Life is very busy today. Martha and I often feel that we have too much on our plates and want to be less stressed and have more time for ourselves. Our businesses, our family, our friends, our garden, our health and our home take up sizable chunks of our attention. We feel as though we are living parallel lives, each of us on our own version of an unrelenting treadmill.

What helps us manage the treadmill successfully and even, at times, get off? We make time for conversation.

In my book, The Partnership Marriage: Creating the Life You Love…Together, I write, “…The kinds of conversations that you and your spouse routinely engage in over time have a profound impact on what is possible in your marriage and on the effectiveness of your partnership. The quality of your conversations shapes your experience of fulfillment in your life together and your expression of partnership in your marriage.”

I will admit that it is easier to find time to talk now that our children have grown and left home and that both Martha and I work from home. But, our making time for conversation with each other is not an accident. We make a committed and concerted effort to find time to converse with each other. Often, our conversations are planned in our calendar and, sometimes, they are quite spontaneous. We consciously look for times in our week when we can talk to each other.

Here’s what we do:

1. We usually start the day together. We get up and often eat breakfast together. We don’t necessarily eat the same breakfast, but we’ll eat together. We’ll let each other know what we have on our schedules that day. That helps us to know what to expect during the day.
2. We routinely check in with each other. This allows us to share what we are doing and a sense of how things are going. We each attend to a myriad of things each day.
3. We usually eat dinner together, if we are both home. This is a time when we share about what we did during the day, what difficulties we encountered, what breakthroughs we had and what got accomplished and what didn’t. This is also when we talk about what we have planned for the evening.
4. We spend Friday or Saturday nights just hanging out. We often love going out on the town to dinner, a play or a movie. We also enjoy, though, being at home on a weekend night, hanging out, often with a glass of wine and music in the background. We can unwind and converse about all kinds of things: Politics, our work, our family, our planned vacations or nothing of any importance at all. We simply enjoy each other’s company.
5. We have a regular routine of meeting for an hour and half every Sunday morning to converse about the bigger picture in our lives and engage in planning around our businesses, our financial well-being, home improvement projects, social plans and support for our adult children. This is a time we can make plans for the future.
6. When Martha and I have a long drive together, we will use that time in the car to talk about almost anything. We find this is a great time to catch up on things or talk about upcoming plans.
7. We both love to read in bed before turning off the lights. But we’ll also often talk briefly about anything we need to in order to let go of the day, get a good night’s rest and be ready for the next day.
8. Finally, during the week, we’ll call, email and text each other to stay in communication about just about anything that we both need to know.

Why do we do this? We are consciously aware that staying connected through conversation allows us to stay on top of everything we’ve got going on. We can take care of issues as they arise. We can stay in communication around the commitments we’ve got. We can share news in our family. We can share our daily victories and setbacks. We can look ahead and plan all kinds of things. We can tackle successfully the ceaseless list of things we both have to do. And…we can simply enjoy being with each other.

Reference

Miser, A. (2014) The partnership marriage: Creating the life you love…together. Charleston, South Carolina: Create Space Publishing.

Whenever I start working with a couple, I let them know that I am committed to the quality of their connection with each other, their teamwork and their partnership over time. If I were a basketball coach, I’d be committed to the same thing.

What can we learn from the game of basketball in this regard?

1. Connection: How well a basketball team plays together on the court can have everything to do with their team chemistry, their team spirit. Are they friends? Do they respect each other? Do they practice good sportsmanship? Are they organized around a set of values for their team play? Are they committed to quality play on the court and winning games?
2. Teamwork: Winning basketball games has to do with how well the team works together, practices together and coordinates their play in the game so that they are successful. A team routinely works on patterns of ball movement up the court (dribbling, passing, moving without the ball, etc.) to be effective at scoring baskets. They also work on defensive strategies to limit the scoring of their opponents. They work together for the benefit of the whole team. The players know they either win together or they lose together.
3. Partnership: Being effective over the long haul, say, during the course of the whole season, a team works in partnership to consistently play well, win games and compete with excellence. They are aligned in what they want to accomplish. They may have a shared vision to win their league championship.

Do you want to see amazing team chemistry, great teamwork and outstanding partnership on the basketball court? Watch the extraordinary highlights of last minutes of the 2016 Villanova and North Carolina NCAA championship game.

Admittedly, it’s a highlight reel. What if it were a blooper reel?

In basketball, things happen all the time that don’t work. A player takes a three-point shot and it’s an “air ball,” missing the net entirely. A player dribbles the ball off his foot and loses control of it to the opposing team. In fact, in that video, there is one play that clearly didn’t work. A player attempted to pass the ball to a teammate and the ball went out of bounds. The game went on.

