Would you like to learn more about yourself and what you bring to a relationship? Would you like to become more aware of your fears and vulnerabilities, your attachment styles, your positive and negative contributions, and your strengths and positive personality traits? What do you need to feel loved and accepted? How do you identify your needs and respect the needs of your partner? What are your expectations? How do you accept and embrace differences and disappointments? Are you communicating in a clear and productive way? Are your expectations realistic and have you shared them clearly with your partner?
The challenge of answering these questions and having the conversation with your partner may seem overwhelming and at times even unthinkable and impossible, but I know that as you start the process you will soon realize it is crucial in order to know yourself better, know your partner better, and together embark on a journey of mutual discovery, new emotional closeness, new compassion and empathy for each other, and a new and more fulfilling and loving relationship.
Recently, I taught a workshop at the JCC Manhattan at their engage program for women and men in their 50’s and 60’s; with various stages in their relationships or after having gone through break-ups and divorce. All agreed that next time, in the next relationship, they want to do it better; they want to know how to face and talk about the real issues; and they all wished they had the tools or workshops such as this one in their previous relationships.
This is the journey we embarked on together:
- Attachment theory and attachment styles based on the theory of British psychologist and psychiatrist John Bowl by.
- How do we choose our partners? Based on the Imago theory, by Hartville Hendricks.
- “Sharing our Inner Souls”, based on the Love Maps Questionnaires, by Dr. John Gottman
Mature relationship:
- Individuation and Differentiation
- Couple space and Individual Space
- Negotiating and Compromising
- Individual self esteem
- Admiration and encouragement: Genuine delight in each other’s successes
- Clear communication: Really listening and paying attention with loving curiosity.
- Understanding each other’s needs: How do I feel loved, wanted and respected.
- Understanding each other’s backgrounds and family of origins, thus understanding each other’s unmet needs and healing journey.
- Embrace and fall in love again with the differences, which is what attracted us to each other at first.
- Sensuality and Sexuality: Desire, pleasure and satisfaction: A lot more than penetration and orgasm.
- Our shadows: sharing our vulnerabilities without fear of shaming and retribution: What I share with you is held as sacred and not to be used against me.
- Anger and its healthy expression.
- The importance of saying “I am sorry.”
The work is definitely worthwhile!
I feel grateful and humbled by being able to accompany couples who take the risk on embarking in this journey of discovery and deep conversations and I have witnessed their renewed love and commitment for each other.