, meet new people and contribute to a greater cause.
Be Interested in Others – Yes, you want to be interesting but part of that starts with taking an interest in the people around you. Listen to them. Ask them questions.. Stay curious about the people you cross paths with. You never know where opportunity sits.
Learn a Few Good Jokes – Everyone loves to laugh. If you get a few good jokes under your belt, you might become the sunshine in someone’s day, just by making them laugh. Telling jokes communicates your silly side and shows that you like to have fun.
Say What You Think – Nothing speaks boring more than someone who blends into the wallpaper by not expressing themselves. Even if your opinions differ, it’s okay to respectfully share them. It’s more than okay. It makes you a more interesting human.
Do Something Risky – If you’re “not a dancer”, take a dance class. If you’re afraid of public speaking, join a Toastmasters Group. Find a way to conquer your fears. Then bring those exciting, on-the-edge, stories back to share with your partner.
Spend Time with Interesting People – They say that you are the sum of the 5 people that you surround yourself with. Take a look around. If you’re looking for a new crew to add to your life, find a meetup group within a subject matter of interest. Grow socially.
Travel Solo – Whether it’s a weekend getaway or a longer journey, nothing grows our social, emotional and cognitive skills like traveling to unknown places. Pick locations that offer some challenges for you. Learn how to enjoy your own company.

Take Action Too Become More Interesting

Before you go any further, grab a piece of paper and pen. Write out 5 ways you can become a more interesting person and partner. What can you work on to help you shine brighter?

It’s never too late to spice up your routine, personally grow, and become more interesting. It’s up to you to make room for this personal growth work. Your relationship will reap the benefits.

In the past 6 months, I’ve taken my own steps to become a more interesting person. The result has been increased personal fulfillment and greater experiences of joy. Of course, this higher vibe energy then filters into my marriage and inspires my partner to do the same.

Some ways I’ve become more interesting include:

Language: Improving my Spanish speaking skills through a language program
Cooking: Mastering new recipes in the kitchen
Music: Researched a music teacher and started singing lessons
Travel: Booked a long weekend away for myself
Music: Tinkering on the piano
Volunteering: Reached out to an organization for future volunteer work
Spiritual: Daily meditation and weekly journaling

Notice how none of these have to do with my career. Or my marriage. Or parenting. Or family. They purely reflect a personal growth journey. They fill my cup and feed my marriage.

Being Separate and Together

When we work with couples in therapy, whether it’s relationship therapy or sex therapy, we recognize that the relationship contains at least two individual people. Each person has their own history, identity, thoughts, feelings, interests and dreams.

When each partner has room to pursue their own interests, they depend less on their partner to fill any voids. Partners learn to honor each one’s individuality. But they also need to come back to each other to share their stories and experiences.

Time apart along with new stories to share often invigorates a flat relationship. Honoring separation and togetherness creates a beautiful and necessary balance for trust, growth and love.

Choosing to Stay in Your Relationship

by Carolynn Aristone | Jan 11, 2021 | Communication, Conflict, Connection, General, Love, Relationships

Should you stay in your relationship?

For better or for worse.

These sacred words, uttered by so many couples, symbolizes the shared commitment that they expect each other to hold up no matter what happens in life.

A blog reader recently wrote to me expressing shame and guilt for choosing to stay with her partner, who she said was a “porn addict”.

Betrayed partners of infidelity express shame when they choose to stay with their partner who cheated on them. “Why don’t I just leave?”

Like these folks, you might choose to maintain your commitment as opposed to leaving the relationship. Like our recent blog reader, you may also feel riddled with guilt, shame, and embarrassment for your choice to stay.

Let’s explore why you choose to stay committed and how you can stay without beating yourself up.

Why You Choose to Stay in Your Relationship

It’s difficult to feel conflicted about whether or not to leave your relationship. Love is both simple and complicated.

As a relationship counselor, marriage counselor, and sex therapist, I help many partners work through the ambivalence of staying or going. When I’m doing this with both partners, it’s called discernment counseling.

When you love someone, whether the problem is a sexless marriage, relationship dissatisfaction, infidelity or anything else, the answer to stay or go may not always feel crystal clear.

In the most ideal situation, you might choose to stay because your partner actively participates to make your relationship better. Perhaps, you’re working through the hurt and pain their actions have caused you. As you do this, you may also see their genuine effort to work on it with you.

This can provide you with hope and a vision for a future together.

If you choose to stay and your partner doesn’t actively work with you to resolve your relationship struggles, consider working with a professional relationship therapist. Working with a seasoned professional can either help you find ways to make that relationship better or work toward dissolution.