During a game, however, if you see one player criticize, blame or to make their teammate wrong, it would be a very ugly sight. As a fan, it would be uncomfortable to watch and, if that behavior were to go on too long, fans would begin to leave the arena. No one wants to see that. Especially, the coaches!

What usually does occur though? The team that loses the ball, shifts gears instantaneously and gets back on defense. No one criticizes anyone. Teammates don’t blame or make each other wrong. They don’t storm off the court. They get right back into the play of the game. What allows them to do that?

Good basketball players are able to instantaneously register what happens on the court and adapt quickly. They see what doesn’t work that impedes their play and what does work that improves their play on the court. The player, who throws a bad pass, takes responsibility for it and gets back on defense. Their teammates also observe that pass didn’t work, accepts what happened and gets back on defense.

The success as a team is valued more than the success of any one player. Each basketball player keeps their focus on playing well. They want to get that basketball through the hoop at the other end of the court and score more points than the opposing team. They want to win together.

Married couples who work together to make sure that their marriage is mutually satisfying and fulfilling for both partners when together on the court of life. They continually learn what works and what doesn’t work to nurture and enhance the quality of their relationship. They do what works; they give up what doesn’t!

They keep their focus on what they want to build for the future. They work and play as partners and good teammates to make that future happen. Couples who put their attention on the quality of their connection, teamwork and partnership succeed together. They’re champions for each other and their marriage.

One of the lessons that Martha and I have learned over the years is that, to build a strong loving partnership, it’s very important to regularly connect with each other. We are interested in how the other person is doing. We check in with each other, we converse, we plan and we connect.

When we argue, get frustrated or angry, we lose our loving connection with each other. No matter how hard it might be to resolve our issues with each other, however, we are committed to restoring that loving connection. That seems to be the work of a healthy long-term relationship: Connecting and reconnecting.

In the 41 years we’ve been married, Martha and I have said and done things that have hurt each other. We’ve never hurt each other physically. We have hurt each other’s feelings.

Early in our marriage, it could take days, weeks or even longer to get some hurt in our relationship resolved and to reconnect lovingly. I am happy to say that today, we do our best at not saying or doing things that will hurt each other, but when we do, we get those hurts resolved much more quickly. Here’s what we’ve learned.

Being sorry for what you have said or done that has hurt your partner’s feelings must come out of your commitment to restore wholeness in your relationship.  Saying “I am sorry,” though, must be freely given with no expectation for forgiveness and the expression of being sorry must be in proportion to your understanding of the degree of hurt experienced by your partner.

When you apologize, you must be able to do so in a way that acknowledges the hurt your partner experiences, acknowledges your responsibility for what you said or did and expresses your intention to restore the loving connection between you. It is an expression of your commitment to the wholeness of your relationship.

When your apology is offered, forgiveness by your partner may not be immediately or freely given. Your partner must feel that your apology is heartfelt and that you understand just how hurt they feel. Your partner may need to say or express their feelings so as to be heard. They must understand that you get the impact of your behavior and accept your apology before they can forgive you fully.

When your partner is ready to forgive you, they are ready to make your relationship whole again. When forgiving you, they are ready to reconnect and let go of any resentment or feelings of ill will.

Being committed to reconnecting with love and respect allows you to resolve hurts in your relationship. Apology, forgiveness and commitment are powerful tools that you, as partners in life, can use over and over again to reconnect with each other and restore wholeness to your relationship, when your loving connection has ben broken.

With a strong commitment to sharing a loving connection with each other, you and your partner will learn to face the many inevitable difficulties that you are bound to have in your marriage with resilience and grace.

I learned many lessons about being a good husband and partner in marriage growing up with my twin brother, Wendel. One of them was about fairness in relationship.

Growing up, Wendel and I paid less attention to whether we looked alike and more attention on making sure that whatever one of us received, the other got as well. On our birthday, one of us would cut the cake and the other would choose the first piece! We were interested in equality and fairness.

In the 1970s, when Martha and I were married, the marital landscape was changing rapidly and the rulebook for a successful marriage was being rewritten. Martha and I wanted to have a marriage based in equality, fairness and choice, but we didn’t quite know how to achieve that.

In the first three years of our marriage, we had a haphazard way of figuring out who was going to do what. The more traditional marriage we both grew up with gave us gender roles that we could fall back on, but neither of us was very happy with the way we were sorting out our household responsibilities.