If you want to stay but develop hard feelings about your choice to stay, like guilt, shame, and/or embarrassment, rather than turning away from those emotions, can you tune into them?

Invite Your Emotions In

Our emotional responses can provide a wealth of information for us if we allow ourselves to tune in, pay attention and feel.

Rather than beating yourself up through shame, guilt or embarrassment, ask yourself:

Who makes me feel shame? Guilty? Embarrassed? (think about family/friends)

If family and friends put pressure on you to leave, you may want to draw stricter boundaries with them. Friends and family often mean well but it’s not their place to influence the direction of any adult’s intimate relationship.

On the flip side, the concern of your family and/or friends may be informative. If you repeatedly turn to friends and family to de-escalate a situation or to cry on their shoulder, this may be a sign to seriously examine your choice to stay.

Am I expressing these feelings to my partner?

If you’ve been hurt by your partner’s actions, we always recommend that you share your feelings with them, including your ambivalence, shame, guilt and/or humiliation. It may be hard for them to hear but partners need to know what you feel.

Expressing your feelings can often help release them, especially if you have an attentive partner who wants to support your healing.

How is my partner supporting me through these feelings?

In marriage counseling and couples therapy, I often help partners that have violated the relationship contract learn how to become healers of their relationship. Sometimes, both partners need to become healers.

They can do this by being an attentive listener, apologizing and demonstrating trust-worthy, dependable behaviors.

This process usually works best when both partners actively participate in the healing process and when guided by a couples therapist.

Are these feelings familiar? Have I felt them before in previous relationships?

As relationship counselor, I often see repeated patterns in my client’s relationship history. Often these patterns can go all the way back to childhood.

If you feel riddled with guilt, shame or embarrassment, chances are you’ve felt these feelings deeply before. You may have felt them in previous relationships or in the house that you grew up in.

Sometimes, these emotional states feel so familiar that we can feel lost without them. We like to call this our “comfortable chaos”. Shame, guilt and/or humiliation can become part of our identities. It’s not conscious but it takes consciousness to break the pattern.

Are these feelings telling me something that I need to face?

It’s easy to compartmentalize, ignore or deny difficult feelings or problems in a relationship. Especially if you’re considering separation but also view separation as a failure.

But if you want clarity around ambivalence or if you want to live without shame, guilt or embarrassment, you must tune in instead of tuning out.

In therapy, I break these processes down for you even more. Often, these difficult feelings are embedded in a deeper story that requires unpacking.

How to Move Forward

You may be able to use the questions above to help you dig deeper into your experiences and emotional life with your partner.

Journaling your responses can be a way to explore the topic further. Of course, I always recommend communicating with your partner and working through the issues together.

If you choose to stay, make that a choice free of shame, guilt or humiliation. If you hold onto those feelings, become curious about the purpose they serve.

Do they exist to make sure your partner stays punished? Or to control your partner’s actions by making them feel bad about themselves?
Do they reflect a deeper story about you? Your history? Your relationship patterns?
Do they exist because it’s truly time to leave the relationship? Does your gut tell you to leave when your heart tells you to stay? In those situations, gut wisdom is often correct.

If you have difficulty figuring this out, turning to a relationship counselor, marriage counselor, couples counselor or sex therapist can feel like a lifeline.

Get Your Sex Life Back on Track

by Carolynn Aristone | Jul 5, 2020 | Communication, Connection, General, Intimacy, Loneliness, Love, Marriage Survival, Mindfulness, Relationships, Self-esteem, Sex, Sex Education, Sex Positive, Sex Therapy, Sexual Dysfunction, Sexual Shame, Sexual Trauma, Stress

Get Your Sex Live Back on Track

Your sex life doesn’t sit in a vacuum. In a long-term relationship, good sex is dependent on many things. If there is any part of you that thinks sex should “just happen” – organically, naturally, fluidly, spontaneously, at will – well, you will be sadly disappointed.

I wish it was that simple. Can sex happen that way? Absolutely… sometimes. Which means that at other times, it takes conscious work. My question for you is – Are you willing to do the work?

Life Obstacles

When you create a life together, you grow beyond the role of lovers. You become life partners. You might be business partners. You may even opt to become parents. And, you wear many hats in between. But somewhere in your journey, you begin to separate your sexuality. It’s as if it becomes a separate entity, disconnected from all of the roles you play.