My father managed the money in my family and I assumed that taking care of the finances would be my job in my marriage. For the first year, I managed the budget and paid the bills. I had a rude awakening when Martha requested taking over managing the finances in our second year. That didn’t seem right to me, but I capitulated and gave up that job to her.

In the third year of our marriage, Martha and I went back to the drawing board, made a list of all household chores that needed to be done. Taking turns, we each chose tasks for which we’d be responsible. We felt we had found a way to arrive at fairness in our marriage. Throughout the years, when the circumstances of our lives have changed, we have gone back to this very simple way of renegotiating responsibilities.

In the latter decades of the twentieth century, many husbands and wives both worked and became dual income earners. Couples were finding new ways to bring greater equity into their marriages. More men became involved in child rearing and home care and more women became involved in the financial well being of the family. Today, however, many women continue to be responsible for the lion’s share of household responsibilities.

Interestingly, we may get guidance from research with same-sex couples. In an article in the Atlantic in June 2013, Liza Mundy presents evidence that same-sex partners are more egalitarian than heterosexual couples at figuring out household arrangements because they don’t have to contend with pre-existing gender norms and assumptions that often hinder heterosexual couples in this important arena of their relationships.

If you are interested in creating greater fairness in your marriage, I suggest that you and your partner view yourselves as equal contributors to the health and well being of your marriage. Become aware of your preconceived ideas and beliefs about marriage and your role in it. Be willing to give up some of those predetermined notions about marriage so you can create the kind of marriage you want together.

Your willingness to go “back to the drawing board” with a commitment to an agreed upon arrangement that is ultimately mutually satisfying for both of you can make all the difference. A sense of fairness is achieved when neither of you feels overburdened or taken advantage of. Also, it is important that you both understand that, if something is not working, you can renegotiate your responsibilities at any time.

Martha and I have learned that our arrangements with each other are fair when they feel right to both of us. We each know that the agreements we work out and promise each other are an honest expression of our commitment to having our marriage work for both of us.

We know that fairness can’t be measured with an objective ruler. Ultimately, Martha and I must look each other in the eye and say that what we have arrived at is “fair.”

By the way, in our relationship, no matter who cuts the cake, I always get the bigger piece! And…we both think that’s fair.

Reference

Mundy, L. (June, 2013). The gay guide to wedded bliss. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/the-gay-guide-to-wedded-bliss/309317/

You are invited to participate in The Partnership Marriage Webinar Series! I have additional spots available.

You can participate either individually or with your partner!

If you are thinking about joining the webinar and have questions, please call me at 617-942-2757 or email me at andy@thepartnershipmarriage.com.

Here’s the information on the webinar series.

The Partnership Marriage Webinar Series, an eight-part series designed specifically for people interested in exploring partnership in marriage or in committed relationship.

We’ll have 8 one and a half hour sessions over approximately 10 weeks.

The course will be held from 7:00 – 8:30 PM ET on the following dates:

• February 17, 24
• March 2, 16, 23, 30|
• April 13, 20

The design of the each webinar in the series will be interactive in nature.  Discussion in each session will center on material presented in a chapter(s) of my book, The Partnership Marriage: Creating the Life You Love…Together.

Specifically, through discussion, exercises and sharing, you will:

• Explore the quality of your own marriage and/or committed relationship and look at how you can enhance your partnership.
• Learn conversational tools that will help you create the life you love together.
• Create a vision of the quality of partnership you’d like to have with your spouse or committed partner.

The Webinar is open to 12 participants and I’d love for you to be one of them.

The fee for the webinar series is $250 per person. If you register with your spouse or committed partner, your joint fee is $400 (a $100 discount).

All participants will receive a complimentary copy of my book, The Partnership Marriage: Creating the Life You Love…Together!

If you’d like to register, click here: https://thepartnershipmarriage.eventbrite.com.

Valentine’s Day is around the corner. Give yourselves this wonderful gift!

I hope you’ll join me in the Webinar. Let me know!

Andy

This past New Year’s Eve, I declared that 2016 is going to be a great year! That sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Then I started to wonder: What was going to make 2016 a great year? Was it just going to happen because I said so? How would I know?

I recently picked up a book by Pam Grout, called E-Squared. In her book, she reminded me that it works to be crystal clear about my intentions if I’m going to have what I want in my life. Well, it dawned on me that, while I have many hopes, plans and dreams, I’m rarely “crystal” clear about what I intend.

I sat at my desk early in January and started to write down my intentions for 2016. As I did, I got more specific. I also visualized what my life would look like when I realized each intention. I wrote down intentions for my business ventures, my personal income, my health and my leisure time, to name a few. I wrote my intentions using the format, “I intend to (verb) (a specific result) in 2016.” For example, “I intend to lead three The Partnership Marriage Webinars in 2016.”

As I wrote down my intentions, several things started to happen. First, the little voice in my head said things, like “That won’t happen,” “I don’t know how to do that,” or “I don’t have time for that.” How many times in my life have I said to myself, “I don’t know how to do that,” then taken no action to learn how to do it, thus proving to myself that I don’t know how to do what I say I intend to do? As I got clearer and clearer about what I intend for 2016, I could see that such thoughts were counterproductive and not true! I made a new list called “misaligned thoughts and actions.”

Then, what started to emerge was a third list of affirmations and assertions that I declared for myself, which are in alignment with what I intend to manifest this year. For example, “It is OK not to know what to do or how to do it,” “I am fully capable” and “I will ask for help if I need it.” I made a third list, which I called “aligned thoughts and actions.”

Pam Grout also recommended that I put my full attention, energy and awareness on my intentions. So I’ve been regularly reviewing them each morning. I find it is a wonderful way to start the day.

Lastly, I shared my intentions and my lists with my wife, Martha. She has taken on a similar practice of clarifying her intentions and we’ve been meeting Sunday mornings for the last month sharing our individual intentions for 2016 with each other. Being aligned in our individual intentions has given rise to something much more powerful: That sense of partnership for creating what we each want in 2016 together. She’s 100% committed to what I intend and I’m 100% committed to what she intends.

We are now sharing what we intend to have together in 2016 in the areas of financial well-being, home improvement, health goals, vacations, family gatherings, plans with friends and special dates we want to schedule. We have committed to meet every Sunday morning for an hour or so to share and align on our individual and joint intentions for 2016. On New Year’s Eve, 2016, we’ll see how it turns out! I’m pretty confident that 2016 will be a great year!

Reference

Brown, D. (2013). E-Squared: Nine do-it-yourself energy experiments that prove your thoughts create your reality. New York: New York: Hay House, Inc.

Martha and I have been married for over 41 years. In that time, we have had some pretty stupid fights. Of course, our arguments are never stupid when we are in the middle of them; they’re only stupid after the fights are over and we’ve had time to reflect.

• There was the time early in our relationship when we fought over the best way to open a tuna fish can. Really?
• There was the time we really got into it when we were wallpapering our living room together. Actually, there was very little togetherness that afternoon. I consider myself an expert in how to have a happy marriage. My advice: Don’t ever wallpaper with your spouse.
• There was the time when we were driving through Providence, Rhode Island, during a period of extensive highway construction and Martha was giving me directions on the best route to take. We got so lost. And…we got so mad at each other.

Today, in retrospect, Martha and I enjoy telling these stories as if these stupid fights added richness and depth to our lives. Truthfully, some of the stupid fights we’ve had over the years have come close to ending our marriage, or so it felt at the time.

When Martha and I quarrel (that’s a politically nicer way of saying “are having a stupid fight”), almost without exception, we are each being right and making the other person wrong. We especially like to recount the time when Martha came home from the grocery store, having bought hot dogs for a cookout and forgetting to buy hot dog buns. I said, indignantly, “You forgot to buy hot dog buns.” She said, “You go shopping next time.” She then marched out the door, got into the car and backed out the driveway. She didn’t notice that the backseat door was still open. The door caught the side of the house and, with a loud scraping noise, contorted backwards, twisting off its hinges. I rushed out of the house, Martha got out of the car and we were in a full-blown argument. We were in the world of “right-wrong” and “you or me.” I forced the door shut, she stormed off to get hot dog buns and our nice afternoon cookout was in serious jeopardy. When she returned from the store twenty minutes later, we each recognized quickly that we’d been making each other very wrong.

I saw instantaneously that I had reacted like a “horse’s ___.” Martha saw how she had reacted. We were able to recover fairly quickly because we were committed to having a nice afternoon with each other. We knew our lovely cookout was history unless we each owned our part in the stupid fight. We apologized and forgave each other and went about preparing the food for the grill.

I don’t want to say that all the arguments in our marriage have been stupid; many have helped us to clarify what is really important to us, learn how to stand our ground with each other and taught us to be real and authentic with each other. We don’t step over a lot. If something isn’t working for either one of us, we’ll speak up and get the issue resolved sooner than later.