Your Sexuality

Remembering that your sexuality is part of you, part of your identity while you play all of those roles in life, is key to stoking the fire from within. Paying the bills, shopping for food, or giving your child a bath does not erase your sexuality.

The problem is that you become disassociated and disconnected. You disassociate from that part of yourself. You disconnect from the fact that you’re a sexual being. But, guess what? It’s there. It’s within you. It hasn’t left.

Relationship Problems

Conflict in your relationship can also cause a disconnect. Unresolved wounds, disagreements, absences, sexual incompatibilities, and more can make sex awkward, uncomfortable, and unwelcome. Working through relationship difficulties can lead to a better sex life but even that is not a guarantee.

A Day in My Office

Here are 10 typical scenarios I see in my office that leave couples with a lackluster sex life:

The couple feels stressed out by life
One partner wants more sex than the other
One or both partners have had affairs
The couple struggles with parenting challenges
The couple holds different marital expectations
One partner is depressed or anxious
One partner is a functional alcoholic
One or both partners have body image issues
One partner is struggling with a sexual dysfunction
One partner has a previous sexual trauma

Why is Sex So Complicated?

Well, because it just is. As you can see from this list, some issues tie directly to sex but not all of them. Yet, sex is impacted by all of them.

My therapeutic approach allows me to take on a holistic lens and bird’s-eye view when addressing your struggles; so that together, we can create the right solutions for your relationship and sex life.

But, it takes some work. As we work through the issues, obstacles, or disconnects that you feel, we also cultivate sex-positive energy, vibrancy, and excitement for your future sex life. Because it can be better. At some point, what feels like work actually starts to feel like fun!

The Secret Behind Your Sexless Marriage

by Carolynn Aristone | Jun 20, 2020 | Communication, Connection, General, Intimacy, Loneliness, Love, Marriage Survival, Mindfulness, Relationships, Self-esteem, Sex, Sex Education, Sex Positive, Sex Therapy, Sexual Dysfunction, Sexual Shame, Sexual Trauma, Stress

Are you living in a sexless marriage? Perhaps you’re one of those couples that from the outside everything looks picture-perfect, but you carry a secret that no one knows about. You and your partner don’t touch each other, you don’t get intimate with each other, and you don’t have sex together.

Low sexual desire is the number one reason that couples seek out my services. This is not an uncommon issue for many people in long-term partnerships. In fact, my work with couples helps them navigate the dynamics in their sexless marriage.

How to Navigate Your Sexless Marriage

Your sexless marriage is not always just about sexual desire. It can be a combination of things.

First, before you can tackle your sex life, you and your partner have to resolve complications in your relationship. I’ve seen sex fall off the map due to other non-sexual relationship problems. In order for you to create a hot sex life, it helps to resolve the relationship problems first. This can be anything from betrayal, to parenting, money, the in-laws, career, stress or other issues.
Second, resolving your relationship problems doesn’t mean that sex magically starts happening – or that sex will be spontaneous and amazing. You may have to rebuild your sex life. You still have to work at it and that’s okay. Working directly on your sex life can feel fun, freeing and rewarding once you’ve conquered those non-related issues noted in number one.
Third, after months or years of a sexless marriage, you and/or your partner have probably shut your sexual systems down. This is where we tap into your sexuality as an individual so you can come together as a couple. Because sex and sexuality is really about your life force, your life energy, your vitality. That force starts with you.

How to Raise Your Sexual Energy

Let’s get vulnerable for a second. I want you to think to a time when you’ve had a really charged sexual experience. Can you remember all the sensations associated with this memory? If you hold that memory in your mind, you’ll remember that you radiated energy throughout your entire body. You were fully embodied in this life force, this vitality, that is almost indescribable.

So, how do you raise your sexual energy once it’s gone low? You have to tap into your own sexuality before you can tap into your sex life as a couple. It starts with this question:

What makes you (as an individual) feel most alive?

Maybe it’s going to the gym to get your body up and moving
Maybe it’s eating a luxurious meal that reaches all of your senses
Maybe it’s participating in a risky sport or adventure consistently
Maybe it’s reading an erotic novel to get sex on the brain
Maybe it’s wearing certain fabrics that feel sexy on your body
Maybe it’s touching yourself while showering to activate your arousal

Love and Live Sexy

I have worked with many couples who live in a sexless marriage. You don’t have to keep your sexless marriage a secret anymore. You can do something about it! Remember that – in addition to all the other roles you play in life – you are also a sexual being. I encourage you to use the suggestions above or come up with your own and try them.

If you’re looking for other ways to enhance your sex life, here’s where to start!

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