Today, though, we can spot a stupid fight pretty quickly, stop on a dime and shift the outcome of our interaction. Early in our marriage, we could stay angry over little things for, say, weeks. Today, we tend to interrupt our “pea-brained” arguments in minutes. We stop. We give it up. We get on with what is much more important to us: Enjoying that sense of peace, caring and love that comes with us being whole and complete with each other. We also don’t tend to ruin our car doors or other personal possessions any more in fits of petty bile.

Starting on February 17, 2016, I will be facilitating The Partnership Marriage Webinar Series designed specifically for individuals and couples interested in exploring partnership in marriage or in committed relationship. Participants will explore marriage as a life-long conversation for partnership and learn the conversational tools outlined in my book, The Partnership Marriage: Creating the Life You Love…Together.

The webinar series will consist of 8 sessions over approximately 10 weeks. The first session is scheduled on February 17, 2016. All sessions will be an hour and a half long, scheduled from 7:00 – 8:30 pm ET. The additional dates in the series are February 24, March 2, 16, 23, 30, and April 13, 20. The webinar logistics will be provided at a later date.

In The Partnership Marriage Webinar Series you will consider marriage as a life-long conversation for fulfilling, enduring partnership. You will examine the societal conversations over the past 250 years that have given rise to a radically new view of marriage and explore the conversations that are central to 6 distinct stages of marriage.

More importantly, though, you will:

1. Explore the quality of your own marriage and/or committed relationship and look at how you can enhance your partnership.
2. Learn conversational tools that will help you create the life you love together.
3. Create a vision of the quality of partnership you’d like to have with your spouse or committed partner.

The design of the webinar will be participatory in nature. The discussion in each session will be facilitated around material presented in a chapter(s) of my book. I will design inquiries for sharing and discussion and conduct exercises for you to enhance and deepen your partnership. Most importantly, this webinar will be meaningful, engaging and fun!

The webinar series will be open to 12 participants. The fee for the webinar series is $250 per person. If you register with your spouse or committed partner, your joint fee is $400. In other words, you save $100 if you participate with your partner! You can pay with cash, check or credit card. All participants will receive a complimentary copy of my book, The Partnership Marriage: Creating the Life You Love…Together.

I invite you to come and join me in this exciting webinar starting on February 17^th! Participation in the webinar series will make a wonderful Valentine’s Day present to you and your partner. If you’d like to register or speak to me about the webinar series, call me at 617-942-2757 or email me at andy@thepartnershipmarriage.com.

The following excerpt is from my book, The Partnership Marriage: Creating the Life You Love…Together.

“Partnership is a natural expression of your marriage if you and your spouse see yourselves as being responsible for the choice you made to get married in the first place. Being responsible for that choice forges a sense of personal commitment for the health and vitality of your marriage.

Partnership is a passionate demonstration of your love for each other if you understand that your love is freely given and shared in your marriage. If you see yourselves as partners in life, you will be responsible for keeping the love and respect you have for each other alive over the long haul.

Partnership is a powerful context for your marriage if you view yourselves as equal human beings with the same rights and opportunities to pursue your aspirations in life. If you hold each other as equals in life, you will also honor each other’s commitments and work together to create a life where your roles and responsibilities are equitable. If those roles and responsibilities are not fairly distributed, you will work out your household arrangements so that both of you feel that your contributions are fair and appreciated by each other.

Partnership is a valuable perspective for viewing your marriage if you are committed to each other in fulfilling your goals, individually and collectively. If you are committed to partnership in your marriage, you will grant each other authorship or agency to pursue what is important to you individually while also pursuing your shared dreams.

And finally, partnership is a way of being for any two people, regardless of sexual orientation, who have the extraordinary privilege to marry and the opportunity to create a long and happy life together. A partnership marriage ultimately is created over the course of many conversations in which you and your spouse honor the values that are important to you, fulfill your vision for a shared life, master life’s challenges together and sustain an enduring love for each other.

The kinds of conversations that you have in your relationship have great power in determining whether your marriage will endure, be fulfilling and be lifelong or whether your marriage will head toward divorce or, even worse, last over time but be lifeless, stagnant and unhappy. A partnership marriage in this respect is not for faint of heart. It takes everything you have.”

My book makes a great Christmas gift! If you’d like to order a copy of my book, click on Amazon or the book title above.

Reference

Miser, A. (2014) The partnership marriage: Creating the life you love…together. Charleston, South Carolina: Create Space Publishing.

A Poem by Wilferd Arlan Peterson

Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens.
A good marriage must be created.
In marriage the little things are the big things.
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is at no time taking the other for granted; the courtship should not end with the honeymoon, it should continue through the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers the whole family.
It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow old.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner; it is being the right partner.